2035 Triangle Regional Transit Vision Plan

[ctl]

Rob Christensen doesn't officially speak for the News & Observer, but his column shows where this is headed. http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/01/31/4518415_christensen-raleigh-needs-buses.html?rh=1

[DanRNC]

Like I said, a true transit plan for Raleigh is dead. The attitude is that all that's needed is some more buses to get the po' folks to work. Nothing to see hear...move along. Christensen basically throws up the white flag and concedes Raleigh will be nothing more than a suburban podunk and he ain't giving up his car. Pretty funny this guy writes about the politics of the environment. 

Edited February 1, 2015 by DanRNC

[Euphorius]

It will be very interesting to see how the Durham-Chapel Hill light rail works out. If it doesn't attract the ridership the Wake people will throw a "told ya so" celebration. If it succeeds they will be kicking themselves, and will realize they have threatened the growth potential for the entire county and given Durham/Orange the opportunity to surpass Wake in all things urban. It will be funny if the big fish ends up being reduced to the shrimp. I'm sure Bill Bell is loving this. I've always gotten the vibe that he is gunning for Durham to take the crown away from Raleigh. 

[DanRNC]

I think the Durham-Chapel Hill system will work if they hold strong to developing along the line which I think they will. Durham has not really sprawled to the extent of Raleigh so this is a good starting point for future development. Durham was slow to start but they seem to be gaining traction. It's kind of like the Tortoise and the Hare. Raleigh is really missing Mitch Silver-it only took a couple of months to fall apart. I wouldn't be surprised to see development in DT Raleigh to start regressing, especially with Citrix looking pretty vulnerable. Kane is probably reassessing his warehouse plans. 

[Justin6882]

I love how just weeks ago Raleigh was on the brink of greatness with Dix, Moore square, Kane in the warehouse district, etc etc and now because there is talk of more busses and no trains, all of a sudden the city is falling apart. Everyone will soon be pouring out of the city limits to go to Durham so they can ride a train.

Let's get a grip and let this work itself out. If trains aren't going to work in wake county, I'll be interested in seeing how Durham and orange make it work with less than half the population COMBINED.

I don't get why we are so quick to condemn Raleigh and heap praise on other corners of the triangle when it's been Raleigh and wake that are leading the areas growth, both population wise and in urbanity.

[DanRNC]

Raleigh is truly frustrating. They take whatever momentum they have and find a way to destroy it. 20 story high density goes to 7 story suburban style apartments, a transit plan gets gutted, the Dix deal isn't anywhere near done, Moore Square is going to get done on the cheap, and Union Station is already getting gutted. It's the town of mediocrity with no vision. Big plans are thrown out and they quickly become garbage. It's all talk at the end of the day. I always said the plans for F-Street were low tier and that's what they ended up with-some crappy bars that the residents hate and largely deserted streets other than that. The grand street didn't turn out so grand. Why? Once again, done on the cheap.    

[DanRNC]

Oh yea, the arena...done on the cheap.

[RALNATIVE]

I love how just weeks ago Raleigh was on the brink of greatness with Dix, Moore square, Kane in the warehouse district, etc etc and now because there is talk of more busses and no trains, all of a sudden the city is falling apart. Everyone will soon be pouring out of the city limits to go to Durham so they can ride a train.

Let's get a grip and let this work itself out. If trains aren't going to work in wake county, I'll be interested in seeing how Durham and orange make it work with less than half the population COMBINED.

I don't get why we are so quick to condemn Raleigh and heap praise on other corners of the triangle when it's been Raleigh and wake that are leading the areas growth, both population wise and in urbanity.

 

Thanks Justin6882. I couldn't have said it better myself!

[RALNATIVE]

Raleigh is truly frustrating. They take whatever momentum they have and find a way to destroy it. 20 story high density goes to 7 story suburban style apartments, a transit plan gets gutted, the Dix deal isn't anywhere near done, Moore Square is going to get done on the cheap, and Union Station is already getting gutted. It's the town of mediocrity with no vision. Big plans are thrown out and they quickly become garbage. It's all talk at the end of the day. I always said the plans for F-Street were low tier and that's what they ended up with-some crappy bars that the residents hate and largely deserted streets other than that. The grand street didn't turn out so grand. Why? Once again, done on the cheap.    

You've got to keep in mind that most of the planning and vision for Raleigh is coming from people who are looking at things from a different paradigm than you or I. You and I, having lived in Vancouver and the Bay Area respectively, are naturally going to be unimpressed with some of what we see happening in Raleigh and NC in general. For most native North Carolinians, they are looking at these developments as sweeping changes in their home town.

