blt23
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Posts posted by blt23
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On 4/27/2024 at 7:35 AM, DEnd said:
1 because it is a commuter line. and 2: Likely because of the realities of the line. IIRC there is still at least one customer on the O-line, and the Y at Graham is still used for turn arounds, also it will go through the classification yard in Charlotte. That means heavy rail, which kind of requires larger trains, which likely requires higher paid operators. That means there is a substantially higher operating cost per vehicle, over say a bus or light rail. It's unlikely to ever really be able to do 5 minute service due to having to interoperate with NS, but it is also a start.
One would think that heavy/mainline rail having the highest cost structure should also mean it gets held to the highest ridership standard.
Thankfully we haven’t had to learn from watching almost every “it’s a start” commuter rail line around the country turn into a financial/ridership disaster.
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On 4/24/2024 at 12:13 PM, kermit said:
The feasibility report for Raleigh-Wilmington passenger rail has been released:
- The chosen routing is via Goldsboro rather than Fayetteville (no surprise).
- Tracks are planned to be built to class 4 (80mph passenger trains).
- Travel time is estimated to be 2:35.
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Ridership estimated at
80,000 per yearat three round trips per day (Piedmont carries about 290,000) EDIT: I am confused about how ridership is discussed in the report, not sure what numbers are appropriate to report yet. - Cost is estimated at $810 million. The press is making all kinds of noises about this in comparison to historic estimates but honestly this strikes me as a bargain and I would think federal funds will be available for this.
- There is some talk of the benefits of reopening a second freight route to Wilmington (the Fayetteville route would not) and the Department of Defense would be very happy about redundant rail access to Sunny Point. I doubt CSX would be willing to sell their portion of these tracks, but if they did it would be possible to have the port served by more than one freight carrier, this would make a huge difference to shipping traffic and help to pay for much of the track maintenance costs
EDIT: jthomas scoped me by seconds. Damn.
This is the type of study that makes me frustrated we do so much rail planning at the route level rather than a system level where every small route wouldn’t have to justify its own maintenance facility and spare trainset.
I’m really curious what the economics would look like on additional frequencies or any options to reduce the travel time, because there’s clearly a lot of capital that needs to be invested into making any trips possible and there isn’t any evidence given that the proposed service level maximizes the return on that investment.
I’d also love to know how much time is being allotted to switch ends at a seemingly stub-end station in Goldsboro.
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1 hour ago, KJHburg said:someone posted this in the Richmond UP about the S line between Raleigh and Richmond:
""Speaking of Richmond to Raleigh, I’ve heard rumors that the Richmond to Raleigh corridor will receive $1 billion in funding to be announced within the next few weeks as part of the FRA Corridor ID funds from the Infrastructure Bill.
The funding to be allocated will go towards the reconstruction of the abandoned S Line.This will be huge for Richmond as it will shave over an hour off the travel time to Raleigh, which is currently over 3 hours by train. Also sets the groundwork for more service along that corridor in the future.
Once the official announcement has been made, I’ll make sure to post it (unless someone beats me to it!)""
Sen. Tillis posted about it on social media earlier today.
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3 hours ago, kermit said:
Nah, not an alternative. It is very unlikely that there will be more than 10-12 intercity trains per day in NC. Hourly trains make for pretty lousy airport service. Doubly so when trains originate from 150 miles (or more) away and are subject to substantial delays. Ultimately this is too few people to justify the cost of this extension (without continuing service to SC and Atlanta)
Having said that, an airport intercity rail station does have other benefits. Airport connections for people in Salisbury, High Point and Greensboro would be of some beneift to both residents and in terms of prospective employment growth. An even bigger economic advantage would be to replace any flights from CLT-GSO or RDU (possibly Greenville-SPG and Columbia) with a train, thus increasing gate capacity at CLT and reducing carbon outputs. This is already done on the NEC with significant affect (effect?). Unfortunately no one at NCDOT would budge on this initiative without direct threats from AA to make it happen (and I doubt those are ever coming)
But mainline tracks could host local/regional/commuter trains too.
If we built a new, passenger-priority, mainline double track paralleling the existing freight tracks it could easily accommodate “local” trains running every 15 minutes between uptown and the airport with a few intermediate stops, and a nonstop slot for Amtrak or Atlanta-Charlotte HSR between each pair of local trains.
