My concerns with BRT are that they are not building dedicated lanes in many of the most critical areas where it’s needed most. For New Bern, east of WakeMed is where the congestion is. For Western, NCSU gets dedicated lanes which is good, but the Beltline to Gorman will not.
I understand that there are reasons for this. (Essentially vehicular LOS and public backlash for converting existing lanes, expense of property acquisition and/or bridge construction for building new dedicated lanes). But it is nonetheless a prime example of “BRT creep”, which is a big part of why BRT is cheaper in the first place: we can punt, and run in mixed traffic through choke points, which is easier but is a major hit on the quality of the transit.
The train tracks are 100% free from being influenced by vehicular congestion by definition.
I maintain that if we took transit seriously the BRT would have been built decades ago, and the regional rail by now as well.
Better late than never and I have reasonably high expectations for the BRT. But by the time the whole system is up and running (in ~2035, no less!) I feel like we will be kicking ourselves if we’re back to square one on rail transit given the projected population growth.
Rebrand to Regional Rail. Do it piecemeal. But commit to it and get it done, there will be funding opportunities as time goes on.
I figured there wouldn’t be space through the diverging diamond, but man, no dedicated lanes on that hilly 6-lane segment past Gorman Street? That seems like a colossal mistake.
I think not having dedicated lanes is a shortsighted move that will limit both the effectiveness and perception of BRT among the general public. While this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, here in Charlotte when the streetcar was built about a decade ago, they had the amazing idea to install the tracks in shared vehicular lanes. In theory this kind of makes sense because the right-of-way is maximized for multiple methods of transit at once for a marginal cost, but in reality it results in massive compromises in all aspects. Not only are the tracks regularly blocked by inattentive drivers/illegally parked cars, vehicular traffic gets backed up by the streetcar which goes slower than the average speed of traffic especially on stretches where there is only one lane in each direction, the road is very bumpy, and the tracks are hazardous for motorcycles/mopeds. It feels like the main goal was to build a streetcar line for the sake of having a streetcar, instead of spending a tiny bit more on a line that prioritizes effectiveness and usefulness. Compared to the light rail which has seen billions of dollars of dense mixed-use development along its corridor, there hasn’t been anywhere near the amount of investment along the streetcar line. Raleigh would be wise to avoid tripping over dollars to save a few pennies when building its BRT lines.
Gosh it’s shame we have literal airheads in office who don’t know a damn about transit more public trust eroded because of idiots. We do we keep getting cursed with lousy do nothing politicians. Might as well call this dead and even go far as disbanding GoTriangle with there lackluster republican like leadership, in addition to the clowns of Livable Raleigh and the GOP wise guys. Expanding lanes will not work like Phil “Wife-Cheating” Berger thinks. Yeah this is regional rail meant to connect three important communities you know Amtrak doesn’t count, And it’s expensive to go back and fourth something like the Music City Star could work by reconnecting Raleigh with Durham and Fayetteville maybe skip over the tracks situation. I also blame the NCRR, and the greedy Norfolk Southern folks who don’t wanna give up any track.
No worries. We’ll just keep adding lanes to I-40 instead until it’s a 20 lane monstrosity.
Ridiculous. Short sighted planning. This whole thing is a joke.
Durham light rail, dead. commuter rail, all but dead. I’ll be dead before any of this gets built. N the past I have joked about the commuter rail being ready by the time I retire. I don’t think that’s a joke anymore.
I’m starting to believe that any form of transit will never happen let alone the infrastructure of the region. Sad, like planning and doing even construction will take decades, while traffic congestion grows not to mention population in the Triangle. Welcome back, to the stone age.
I do wonder, if we scratched rail off of our transit wish list, woukd we be able to install dedicated lanes in these critical sections to make BRT better?
Not having dedicated lanes for the terminal segment on New Bern past 440 seems excusable to me as that area is extremely exurban and might as well be Knightdale, but not having them on this segment of Western, which is one of the denser residential and commercial areas in the city is just a massive mistake. Hopefully that’s just a miscommunication. It’s extremely disappointing that DOT didn’t plan for the BRT lanes being added when they designed the new Western and 440 interchange as well.
Well Austin had this problem so did the city an hour down the road in San Antonio, in fact that city is the largest without any passenger rail. We just need the right people with the right intentions to do it. CapMetro In ATX had 4 measures of transit shoot down by voters, but they were able to do it anyway. Don’t know how I could see Raleigh making a move like that, I also can’t verify if they had any state support but they did it.
Wish we would just scrap commuter rail and build out a subway system around greater ITB. Focus on making the Raleigh core as dense and car free as possible
Yes, this! We could afford it the feds could just spoil Raleigh nowhere else we’d get more money off of that. Look at Salt Lake City smaller than us by 2x. And They have 3 light rail lines for them we can convert BRT to LRT. And focus on ourselves while Durham can debate whether their transit issues are like getting 20 acres and a mule. I’m literally quoting Durham Mayor Elaine O’niell who actually said that. Hopefully @dtraleigh lay it down in major projects we can expand light rail here and not take a regional approach.
Seems entirely possible that we still get a North-South regional rail line from NCDOT given their TOD study on the S-Line. Maybe GTCR could ultimately be roped into that project, create an economy of scale with trainsets, station design, etc.
