Either that, or we jack up RDU like they did with London in Mortal Engines. Then, have it move south to straddle the NCRR. Problem solved.
Granted, RDU would have to ingest part of Morrisville. But, that’s municipal Darwinism in action.
There’s nothing in Morrisville but office parks and strip malls, so…not much of a loss.
Looks like you can boil the minimum plan down to:
The Garner-Durham route (in red on the map):
- eight trips in each direction during peak hours and two each during the midday
- would eventually carry an estimated 7,500 to 10,000 passengers a day
- cost $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion to build and $29 million a year to run.
I hope this round has the Wake plan move ahead of the Durham/Orange plan. Maybe not get hung up on the Duke routing that way.
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Compare the $1.8B for the first phase of the Commuter Rail to the $2.2B to build the the remaining portion of I-540 (although I think that number includes routing all the way up to the other end of 540).
Which will have a bigger economic impact?
If you see the success that Charlotte is having with its rail system, I think the nod goes to the Rail line. Especially to attract marquee tenants like Amazon and the like.
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Also if we can convince NCRR to work with GoTriangle on this, I’m sure CSX can be negotiated with for the S-Line to Wake Forest (and Apex). Even better, the Union Station bus terminal would be able to connect commuters to BRT and local bus routes. Don’t want to drive 40 minutes to an hour down Capital? Save gas and time by parking at a park-and-ride and hop on the train instead. I’m hoping we can make seamless travel on all levels of service a selling point.
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Yep - It’s crazy that no one bats an eye building huge interstate bypasses. Yet getting a commuter rail for less cost is like pulling teeth.
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Not a real comparison. I-40 at I-440 interchange in Cary handles 200,000 cars each day. Most main roads handle far more people than the 7500 to 10000 expected to use commuter rail each day. Looking at the total cost is a fairly meaningless stat without looking at what you are actually getting for the buck.
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But what is the total cost of the system per capita? Every one of the 200k vehicles require fuel, oil changes, tires, repairs, and eventually, a junkyard existence. Those roads require patch work, repaving, widening, police monitoring, emergency response to crashes, wasted human potential that have to operate the vehicle. Destroying acres and acres of virgin forest to complete 540. All the personal debt tied up in the ownership of those vehicles. Deaths behind the wheel. What are all the negative externalities rolled into one giant cost to society, divided by the 200k?
Compared to adding trains to an existing corridor. It is an interesting comparison.
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No reason rail couldn’t handle just as many daily users. But the network is not there the way it is with roads. If you had just one road from Garner to Durham, with everything else being rail. The numbers would be reversed.
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Well, since it’s Wake centric, and Wake carries the population load for the entire Triangle, it makes more sense that it would be more densely populated along its route.
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There are lots of reasons actually, the foremost is that commuter rail is basically being built on existing track. Start building it on new tracks and watch the cost rise dramatically. I have read that the Capital Blvd handles 650000 vehicles each day making it the busiest road in the Triangle. If commuter rail one day gets those kind of numbers then I would be really impressed (with future commuter rail expansions).
Here’s the breakdown of all (updated list) US cities with airport/rail transit connections, ridership information (where available), interface type (Terminal, Walkway, Automated People Mover, Shuttle/Bus), distance/miles (if not at the Terminal), and interface style (Terminus or Through)…
And, here’s a rundown of those services (done in 2016) in a little more detail…
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The Blue Line of the “L” was in service to Ohara in 1986 when I lived there and used it.
I think the weird thing for many to understand about the rail line and the airport is that it seemingly feels ideally located. RDU isn’t in the middle of nowhere, it’s smack dab in between Raleigh and Durham and a stone’s throw from the largest employment area in the region. It feels like it should be easy and therefore it feels like a harbinger of trouble that it is deemed problematic.
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When I fly to Chicago and NYC, I always take rail into the city. For NYC, that means that I always choose JFK.
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Just checking, can you reconfirm that figure? Also, which part of Capital? The downtown section of Capital is between 50 and 70k.
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Here is where I saw it…
http://www.city-data.com/forum/raleigh-durham-chapel-hill-cary/543820-capital-blvd-busiest-triangle-highway-its.html
https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=b7a26d6d8abd419f8c27f58a607b25a1
The max number I see on Capital is 83,000 between 440 and 401
Does this list assume the transit station is within a certain distance of the airport? Albuquerque isn’t listed but their “airport” commuter rail station is about four miles away via dedicated shuttle bus, almost the exact distance RDU’s would be if the station were placed in Morrisville. Santa Rosa, Ca has a rail connection too, with the station being 1.2 miles from the airport terminal. This has to be the smallest airport in terms of passenger count with a rail connection.
But RDU is in the middle of nowhere.
Connecting all the people and jobs in Raleigh and Durham is top priority for this line. So anything in between has to be done in a way that doesn’t compromise Raleigh-Durham.
There are three significant things in between to connect with. RDU, RTP, and Cary. As far as I can tell, there is no way to hit all three without creating a route that zigzags mercilessly and would add like 10 minutes onto the time between Raleigh-Durham. Go ahead and get a map and try to draw it. Not possible.
Meanwhile, RTP and Cary are conveniently located on the existing rail line. RDU is three miles from it (at the closest.) set apart behind highways, runways, wetlands, lakes, and Umstead. So that is a bare minimum of 6 miles of Greenfield route, including some pretty long tunnels on the airport property to navigate around the runways and terminal area. My guess, that would be about a $billion. And there aren’t that many places along that six mile route that have much development or would be good candidates for it because of all the things in the way (listed above.)
So a $billion to serve RDU and skip either RTP or Cary. Good deal?
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