Triangle Regional Transit

[ncwebguy]

The N&O's Crosstown Traffic blog has a post about focus groups getting input on the TTA's new look logo and colors. I like the "block" T, since it seems easy to reproduce, and has three smaller triangles in the larger triangle. I don't know why, but I like triangles to point up, not down.

There is a number and email address to get in on the action. If I could get out of work for over an hour, I'd go to the Durham session, but that isn't going to happen.

[vitaviatic]

[*]Cherokee estimates private (TOD) development in range of $3-5B.

[ChiefJoJo]

Maybe transitman or orulz can chime in, but I know vitaviatic has connections with Cherokee in Denver, so...

My question is, assuming that the Phase 1 rail project is ultimately chosen #1 priority for the region, and assuming their estimate of $3-5B in private investment is accurate, do we have enough TIF bonding capacity via Cherokee and their TOD development in all of the station areas (plus adjacent acquisitions and other developer projects) to fund the rail project from 9th St (Duke Med would be better) to Govt Ctr?

David King has made reference that this is what's going to happen eventually, so it got me thinking that somebody has to have crunched the numbers. If TTA Phase 1 is lets say $900M in 2007 dollars (my guess) and there's still $138M in state and another $138M in local (rental car fee) funds allocated for the rail project in the state TIP (FY 2010), could a TIF make up the old federal share for the remainder?

Let's inflate the $900M to $1B in 2010 dollars (assumed contract year), and add three years of rental car fees... that would leave a hefty $700M, give or take, in revenue needed to fund the line.

[danclever]

Speaking of the Crosstown Traffic blog, I saw a post from May 29 reporting the effect of the proposed amendment that would bar public agencies from using eminent domain powers to take private property for economic development projects. The blog states that this would outlaw future public-private partnerships like the one between TTA and Cherokee. If this amendment passed, would it keep TTA & Cherokee from doing anything, or would it only apply to future partnerships? Can someone explain? If this has already been discussed here, please refer me.

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/crosstown/in...p;tb=1&pb=1

[ncwebguy]

I don't think TIFs could create $700 million in revenue, but would federal funding have to be completly replaced?

Going with the $1 Billion 2010 contract, $150 M from rental car tax + $150 M in state contribution, TTA reapply for 30% federal financing ($300 M), leaving $400 M for Cherokee's investment and TIF financing. With several condo and apartment projects that would be on line by 2010 near the Raleigh and Durham stations, that should help ridership numbers somewhat? If new models were created in 2008/09 that did a better job of predicting ridership than the current low-ball formula, could thing be back on track?

RE: eminent domain amendment, from reading the N&O blog, it sounds like the proposed amendment won't stop the TTA-Cherokee deal and other deals like it, but it will make their life a lot harder.

It sounds like:

a) government agencies can still get land via eminent domain for public use

b) government agencies can partner with private partners to build public facilities on that land

but

c) the private partner could *not* build anything of their own on the land acquired via Eminent Domain.

i.e. Cherokee could build a rail stop on land acquired by the government, but would *not* be allowed to build shops, offices, condos, etc. above or around that stop on land acquired by the public agency and then "turned over" to private development.

[ChiefJoJo]

^The problem with involving the FTA is

(1) their ridership requirements are very stringent and would still be nearly impossible to meet, even with the new developments... keep in mind, the entire project is evaluated for cost/benefit, not just the federal share.

(2)you have to deal with their web of requirements. Funding it all via state/local/PPP, as some other communities have done, has some distinct advantages.

W/R/T the eminent domain issue, my read was that Cherokee would be grandfathered such that any property that was already acquired through eminent domain would be exempt, whereas CATS or PART would not be able to do a similar deal in the future. If Cherokee can't build on TTA's land then the whole deal is worthless unless it applies only to land acquired via eminent domain and not a negotiated purchase of private property. Maybe that's true, which would be a middle ground position, leaving some property available for Cherokee to work with (DTR station, for example)--but not all.

The whole point of doing the deal in the first place was so TTA can leverage it's property so they can do more than build parking lots and stations on it's 28 or so acres. It would be a shame if this overreaction to Kelo prevented Cherokee and TTA from being proactive in trying to help reduce the taxpayer burden in funding a rapid transit system.

[vitaviatic]

Clarification.

I do not, as of now, have any contacts with Cherokee either in Denver, or in Raleigh. I have sent them, or attempted to send, half a dozen communiques (the latest being a couple of days ago) offering my assistance, gratis. I have received no reply on any of them to date. Not a big deal, just don't want to mislead anyone. I am still trying to work a syndicate to get some "turnkey" operation numbers in place, but without a surefire funding structure it's a bit futile at this point.

I need some help. Can anyone give me a realtime status of the Seaboard corridor to North Raleigh? TTA possession? CSX possession? Abandoned? Option to buy in place? The waters are very murky when trying to put the pieces together from out here, and a trip to deeds and records in Raleigh is out of the question for me. iMaps doesn't clarify to any great detail either.

What I am thinking is to run with what some of you have said before. Perhaps isolating the startup operation to the confines of one or two municipalities would significantly simplify the funding structure (funding for additional service could be replicated in a cellular fashion using the original as a blueprint), and allow for a speedier start, even if the original service isn't the optimum.