 

As I've indicated before, Raleigh has a lot of growing up to do, but with the right leadership in place it will happen. The strong leaders will need to step up and I've seen evidence of this happening as of late, with the Dix deal and with the Kane developments.

[Euphorius]

I would be fine with them cutting the north portion of the line and just having a line from downtown to RTP to meet with the Durham line, but taking rail off the table for the foreseeable future isn't something that should be done.

[kermit]

I grew up in Durham and have spent a good bit of time in Raleigh, I understand how progressive the Triangle can be (in parts). That said, a bus-based plan is going to be a really tough sell in any Southern city. I don't think Jarrett Walker is well acquainted with the region's residual culture of public transit. 

Edited February 2, 2015 by kermit

[Jones_]

Well, I dabble in modeling some engineering related things...just not traffic....It seems like a reliable model for this area may not exist or would be fairly complex to develop from scratch. One of Rob Christenson's main anti points is the lack of a single central employment center. Off the cuff this would seem to be an advantage. You do not have such extreme peak and valley ridership situations in such a situation. If all your train cars are 60% full on every single trip thats a hell of a lot better than 110% full on 10% of your trips and 30% full on the other 90%.There are quite a few clusters of offices around the area that seem like they'd contribute those medium level numbers going and coming in various directions to keep up a steady ridership all along a more creative route (my comment is dependent on getting lines in the street to places outside the NCRR corridor). 

[ctl]

There's a lot of negativity in these comments about Raleigh just because the city isn't taking the direction that a few people want. Christensen's thoughts are probably the majority opinion OTB and certainly the majority opinion in Wake County outside the Raleigh ETJ. The City is not in a position to dictate where residential buildings go or how high they are; that's a free market economy at work. If as many people want to live in DTR as some apparently think, you'd see multiple high-rises under development in DTR. Truth is, at the rental/purchase prices that those apartments/condos would require, the demand simply isn't that great at a time when residential lending is much tighter than pre-2008. The rail-centric transit plan wasn't gutted; it died from natural causes in 2006 and the corpse is too cold to resuscitate. The only thing standing in the way of Dix is a tax referendum that the City is reluctant to schedule until they know what the County will do on a transit referendum. And while we're on the subject of money, It's undeniable that the original concept for a temporary train station on the Dillon site evolved into a fancy Union Station at double the price (and still counting) -- even though the City can't find the money for it despite an NCDOT bailout, and even though the station will open with less parking than the existing station that opened when the population of Raleigh was 66,000. Attaboy, Mitch, nobody can make this stuff up. Council ain't about to go to the public for a tax referendum on Union Station under those circumstances, and that turns the screws on financing for Dix even harder.  

As for the arena, I think almost everyone agrees it's a great facility in retrospect. The only people dissatisfied with it are DTR zealots who didn't get a seat at the table when the key decisions were made because NCSU essentially said "downtown over our dead bodies".

Edited February 2, 2015 by ctl

[DanRNC]

I would say extend the Chapel-Durham line out to RTP and blow Raleigh off as they are clearly not interested in regional rail. Charlotte is clearly headed in the right direction as far as planning and I hope they are successful in attracting new talent to their city. As far as Dix goes, I hope Raleigh can't get the property because I have a feeling with what they will come up with will be a nightmare. Let it sit as is to be honest. Raleigh will buy it, run out of money and let it sit sit fallow for years. 

Edited February 2, 2015 by DanRNC

[orulz]

DanRNC, your negativity is, um, overwhelming.

IMO what you are advocating is too big on vision and too short on practicality. Vision without an eye to practicality is not in anybody's interest. You wind up with gleaming shiny new things that aren't useful enough to justify their cost. I also believe you are overstating the importance of light rail. As I have stated before, what draws people seeking an urban environment is not the presence of rail transit. It is walkable, dense, vibrant neighborhoods. And Raleigh, even 'visionless' old Raleigh, is moving in that direction in a big way, especially with the UDO.

Building light rail between Chapel Hill and Durham is already a stretch for the two counties. Federal funding is already not guaranteed for the Durham/CH line, and extending it to RTP would almost certainly wreck the project's case for the feds. RTP, at present, is a peak hour only commuter market. If the line is to be extended it should be extended to Carrboro.

Anyway. I do think light rail is necessary for Raleigh. I'm not, however, convinced that we have laid enough groundwork for it as yet. The consultants will definitely give light rail as an option so we'll get to see in living color just how much transit we would be giving up by deciding to build light rail.

