2030 definitely not it will be earlier I be for increasing the transit tax for it to come sooner, and the addition of a light rail line for Raleigh to connect Glenwood, and Six Forks.
You’re right about the shortcomings of the Denver line. Denver has a larger downtown and a bigger airport, but arguably even given that, ours is actually a much stronger route. Denver’s A line serves downtown, the airport, and precious little between other than park-and-rides. Downtown Raleigh, Downtown Durham, Duke, and NC State are all great transit destinations today, and Downtown Cary is certainly getting there and has lots of potential as well. RTP, RDU, Morrisville, and Garner have a ways to go, but at least some of them are likely to pick up the slack once the transit line is built.
5 Likes
Miami has a pretty good multi tier system that’s realistic for Raleigh to study. At its most local, it has MetroMover: an automated and elevated system on tracks and tires. It has a heavy commuter rail (also elevated). It also has TriRail that runs doubledecker commuter trains from MiamiDade to Palm Beach County. Now Miami has Brightline that runs (or soon will) from Miami to Orlando.
Similar to the RLine and other bus services like the Wolfline, Miami has a network of free trolleys that run more local routes among a variety of greater neighborhoods.
There’s a lot to compare and learn.
6 Likes
I was blown away by that when I went last month… there is nothing on the outskirts of Denver. Such a sharp contrast to cities on both coasts. But, like you said, that’s even more solid evidence that regional rail would work here. The A-Line was full when I boarded it at Union Station on a Saturday afternoon, and most of those stops go nowhere. So imagine what wonders electrified rail with fifteen-minute headways would do on an already-developed corridor like NCRR.
Apparently they got a lot of feedback on the last survey asking for less of a peak focus. I hope they really dig into those requests. The way things are going in Washington right now, I don’t think it would be very hard to get a bigger grant for the sake of more frequent service. With the previous administration (and in the pre-COVID world), my take was, “yeah, just say whatever the feds want to hear to get some platforms built and trains purchased.” But I think we’re well-positioned to ask for more now, especially with Apple and Google inbound.
11 Likes
Yes, you do have a good point. Miami does have some good lessons for us.
Tri-Rail, Taken for what it is - commuter rail that started in 1989 to mitigate traffic during I-95 reconstruction - has come a long way and is one of the more effective modern-era commuter lines in the country. I would like to set the bar higher than their current timetables (which max out at 2 trains per hour, with a somewhat irregular schedule) and as mentioned before, skip the MPIs Locomotives and Bombardier Bilevels, and go straight to multiple unit trains.
I’d also like NCDOT Rail to visit Brightline and (basically) copy everything that they’re doing, verbatim, for Piedmont intercity service in North Carolina.
- Hourly trains running on a regular clockface schedule
- High platforms and train-mounted, retractable gap fillers
- 110mph on shared tracks
- 125mph on dedicated tracks
I’m also very interested to see what the service plan for Brightline’s planned commuter service will be, and what extra infrastructure will be required in terms of third track and sidings along the FEC corridor to make it happen.
8 Likes
My humble guess is that City of Raleigh/Mayor, etc. are most likely talking with David Price and Pete Buttigieg. Especially since we seem to be so close to getting funds for transit. My thought is that maybe it would include money or grants similar to the Tiger grant if memory serves? 
I’d love to have Brightline’s level of service, infrastructure, and amenities in the Triangle, too. But because they’re not a private-sector actor, can NCDOT truly copy Brightline in the first place?
To be clear, I think the Brightline train service has a lot to admire. But...
I think that was uniquely possible because the real estate company behind Brightline also owned its train tracks until 2017. That means FECI, Brightline’s holding company, was motivated to offer high-quality train service ASAP, so they had a business case for seeing good transit as a solid investment.
NCDOT doesn’t work like that, though. They’re a public agency that exists to give good-enough mobility to as many people as possible, and they’re not rewarded based on returns-on-investment. This means NCDOT’s instincts are to spend enough money to help residents move as they need. That means the state can help make commuter rail happen even if the private sector (NS/CSX) doesn’t want to, but they’re also not as motivated to perfect their solutions unless the average opinion shifts and there’s public pressure.