Two very interesting parallels here. I know a lot of you are sick and tired of me talking about Denver, blah, blah, blah... Understood. But there are some characteristics that the TTA service area shares with the original RTD LRT line in Denver that it amazes me to no end that Claflin, of all people, could drop the ball. I will try to be succinct.

Downtowns:

Although 1990s Denver was still quite a bit bigger than Raleigh is today (even with the impressive buildup in real estate on your end), it was reeling from a huge office vacancy rate caused by accessibility problems (high parking rates) and spotty care given to infrastructure. The first set of improvements was to establish the self-taxing BID (Business Improvement District), and the 16th Street Mall Shuttle -- a free jitney bus that moves people up and down to the ends of downtown Denver -- which revitalized that commercial strip (both actually created in the early 80s). I have mentioned before that Raleigh needs to do something similar or lack of microtransit and mobility around the center city will become a drag on your new convention center. The second improvement was when the light rail loop was installed downtown; office vacancies dropped, and condo units came online due to drivers being able to park their cars outside of the CBD, saving tons of money in the process.

On the compensating side of size, DT Raleigh is a lot more compact, and probably would be served much more effectively by regional and/or local rail. Denver is the Colorado state capital, but the Capitol building, state offices, City & County Building, and city offices are hinged on the southeastern corner of downtown -- close to a half mile away from the nearest LRT station, and connected only by the aforementioned Mall Shuttle to LRT (which works reasonably well). State, county, and city government in Raleigh are all pretty well cloistered around the planned stations, making those integral contributors to the commuter pool. If all the projects that I see in the pipeline for DT Raleigh actually come to fruition, the workforce and residential numbers shrink even more between the two.

Universities:

Universities, in my opinion, are the engines that will make these things fly. It is an extreme waste of land, both in the commercial and the cultural sense, for institutions of higher learning to forfeit space on parking facilities -- whether they be flat lots or multi-level decks. To a population that is already struggling with tuition and COLA payments, schools can't charge a market rate for parking, so the revenues are marginal at best, if not outright moneylosers.

Auraria Campus in DT Denver houses three institutions of higher learning: Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College (a 4-year school), and the University of Colorado at Denver. Total campus student population is probably about the same as NCSU, faculty and admin-wise maybe a bit more, but not by much since they aren't major research centers like NCSU. NCSU is a smidge farther from DT Raleigh than Auraria from DT Denver (UCD actually began buying up skyscapers on the Speer Blvd. edge of Lower Downtown -- or LoDo). Once the Convention Center and MMTC are built closer to NCSU, the separation between NCSU and DTR will lessen too.

The story goes like this. Auraria conceeded land on its southern boundary for RTD to run the "D" line into DTD. In the agreement to do so, RTD and Auraria forged a deal whereby Auraria student IDs would be accepted as transit passes (and they are), validated by a decal for which the student pays something like $25 each semester (whether he or she rides the train or not). That's about $1.5M guaranteed income per year right off the top from students (using a 20% summer school rate). On the whole it's a pretty darn good benefit (good for regional travel on RTD) for less than the usual "student activites fee" for which many students get little or no benefit. The students can still drive if they want, but they pay for it, and transit is always an option. Faculty and admin staff are also offered discounts as well, and I've seen more than one professor grading tests aboard on the way to and from work (they seem to really appreciate the bonus time).

(Note: Any of you who may have visited our proposals at the website know that we factored in this kind of program for TTA.)

NCSU Main Campus has been bottlenecked for years. I know NCSU has better things to do between Hillsborough St. and Western Blvd. than put up more parking decks. In this case, at NCSU, the right-of-way is already there. Nothing really to negotiate, unless some sort of trade was worked out for the university to build the platform or station. NCSU has everything to gain by signing on to this thing, even if they plan on spreading out all over Centennial Campus. The critical mass is around the tracks, and nothing they do at Centennial will change that.

So, with these two nuclei, we start from DTR to Fairgrounds, and both DTR and NCSU benefit from parking access. Minimal track upgrades needed. Trains already running the line (for precedent). Assuming the Wye is worked as part of the Raleigh MMTC, Government Center could be tacked on quickly as well. Then go north along the Seaboard. However, I would diverge from TTA's original tack as running this corridor as "regional", and add more stations, making it a "local" service. I have a few reservations about relying completely on Spring Forest and New Hope to collect all of my North Raleigh traffic. For one, there will be parking shortages, for even big lots, with only two stations online north of the Beltline (to me, that's insane). For another, the real activity centers seem to be blown through (Highwoods, for example), as well as some ripe areas for redevelopment (Atlantic all the way from Millbrook to Whitaker Mill).

The main problem with starting north has always been the upfront cost of track improvements necessary for starting pax service. By adding stations and reducing speeds, you reduce the classification of trackage needed for the service, thus the more expensive upgrades right off, even while adding more platforms in. In the end, you'll collect more people, increasing the farebox. And when able, "express" service can be dovetailed in to connect to the RDU corridor, with limited North Raleigh stops, but transfer capability at those limited stops from the locals. Less money upfront.

