You took a lot of liberty to translate my statement to this!
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I argue with your statement about the transit tax because you are factually wrong. In previous posts, I have outlined the ways in which you are factually wrong and you have dismissed them out of hand. If you’re not using bus routes on Sundays, or late nights, or at 30-minute intervals, or in areas like southeast Raleigh or Wake Forest, then yes it may seem that you are not getting much for your money. Fortunately there are tens of thousands of riders on the bus network who are seeing the benefits. Please read my previous posts because I don’t feel like explaining this again, but I will say that you seem to 1) have no idea how many rules and regulations and hoops that need to be jumped through to build and operate high capacity public transit and 2) you seem to think the progress that has been made in barely three years is insufficient because it does not benefit you personally.
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Good points, @Kevin. You are correct that I don’t use pubic transport and haven’t read your prior posts. I have ignored expanded routes and hours. My frustration comes from seeing no progress on any mass transit beyond bus … even BRT seems very very slow. Thanks for your post … it educated me.
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Thanks for the respectful reply. I know the lack of public progress on BRT is disheartening but I can assure you that it is moving forward through the design phase right now.
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Hi all! I’m new to these parts, but I wanted to give you a heads up that NCDOT has a new survey out regarding their State Rail Plan Update. Raleigh DOT just tweeted about it. Hit that up if you can and advocate for commuter rail!
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From today’s CAMPO TCC meeting, there is really only 1 viable option for Commuter Rail which is likely to meet the bar for Federal funding…the Durham/Garner most frequent (8 trains/day) option. That’s what they are taking forward. Tons of work and approvals ahead but they are still talking about 2027 or 2029 implementation dates.
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One of the big criticisms in the report that APTA prepared for GoTriangle was that they had bitten off more than they could chew with the DOLRT project. I think Mebane-Selma is an excellent long-term goal, but for the time being, it’s best to just get Durham-Garner up and running. Much higher chance of success if we start small.
Also, @djberryann, would you happen to know if that entire slideshow has been published yet? I can’t find it on the CAMPO site, but I’d really like to check it out.
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WOW…and the thinking is these “scores/figures” are for the projected 2027 time frame and or afterward?
- Good grief. These projects are always 10 years out. I moved here in 2011 and it seemed like they were talking commuter rail in 10 years at that time…
And only 8 trains a day? That won’t be very frequent service. If they run 6 am until 8 pm that’s 14 hours. And 8 trains would mean barely one train every 1.5 hours.
Am I missing something?
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No, CAMPO now distributes their agenda and presentations via email to the TCC attendees so as a member of the public, I did not receive it. This is what the staff recommendation said: “ Greater Triangle Commuter Rail Alternatives Analysis Preliminary Results
Bret Martin, CAMPO Staff and Katharine Eggleston, GoTriangle Staff
One City Plaza 421 Fayetteville Street Suite 203 Raleigh, NC 27601
Agenda Item:
GoTriangle, as the designated project sponsor for the commuter rail corridor identified in the Wake County Transit Plan, is nearing completion of an alternatives analysis/feasibility study for a commuter rail project within the corridor. The study has evaluated:
- The ability for the corridor to accommodate varying levels of service;
- To what extent infrastructure improvements would need to be made to accommodate various service
scenarios and the cost of those improvements; - The cost of other capital requirements, such as rolling stock, to accommodate the service scenarios;
- Ridership projections for the service scenarios yielded by the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA)
Simplified Trips On Project Software (STOPS) modeling framework; - A planning-level project implementation schedule; and
- Risks that could impact project feasibility, including cost and schedule impacts.
This evaluation was applied to a variety of project termini scenarios along the North Carolina Railroad corridor between Selma in Johnston County and Mebane in Alamance County. The ultimate goal of the study is to equip GoTriangle and its regional partners with more detailed information on the productivity, feasibility, and project delivery requirements of a commuter rail project within the corridor.
Preliminary results from the study will be shared with the TCC at its January 2nd meeting. It is anticipated that discussions on next steps for potential project implementation will continue with the TCC and Executive Board beyond January that will ultimately lead to a decision on when, how, and to what extent a project within the corridor will be studied further.
Requested Action: …Action Receive as information”
Here is the only other picture/chart I took of the presentation
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No, I believe it means literally 8 trains making multiple runs per day. I believe it translated to 40 trips and 24/7 service. It was their most frequent scenario. Maybe some of the train experts on this forum can better interpret the 8/2/8/2 description of service level.
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It means 20 round trips a day: 8 in the morning, 2 midday, 8 in the afternoon/evening rush hour, and 2 in the evening.
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That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for clarifying. Otherwise why bother…
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2 midday trips is inadequate, long term at least. I hope they will (sooner rather than later) follow up with a Wake Forest line, alternating with trains from Raleigh Union Station west, effectively doubling the frequency from there to Durham.
Mebane-Selma is clearly a stretch for right now, but what about extending the western endpoint to Hillsborough?
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So, if Selma/Johnston County wants in on the commuter rail game, they’re going to have to do it on their own in the short run. But, that also means that the second RUS platform and third house track needs to get moving as well.
Agree that 2 mid-day trips is completely inadequate. There should at least be hourly service mid-day.
With all due respect, you’re missing quite a bit.
- On your first point, they need to go through ROW acquisition, double and triple-tracking plans, environmental assessment (probably a full report, which costs millions and takes at least a year), secure Federal funding, actually construct the new tracks, stations, signals, purchase the locomotives and passenger cars, build a maintenance and operations facility, staff the project, test the trains, test the service, and then actually start passenger operations. So yeah, it’s ten years out. Blame the powers that be who always insist these projects can get up and running quickly (unfortunately that’s not how we do things in this country).
- On your second, it means eight peak period AM trips, two midday trips, eight peak period PM trips, and two evening trips. That’s just in one direction, meaning frequencies would be 30 minutes during rush hour.
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Agree that 2 mid-day trips is completely inadequate. There should at least be hourly service mid-day.
They literally just ran the model that says the only service scenario that meets FTA requirements for ridership potential is the 2-midday trains option. Until both downtown Raleigh and Durham gain further density, that’s all that is feasible economically. I don’t think people on this forum appreciate the difficulty that these projects encounter. It’s basically a PhD dissertation: you need to defend every aspect of what you’re planning to do, using hard data, and prove that it’s worth the expense, or you’re not going to get the money.
Transit in this region (and probably every region, but I’m only working here right now) gets shot at from both sides: you have the libertarian/conservative mindset where anything that doesn’t turn a profit is a waste of government resources, we’ll never use transit here, we have too much sprawl and that’s how we like it, etc. and then on the other side you have people who think you can just go out there and build 200 miles of light rail tracks in 18 months and anything less just means we transit professionals are all stupid. Don’t forget, we are a polycentric region and each center has different priorities. It makes pulling this stuff off very difficult even before you go to FTA with your hat-in-hand begging for money.
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Let’s get that sweet Fed money we can worry about midday transit when we actually have something…anything.
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I get these projects take a lot of time. But it seems like it’s always ‘10 years’. Like when we get to 2029, we read a report about how we’ll have commuter rail by 2039… that’s pessimistic I know but this region has not shown me we can pull this off. Especially after the Orange County Rail debacle.
And the second point- I was hoping I was wrong on that one. Because it just didn’t make sense to me.
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