I’m under no illusion that it would be dramatically cheaper to build than the corresponding portion of the silver line, but if NS is truly in a cooperative mood it might be easier to develop by avoiding the need for full ROW protection/separation from freight trains that light rail requires, and the intercity component could help generate political support in other parts of the state.
It wouldn’t be just about the ridership that can be gleaned from the current 5 trains, but about making plans to accommodate both local and intercity trains with only one project. If our long term vision for this corridor includes both local and intercity rail, how much are we really gaining by insisting they be developed separately?
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3 hours ago, jrs2 said:
Did you email them and complain about it too?
Also, what was the 2019 numbers pre-covid at its height?
I think among other things, with the transferring of intl flights for Southwest from FTL will add a lot of "trips" not part of the typical growth we've been seeing; that and also some of those duplicate route Allegiant flights recently announced.
Calendar 2019 was 50.61 million passengers; rolling 12 months through February 2020 was 51.28 million.
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On 11/10/2023 at 12:34 PM, jrs2 said:
that adds to phenomenal "momentum" The Port has seen as of late. There's lots of ridership, they've cut deals with new to market lines and new ships from existing customers.
it's interesting b/c Port Everglades and PortMiami both have a lot of infrastructure there; a lot of existing "real" terminals. Port Canaveral is still kind of catching up. PC has 6 real terminals with parking garages for each (not counting the geodesic domes). A 7th major terminal is under development now sooner than originally anticipated.
I think their willingness to cater to new tenants and shell out the cheddar has attracted more cruise business
Their current and announced cruise growth is absolutely insane, with total passenger capacity almost doubling in 5 years from what it was just before the pandemic to 2024-25.
Port Everglades' current problem (relative to Miami and Canaveral) is the strong seasonality of their cruise traffic. All three ports do great business in the winter, but then Princess, Celebrity, and Holland America send a lot of their ships to Europe for the summer leaving very little at Port Everglades. Looking at summer 2024, for example, Port Everglades' eight cruise terminals will host only five ships doing 6-7 total sailings per week. By contrast, Port Canaveral's six terminals will still have 11 ships doing 15 cruises per week and Port Miami's eight(?) terminals will have 13 ships doing 17 cruises per week, and with generally larger ship sizes too. That strong year-round passenger traffic, and thus revenue, is giving Port Canaveral and Port Miami a lot more money to spend on big projects to add and improve their cruise terminals.
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Last week Norwegian Cruise Line announced that their next new ship, Norwegian Aqua, will sail its inaugural season from Port Canaveral in summer 2025 before moving to New York that fall and then settling in at Miami for the winter.
And on a related note, rumor is that Royal Caribbean's second Icon-class ship, Star of the Seas, will be based in Port Canaveral when it debuts in July 2025, although that official announcement is still a month away.
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2 hours ago, shardoon said:
This is not accurate. I have taken Southwest to Montego Bay many times and they always use the Delta terminal for arrivals. Of note, there is also a customs station, although smaller than the Delta terminal in one of the west side airsides. Do not remember which one.
Airside 1 (20s gates) previously did international arrivals but that facility has not been used/staffed since Terminal C opened so now all north terminal airlines have to do international arrivals at Airside 4.
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22 hours ago, kermit said:Closer to home, in one of the most highly unionized areas of North America Montreal scores w reasonable transit construction costs. It is also being financed by a public pension fund.
These same costs would put the Silver Line at around $3.3 billionish. how much longer are we just going to shrug and dismiss this with ‘murica is different’?
The RLX mentioned is the Chicago Red Line extension which just got federal funding.
This is a misleading comparison because about half of those 42 miles are just conversion of a well used commuter line to rapid transit (light metro). So in terms of new rail transit service it's more like 20 miles for $5 billion.
But that's still embarrassing for us considering it's a fully automated and grade separated metro with 2.5 minute peak headways and potential for even higher frequencies in the future.
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On 8/4/2023 at 2:12 PM, kayman said:
The links are active. The heat maps of travel demand and recommended additional routes to and from Charlotte to Wilmington and Columbia are in the documentation of the FRA_LDSS. (Just because it doesn't make sense as a part of a long-distance study to you doesn't mean the materials recommend otherwise.)