[Jones_]

Is it too late for me to ponder on-street routes for light rail? For the eastern most Raleigh stretch, bring it onto South Street once you leave the wye. Turn up Person St, follow Wake Forest up to Capital at Crabtree as a short term terminus. Obvious stops are: Fayeteville/South St. Moore Sq. North Person. Greyhound station. The fleamarket at Capital/Crabtree Blvds is an enormous potential park and ride for all of NE Raleigh to access and its got a major road on each side of it (Raleigh and Capital Blvds). You'd be getting bus system connections at Fayetteville (R-Line), Moore Square (CAT) and of course the Greyhound Station. The Greyhound/Crabtree Blvd park and ride should also be an additional CAT/TTA transit center. The BRT along the Beltline would also sync with this nicely if you allowed it to say swing down to the transit center for this one stop. Also BRT down to the Fairgrounds stop. In my head I see a well oiled setup here that would get riders now, stimulate growth along the corridor, and be integrated on several fronts. 

Edited February 2, 2015 by Jones_

[Spatula]

Well, I dabble in modeling some engineering related things...just not traffic....It seems like a reliable model for this area may not exist or would be fairly complex to develop from scratch. One of Rob Christenson's main anti points is the lack of a single central employment center. Off the cuff this would seem to be an advantage. You do not have such extreme peak and valley ridership situations in such a situation. If all your train cars are 60% full on every single trip thats a hell of a lot better than 110% full on 10% of your trips and 30% full on the other 90%.There are quite a few clusters of offices around the area that seem like they'd contribute those medium level numbers going and coming in various directions to keep up a steady ridership all along a more creative route (my comment is dependent on getting lines in the street to places outside the NCRR corridor).

I think this deserves more attention and this is part of the reason I think rail would be more successful here.

On another note, there's some negativity going around. DanRNC, enough doom and gloom. The council are still largely pro urban and raleigh will continue densifying regardless. Raleigh is ultimately a forward looking city, and durham and chapel hill are not without their own flaws. Chapel hill's nimby problem makes raleigh look downright cosmopolitan. And durham is a city of extreme haves and have-nots, dysfunctional racial politics, and Duke calling the shots often. And if you ever thought NCSU lacked vision...

Orulz, much as you think the rail plans are "vision without practicality", I would classify your well meaning arguments as "skepticism without evidence". Show me a city that started a rail system and didn't ultimately benefit. As for political consensus, there are no republicans left on the BOC, in an election year where the party basically cleaned up everywhere else. Why do you suppose that is? The ones that were there refused to allow a vote on rail transit. Bear in mind it's not just a matter of numbers here. There is some politicking. Many people feel if Charlotte has rail we should have it too, if we intend to compete with them.

[orulz]

I'm not saying light rail has no benefits. Of course it has benefits. But that's not the question. Putting 100% of the money towards service and building no infrastructure would also have benefits. The real question is, how do we maximize benefit to the region for the available funding?

Choosing LIGHT RAIL and then subordinating everything else to that decision is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. We should have an honest, open discussion about priorities, and once the priorities are set and each category has its budget (infrastructure vs. service, ridership vs. coverage), go about designing projects and services to maximize the result within each category.

To get light rail built as quickly as possible, that would mean putting 50% of new revenue toward building it. Obviously there are other infrastructure needs and opportunities in the system as well such as BRT, commuter rail, offboard fare collection, bus lanes, transfer facilities, bus shelters, and more. In order to do light rail and some other infrastructure as well would involve setting the infrastructure-service slider well over 50% infrastructure (to maybe 60% or even 70%). IMO that is not the right choice. Why not set the infrastructure slider to 33% or 40% and then see what we can build within the constraints of that budget. This may wind up putting off light rail for 10 years or whatever. But if it means we can run 50% more buses for the entire 30 year term of the bonds that will be used to finance the light rail construction then I think that's a pretty good trade off. (Going from 40% service to 60% service is a 50% increase in bus service, guys!)

In my opinion the most important measure of the overall benefits is the number of trips in Wake County made by transit each day. 50% more buses will probably make a huge impact by that measure. Admittedly density/urban development is probably the second most important measure to me, and building light rail sooner probably would give that a boost, but seeing how much development is happening now, even without light rail, it probably wouldn't be as big of a boost as you might think.

[Spatula]

I'm not saying light rail has no benefits. Of course it has benefits. But that's not the question. Putting 100% of the money towards service and building no infrastructure would also have benefits. The real question is, how do we maximize benefit to the region for the available funding?

