Ahhh. But that assumes that the building of the commuter rail will somehow magically keep us from needing more highway expansion in our area. The continuing outward growth of the suburbs in Wake and our neighboring counties will continue on no matter what mass transits are built. If they can build a very expensive highway system on loans and bonds that need to be paid back by the users of the highway, then why can’t we build a commuter rail system doing the same thing? NC 540 is being built now. The commuter rail is still a dream. I voted for the Wake County transit tax back in 2016. Not much to show for it yet.
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That’s why transit-oriented development is so critical to both regional rail and bus rapid transit. Density around frequent transit is the only way we combat sprawl. This whole freakin’ state is going to be subdivisions in a decade or two if we don’t change how and where we build.
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I think that the problem here is that this is not net sum zero equation. Nobody is suggesting that there will not be any future highways or road construction. However, there is an argument to be made that we can reduce sprawl & our complete car dependency, and slow the negative effects on our environment. With rail and TOD, we can also address congestion and options to driving the very roads that we seem so Hell bent on continually building as our only way forward.
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If and when transit is a binary choice / calculation, people on the ground lose…
We’ve got to play the game on multiple planes - building dense nodes to create opportunities that the existing status quo does not…Not if but why not both.
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Exactly. I am not giving up my car, but I want options.
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Until such time, I’ve made a decision that my option resides in the soles of my shoes.
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Actually it has been a net sum zero equation in the 30 years i have lived here in Raleigh/Cary. Interstates, highways and bypasses are continually being built or widened. Nothing whatsoever for mass transit. And some people on here had been suggesting not to build out NC540. When i voted for the transit tax i believed it was for light rail. Big fail there. I guess i should try to be happy and excited for more buses with the BRTs.
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the wake transit tax referendum was explicitly in support of a transit plan that didn’t include light rail and the communications in the campaign were pretty clear on that. Durham/Orange on the other hand…. :shakes fist at congress and NCGA).
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I have always wondered why the cap on the “transit” tax but not one for gas 
?
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Small grant from the a FRA for the study of elimination of three East Durham Grade Crossings. As noted here before, the Durham grade crossings are a major cost of that segment.
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Durham County’s webpage on this Rail-crossing Engagement, Planning, And Innovative Revitalization (REPAIR) project has more information. According to that, their goal is to figure out infrastructure and community needs (not construction yet) to address the reality that:
That’s a little over 1 in 100 railroad crossing collisions in the past 25 years if you extrapolate from 2022 numbers. That’s over 60 times what you’d expect if deaths were spread evenly among all rail crossings North Carolina has.
The county will build off of the commuter rail study’s recommendations (here’s a summary of relevant data; THIS is why it’s good that it was so thorough: the same data can be recycled to write other grant applications like these more quickly, too!!) and make the case for getting rid of some (but not all!) of the biggest reasons why Durham currently can’t handle regional rail.
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N&O dropped an article about the feds not funding the project. Nothing really new that we don’t already know, except that the FTA seems to have realized that the commuter rail model is dead.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article277605488.html
Representatives of the Federal Transit Administration told a group of Triangle leaders that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people use transit and that trains that serve morning and evening commuters to central business districts have become outdated.
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Thanks for the share. This underscores why our commuter rail model should never have been called commuter rail from the get-go. It is not a spine leading from suburbs to a large employment center. It’s a critical transit corridor connecting five municipalities and two major universities.
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So, after 30+ years, where do we go from here? 
They’re not saying regional rail is dead, just the term “commuter rail”
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Evan! This is a study in regional rail, not commuter rail. It is why our vision for implementation must include that EVERY SINGLE STOP along the path from east to west have a purpose, regional community resources, and a walkable community of its own in order for it to succeed. There has to be a effective and efficient reason why folks along the rail choose to use it.
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So the FTA killed funding because of terminology? 
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No, because it was more than just GoTriangle’s word choice; the truth is that the study did mostly focus on train services that were designed around commuters. As the pandemic went on, they did focus more on an all-day regional service (and we did know about that; just scroll up to old posts on this thread), but that doesn’t change how the study had to assume from day 1 that its riders would primarily be 9-to-5 workers.
Besides, the real killer is the cost. Just read the article:
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This is not a surprise at all. Aside from the FTA funding decisions, regional agencies have proven they are not ready to take on a project of this magnitude. They’ve proven it for nearly 20 years, in fact!
While many on here bemoan the slow progress of BRT, the fact is that it is federally-funded and bids for construction are on the way. It is happening, and IMO we should be focusing regionally on building the best BRT network in the country.
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I had always assumed it would be more likely used for folks catching concerts, sporting events, or other entertainment types of things than to get to and from the home and office, even before the pandemic killed the office.
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