sax184

No kidding. Anybody claiming this could be Raleigh's central park doesn't know a thing about Central Park and why it works. A better model which would preserve significant green area but increase the urbanistic quality of the neighborhood would be Primrose Hill in London. Here's the Park: Primrose Hill Park View ANd here's 24 shots of the neighborhood: Primrose Hill Neighborhood

That's an optimistic number for 10 years. That's like landing a dell every 2 years.

I have lost so much respect for Preservation NC over the Dix battle. The anti-anything but a park website that PNC signed up to support showed ridiculous photoshops of 9 40-story towers and big box saying "do you want this in Dorothea Dix?!?!?!?!?" You want to disagree with a vision for the future? Fine. Don't spread disinformation. That's nasty. Shame on PNC, a formerly credible organization.

Hey- what's the latest on the Music City Star? When is it expected to open revenue service?

Tell us more about what you mean by this, and we can give you better answers. What's a "small town feel" to you? What do you consider key elements to properly raising your children?

Well, that's true- there is a lot of rural land out there along the railroad corridor. But doesn't that tell you something as well? That development is not being placed anywhere near the corridor for future TOD opportunities? And of course, when you do drive I-40 and see the massive conurbation of strip malls, targets, gas stations, etc, you can see that most of the development that IS occurring is indeed crap, and that future development is likely to be the same way.

Yeah, I'm with you, orulz. I'm sick of advertising trains and transit as a novelty rather than a useful part of day-to-day travel planning in NC, but that's part of attracting people the first time. It's good to see NCDOT also reaching out to college students and weekend traveler markets, but it would also be good to see them try to get more business travelers in the state, etc. Of course, until we have service that puts you in Charlotte early enough for morning meetings if you board in Raleigh or vice versa, this is not likely to happen soon. Ultimately, though, this is all about land use planning. Our state continues to develop in the most sprawling way possible, with a few exceptions in several downtowns around the state which are gathering steam. Look from the Triad to the Triangle, though, and it's one long stream of suburban crud.

I'd like to see the midday train introduced on weekends first. Those are the big ridership days anyway, I think. That might be a way to get it started earlier using less money. Here's a possible schedule that could be implemented as early as next spring. RAL CLT 7:00 10:05 CLT RAL 10:35 13:40 RAL CLT 14:10 17:15 CLT RAL 17:45 20:50 You could be in Greensboro by 8:30 AM and depart back at 12:05 P.M.

HSR is still a concept (a well-studied one, though) without funding. If you want to bring HSR to NC, call Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr and thank them for voting in support of S. 1516 this past week, and then start working on your representatives to support it in the House. A midday Piedmont would be fantastic, and would certainly entice me to travel by rail more often. Heck, I'd take 1/2-day trips to Greensboro/Salisbury on Saturdays if I could get my bike onboard. (I hear that this may be possible after Thanksgiving) However, a reliable connection to DC and the Northeast would really be something. My family lives near Boston, and there are so many places to go along the Northeast Corridor (NEC), that I think I'd begin using that all the time. That's why the HSR corridor is so important.

Yeah, I'm in the camp that wants better rail in the 100-500 mile journey distances. There are a lot of pro-rail folks who want to save the long distance routes or not make any changes to Amtrak, but my opinion is that they are condemning the US to a future of poor rail service in general. We should NOT have a train from Orlando to Vegas. It just makes no sense. Fortunately, even the long-distance routes through NC are some of the better performers (Silver Service, Palmetto, etc) in terms of cost recovery. The challenge to the PRIIA legislation is that a lot of states' congresspeople/senators are from states that 1. only have long distance service 2. pay nothing for it 3. are only willing to support Amtrak under those circumstances The "starve the beast" conservatives want to end rail service, period. The two coastal megalopolises are ready to invest in rail. However, up until now, they have only been able to win support for any rail service by making common cause with the "national or nothing" crowd that supports items 1-3 above. This has lead to continual support for rail, but at a level that could best be described as "anemic" and unable to reach for the future. PRIIA is the best option we've had in years to move beyond this stalemate. It forces some cost-cutting on the long-distance routes, but does not make draconian route eliminations across the country. However, it makes it hard to expand long distance routes, which conservatives like. THe handful of states ready to invest are waiting to step up for capital funds, and NC is probably among the top ten states likely to receive funding.