As it shown in the links above the Winston-Salem Urban Area MPO & NCDOT Rail Division are the ones pushing the Charlotte to Winston-Salem route as part of the NCDOT-led state transportation improvement program (STI/STIP) prioritization process NOT the FRA nor Amtrak.
FRA_LDSS_Southeast_Presentation_2.pdf 7.36 MB · 9 downloads SE_Mural_Exercise.pdf 1.93 MB · 9 downloads
We clearly disagree on how to interpret some of the group participation slides so I won't belabor that point but I will note that the IIJA text ordering the FRA long-distance study specified that it's basically a study of discontinued long-distance routes, and this is reflected on slide 16 of the meeting series 2 overview presentation where FRA clearly states that the study is an "assessment of routes over 750 miles" and NOT an assessment of state-supported routes or other higher frequency service. So it seems pretty apparent that the final long-distance study report/recommendations from the FRA won't include any shorter routes.
The O-line route may happen someday, but all indications so far are that Raleigh-Wilmington and Asheville-Salisbury are NCDOT's top priorities beyond Charlotte-D.C., and without them strongly pushing routes forward it's hard to see much progress being made any time soon. And Charlotte-Columbia would almost certainly be a SCDOT-led project, which seems even more unlikely to happen.
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On 7/31/2023 at 10:08 PM, kayman said:
There are initial talks at the moment to make Charlotte more of a passenger railway hub. It's 2nd to Atlanta as a major underserved origin-destinations travel/movement hub in the entire Southeast. The direct connections would be Columbia and Wilmington, but Asheville via the Salisbury-Asheville route. However, FRA & Amtrak are spearheading those efforts apart of their much larger long-distance passenger railway study across the nation.
https://fralongdistancerailstudy.org/meeting-materials/ (this link is worth bookmarking as it will be have very informative data and information about why FRA & Amtrak wants Charlotte to be elevated to hub status like Atlanta)
NCDOT Rail & NCDOT are aware of this but hasn't really considered anything except the Charlotte-Wilmington connection as shown on the (Federal) Corridor ID program being considered by the NCDOT Rail Division. They are more interested in participating in federal corridor ID program apart of a seperate study.
https://railroads.dot.gov/corridor-ID-program
It will build up Raleigh's Union Station connections.
However, FRA & Amtrak officials have said their priorities are Charlotte and Atlanta with the LDRS study. NCDOT & NCRR are once again putting Charlotte on the back burner...
Realistically, the O-Line/LE-Line (Charlotte to Winston-Salem route) could happen. Word is double tracking are in the plans for that proposed route.
https://www.cityofws.org/DocumentCenter/View/29901
If it can be done, it will have to done with the assistance of CATS & NCRR concurrence of negotiations with Norfolk-Southern over the rights-of-way. However, NCRR is going to have to prioritize this as its give for future leasing of usage with N-S of its own right-of-way to the Piedmont Triad area. The likely future (Charlotte area) independent regional transportation authority will have to also be apart of this to ensure that the Red Line commuter or regional rapid rail is in this agreement for the usage of the right-of-way portion from Uptown to the Mount Mourne area in Mooresville.
Where in the long-distance study materials are you seeing a Charlotte hub?
I don't see anything proposing new long-distance routes to Charlotte, nor anything advocating for shorter routes like Charlotte-Wilmington or Charlotte-Winston-Salem (which don't make sense as part of a long-distance study, anyway).
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On 7/27/2023 at 7:43 PM, AirNostrumMAD said:Federal dollars are flowing for rail transit more than in many decades.
My uneducated/lazy guess is the rail project wasn’t that competitive. How much money from the feds vs. NC/Local for … a couple thousand commuters (in a world of hybrid work at that) during the weekday for $3.2 Billion? And likely 0 on the weekend.
You could build the silver line with an uptown tunnel & go right up to the airport with 30,000+ riders a day for that money. Vs. 1,400 or however many a weekday their commuter rail would garner.
