Maryland DOT official named GoTriangle’s new president/CEO

GoTriangle’s Board of Trustees voted to hire Charles E. Lattuca, executive director of Transit Development and Delivery for the Maryland Department of Transportation, as president/CEO of GoTriangle.

Most recently, Lattuca has been leading a $5.6 billion project to build a 16.2-mile light-rail transit system, expected to open in 2023, in the Baltimore-Washington metro area.

Lattuca also has served as the Rapid Transit System development manager for the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, where he was responsible for planning and engineering studies related to advancing the Maryland county’s 102-mile bus rapid transit plan. Both the Wake County and Orange County transit plans include BRT projects.

Lattuca is expected to start his new role at GoTriangle in mid-April. Shelley Blake Curran, GoTriangle’s general counsel, has been the interim president and CEO since August.

He began his career as a legislative analyst in the Office of the New York State Assembly’s minority leader and also has served as the New York governor’s assistant director of state operations, overseeing the Department of Transportation, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Office of General Services.

GoTriangle is the regional transit agency with routes connecting points in North Carolina's Wake, Durham and Orange counties. The agency averages more than 6,000 boardings a day on 20 regional and express routes.

All three counties have approved a half-cent sales tax designated for transit improvements and are working together to provide a unified regional transit network. Current plans call for four BRT corridors in Wake County, a north-south BRT project in Orange County, a 37-mile commuter rail project that GoTriangle is leading between Wake and Durham counties and greatly expanded bus service covering larger areas with more frequency.