If NCDOT (or GoTriangle, FTA etc.) can make the case for splurging on better infrastructure and get the money for it, that would be awesome! But I’m not sure if they’re capable of doing that in the first place 
On the bright side, though, maybe there’s some hope for regular, convenient train timetables? This presentation to Durham’s MPO for next week looks at a commuter rail service of 12 trains in peak hours and 8 off-peak (trains every 15min and 30min, respectively, extrapolating from here) as a possible dream scenario in the 2050 metro transit plan.
The alternatives analysis for that idea and others are scheduled for release next month. If we’re lucky, maybe that could start nudging the commuter rail study towards supporting that kind of service?
7 Likes
Couple of misconceptions there; click each arrow for more detailed answers.
We're "so close" ONLY for the New Bern BRT, and we're using a different strategy.
That project already “won” the competitive parts, so it should get federal funds when they’re shovel-ready by next Spring. Other projects in the Triangle still need to be chosen for funding over other projects from across the country, though -or in GTCR’s case, be studied enough to get into that competitive pipeline in the first place.
INFRA grants for this past application cycle didn’t allow for public transit-focused projects. They usually go through the Capital Investment Grants (CIG) program, instead, which takes longer but gets you more money and is a better funding guarantee for “good” projects. RAISE (which is the current name for TIGER grants) is super competitive to the point that it’s not really smart to gamble on that for mission-critical projects.
I think that's called nepotism, and we don't want that.
(Some?) federal agencies assign program officers to applicants, and they’re supposed to help people navigate their grant applications and answer their questions. We have them in NIH-funded clinical research studies in my lab (and my collaborators have told me of similar arrangements in the NSF and DoD too), and I think I’ve seen similar arrangements being mentioned on the Durham-Orange light rail project documents. These agency staffers are supposed to help applicants put their best foot forward so the powers-that-be can make fair and objective decisions, though.
In other words, agency staffers are not supposed to play favorites. But if the City (or county, state, MPOs etc.) tries to lobby decision-makers, that makes for an unfair system where places with better resources can bribe the feds into funding their transit projects. We can’t do that, especially since Mayor (Secretary?) Pete is the head of the DoT and gets the final say on INFRA grant disbursements.
Congressman Price is a different story, though, for obvious reasons. But legislation, budget-setting etc. is a whole different animal, especially with the 50-50 divide in the Senate and the abuse of budget reconciliation.
3 Likes
That’s pretty exciting. I can’t figure how to build an all-day timetable with 4TPH (trains per hour) peak and 2TPH off-peak within a 12-8-12-8 timetable, though.
6am-9am: 4tph
9am-1pm: 2tph
1pm-4pm: 4tph oops evening peak starts and ends way too early
4pm-8pm: only 2tph through actual evening rush and evening service ends by 8pm
It fits better with a schedule that runs a train every 20 minutes during peak hours and every 40 minutes otherwise.
Which would still be… not too bad, I’d say. I wonder whether bumping that to 3tph all day would require more infrastructure, or just more cost to operate? (It doesn’t require more trains, and that’s why maintaining maintaining frequency throughout the day drives operating costs down.)
There are ways to cut ops cost, by a big margin, by not having conductors. Which might not fly if sharing tracks with Norfolk-Southern freight trains, but 1 person train operation is common overseas and even here in rapid transit (light/heavy rail). I would guess that this would probably be possible on commuter rail here, only if it ran on dedicated tracks.
7 Likes
To further highlight the difference that frequency makes:
The Denver A line, had 24,000 daily riders before COVID on a 24 mile line through areas without much density.
Tri-Rail had 15,000 daily riders on a 70 mile line through an extremely dense corridor. (The stations weren’t located in the downtowns but they are on major arterials and are easily accessed.)