Specifics:

Separate the North Raleigh service from Raleigh to Durham service. You want to keep the speeds high and the stops as limited as you can on the NCRR run because you have a greater distance to cover, and you are "competing" with freeways. DTR to North Raleigh really isn't that long a run, and even a train that maxes at 30 mph, making six intermediate stops, should easily beat cars getting hammered for three and four light cycles all the way down (take your pick) any of the streets headed downtown. I wouldn't worry too much about interconnecting passengers to RTP. From North Raleigh, only hardcore transit buffs will tolerate that kind of ride even on an "express" run all the way through (though you'd be surprised by how many would).

Recommended Stations:

Spring Forest (if not Wake Forest, as in "Town of")

Millbrook

New Hope

Highwoods (with Highwoods Blvd. and Wolfpack Lane upgraded and run all the way through to RCH and St. Albans Dr., you then have a fast street connection to North Hills)

Whitaker Mill (this area is ripe for Redev)

Mordecai (at the northern terminus of Blount St., with a skybridge over Downtown, er, excuse me, "Capital" Blvd. to Fairview Rd., makes for a neat little walking connection to Five Points)

Government Center

DTR (MMTC)

You need Highwoods online to make any kind of correlation to the Beltline at all, not to mention the mid-rise office buildings there. Millbrook is a historical town center, and a very busy crosslateral street through North Raleigh, so why not? Whitaker Mill has been languishing at the nexus of three thoroughfares with stratospheric traffic counts for forty years. Old warehouses? Storage yards? Please!! Somebody please tell me there is some imagination there!!! Mordecai, in my mind, could be the crown jewel of the lot -- the most urbane, pedestrian-oriented station on the system -- and in our experience out here, the locals tend to be supportive as long as you don't generate tons of cars on their quiet residential streets.

The Math:

7 miles @ avg. 25 mph = about 17 minutes runtime

6 intermediate station stops @ 1 minute each = 6 minutes dwelltime

Total Spring Forest to DTR = 23 minutes

Not spectacular, but competitive certainly with cars for speed, extremely competitive in cost (with parking factored in), and a lot more fun.

A local type service like this could even be started with streetcars, lessening the weight of rail needed, low speed turnouts, etc., reducing upfront cash needs. NCRR will already accomodate heavy rail equipment, so this isn't an issue there. But if North Raleigh is opened, it'll more than likely be a "build what you can, when you can" type of proposition.

Yes, this is all quite "Raleigh-centric", admittedly, Durham boosters. But Raleigh is the logical place to start, and can generate the most local support. If service can bootstrap in Raleigh, then as fed funds become available, the load may be lessened on Durham (as well as Raleigh and Cary) to expand the system (which would inevitably happen). Without Chapel Hill, Durham simply doesn't have an axis of activity large enough to support rail. And to Chapel Hill, from Durham, you're starting from scratch -- the most expensive way to go.

Factor in "Eastrans" for a moment. An hour or so train ride into DTR from Goldsboro, with a 25-minute connection to Spring Forest, and a shuttle to Triangle Town Center, to me seems a big improvement over the hellish drive up US 70, even just to Clayton. Sell this to the senior population Down East (well, everybody Down East) and you get a helluva swell of support.

[burt]

Isn't the Seaboard line from the north into Raleigh reserved for SEHS combined with now abandoned portions of the corridor between Henderson and Petersburg?

[tjoad]

Brief story on Charlotte official Ron Tober giving the Transit Advisory Committee a lecture.

*WARNING* As with any story from WRAL.com, read the comments at your own risk!

[JDC]

Speaking of government officials and transit, if you want to see light rail in the Triangle one day, maybe voting for Bill Richardson wouldn't be such a bad idea...

Candidate says light rail could transform cities

[vitaviatic]

Here's something that might interest followers here. It is a writeup about SeaTac's Sound Transit, which even though well-funded, faced many of the same issues that the Triangle does today.

Mass Transit Magazine -- Feb.-Mar. 2007

Of particular note here: 1) ST's enormous PR problem stemming from incomplete information hitting the press concerning cost overruns and the like; 2) despite that, the public's continued backing of the proposed system itself before, during, and after the travails; and 3) the can't see the forest for the tree syndrome, which almost derailed the agency.

Here's another article from the same issue, reiterating some of the same things many of us have been saying all along...

Mass Transit Magazine -- Feb.-Mar. 2007

I also keep reading stuff about how TTA is going to "take a fresh look at all the options". I would advise that to stop, and now. Time is wasting, and every year that passes, that much more money. Unless you want to reinvent the wheel (and push the startup date out to something like, oh, 20-oh-never) with schemes like BRT and light rail, you have no other choice than commuter rail via the NCRR. Even substantial upgrades to that line will cost way less than even 4 or 5 miles of brand new track. For those who think you can run light rail down that same corridor, we'll say it again -- you cannot, and will not do it, according to the FRA, and their mandated 25 ft. separation of heavy and light rail vehicles and trackage. You might as well start all over somewhere else at the rate of around $35 million per mile. Perhaps you could do that later on, once a viable intercity transit structure exists, and a sufficient pipeline of funding is established, but for starters -- no way in hell.

