4
Friday, February 24,1995
Proposed Plan Would Link Triangle by Rail
BY LAURA GODWIN
STAFF WRITER
The Triangle Transit Authority Board
of Trustees approved on Wednesday a
plan to bring a commuter rail system to
Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill some
time in the next 25 years.
For the past three years, the TTA has
studied possible ways commuter rail sys
tems could be brought to the area, and it
might be several moreyearsbefore funding
for the program is found.
“The Triangle Fixed Guided Study be
gan two years ago to develop alternatives
in transportation scenarios," said Juanita
Shearer-Swink, a senior transportation
planner with TTA.
Asa result of the study, TTA devised
the Regional Transit Plan Recommenda
tions, a plan for implementing commuter
rail service. The first phase of the plan
Carrboro Cable Viewers to Get ’Toons and Testaments
BY JENNIFER MIHALTIAN
STAFF WRITER
Cablevision Industries announced
Wednesday the addition of four new cable
television channels to its service in
Carrboro, Hillsborough and part of Or
ange County effective March 28.
E! Entertainment Television, Home
Team Sports, Trinity Broadcast Network
and the Cartoon Network will join the 44
channels already offered by CM.
“The new channels add variety to our
overall lineup, and they also have broad
appeal,” CVI Site Manager Alex Ritter
said. “Both the Cartoon Network and
Home Team Sports are among services
most requested by our subscribers, and
customer interest in religious programming
guided our decision to add TBN.”
Blue Ribbon Program Aims to Boost Minority Scores
BY SUZANNE JACOVEC
STAFF WRITER
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools offi
cials are concerned about the lack of suffi
cient funds for the Blue Ribbon Task Force
program, which aims to improve the aca
demic performances of minority students,
school board Chairman Ken Touw said.
In a planning conference last week,
school officials reviewed the district bud
get requests, Touw said. The Blue Ribbon
Task Force is still not fully funded after one
year of implementation, he said.
“From the beginning, the school board
has not been able to provide necessary
funding for the program,” Touw said.
“We’re looking to ‘steal’ from other pro
grams to provide for the Blue Ribbon pro-
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would connect Durham, Research Triangle
Park, Cary, downtown Raleigh and the
North Raleigh area of Spring Forest,
Shearer-Swink said.
“We are working with the existing bus
systems so people can walk, park and ride,
or take the neighborhood bus to the sta
tions,” she said.
The first phase would use existing rail
road tracks and would cost $ 150 million to
start up, Shearer-Swink said. The transit
authority might ask the state for funding.
“Right now, the state doesn’t provide a
permanent source of public transportation
funds," Shearer-Swink said.
The TTA Board of Trustees will ask the
General Assembly for permanent state
funding, rather than a grant, she said. One
possibility for funding the project, in addi
tion to the state money, could be a slight
increase in gas taxes, she said.
The second phase in the effort to bring
Channel Changes
• Home Team Sports Ch. 46
• Trinity Broadcast Network Ch. 48
• E! Entertainment Television Ch. 49
• The Cartoon Network Ch. 54
Sports events like ACC basketball and
NASCAR auto racing will be shown on
Home Team Sports, cable channel 46.
The Cartoon Network offers new car
toons as well as characters from Hanna-
Barbera.MGM, Warner Brothers andPara
mount studios.
TBN will present 24 hours of inspira
tional programs that represent various reli
gious denominations.
gram. It is still one of our top priorities.”
The Blue Ribbon Task Force was not
fully funded in its first year because there
has been little money available for the
expansion of new programs, said Kim
Hoke, spokeswoman for the Chapel Hill-
Carrboro schools. The school district imple
mented the plan as fully as possible, but not
as intensely as its creators had originally
envisioned, Hoke said.
A districtwide, seven-member review
committee examines new recommenda
tions to the plan every year, Hoke said.
Two recommendations that exist now are
after-school transportation forstudentsand
a mentorship program, according to Mark
Royster, vice chairman ofthe school board.