Frequency generates ridership.
The qualitative difference in convenience between each increment in train (or bus) frequency in the 60, 30, 20, 15, 10, and even 5 minute range is quite large.
My take is that you want frequency to be equal to the minimum journey time that you’re targeting. So if you want the train to feel convenient for 15 minute trips, you need 15 minute frequency. Raleigh to Durham will probably be about 45 minutes, so a train every 30 minutes does the job just fine. But if you want the train to make sense for trips from Cary to Raleigh or NC State, we’ll need to look at something more like 15 minute frequency.
4 Likes
The Providence Line’s issues are compounded by all the local stops along the way versus Amtrak. I think that if you ran an MBTA express only stopping at Back Bay and Route 128 it’d be not much slower and I think that a local running EMU’s hitting the in-between stops would be closer to the status quo. Also, the headways needed to improve years ago, way back when weekend service was added back in the mid-2000s.
Heck, headways need to be improved period. That and the steep gap between Zone 1A (The $2.40 Subway fare) and Zone 1 ($6.50) needs to be addressed. There is no excuse to have the Belmonts and Lynns and Braintrees of the world to be that so much more expensive for commuter rail.
To bring up what @orulz & @colbyjd3 said regarding the A Line in Denver, observing from outside it gives me a weird vibe of a hybrid of the Silver Line in DC and UP Express in Toronto, except that the former was wedged in and the latter is a more frequent express of the innermost portion of the GO Transit Kitchener Line. The whole development of that airport was a bit ahead of its time in a way, as “halfway to Nebraska” as it seems.
2 Likes
I grew up walking distance to the Belmont commuter rail stop and I always took the 74/75 bus to Harvard → Red Line because of that ridiculous fare difference haha
Waverley is worse, with more frequent service on the 73 and until the pandemic the 554 running express though via a very roundabout route through Waltham and Newton.
It gets worse in inner express territory, points at Waltham, Lynn, and Salem. I’m most familiar with the middle example but $7.00 to get to North Station in 20 minutes (and a probable extra $2.40 for the Subway transfer) versus $4.25 and a free transfer for the 426/450 buses.
The Triangle J Council of Governments (read: cities and counties in/around the Triangle) wrote a paper showing more than 1 in 4 of the Triangle’s opportunities to realize affordable housing are close to where the proposed commuter rail may run. This includes Opportunity Zones, naturally-occurring and legally-binding affordable housing units, city-owned land, places for future transit-oriented developments etc.
…but more importantly: this study’s results could help GoTriangle get “high” ratings and win federal grants to build commuter rail.
Whether you look at our region’s past stints at rail-building or weaknesses in the New Bern BRT project’s CIG ratings, transit-supportive developments and affordable housing have been one of the main weaknesses for big transit projects in the Triangle. Plus, the FTA’s past complaints about projects elsewhere (see Albany, Chapel Hill, and Seattle) suggest that good land use policy can really help a project score high and stand out in the crowd. The TJCOG’s report means we might have more evidence to make that happen than we first thought.
GoTriangle made a blog post that’s slightly easier to skim through, if you want a bit more of the data.
11 Likes
All the more reason to push for consistent all-day service. Statistically, lower-income folks are more likely to work odd hours (midday starts, night shifts, etc.). Between that and the pandemic-induced decline in folks going to the office, it makes very little sense to do all this buildout with a just white-collar commuter focus. COVID changed commuting forever, and we need to follow that trend.
11 Likes
Lucky for us, our MPOs are asking us to tell that to their faces right now, in part, to help update our strategy for regional transit:
11 Likes
It’s a very short survey. I wrote a whole paragraph in the comments section and still knocked it out in less than five minutes. Please consider taking it.
6 Likes
done - thanks for posting.
3 Likes
Done as well. Thanks for sharing it!
3 Likes
Done and thank you! 
Although, I noticed that I hadn’t “saved” while going through the survey and had to go back, make a selection, save, and then continue…
1 Like