What could be done (although very much a longshot) is to splice a transit system into an omnibus highway bill to widen/improve NC 54, and run the thing down Western Blvd., NC 54, then down the Durham Freeway into Durham. However, I can almost guarantee that proposal would hit major snags in DT Cary, as the freight rail will be too close to any viable corridor in that area. That means flyovers, and big cost spikes for that. Any other route would take it away from the institutional traffic supplies like NCSU, the airport (via Morrisville), and much of RTP, thus rendering it largely ineffective in the absence of major high density buildups elsewhere. And as I related before concerning RTD's LRT, that system pretty much owes its very existence to college students from Auraria Campus.

Instead of literally studying the d@mn thing to death, someone needs to put their foot down, make a decision, and say "We're going with this, so let's get it done".

[vitaviatic]

Stuff like this won't help TTA's case at the FTA for fed funding:

N&O OpEd 06/24/2007

Bus service within a metro area counts when that metro is asking for funding, as is the case with TTA, whether the service problems are TTA's fault or not. It is a red flag of potential connectivity problems that will kick TTA's score way down.

I've read several of Josh Shaffer's articles, and the picture that appears to me, as viewed from afar, is that of a failed transit system. CAT seems to only operate as a money pump for fed transit funds in order to secure a raft of patronage jobs. This kind of service would not have stood anywhere in the West before it got summarily deleted or reorganized wholesale by a public referendum. Unless something has changed, NC does not have that kind of redress. But somebody needs to get the city of Raleigh the message that this pathetic performance by CAT is not acceptable no matter what the excuse. And knowing better than to be an optimist where Raleigh city government is concerned, I presume that would be met with muffled laughter. Maybe they should laugh at this -- an enterprising attorney with knowledge of the federal grants and assistance structure could probably rake away a good deal of CAT's fed funding based on this type of shoddy operation, provided the documentation and sufficient testimonials were come by from passengers (in this case, more like victims). There are indeed strings attached to that type of funding, and non- or severe underperformance can get money shut off -- even recovered.

Perhaps it is time to approach the Legislature. The State seems to be the proactive entity when it comes to transit anyway, and with NC's admirable efforts with supporting Amtrak trains, I think they would be better stewards of the ship anyway. Have the Legislature: 1) revoke the city's authority to operate CAT; 2) reorganize TTA, fusing all Durham and Wake County transit systems together into one operation, with spur service only to Chapel Hill (as CHT has a pretty good local thing going), in order to reduce overhead and increase marketing and buying power for equipment; and 3) strip the city of Raleigh of whatever was budgeted for transit, and either withhold that share of the city's share of the sales tax, or recind part of the city's receipts of a state authorized tax (such as the hotel occupancy tax) by that amount, to prevent the city from reaping a windfall of extra money and no bus system to run, and essentially double-taxation to the taxpayer. Create a Triangle Mass Transportation District or some such thing, fold TTA in under it, with some modified source of income.

I was quite frankly shocked and appalled when, a couple of weeks ago I was researching CAT schedules, I found several things that indicated to me that CAT is indeed seen as at best an afterthought, maybe even a necessary inconvenience to score a fedbuck to the city. First, I Googled "Raleigh transit", which should have taken me directly to a CAT website (especially if it were geared for a tourist component). Instead, I was taken to the city of Raleigh's main portal, which listed nothing even related to transit. So, I had to search a second time with the city's site. Then I came up to a "Welcome to Transit" page, which merely gave a thirtysome item list of routes, with no maps or descriptives to even explain which routes went where. Through a small link in an obscure box in the upper righthand corner, I finally came to a third page -- cat (sic) System Wide Map. I was finally able to download a PDF map of cat (sic) routes (perhaps there was an underlying message in the use of miniscule lettering). In essence, to even understand the system, I had to reverse engineer the process in order to even dicipher the route structure, let alone pick a bus from a schedule. It's almost if they didn't care if anybody rode the d@mn thing!.

But the shock wasn't over. What I found was a slightly modified warmover of the same route structure that was in place in the 1960s. Some of the old routes were extended a bit (but none beyond I-540), and some "crosstown" (ha, ha) routes were added in places like Millbrook, etc. Some of the outer city routes were so tedious and circuitous that I could tell the story subjects weren't exagerrating when they said it took an hour and a half to get across Raleigh. Folks, Raleigh ain't that big!

I counted a sum total of 38 routes (some of these I am sure were circulators served by what we playfully call "mail trucks". Some of the headways were an hour, and evidently run by thirty year-old buses. Seriously. If you can't run the thing at least twice an hour, why even bother? Holy crap, you can't even get to Cary, you can't get to Leesville, you can't get to Wakefield -- and these are all fast growing sectors of Wake County, and some parts of Raleigh itself. In order for Raleigh and Durham to have sufficient service in order to cultivate a ridership, there should over a hundred bus routes between them, and not like the squiggly lines on your child's Etch-A-Sketch. Or, many of the "in and out" runs to downtown replaced with higher capacity train service, and the buses redeployed to run more effective circulator routes outside the Beltline.