“Our purpose is to ensure that all stu
dents within the school system are success
UNIVERSITY & CITY
commuter railroads to the Triangle would
be the possible connection of Chapel Hill
and Durham by rail, Shearer-Swink said.
“We have not determined what type of
rail to use because there are no existing
rails,” she said.
A commuter rail system would not be
delayed by the traffic jams that hold up the
existing express bus service, said senior
transportation planner Joe Huegy. “The
trains would be running on a dedicated
facility, so they will not be caught in traffic
problems.
“You can depend on the schedule of a
train,” he said.
Huegy said the trains would be able to
transport passengers in half the time of
buses. Also, the trains would be able to
cany more people per driver than buses.
If a commuter railroad system is imple
mented in the Triangle, some changes
would need to be made to the existing bus
E! features highlights from the enter
tainment world by covering film, televi
sion, music, theater, books, sports and fash
ion.
The new channels will not be part of the
basic service and will be provided at an
extra cost.
Ritter said that CVI would change the
price of its services to adjust for inflation
and to reflect a boost in programming costs
but that the new price had yet to be deter
mined.
The Federal Communications Commis
sion establishes guidelines that allow cable
companies to adjust the rates due to rising
inflation. “We are working out the details
of moderate pricing adjustments that are
planned to take effect in May,” Ritter said.
CVI has an ongoing file of letters from
customers who want new channels added
“Ourpurpose is to ensure that
aU students within the school
system are successful,
especially African-American
students. ”
NIARK ROYSTER
School board vice chairman
fill, especially African-American stu
dents,” Royster said. “We cannot pull up
the success rate of African-American stu
dents without pulling up the success of all
students.”
“The purpose of the task force is to
system, Huegy said.
“We would no longer run some routes,”
he said. “It is a different concept in terms of
operation."
He said that by canceling some routes,
the TTA would be able to extend bus
services to other areas. “It gives us an
opportunity to reassign our resources.”
Huegy said that a fare would definitely
be charged to riders but that the TTA
Board of Trustees would not set the fare
until all plans were definite.
The TTA will present the idea of com
muter rail system to the cities that would be
affected by the plan, Shearer-Swink said.
The transit authority will present its plan to
the Chapel Hill Town Council March 27.
Shearer-Swink said the TTA should
complete its presentations by March and
would then hold a regional public interest
meeting in April to get feedback from the
general public.
to their cable service. “We take the input
from our marketing and operational de
partments, along with the requests, and
decide what we think will best serve the
community,” Ritter said.
What CVI management thinks is best
for the community has upset some UNC
students who subscribe to the cable service
in Carrboro.
“I wish they wouldn’t add more chan
nels to flip through,” said Leigh Dail, a
senior English major from Raleigh. “You
can’t even get reception well without cable,
so it’s almost like you have to have it.”
David Pair, a senior biology major from
Roanoke Rapids, said, “I’m glad they are
expanding. I’ll probably watch the new
sports channel, but I don’t think those
channels will serve a lot of people except
for the Cartoon Network for the kids.”
narrow the gap of academic achievements
between African-American and white stu
dents,” Touw said. “African-American
students are sort of a marker of students in
our school system who come from lower
socio-economic backgrounds and do have,
by nature of race, special problems with
self-perception and perceptions of mem
bers ofthe community, especially the school
system.”
Ttesting showed a large discrepancy
between the scores of African-American
students and others, Hoke said.
She said the Blue Ribbon Task Force
served students from kindergarten through
high school and aimed to achieve 60 objec
tives ranging from the inclusion of more
minorities in after-school activities to the
development of multicultural curricula.
Training Day Emphasizes
Importance of Diversity
BYSONYA BUCHANAN
STAFF WRITER
Tohelpeliminatediscriminationagainst
students with different sexual preferences,
certified staff of the Chapel Hill-Canboro
City Schools participated in a mandatory,
three-hour session Monday that focused
on the district’s cultural diversity plan with
specific emphasis on its inclusion of sexual
orientation.
