Thanks y’all interesting stuff! Moving out to Wendell, I just want to see this side of the triangle “grow up” if you’d say. Taking a look at the state of the coastal rail line it’s probably closer / easier to be a trail than a usable line at this point but we’ll hold out hope.
The Knightdale plan looks pretty interesting, I’ve been envisioning some sort of river front development since I got here, hope they can make that happen
For an easier to digest STIP, here it is in map format: https://ncdot.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=cb02f4f828974670ad01bb83be91b18c
After taking a few days to digest this, something doesn’t add up.
If all this double tracking and grade separation work will cost just $66 million, then what the f*** comprises the rest of the ~$2 billion projected cost of commuter rail?! Are they replacing all of the railroad spikes with solid gold?
Beats me, though I also doubt the $66M would cover 100% of all the things they’re proposing.
The amount NCDOT asked for in this grant seems kind of low to me, now that I’m also looking at it more closely. I tried to look for the grant proposal to see how they came up with that number, but the INFRA (formerly FASTLANE) grant website doesn’t have a list of FY2021 applicants yet -and they just stopped accepting applications ten days ago (the 19th). 
Let’s say we’ll get 5 sets of 4-car DMUs (i.e. twenty $3M cars), a $10M maintenance facility, sixteen stations at $30M each (since RUS cost just under $50M), and five years of operation at $37M per year. Assuming a flat 3% inflation for the next decade would get you a total cost of $988M. If you give $300M for commuter rail-specific infrastructure upgrades and $700M (33% of $2B) to planning, land purchases, contingencies, and ToD incentives, maybe you can get somewhere around $2B?
…though… I think the whole point of the current phase of studies to make this estimate clearer. Obviously I just pulled those numbers out of my ass, so it could stand to have some better assumptions.
The $2 billion estimate from GoTriangle (to me) just kinda says “we don’t quite know what we’re doing” whereas the $66 million federal application from NCDOT definitely says “We know what we’re doing”. Sigh.
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That could be it, too. Who knows 
I wonder what’s a good way (and a good point of time) to start nudging NCDOT to take over as the lead agency for this…
You’re good 
I think the estimate is based on GoTriangle building a secondary rail line they control fully, including all the bridges and land acquisitions.
Do you have any evidence for that??
Becuase:
It was mentioned in one of the streams I was listening to but I don’t recall which one. Sorry.
That is basically what they looked at for the 2005-era plan that got nixed by GW Bush’s FTA. The final price tag back then was something like $860m, with more stations, and 20 minute all-day frequency - but the line was shorter.
Don’t forget to scale to inflation 
$860M in 2005 is like $1.3B in 2020 assuming 3% annual inflation, which sounds much closer to the low-balled predictions in the MIS.
Kinda says something about GoTriangle and leadership and management within the organization we pay taxes to support. Just imagine would could’ve happened if they didn’t guess estimate transit plans like the light rail in Wake, Durham, and Orange counties.
Well they can over estimate, there focusing on one thing and getting ahead of themselves.
If this really is what they’re planning, essentially triple- or quad-tracking the entire corridor, rather than just double tracking the existing corridor and adding a few platforms (which is how it has mostly been sold in the press) then they should be screaming it from the hilltops - and they should be planning to run a lot more trains, because that sort of infrastructure can handle almost literally an order of magnitude more service than they’ve talked about to date.
safe bet that there’s nothing to scream from the hilltops about…people’s hopes and dreams here for what they want for rail here, will always be greater than whatever they’re actually gonna build…says the cynic in me. Hopefully I’ll be wrong, but they’re not know for rail around here.
We’re doing pretty good so far with this commuter rail project attempt. That this point, NCDOT and the NCGA finally seem openly favorable to rail transit in the Triangle.
Austin’s $2 billion rail tunnel will probably face an impossible hurdle: dealing with their state government. NCGA doesn’t hate the Triangle as much as the Texas Legislature hates Austin. 
That being said, we need transit tunnels in downtown Raleigh. Not even big ones just enough to cross through the core of downtown.
NCGA doesn’t hate the Triangle as much as the Texas Legislature hates Austin.
That’s a pretty hot take.
Wait, when did that happen? NCDOT has definitely turned over a new leaf, but I don’t remember the General Assembly getting off of their fake-libertarian high horse?
Also…
I agree in theory. But it would be nice if transit tunnels were somehow not unusually expensive to dig in the US as in other countries…
That even could’ve took care of our scrap light rail project.
GoTriangle launched a new website to create a one-stop source for all commuter rail updates! You can learn more about it in GoTriangle’s press release, or check out the site yourself:
I haven’t had the chance to explore this site yet, but I’m pretty sure none of this will be news to everyone on this site that follows this project closely (maybe aside for updates on rail capacity study negotiations with Norfolk Southern and NCRR).