page_title: Durham, North Carolina
section_title: Transportation
hierarchical_section_title: Durham, North Carolina / Transportation
caption_attribution_description: Durham Station
context_page_description: Durham is a city in and the county seat of Durham County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County and Wake County.
  The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 278,993 as of July 1, 2019, making it the 4th-most populous city in North Carolina, and the 79th-most populous city in the United States. The city is located in the east-central part of the Piedmont region along the Eno River. Durham is the core of the four-county Durham-Chapel Hill Metropolitan Area, which has a population of 542,710 as of U.S. Census 2014 Population Estimates. The Office of Management and Budget also includes Durham as a part of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Combined Statistical Area, commonly known as the Research Triangle, which has a population of 2,037,430 as of U.S. Census 2014 Population Estimates.
  A railway depot was established on land donated by Bartlett S. Durham in 1849, the namesake of the city. Following the American Civil War, the community of Durham Station expanded rapidly, in part due to the tobacco industry. The town was incorporated by act of the North Carolina General Assembly, in April 1869.
context_section_description: Most travel in Durham is by private motor vehicle on its network of public streets and highways. Important arteries for traffic include NC 147, which connects Duke University, downtown, and Research Triangle Park, U.S. 15-501 between Durham and Chapel Hill, I-85, connecting Durham to Virginia and western North Carolina cities, and I-40 running across southern Durham County between the Research Triangle Park and Chapel Hill. The I-40 corridor has been the main site of commercial and residential development in Durham since its opening in the early 1990s. Over 95% of commuters use a car to get to work, with 14% of those people in carpools.
  Durham maintains an extensive network of bicycle routes and trails and has been recognized with a Bicycle Friendly Community Award. The American Tobacco Trail begins in downtown and continues south through Research Triangle Park and ends in Wake County. The city is also considering furthering the progress on the Triangle Greenway System.
  Air travel is serviced by Raleigh-Durham International Airport, 12 miles southeast of Durham, which enplanes about 4.5 million passengers per year. Frequent service (five flights a day or more) is available to Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York LaGuardia, New York Kennedy, Newark, Washington Reagan, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and Charlotte. Non-stop daily service is provided to approximately 30 destinations in the United States and daily international service is also available to London Heathrow, Toronto-Pearson and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
  Amtrak operates a daily train between Charlotte and New York City (the Carolinian) which stops in downtown Durham. The State of North Carolina, in cooperation with Amtrak, operates three additional daily trains between Raleigh and Charlotte which also stop in Durham. A new Amtrak station was built in 2011 in a former tobacco warehouse. Some of the downtown streets cross the tracks at grade level, while other intersections have grade separation. One downtown railroad underpass has attracted national media coverage, because it provides only 11 feet-8 inches of clearance, and has damaged the roofs of many trucks. As of October 26, 2019, the underpass was closed down to both automotive and train traffic in preparation for raising it to 12 feet and 4 inches, so as to provide clearance underneath to reduce large vehicle damage.
  National bus service is provided by Greyhound and Megabus at the Durham Transit Station in downtown Durham, which opened in 2009. GoDurham provides municipal bus service.
  GoTriangle offers scheduled, fixed-route regional and commuter bus service between Raleigh and the region's other principal cities of Durham, Cary and Chapel Hill, as well as to and from the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, Research Triangle Park and several of the region's larger suburban communities. GoTriangle also coordinates an extensive vanpool and rideshare program that serves the region's larger employers and commute destinations.
  From 1995, the cornerstone of GoTriangle's long-term plan was a 28-mile (45 km) rail corridor from northeast Raleigh, through downtown Raleigh, Cary, and Research Triangle Park, to Durham using DMU technology. There were proposals to extend this corridor 7 miles (11 km) to Chapel Hill with light rail technology. However, in 2006 Triangle Transit deferred implementation indefinitely when the Federal Transit Administration declined to fund the program. Government agencies throughout the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area have struggled with determining the best means of providing fixed-rail transit service for the region.
  The region's two metropolitan planning organizations appointed a group of local citizens in 2007 to reexamine options for future transit development in light of Triangle Transit's problems. The Special Transit Advisory Commission (STAC) retained many of the provisions of Triangle Transit's original plan, but recommended adding new bus services and raising additional revenues by adding a new local half-cent sales tax to fund the project.
  Duke University
caption: Durham's Amtrak station
exif: {}