T h e
Multicultural Edu
cation Action Plan
forthePromotionof
Respect for Diver
sity advocates
shared responsibil
ity between the
school system and
the community at
large for achieving
thegoalsoftheplan.
According to the
plan’smission state
ment,theplanisone
way to foster and
promote a caring
School board
Chariman KEN TOUW
said district employees
were working to
improve minority
sensitivity.
environment in which individuals grow
through understanding and accepting all
people with their differing values and quali
ties.
Ken Touw, chairman of the Chapel
Hill-Canboro Board of Education, said
that if people understood multiculturalism
it would improve campus safety.
“I think we have to try to do things to
make our schools and communities safer
and help students and teachers understand
that diversity exists,” Touw said.
The session, which was part of a 30-
hour multicultural education training re
quirement for certified staff, was hosted by
the school district. According to Josephine
Harris, director of staff development, the
30-hour requirement can be fulfilled dur-
Black History Month Spotlight
Vanessa Gilmore
Thirty-seven-year-old Vanessa Gilmore is the
country’s youngest federal judge as well as the only
black woman on the federal bench in Texas. A
native of Silver Spring, Md., Gilmore was ap
pointed by President Clinton as a federal judge to
the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
Texas. Although she graduated from Hampton
University with a degree in clothing and textile
Campus Calendar
FRIDAY
NOON “The UsesofViolence on Various Daily
Occasions in a Post-Reform Chinese Village” will
be held in 02 Manning Hall.
1 p.m. Astrophysics Informalßrownßag Lunch
will be held in 277 Phillips.
Condensed Matter Informal/Internal Seminar
will be held in2sß Phillips.
2 p.m. Faculty, are you interested in developing
a course with a service-learning component? Meet
in Frank Porter Graham Lounge of the Union to
meet with a representative of a.p.p.l.e.s. and the
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ing a three-year period and must focus on
those events that have the potential for
broadening a staff member’s understand
ing of multicultural issues.
Harris said parents and former students
ofthe Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system
had attended the training session to share
their personal experiences with cultural
diversity.
School board member Sue Baker said
different episodes in the past had caused
“sexual orientation” to be implemented
into the multicultural plan because there
were different kinds of diversity in the
school system.
One episode occurred when some
Chapel Hill High School students vandal
ized school property after learning that one
of the teachers on staff was gay, Harris
said.
“There is a need to focus on sexual
orientation so that students and teachers
will not be discriminated against or sub
jected to a hostile environment, ” she said.
Touw said a community without un
derstanding would be hostile and unsafe
for everyone. “In order to be safe, we have
to have an appreciation for different view
points, lifestyles and cultures within the
community,” he said.
Although Touw said sexual orientation
was more controversial than the issue of
race, he said race was the most significant
problem in the school system because there
were racial stereotypes about achievement.
“For African Americans, there are ste
reotyped expectations for achievement in
math and science that have not been
founded,” he said. “Ability and intelli
gence are not fixed; that’s the purpose of
education.”
“We hope the teachers will model the
kind ofbehavior that will make our society
more trusting,” he said. “Ifwe set challeng
ing goals for all our children, they will do
well.”
marketing, she became interested in pursuing a
career in law after she represented herself in a
lawsuit against the managers of her apartment
complex.
Gilmore later enrolled in the University of
Houston, where she passed the bar after only 21/
2years.Sheworkedl2yearsasacivil litigator with
a private firm before being nominated to the fed
eral bench.
Center for Teaching and Learning to discuss devel
opments. Refreshments will be served.
4p.m.UNCPhysicsandAstroimyColloquium
will discuss “Non-Thermal Gamma Ray Bursts: A
Relativistic MHD Wind Model," in 265 Phillips
5 p.m. “Korean-American Night” will be held
in the Great Hall. Admission is $5 for UNC students
and $7 for the general public.
6:30 p.m. FOCUS invites you to an informal
potluck dinner and a panel discussion on “A Per
sonal Relationship With God: Examining a Cliche. ”
For rides or directions, call Elaine at 932-3781.