More later...

[sax184]

Stuff like this won't help TTA's case at the FTA for fed funding:

N&O OpEd 06/24/2007

Bus service within a metro area counts when that metro is asking for funding, as is the case with TTA, whether the service problems are TTA's fault or not. It is a red flag of potential connectivity problems that will kick TTA's score way down.

I've read several of Josh Shaffer's articles, and the picture that appears to me, as viewed from afar, is that of a failed transit system. CAT seems to only operate as a money pump for fed transit funds in order to secure a raft of patronage jobs. This kind of service would not have stood anywhere in the West before it got summarily deleted or reorganized wholesale by a public referendum. Unless something has changed, NC does not have that kind of redress. But somebody needs to get the city of Raleigh the message that this pathetic performance by CAT is not acceptable no matter what the excuse. And knowing better than to be an optimist where Raleigh city government is concerned, I presume that would be met with muffled laughter. Maybe they should laugh at this -- an enterprising attorney with knowledge of the federal grants and assistance structure could probably rake away a good deal of CAT's fed funding based on this type of shoddy operation, provided the documentation and sufficient testimonials were come by from passengers (in this case, more like victims). There are indeed strings attached to that type of funding, and non- or severe underperformance can get money shut off -- even recovered.

Perhaps it is time to approach the Legislature. The State seems to be the proactive entity when it comes to transit anyway, and with NC's admirable efforts with supporting Amtrak trains, I think they would be better stewards of the ship anyway. Have the Legislature: 1) revoke the city's authority to operate CAT; 2) reorganize TTA, fusing all Durham and Wake County transit systems together into one operation, with spur service only to Chapel Hill (as CHT has a pretty good local thing going), in order to reduce overhead and increase marketing and buying power for equipment; and 3) strip the city of Raleigh of whatever was budgeted for transit, and either withhold that share of the city's share of the sales tax, or recind part of the city's receipts of a state authorized tax (such as the hotel occupancy tax) by that amount, to prevent the city from reaping a windfall of extra money and no bus system to run, and essentially double-taxation to the taxpayer. Create a Triangle Mass Transportation District or some such thing, fold TTA in under it, with some modified source of income.

I was quite frankly shocked and appalled when, a couple of weeks ago I was researching CAT schedules, I found several things that indicated to me that CAT is indeed seen as at best an afterthought, maybe even a necessary inconvenience to score a fedbuck to the city. First, I Googled "Raleigh transit", which should have taken me directly to a CAT website (especially if it were geared for a tourist component). Instead, I was taken to the city of Raleigh's main portal, which listed nothing even related to transit. So, I had to search a second time with the city's site. Then I came up to a "Welcome to Transit" page, which merely gave a thirtysome item list of routes, with no maps or descriptives to even explain which routes went where. Through a small link in an obscure box in the upper righthand corner, I finally came to a third page -- cat (sic) System Wide Map. I was finally able to download a PDF map of cat (sic) routes (perhaps there was an underlying message in the use of miniscule lettering). In essence, to even understand the system, I had to reverse engineer the process in order to even dicipher the route structure, let alone pick a bus from a schedule. It's almost if they didn't care if anybody rode the d@mn thing!.

But the shock wasn't over. What I found was a slightly modified warmover of the same route structure that was in place in the 1960s. Some of the old routes were extended a bit (but none beyond I-540), and some "crosstown" (ha, ha) routes were added in places like Millbrook, etc. Some of the outer city routes were so tedious and circuitous that I could tell the story subjects weren't exagerrating when they said it took an hour and a half to get across Raleigh. Folks, Raleigh ain't that big!

I counted a sum total of 38 routes (some of these I am sure were circulators served by what we playfully call "mail trucks". Some of the headways were an hour, and evidently run by thirty year-old buses. Seriously. If you can't run the thing at least twice an hour, why even bother? Holy crap, you can't even get to Cary, you can't get to Leesville, you can't get to Wakefield -- and these are all fast growing sectors of Wake County, and some parts of Raleigh itself. In order for Raleigh and Durham to have sufficient service in order to cultivate a ridership, there should over a hundred bus routes between them, and not like the squiggly lines on your child's Etch-A-Sketch. Or, many of the "in and out" runs to downtown replaced with higher capacity train service, and the buses redeployed to run more effective circulator routes outside the Beltline.

More later...

[sax184]

Stuff like this won't help TTA's case at the FTA for fed funding:

N&O OpEd 06/24/2007

Bus service within a metro area counts when that metro is asking for funding, as is the case with TTA, whether the service problems are TTA's fault or not. It is a red flag of potential connectivity problems that will kick TTA's score way down.