We can be fairly confident that while there may be short term benefits to boosting the existing service, there would be more long term benefits starting a rail system, and those benefits will be greatest if we start the soonest possibly. It would not be easy, and it would strain finances for other projects. But having the system would do a lot for the city's image, and it would ensure raleigh continues growing in the right direction, while also keeping it competitive with other metros that currently have the leg up on us in the urbanity front. Frankly it doesnt seem like there's much of a counter argument from the nay corner if the two best arguments are "it will be hard if we do it now" and "we should wait till the traffic is as bad as austin's". That's not good planning. The whole point of planning should be to avoid those situations. Otherwise you're reacting, rather than planning. Edited February 2, 2015 by Spatula

[orulz]

But having the system would do a lot for the city's image

I acknowledge that image is important, but since this is your first argument in favor of light rail, am I to think that image should be the most important thing that we can achieve out of public transportation in our region? I find this to be a weak argument, the same way that I find bellyaching over skylines and the height of skyscrapers to be a weak argument.

 

 

and it would ensure raleigh continues growing in the right direction,

You said it yourself, "raleigh continues growing in the right direction" - which means Raleigh is already growing in the right direction. I also happen to think that this trend will not immediately cease if we fail to build light rail ASAP. In fact I think this trend will continue to build momentum even in the absence of light rail or even any transit service whatsoever (none of which is what I am actually agruing for.) Would light rail provide a moderate boost to this trend, sure. And this is one reason that I still support light rail in Wake County. But when it comes to urban infill development, light rail is definitely not the be-all, end-all that many seem to think.

 

 

while also keeping it competitive with other metros that currently have the leg up on us in the urbanity front

Competition is important with respect to other cities. But we should also do what's best for Raleigh because it's what's best for Raleigh, not because we want to keep up with the Joneses (or Charlottes - a city which is incidentally nearly twice the size of Raleigh.) I'd like to see a specific example of a city that has a leg up on us in the urbanity front. When you come up with one, the next step is to check the core city's population in 1950. (Raleigh's was about 65k.) These other cities have a leg up because they are older cities and had a significant head start.

 

 

Frankly it doesnt seem like there's much of a counter argument from the nay corner if the two best arguments are "it will be hard if we do it now" and "we should wait till the traffic is as bad as austin's". That's not good planning.

I think you are mischaracterizing my argument. Basically, I am not comfortable with giving up the amount of extra bus service that can be gained in exchange for the fastest schedule of implementing light rail. In my opinion the strongest potential argument in favor of light rail right now would be if there was no way to get a transit tax approved for a plan that doesn't include light rail. Which is a incidently one of the reasons why I still support light rail - just on a slower, possibly phased, schedule.

Edited February 2, 2015 by orulz
reformatted and added stuff

[Spatula]

That seems very reasonable. I can't say I have much more to add really.

As for competing cities that are more urban, that's a pretty long list. I see raleigh's late start as all the more reason to make serious far reaching policy changes rather than an excuse for the city's poor performance on vibrancy ratings and so forth.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Spatula

[orulz]

I would also reiterate/remind that things are different now than they were in 2012. If the light rail plan from 2012 was realistic then, the same light rail plan is not necessarily realistic today, since the local share of the cost has gone up from 25% to 40%. This means that, under current DOT policies, we have to pay 60% more (read: give up 60% more service improvements) to build the same amount of light rail.

It sucks, and I am definitely not happy about it, especially since it means we get a worse deal than Charlotte (or a worse deal than was proposed for the triangle in 2005.) But it is reality. And it definitely re-balances the equation toward service and away from infrastructure. Five years from now, however, a 25% commitment from DOT may be back in the cards, so things may change.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

Somehow we must push the message that first,(not only), beef up/better utilize our current bus system. AND at the same time, put a plan in place that allows BRT-light, heavy-rail, and light-rail at certain intervals at certain places. It should not be, "Don't build it",(light rail). I would prefer that we stay away from "No"! And just have our debate about what works best in certain sections of the city. IMHO :-)

[Green_man]

I'm waiting until the actual recommendations come out to judge the recommendations.  Nothing of substance has been released.  A whole lotta debating over each's individual speculations.

[RALNATIVE]

Just read this article today: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/morning_call/2015/02/growth-surge-raleigh-population-to-swell-by-50.html

 

Maybe someone should share it with the Wake County commissioners, city council, and all of the NIMBYs who question the need for light rail. They clearly have no clue what's coming.