Or, one can say RDU’s proposed rail connection is just like just about every other major US airport rail connection of its type.
I didn’t realize the percentage was that low. I think bus from Morrisville station could be close to the same as rail, as long as there are dedicated lanes and signal priority down airport avenue.
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If it were to be done, there would have one of two fixes. Either the the unit heads in to a stub end terminal track, and then backs out to run in reverse for the rest of the route.
Or, there would have to be a balloon loop under the garage kind of like what’s under Grand Central Terminal.
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Something that stood out to me on that table is Milwaukee and the fact that it is the only station that is served solely by Amtrak, no commuter agency. Milwaukee is also not a major connecting hub. The only Amtrak trains that stop at the MKE airport station are the Hiawatha trains which run between downtown Chicago and Downtown Milwaukee, with seven trains in each direction. This is similar to our Piedmont service and could provide some insight on how an Amtrak/Piedmont stop at the Morrisville/RDU station could potentially perform.
2018 MKE airport total pax: 7,096,714
2018 MKE airport Amtrak pax: 180,314
This works out roughly to 2.5% of the airport’s passenger count using Amtrak.
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I can’t find the source of those numbers, so it could be off. So could my math!
I’ve got two choices to update my table. Contact each agency for their airport station passenger exit data. Or, I might get lucky with APTA. 
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I would also do a split-level arrangement in Morrisville like was done in Weldon with the SAL and ACL. NCRR on the main level. GoRDU BRT on the upper level.
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What about current route of commuter rail and then a straighter route through RDU when high speed rail happens. A high speed train route that goes from Raleigh Union Station to RDU then Greensboro then Charlotte/Charlotte Airport seems reasonable given that there’s example of that in other places.
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Hmmm. Challenge accepted:
Not sure that either one of these would pass a NEPA review. But, give me points for at least trying…
The exercise was intended to run the line under Park Central RDU. Black goes under each runway and cuts Umstead in half. Red threads between the runways with a pretty wide S-curve. Wasn’t sure what either would do until plotting things out.
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Challenge:
Would be very interesting to know both the city and metro area population of each city at the actual date they started their rail service? For comparison sake of course vs. Raleigh & R/D will be when/if we ever actually get Commuter Rail…
I guess I misunderstood.
High(er) speed rail is already happening as far as Raleigh to Durham is concerned. It won’t appear much different that what it looks like today, aside from closing grade crossings to seal the corridor, slightly straightening curves, and adding doubled track or passing sidings where applicable.
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I-40 is crazy busy during daily rush hours, but Capital has tons of short trip vehicles that only use a tiny section of it daily. It might not be unreasonable to predict enormous numbers for Capital since it goes from downtown to Wake Forest. Then again, I have no data to base that on, and I don’t pretend to know.
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Herein lies one of the Triangle’s biggest problems: MSA data.
I can’t imagine that we will succeed implementing any rail service without Federal dollars, and the Federal Government gives us the Census data that tells them that Raleigh’s metro is only 1.36M people: hardly a number that’s going to give the Triangle visibility. They also aren’t convinced that the Triangle has enough commuting traffic back and forth between Raleigh and Durham, or they would have put us back into a singular MSA and call us 2M people.
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What I like about your plan is including both RDU and CLT. This could capture a lot of people who drive a fair distance or take a short hop flight. I definitely believe a train from the eastern side of the that stops at RDU would be successful.
But lets just get a clean GAR-DUR line open first. Shuttle buses - preferably one there when you get off the train - will work just fine, particularly with a dedicated right-of-way.
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I wonder what the catchment area is of Cary’s Amtrak station? Assuming commuter rail is built and downtown Cary has a commuter station, as well as a station in Morrisville that could serve RDU, would Amtrak better serve the area by moving most operations from downtown Cary to a hypothetical Morrisville/RDU station, retaining only the Silver Star?
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Cary already has a station and right of way. Why would they add cost by trying to lay new track given what everyone else has said…
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They plan on building stations in both Morrisville and Cary. Not either or.
I edited my post because I had forgotten about the Silver Star, but the assumptions are that commuter rail gets built and there is a stop in Cary along with Morrisville.
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Yes for the commuter system. I was speculating if Amtrak (Piedmont and Carolinian) would better serve the area by shifting most of their operations to the Morrisville stop, because it could also tie in with the theoretical RDU shuttle. As of now, Amtrak doesn’t stop in Morrisville, nor are there any plans for it to.
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