I think I remember Pete Buttigieg back when the Infrastructure Bill passed said they rather give out fewer but bigger awards to fund transformational and projects that make a large impact rather than smaller awards to more places that would have less impact, or only be able to pay for studies, etc. So it wouldn’t be surprising to me for a M-F commuter rail on a hybrid world where the job center is more sprawling than your typical office park. It’s not like it’s Ballantyne. RTP is colossally auto-dependent - especially for commuter rail - and makes Ballantyne look like a dense urban oasis.The ridership projections weren't just a couple thousand, they were 11,000-12,000 weekday riders. That's still really bad for a $3.2 billion project, but it's also about the same capital cost per rider as an $8 billion silver line for 30,000 daily riders.
16 hours ago, kermit said:The FTA has said they are no longer interested in funding commuter rail, but this was a specific reference to rail service that has service focused on the traditional morning and afternoon peaks and has little activity at other times. The FTA is still still willing to fund heavy rail projects that function like regional rail, meaning service patterns that are more consistent throughout the day and frequencies around every 15-30 minutes (think the Denver A line). The latest (moribund) Red Line plans were for traditional commuter rail, but the route can support more evenly distributed regional service (particularly if extended to airport /Gastonia or Rock Hill) and CATS acknowledged a high frequency service pattern is realistic when they flirted with Statesville road LRT on the route (Red Line regional rail would be -much- more cost effective than N Meck LRT).
So I wouldn’t say the possibility of federal funding for N Meck rail is dead, but two things would certainly need to change: The plan would need to be tweaked to offer non-peaked service; and NS would still need an attitude change (which is a much bigger road block than federal cash).
I am not sure the FTA’s suggestion that they ‘would encourage BRT development instead of commuter rail’ is being reported accurately. BRT is a pretty lousy technology for the 20+ mile trips that traditional commuter rail handled. BRT can replace short-distance rail trips (less than 10 miles) relatively well (if built properly), but really looses efficiency on longer trips (especially when cheaply built). Without billions in investment in dedicated lanes BRT is really going to struggle to attract ridership between Durham and Raleigh (and RTP in the middle).
I am very concerned about what this FTA decision does to RTP’s future (and the wider Triangle economy). The Park has been struggling for a while due to its isolation and horrendous traffic. While Apple allowed us to look past the park’s decline briefly, it seems like the writing is still on the wall for suburban office complexes — And that is really all RTP is these days. The Park really needed excellent rail service, a large urban node and smaller scale office space in order to remain viable IMO.
I don't think the FTA is saying to build 20+ mile BRT lines. I think they are saying to build BRT and BRT-lite in the places where they make sense, and don't go chasing 20+ mile transit trips until the easier and more obvious opportunities have been taken advantage of.
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On 6/28/2023 at 3:30 PM, jrs2 said:
this article had said the money would fund "up to 8 gates".
So, when they say 8 gates, do they mean that each of those four towers will each have 2 jetways so that they can use each for either a jumbo jet or two smaller jets, hence 8 gates?
Correct, each pier will accommodate one jumbo or two A320/B737 family planes. And these gates are using a different pier design than the rest of the terminal which allows for the two smaller planes to have completely separate simultaneous operations.
On 6/28/2023 at 7:13 PM, AndyPok1 said:I'm intrigued to see how having the rental counters on the side of the bridge are going to work. Hopefully there's never more than a person or two at the counter...
It's going to be a dedicated area to the north of the bridge, not just counters along the edge of the walkway.
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Phase 2 construction is beyond the timeline/scope of the current Capital Improvement Plan and not included in the mentioned $750 million figure.
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On 5/25/2023 at 9:53 AM, jrs2 said:
great analysis and insight. Fascinating about Princess' demographic...
I think CT 3 is designed so that it's mirror image terminal adjacent and to the west would be the next terminal or a future terminal; I saw a rendering depicting that. And then the Victory terminal would disappear...
Also, CT 5: I saw a plan where they would dredge to the south of that mini peninsula, probably get rid of all that surface parking, and wither put another terminal there or make CT 5 even larger to handle two ships, and the slip would be parallel to the existing ship docked, only on the south side of it fronting that draw bridge.
I'm shocked to hear that about PortMiami. I know they're investing $$$ in terminal upgrades right now.
I think you're referring to CT10, not CT5. (CT5 is the northernmost cruise terminal)
The last masterplan did propose adding a cruise terminal on the south side of the CT10 peninsula, but it was always going to be a difficult site to make work without starting over on CT10, and the port has just announced plans to build another parking garage for CT10 on the current surface lot so we can safely say that location won't be getting a new terminal for the foreseeable future.