I've read several of Josh Shaffer's articles, and the picture that appears to me, as viewed from afar, is that of a failed transit system. CAT seems to only operate as a money pump for fed transit funds in order to secure a raft of patronage jobs. This kind of service would not have stood anywhere in the West before it got summarily deleted or reorganized wholesale by a public referendum. Unless something has changed, NC does not have that kind of redress. But somebody needs to get the city of Raleigh the message that this pathetic performance by CAT is not acceptable no matter what the excuse. And knowing better than to be an optimist where Raleigh city government is concerned, I presume that would be met with muffled laughter. Maybe they should laugh at this -- an enterprising attorney with knowledge of the federal grants and assistance structure could probably rake away a good deal of CAT's fed funding based on this type of shoddy operation, provided the documentation and sufficient testimonials were come by from passengers (in this case, more like victims). There are indeed strings attached to that type of funding, and non- or severe underperformance can get money shut off -- even recovered.

Perhaps it is time to approach the Legislature. The State seems to be the proactive entity when it comes to transit anyway, and with NC's admirable efforts with supporting Amtrak trains, I think they would be better stewards of the ship anyway. Have the Legislature: 1) revoke the city's authority to operate CAT; 2) reorganize TTA, fusing all Durham and Wake County transit systems together into one operation, with spur service only to Chapel Hill (as CHT has a pretty good local thing going), in order to reduce overhead and increase marketing and buying power for equipment; and 3) strip the city of Raleigh of whatever was budgeted for transit, and either withhold that share of the city's share of the sales tax, or recind part of the city's receipts of a state authorized tax (such as the hotel occupancy tax) by that amount, to prevent the city from reaping a windfall of extra money and no bus system to run, and essentially double-taxation to the taxpayer. Create a Triangle Mass Transportation District or some such thing, fold TTA in under it, with some modified source of income.

I was quite frankly shocked and appalled when, a couple of weeks ago I was researching CAT schedules, I found several things that indicated to me that CAT is indeed seen as at best an afterthought, maybe even a necessary inconvenience to score a fedbuck to the city. First, I Googled "Raleigh transit", which should have taken me directly to a CAT website (especially if it were geared for a tourist component). Instead, I was taken to the city of Raleigh's main portal, which listed nothing even related to transit. So, I had to search a second time with the city's site. Then I came up to a "Welcome to Transit" page, which merely gave a thirtysome item list of routes, with no maps or descriptives to even explain which routes went where. Through a small link in an obscure box in the upper righthand corner, I finally came to a third page -- cat (sic) System Wide Map. I was finally able to download a PDF map of cat (sic) routes (perhaps there was an underlying message in the use of miniscule lettering). In essence, to even understand the system, I had to reverse engineer the process in order to even dicipher the route structure, let alone pick a bus from a schedule. It's almost if they didn't care if anybody rode the d@mn thing!.

But the shock wasn't over. What I found was a slightly modified warmover of the same route structure that was in place in the 1960s. Some of the old routes were extended a bit (but none beyond I-540), and some "crosstown" (ha, ha) routes were added in places like Millbrook, etc. Some of the outer city routes were so tedious and circuitous that I could tell the story subjects weren't exagerrating when they said it took an hour and a half to get across Raleigh. Folks, Raleigh ain't that big!

I counted a sum total of 38 routes (some of these I am sure were circulators served by what we playfully call "mail trucks". Some of the headways were an hour, and evidently run by thirty year-old buses. Seriously. If you can't run the thing at least twice an hour, why even bother? Holy crap, you can't even get to Cary, you can't get to Leesville, you can't get to Wakefield -- and these are all fast growing sectors of Wake County, and some parts of Raleigh itself. In order for Raleigh and Durham to have sufficient service in order to cultivate a ridership, there should over a hundred bus routes between them, and not like the squiggly lines on your child's Etch-A-Sketch. Or, many of the "in and out" runs to downtown replaced with higher capacity train service, and the buses redeployed to run more effective circulator routes outside the Beltline.

More later...

[vitaviatic]

Why is it the fault of the transit agency that the City underfunds it and its expansion (CAT developed a 5-Year Plan that works on many of the system's shortcomings, but the City Council has not funded it so it is 2-4 years behind) and approves site plans that are hostile to transit? Why is the transit agency to blame for the potentially class-based motivations of North Raleigh shopping centers that make it harder to provide direct access?

You keep making comparisons to Denver. Take out DIA and the land annexed to reach it, and Raleigh and Denver are about the same physical size. Compare their annual operating budgets and you will see why there is no service in the further reaches of Raleigh and that much of the service that does exist is skeletal and low-frequency.

Now imagine Capital Area Transit making a vocal case for more money. What it is the most likely response? "The money-grubbing transit agency's gettin' greedy again!"

[sax184]

I value your input Transitman. However, I think you mistake the target of my arrows. The target was the city. Of course CAT has no recourse if the city underfunds it. I can imagine there are probably good and frustrated people in the Raleigh Transit Agency (I think that's CAT's governing body anyway) pulling their collective hair out, and suffering in shame everyday. What I was saying was (and your statements seem to back this up) is that the city is a bad steward for transit, has no interest in transit, sees little value in transit -- thus should be relieved of the burden of having to do transit. IMHO, the whole thing would function better if folded into an autonomous agency under state authority. If you were personally affronted by these comments, I am sorry, but under this chronic scenario of underfunded, balkanized operations, the whole will suffer from the negligence of the smaller parts.

