There are plans for those open spaces!
Nice to see that nearly half of that land will be preserved for a park - still looks like a ton of trees will be cleared even for that, but at least more of them will remain than not, and have room to grow out in a big ass park!
3 Likes
Oooff… This highlights my doubt that Garner is going to be anything other than Morrisville 2.0… Hopefully the developers build a quality product and make an attractive place, but just based on the site plan, I’m not bullish.
Here’s that same tract with a street grid - Nash square included for scale.
Thanks to @mike for showing us what we can do in Bluebeam haha
13 Likes
It honestly feels like that kind of development in that location would absolutely kill it and command higher prices. What a shame they’re looking at going for matchstick buildings in oceans of surface parking instead.
6 Likes
Yeah… the thing that hurts most about this one is the size. Look at how big this tract is! Imagine 100+ acres of suburban apartments being proposed within walking distance to the other stations along the CRT - DT Cary? DT Raleigh? Durham? This would be an abomination anywhere near those stations, and just underlines to me how broken our consolidated cookie-cutter development system is. The only saving grace for DT areas of cities is that there is a historic street grid and historic smaller property lines carved up and divided long before parking minimums, setbacks, minimum lot size, etc…
4 Likes
To be fair to Garner, neither the regional rail service nor the station location are real at this point. If they were real, perhaps the proposals would look substantially different?
7 Likes
Hey John I know we both enjoy playing devil’s advocate, but just yesterday you said that DT Garner could leap frog into something great because of CRT. I’m just not seeing it, and this 100+ acre super burb apartment proposal further bolsters my suspicion that ridership numbers will be dreadful if CRT gets watered down to Raleigh being the westernmost stop. I mean if we’re talking about not connecting DT Ral with DT Cary at minimum, what is even the point?!?
Haha I’m sorry I’m so cynical on this, but it really feels like we’re not getting any meaningful transit other than bus in the next 2 decades.
I hope I’m wrong, and that this projected difficulty/expense per segment isn’t the standard for corridor planning.
6 Likes
We should pool our money to buy the land around where the Auburn station would be and build a gridded out downtown around it if the rail gets built there.
3 Likes
I would love to design and build my own town. I drew plans for a plot not far south of there around 1978, lol
4 Likes
I said that it could. I didn’t say that it would leapfrog.
it still could if the stars were aligned, but if this area gets developed in that suburban model first, then the opportunity is lost.
You can play devil’s advocate. I’m good.
1 Like
There’s apparently an opportunity for citizen input regarding development in SE Wake County today at Noon. Might be a good chance to express these concerns.
10 Likes
Was in Austin went to there Downtown Commuter Rail station. It looks like a shortened station right next or adjacent to the convention center. Apparently Austinities Rejected it 4 times but the government does what ever it want and found a loophole to build it. The were not in service for most of the trip but here ya go. There rolling stock is a Sadler GTW I hope they consider this as our rolling stock. Also for the first few years no I rode it but the drunkies and partyers in Leander which is the terminus figures out we can party and go back home without driving so on Saturdays and Sundays it’s packed.
10 Likes
N&O story leads with the price tag: $3 billion. “The route extending up to 43 miles would have a start date between 2033 and 2035 and provide 12,000 to 18,000 trips per day by 2040, GoTriangle leaders told the Durham County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday… The feasibility study led GoTriangle to revise commuter rail cost estimates upward to between $2.8 and $3.2 billion, plus $42 million per year to operate and maintain.”
Double-tracking needed for most of the route, biggest engineering headaches are in Durham (as mentioned above).
Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article265388331.html#storylink=cpy
There’s a table in the Land Use Report that shows the redevelopable land percentages by station, and forecast 2020-2050 job/household growth. In fact, it’s the Hammond Road station that has the highest percentage of available land, at 73%, then:
50-70% redevelopable: McCrimmon, RTP, Ellis, Morrisville Pkwy, Auburn, Corporate Center
25-50%: Blue Ridge, East Durham, Downtown Raleigh, Cary, Powhatan
<25%: West Durham, Clayton, Garner, NCSU
Here’s an interesting thought to keep in mind as we talk about “for whomst” (I would’ve done stacked bars rather than a pie chart, but oh well):
When we’re talking about station area residential development plans, we should keep in mind that maybe 5% of the region’s future housing will be impacted by any zoning regulations we pass today. 56% of the region’s future housing has already been built.
11 Likes
Good thing they’ve extended the schedule since I last looked at it. At one point the last train home on weekdays was at 6 PM. Now at least they run a handful of trains at night (still no Sunday service)
3 Likes
Mass Transit Magazine (a rail industry news aggregator) has a syndicated version of the same article, for those of y’all who are paywalled by the N&O.
Also, the website for the commuter rail study has made a lot more of the reports available, including data on the potential additional supply and demand for affordable homes, new jobs, and upgraded land uses:
2 Likes
According to these reports, the RDU area (counties, cities, etc.) don’t currently have the funds for the operations and maintenance. Is this whole endeavor for not? And yes, I know there are grants, but that’s not a permanent provided of funds nor is it guaranteed, IMO!
I’ve said it many times, but with so many people moving here, we need to get this done. $3B is a lot, but not building it will, in many ways, be more expensive.
I’m going to keep expressing my enthusiasm about this to the powers that be. It’ll take quite a bit of political will to sustain it.
14 Likes
I agree about the $3B. My concern is the actual yearly operations and routine maintenance 42M a year is a LOT of commitment 
Maybe perhaps if US is Rail supply is better because obviously there inflation with train supply.
You’d be hard pressed to find someone more excited about the prospect of rail service here.
But honestly, I’m starting to tune news about it out. Every new piece of news about it seems to have it slipping further and further out of reach. I’m beginning to feel afraid of being let down, so I don’t want to invest too much hope.
9 Likes