The Amtrak Board is all Bush appointees. As movement conservatives, their primary goal is to destroy Amtrak as quickly as possible. David Gunn, the Amtrak President, largely accomplishes anything despite their meddling. In general, the federal matching grant program is a good idea, because it makes rail investment more predictable and less political. In effect, rail investment becomes more like highway, bike/ped or transit investment. That said, Amtrak could stand some reforms. The most promising bill to come down the pike in some time is the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2005, or PRIIA 2005. Some information is below. A good layman's description can be found at Trent Lott's (sponsor) PRIIA Page: http://lott.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseActio...sRelease_id=163 The More Official Version http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=6676&sequence=0 This is as good as it gets for rail in the US, and if you are pro-rail, I also suggest reading NARP's page on this important bill. http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/more/s_1516/ But better yet, this bill is GREAT for rail in NC. Why? It opens up a federal partner to fund rail infrastructure. Outside of the Northeast Corridor, only CA, OR, WA (pacific coast states) and Illinois are in as good as shape as NC to receive rail investment. PRIIA provides a 50% match for improvements to rail infrastructure that have a state funding component and are part of a rail plan and have appropriate environmental documentation, etc. Not many states have rail plans. NC does. The NCRR mainline, SEHSR project (the S-line and Winston-Salem connections), and the Asheville/Wilmington extensions may also be eligible. Like the other federal transport programs, this 50% match fund is for capital, and not operational costs. The states are supposed to pick up operations. This is fine- NCDOT is already doing this, and the Carolinian/Piedmont are close to breaking even as is. With increasing speeds, they may even soon take in more money than is spent on operations. Allowing for the contracting of operations out is not a big deal- this is done all the time with bus services and other commuter rail operations. Also, if the freights (NS has had some change of heart recently on passenger operations) could then have these contracts as a moneymaker with incentives for on-time performance and safety standards, I don't see that this is a bad idea. Here's the key for NC from my point of view. We have a list of improvements to be made in the Raleigh-Charlotte corridor that will take until 2009 to complete because of funding availability. Wouldn't it be nice to accomplish those in half the time with a 50% federal match? Not to mention see a 2 hour 50 minute RGH-CLT train which will be FASTER than driving?

My contact at NCDOT Rail has also suggested they are looking into putting a 6-bicycle rack into the baggage car if it is added to the Piedmont in October. This seemed tenuous rather than certain, but if they do it, NCDOT Bike/Ped division is likely to start promoting it.

I was not aware we had a full second set of coaches. I thought there were at least two engines that could be used for Piedmont service. Here's the second part of that equation, though- staffing. With 3 roundtrips, does it make more sense to schedule crews that are assigned to one consist, or to assign them based on departure time? (i.e. crew moves from trainset to trainset) Or, does having the third midday run remain unlinked via staffing to the early or evening run allow for that midday run to be at the most opportune time for customer demand? (or does the physical plant of the railroad already limit that opportunity?) Lots of questions. My contact with the NCDOT Rail Division has left me quite impressed with their level of professionalism and organization. I'm pretty sure they'll figure it out.

Update from NCDOT Rail staff- the bidirectional signaling has not yet been implemented. NS and CSX still working out some issues at Fetner to make it happen. This phase of the Raleigh-Cary project will save about 1 minute of travel time. The signals, when implemented, will save another minute. Final note from staff, perhaps the most exciting- the cumulative effect of several Raleigh-Charlotte project will knock 5 minutes off the RGH-CLT rail travel time next month. This takes corridor travel time from 3:15 to 3:10. Woo-hoo! It's my belief that when the time gets to 3:05, we could see a third daily roundtrip on the Piedmont. The current schedule is: RAL CLT 7:15 10:30 CLT RAL 17:30 20:45 Enivsion this schedule: RAL CLT 7:00 10:05 CLT RAL 10:35 13:40 RAL CLT 14:10 17:15 CLT RAL 17:45 20:50

It's not clear from the press release if the bidirectional signals were completed along with the track upgrade. The project package seems to suggest both were part of the same project. However, the description of the project suggests the track upgrade helps with speed, while the signals help with track capacity. I'll see what else I can find out.

Passenger Train Speeds Increase From 60 to 79 MPH Very nice. Another NCDOT Rail Division project finished when it was supposed to be done that will save roughly 90 seconds of travel time. Details can be found far down on this link: Track Improvements for Raleigh-Greensboro

Its parking ratios and uses drive it inexorably towards the typical "Generica" office park. Everybody there drives down the strip to Bojangles and Wendy's for lunch, and drives back- nothing to eat on campus. It's not an accident there are no people in the pictures you've taken- unfortunately, it's by design for them to be in their cars.