I refer to Denver only as a standard. I could use (and often have) other cities as examples. Portland would be a good one, for size comparisons and other reasons, but that city is so far ahead of the rest of us that it would be almost auto-immolation to do so. Albuquerque is half the size of the Triangle (even if Santa Fe is thrown in), but gets the job done. I use Denver for two reasons. One -- Familiarity. I see it everyday. Two -- Organization. The biggest difference is how the transit systems are organized. RTD is an amalgam of six counties contributing resources to a single system. The Triangle is a hodgepodge of some 15 to 20 cities, all doing their own thing -- which by design assures that everything will be undersized. Denver's metropolitan area is only about twice the size of the Triangle (and that is shrinking every year), yet the transit system is about eight or nine times the size. And the reasons for it have nothing to do with size, ability, or even the rider market. Rather, it's pure politics.

If in fact CAT could find its way to better funding, and get the service levels up to par, that would be great. But highly unlikely in the pickle that the city of Raleigh has put them in. If the state would see the light, and unshackle transit in the Triangle by both combining resources of the several agencies there, and more importantly, giving them a direct democratic link to the people (via a metropolitan transit authority, and the board that comes with it) I think your progress would be earthshaking over a five to ten year period. Better and better system. Moving more people. Hell, more jobs!

Trust me Transitman, I know where the blame (if really there is any blame) should go. I've railed on stingy-assed Raleigh city government over other causes than this. It's not the poor guy or gal driving the sweltering, overheating 30 year old bus. It's not the mechanics that resort to bailing wire and rubber bands due to tight budgets. Nor is it the guy at the desk trying to put a decent system out there everyday being bitten in the heels by bureaucrats. I'd say it starts in the City Manager's office, spreads to Council, and works its way down.

Keep your chins up guys. It's not only a learning curve, but it's one helluva bootstrap to go from a cozy collection of mid-sized cities to a teeming metropolis in 15 to 20 years.

[vitaviatic]

Okay, re-reading your post I can see how you're focusing on the city. I guess the "patronage jobs" language as a description of CAT seemed pretty directed at the agency. Your state-takeover concept is interesting, but I think unlikely to occur here. All the places you mention above are states (NM, CO, OR) with one very strong city in comparison with the rest of the state. Charlotte is certainly the lead city in NC but is not the monolith that Denver is in CO or Portland is in Oregon. I don't see anyone bearing the torch for transit at the state level in a meaningful way. Gripes of various members of this forum aside, the leadership on transit in NC is firmly ensconced in Charlotte.

[sax184]

Your point about the dangers of contracting gone bad is a good one. The MBTA in Boston has had a ridiculous experience with the maintenance and lack of AC on Commuter Rail trains in the summers since it ended its contract with Amtrak and gave a 5-year crak at it to a consortium called Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad. Still, I don't think the situation in Raleigh is held back by contracting arrangements nearly as much as it is by the politics of where routes go in the city and resistance to change, coupled with a healthy dose of Triangle disease. ("how can we do it cheap?")

I also agree that the fragmented nature of the transit services makes it hard to connect from A to B to C. But there are steps in the right direction. You complained about the CAT website, which is indeed, mostly useless. However, it seems like all the transit agencies are putting their efforts into the www.gotriangle.org website. You should check it out.

But is the state really the answer here? I don't think so. Remember, we still have a mostly rural legislature and that will probably not be corrected until the 2010 Census re-draws the political boundaries that better represents urban population growth over the last 10 years in NC, particularly in the Triangle. So even if you did put transit in the hands of the state, you would be handing decisionmaking power to a policy board that is more geographically dissipated than the region and has much less experience with urban issues and mobility constraints imposed by a highways-only approach.

Right now, 70% of Raleigh citizens are supportive of higher impact fees on development to pay for growth. However, this is completely off the table at the state legislature because the NC Realtors and Homebuilders run the place, so they're arguing about second-best solutions like transfer taxes, etc. ChiefJoJo has reported multiple times on how the state budget process, including the Governor, isn't doing much about transportation, regardless of mode.

As to Bogota, I previously worked with one of the engineers who worked on the design of the TransMilenio system. Bogota is an entirely different animal. They have car-free days every WEEK where they shut hundreds of miles of roads to cars. Sound like Raleigh? Ha.

The Bogota Mayor's position is strong in a way that few offices are in the US, and Penalosa (the political force behind Transmilenio) is a visionary on the world stage. Ken Livingston enjoys a similar position in London, and gets things DONE. (Congestion Charge, Olympics) Charles Meeker has an upbeat personality, but he is in a strong-Council, weak-Mayor system and he's an incrementalist. These bus systems in developing countries are impressive in many ways, but they have come into being in an environment that politically and from a governance perspective, is very far from our world in the US.

[ChiefJoJo]

Certainly, the state should not play a large role in decision-making for a regional transit conglomerate, but they should force the consolidation issue, and could potentially do that by dangling the carrot of state matching funds for the rail system ($138M IIRC). I agree with transitman that there are too many subversive rural politicians to let the state legislature try to do much more than that, but that in itself would be huge. The state, in the form of the transit division of DOT, has made efforts to encourage CAT, DATA, TTA, etc to consolidate, but the gotriangle.com and unified call center is the furthest everyone will go so far. I belive the only way for the Triangle to have a regional system in the short term would be with state action.