They have also proposed to relocate Victory Cruises and build a new terminal just west of CT3, but the plan for this next terminal is to build it on the current Bluepoints Marina site on the west end of the south side. Supposedly the marina capacity will be accommodated on a nearby parcel, but they haven't announced exactly where and how yet.
On 5/25/2023 at 1:10 PM, HankStrong said:They aren't going away and we never know all the deals until they happen, but the announced ships are all the same size or smaller in MIA and larger in PC. That is where I drew my conclusion that it's a short term game.
A thorough look at the data doesn't back this up. Carnival, Royal, Norwegian, and MSC have all announced at least as much growth at Miami as PC, and in some cases substantially more. Miami is very much still competitive, and if it does end up being a short term game I would guess Canaveral lost given that Miami has several additional cruise terminals coming online over the next 6 years.
On 5/25/2023 at 1:35 PM, jrs2 said:LOL...all this Disney talking aside, you know, one of the reasons PC started really moving in the Late '90's was b/c of DCL starting service there, and Disney's commitment to upgrading its fleet at the normal intervals. As a result of that, RC brought in Freedom of the Seas (Freedom Class), Carnival continued with more ships, then the Ports of Call ships from Norwegian and RC et al, and then the first Oasis Class. From there, it just got more and more traction in the industry and the Port's commitment was seen and then the Field of Dreams notion resulted. It's truly amazing.
For cargo, the prior CEO or president was really trying to get freight rail to the port (to give a boost to cargo) but they couldn't seal a deal with the USAF to the north. Then there were comments made about NIMBYs that got him replaced. But the new guy seems to be all in with the cruise industry,
You know what I would do? I would strike a deal with FEC and get them to build a freight bridge to PC to help boost cargo. Then maybe the tradeoff could be that FEC use a track for BL passenger service directly to PC (environmental concerns notwithstanding).
Rail isn't going to happen. The last proposal was basically killed over environmental concerns, and those aren't going to be any different now. And with how much the cruise and space industries are growing, there is no need to drive more cargo business at the port because the previously underused spaces are already getting taken up by that growth.
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12 hours ago, shardoon said:
Scary busy numbers coming out of OIA. First quarter total passengers are 14.257 million passengers. Last year first quarter was 11.670 million.
Maybe it's flawed math here, and I'm sure it is.....but, last year we finished with over 52 million. Roughly 4.46 x 11.670 million.
Extrapolate that same growth over the year, and we are at 63 million passengers for the year. Sure, it's flawed and a lot of other variables are in play.........but.......we will at least shatter 56 million this year.
That extrapolation is definitely flawed because the numbers for the first few months of 2022 were anomalously low.
Jan 23 was up 31% over Jan 22, Feb 23 was up 21% over Feb 22, Mar 23 was up 15% over Mar 22, and I expect that future months will be even smaller increases.
Historically Q1 has had closer to 1/4 of passengers than 2/9, so putting everything together I'm guessing 2023 ends up around 56-57 million.
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20 hours ago, shardoon said:
Lots of great info in there. Thanks.
Key points:
1. Projections for 2023 is 55 million......wowzers..... and this is before Epic opens.
2. Phase 1a started construction on the 4 extra gates, not sure if the bridge is included in that or now, but would assume it is.
3. They are in the process of hiring a new architect for phase 2 for an additional 15 to 20 gates. Not sure why they wouldn't just uses Fentress again due to familiarity.
4. Terminal A and B are gonna get a revamp with some new concessions and build outs.
One lingering question...... and you all know my annoyance.......they better have the moving walkways budgeted for phase 1a and in the current phase 1. They also better include the airtrain on phase 2, because it's long as it is, I couldn't imagine no airtrain from the end of phase 2 to the end of phase 1....... moving walkways alone will not cut it on that. You go cheap now, it will only cost more later to fix it.....just saying......
I wouldn't get your hopes up for moving walkways. The going cheap wasn't just about avoiding the cost of the walkways themselves, but also about eliminating the space where they would go and reducing the corridor width, so now there isn't enough space to add them in to the existing building.
I would imagine that the walking distance issue/complaints makes the phase 2 APM nonnegotiable, although that doesn't help arriving international passengers who will still be stuck with really long walks.
