Commuter Rail - Garner to West Durham

This.

Early studies about commuter rail pretty much exactly said what @Thomas said (I’m having a hard time finding it because it was hidden in the fine print, but it’s definitely there). If you want to overturn that, you’ll need to come up with a counterexample that answers:

Specifically, these are the physical obstacles you’ll need to work with between the NCRR line (orange) and RDU:

Basically, stopping directly at RDU means you have to:

  • go out of your way to build new rail (rather than taking advantage of existing tracks, which saves hundreds of millions of dollars)
  • figure out where the rail will go
  • keep private business owners, residents, and/or the NCDOT (because of I-40 and NC-540) from getting mad at you for taking their land as a part of your right-of-way
  • turn a train into the RDU spur, stop at the airport (even for people who aren’t stopping there), turn back around, and somehow still get to places faster than by car
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