I doubt it would be popular, but there is certainly an opportunity for the next Governor to focus on improving transportation statewide and in the urban areas (Clt, Triad, Triangle) and make it a priority to fund transit and force consolidation of the various agencies and the MPOs as well. Particularly in the Triangle, the most direct path to success from a planning perspective would be through a single regional transportation and land use planning authority such as in the Portland area. Let a large regional entity make large scale land use and transportation decisions (freeways, transit lines, bus routes, malls, TODs, etc) and leave the smaller scale decisions to the local boards. No one will want to give up control so It'll never happen.

[Jones_]

, but they should force the consolidation issue, and could potentially do that by dangling the carrot of state matching funds for the rail system ($138M IIRC). I agree with transitman that there are too many subversive rural politicians to let the state legislature try to do much more than that, but that in itself would be huge....I belive the only way for the Triangle to have a regional system in the short term would be with state action.

I doubt it would be popular, but there is certainly an opportunity for the next Governor to focus on improving transportation statewide and in the urban areas (Clt, Triad, Triangle) and make it a priority to fund transit and force consolidation of the various agencies and the MPOs as well. Particularly in the Triangle, the most direct path to success from a planning perspective would be through a single regional transportation and land use planning authority such as in the Portland area. Let a large regional entity make large scale land use and transportation decisions (freeways, transit lines, bus routes, malls, TODs, etc) and leave the smaller scale decisions to the local boards. No one will want to give up control so It'll never happen.

[vitaviatic]

The Bogot

[sax184]

The thing is though (and it shouldn't be hard to prove with the numbers) that even with gas (permanently, I think) over the $2.50 a gallon mark, the dynamics are way different now, and do favor the resurgence of mass transit in the form of trains and buses. The Triangle thrives because it has the crucial elements that are needed for communities to prosper in the information age, and for agrarian communities or military-dependent places Down East, it is more imperative than ever that they get and stay connected with those elements such as large medical facilities, universities, and high-tech job centers like RTP. The commercial and cultural stuff like shopping and concerts are important too, as without access to them, young people tend to fly the coup for the Triangle itself, Atlanta, Miami, New York -- wherever. If there's one thing that a "rural" legislator knows, is that his district is "graying out". If you're on the coast, and can play host to wealthy retirement communities, you're fine. If not (and many of these agrarian counties aren't) you're screwed. Your taxpaying base is either leaving or dying off, and over ten to fifteen years you won't have much of a constituency left. Your district then gets eliminated or redrawn. It doesn't have to be this way.

[urbanaturalist]

^^^^^^^^^^

I agree Vitaviatic. This is a citified state even if not so much in the cultural sense and it is only going to get more urban as more people transplant here, etc. I also like Vitaviatic idea about establishing a "Piedmont Crescent"

transit agency that is divided between the Triangle, Triad and Charlotte areas but work on the same goals, which would be best expressed I think as efficiency, connectivity w/o automobiles, reducing pollution and better land use practices. The idea of connecting with outerlying counties because of the attraction of lower housing prices is an important aspect of metro areas, and adding commuter/regional/metro rail to the mix will help alleviate pressue from the roads.

However, Transitman, you're right to the point that the Legislature is not quite at that tipping point where a majority or good portion of politicians see the Smart Growth light, but its not overwhelming, just kinda

sitting on the porch drinking sweet tea lackadaisical apathy when it comes to thinking in broad metro/regional terms like this.

[ChiefJoJo]

I'm headed to Portland in two weeks, and found this article on a planned extension of the Portland Streetcar line. I thought this was a unique financing tool:

The city plans to pay for the eastside loop with a mix of government and property owners' cash. By August, Commissioner Sam Adams, who runs the city's transportation office, expects to finish a request for $75 million in federal aid.

The $15 million raised from property owners will be charged through what's known as a local improvement district. The city's theory is that property owners will share in the streetcar's benefits with rising property values so they should share in the cost.

Apparently, most people haven't objected to the assessments. It's educational to see what's going on elsewhere--maybe one day when our leaders get their heads out of the sand, we'll be able to use a few ideas here.

IMO a streetcar would be perfect fit for Hillsborough St in Raleigh or Franklin St in Chapel Hill, helping connect or complement TTA regional rail service planned between Raleigh and Durham and Durham and Chapel Hill.

[vitaviatic]

I'm headed to Portland in two weeks, and found this article on a planned extension of the Portland Streetcar line. I thought this was a unique financing tool:

The city plans to pay for the eastside loop with a mix of government and property owners' cash. By August, Commissioner Sam Adams, who runs the city's transportation office, expects to finish a request for $75 million in federal aid.

The $15 million raised from property owners will be charged through what's known as a local improvement district. The city's theory is that property owners will share in the streetcar's benefits with rising property values so they should share in the cost.

Apparently, most people haven't objected to the assessments. It's educational to see what's going on elsewhere--maybe one day when our leaders get their heads out of the sand, we'll be able to use a few ideas here...