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1 hour ago, shardoon said:
Nope, the hotel I was talking about with the tunnel through it is not the W. The hotel I am talking about is actually on Universal land and I presume is one of the new Epic Universal Hotels. The thing is already topped off.
The name hasn't been announced yet but it is a Universal hotel and is rumored to have some sort of space theme to fit with the Epic Universe concept.
There's also a second (very similar?) one that will start going up soon just to its west on the other side of the Kirkman extension.
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22 hours ago, Urban Mail Carrier said:
It was never a good project anyway.
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38 minutes ago, aent said:
If anyone actually listened to what DeSantis said, he literally said as much. The only change he really is pushing for is making sure they have their fees paid to the government, and that the board of the district will be appointed by the governor to make sure the government collects taxes from them, the same exact way that they do from Universal and SeaWorld and the rest of us. He literally said a new district will be created under a more traditional "special district" format, DeSantis has been clear he welcomes Disney to do business here and wants them to do well, but not get special privileges not available to others.
But Reedy Creek Improvement District wasn't even the only one to lose its special district status under that very law. Every district that was created under the rule that allowed RCID to operate in this manner is being disolved: Here's a full map of them:
As you can see, many of the others are in very red areas as well. The new law also literally says the districts can be re-established, following the current law, and not getting away with not following any rules when they were created pre-1968.
Also, why is it only an issue when the Republicans do this, and not the Democrats?
The Democrats, for the last several years, have been attacking Elon Musk and companies for not following their party lines, and literally acting on it. The "Rural Digital Opportunities Fund" awarded SpaceX $880 million as they were the lowest bidder in providing internet to 650,000 locations, but the FCC revoked their funding when the Democrats took over to get back at Elon Musk. They left Tesla out of the subsidy funding in the EV vehicle subsidy bill, while including the foreign manufacturers. They've been trying to do this to Elon for many years now. Just yesterday, Joe Biden was asked "Do you think Elon Musk is a threat to US national security?" and Biden answered that he " is worthy of being looked at" and when asked "How?" he just said “There’s a lot of ways,” How is the Democrat President Joe Biden and his administration doing this to Elon Musk and SpaceX and Tesla without you guys complaining about Disney not complaining about this?
Both parties have always done this. If you want to get subsidies and special exemptions from the law from the government, you better be friendly to them, regardless of who is in power. I don't like these exemptions and subsidies existing, but lets be fair. I'd be happy to get rid of it for everyone. Thats the right way to raise taxes
What taxes are/were Disney not paying by having Reedy Creek?
And having a governor appointed board is not at all the traditional special district format - the norm is for the board to be chosen by residents or property owners within the district.
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1 hour ago, shardoon said:
So a total of 4 carousels for 15 gates, soon to be 19? That seems pretty low. Secondly, with phase 3 and 4, I believe everyone comes and filters to this area. What happens when Terminal C is built out at 60 gates......where do the other carousels go? It cannot be 4 for 60 gates?
It's 4 carousels for domestic flights.
There are another 4 (I think) carousels before customs for international flights.
For phase 2 and beyond they will expand the terminal sideways (to the north and south) to add more baggage carousels and ticket counters parallel to these first ones.
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Wouldn't it make sense to do bus lanes here since Lymmo is supposed to be extended north along this stretch?
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18 minutes ago, HankStrong said:
I count 22, as well.
I believe that a couple of the widebody gates will not be set up for accommodating 2 smaller aircraft.
GOAA website says 20 aircraft total for phase 1.
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Removing parking minimums in the CDB is good but having the only citywide reduction be for detached single family housing is not.
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North Carolina Intercity Rail Transit
in North Carolina
Posted · Edited by blt23
I don’t think we should start by prescribing “in z amount of time,” either. If we’re doing things rationally then each minute we reduce the travel time by is going to be more expensive than the last, and the realities of any large jumps in cost per minute saved may not align with our preconceptions of exactly what we want the travel time to be.
What we should be looking for is an analysis of a large variety of frequency and travel time combinations to determine what gives the best value combination of ridership, operating costs, and capital costs.
On routes with heavier freight traffic it may make sense to have service levels be more predetermined, but in this case basically everything should be up for consideration with overall travel demand from Wilmington serving as the key limiting factor.