With no commuter rail line to build, GoTriangle’s president and CEO resigns

Charles Lattuca was brought on to lead GoTriangle four years ago to help the region’s transit agency build a commuter rail line in Wake and Durham counties.

Now that the commuter rail project has been shelved indefinitely, Lattuca is leaving. The GoTriangle board accepted his resignation as president and CEO on Wednesday.

Lattuca arrived in the spring of 2020, a year after GoTriangle’s planned Durham-Orange light rail system collapsed . Faith in the agency’s ability to build ambitious transit systems was badly shaken.

Lattuca was head of transit development at the Maryland Department of Transportation, overseeing planning and early construction of the Purple Line, a 16-mile light-rail system across the suburbs of Washington, D.C. It was thought his expertise would help GoTriangle plan and build a 37-mile commuter rail line connecting Durham, Research Triangle Park, Cary, Raleigh and Garner.

GoTriangle completed a feasibility study for commuter rail last year. But federal officials indicated they wouldn’t help pay to build the $3 billion system, because there weren’t enough people living along the rail corridor to ensure its success.

Faced with having to pay for the entire system themselves, Triangle leaders agreed to set it aside . That left Lattuca in charge of an agency whose other primary mission is running a regional bus system that serves about 5,100 riders a day.

“As you know, I came here to help build a regional commuter rail system,” Lattuca wrote to the GoTriangle board in a letter dated Sept. 12. “Unfortunately, that initiative proved to be too costly an investment for this region. Regardless, I trust that I am leaving the agency better off and on a stronger path for improving regional transit in the Triangle.”

He helped launch two bus projects

Lattuca did help advance two projects aimed at improving regional bus service. Both are being built with the help of federal grants and will be integrated with private development that will benefit from proximity to transit.

The first is known as RUS Bus, a new eight-bay bus depot for GoTriangle and GoRaleigh buses a short walk from Amtrak trains at Raleigh Union Station downtown. The station, which is on track to open late next summer, will anchor a planned apartment tower with ground-floor retail.

The other project is a regional transit center in Research Triangle Park, near the corner of N.C. 54 and South Miami Boulevard. It will be built on 19 acres owned by the Research Triangle Foundation , which is seeking to rezone the land to create a mix of apartments, restaurants and offices.

Less visible is the overhaul and expansion of GoTriangle’s bus operations and maintenance facility off Nelson Road in Morrisville. That project, Lattuca wrote, “will ensure that GoTriangle has the capacity to add needed service as the region continues to expand.”

Lattuca will receive a severance package from GoTriangle that includes 75% of his $258,253 annual salary.

Interim president and CEO won’t seek the job

Byron Smith, the organization’s general counsel, was named interim president and CEO on Wednesday. Smith worked with Lattuca in Maryland and followed him to the Triangle to help with the commuter rail project.

“He called me up and asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to come to North Carolina and help me build a commuter rail?’” he said in an interview Wednesday. “It was a great opportunity.”

Smith, a Johnston County native who graduated from N.C. Central University School of Law in Durham, felt as if he was coming home. At age 67, Smith says he’ll stay on until a new leader is chosen but not seek the role himself.

Before it seeks a new president and CEO, the GoTriangle board must settle on a new job description, Smith said. With commuter rail on hold for the time being, the agency may need someone with a different set of skills than Lattuca.

Smith says though it won’t come in his time at GoTriangle, he thinks the region will eventually get a commuter rail system, noting how crowded and unreliable the highways can be.

“I’d love to see commuter rail in this region,” he said. “It’s going to need it.”

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