Likewise, I also appreciate your point of view and sharing it with the group.
Although it’s likely nearly impossible to accomplish for financial reasons, replacing the recently completed Walnut Terrace with a more urban form solution like Capital Park on the north side of downtown, would have made any future connection of DT to DTS much stronger. As it stands now, Walnut Terrace is a sprawling suburban style neighborhood in a location that unfortunately blocks the strongest possibility for on grade urban connection. It swallows up a huge amount of land in service of the automobile lifestyle.
We can agree about some sort of rail, and I’ve actually talked about some sort of special system like a monorail between DT and DTS. I have mentioned that because having some sort of limited and lower cost targeted solution seems like a more “accomplishable” goal for the immediate future. It would seem to me that requiring something like that could be baked into the city’s approval for the project.
As for me seeming closed-minded, you’re welcome to that opinion, but I disagree.
Because cars kill people at an alarming rate and have a long history of turning vibrant, walkable cities into endless pavement. They certainly have their place, especially once carbon emissions are no longer a factor, but Americans are far too reliant on them. The fact that you absolutely have to own a car in a majority of cities in the US just to have good access to job options is insane.
If we don’t figure out how to reduce the use of cars in our urban environments, we don’t end up with an urban environment, only a stacked suburban one with perpetual traffic jams. Like the imaginary “war on Christmas”, there isn’t an all out assault on cars. Even NYC has cars on its streets. It’s just that not everybody has or needs one. We cannot continue to just rely on cars for our movement around our urban core and city. Like I’ve said in previous posts, this is a multi-step process that starts with not getting in our cars as much as we used to, and this actually organically happens when we move into urban environments that are fully stocked with the services that we need and want in our daily lives.
As for a monorail system, I am totally open to something that’s paid by the developer, if that can be made to happen. Even without that self funding, a monorail cab certainly transports many more people than a privately owned car, and you don’t have to find a place to park it and the many other cars that such a system would replace.
Said no one ever. We just want walkable cities so we don’t have to rely on cars so much. Plus people complain about car traffic–when having a sizable portion of the population not using cars regularly would greatly help with that. It’s not rocket science people.
IMO there actually are enough streets headed southbound out of downtown to make DTS feel contiguous with downtown. S Saunders, Lake Wheeler, Dawson/McDowell, Fayetteville, Salisbury/ Wilmington, Blount, Person… The Western-MLK connector and especially its interchange with Dawson/McDowell are the big impediments. If that interchange can get a square loop treatment to reduce its footprint like Peace/Capital then, well, it has a shot at least.
Yeah but the current transit makeup is also to blame for it, getting rid of light rail was the biggest mistake for Wake County!!! Let see when Raleigh hits 500,000 will have more federal support maybe will alt the transit Olán who knows???
Oh dear what have I stumbled into with this car business. This isn’t sim city, guys. Raleigh’s cars and roads are here to stay, it’s not gonna be utopia. We will live with it.
Seriously doubt there’s not going to be any monorails in Raleigh. The sims version, sure.
I think this means you agree there could/should be a monorail? Then the follow up about perhaps only in the sim version seems to conflict that statement. I’m still not sure so I may be misunderstanding which is why I’m asking.
It’s hard to argue that we’ll have cars in some form/function for the remainder of our lifetime and probably several generations after us. The desire is to change the trend to be less dependent. At least that’s my desire and hope for society. Smart cities, smart development, discouraging urban sprawl are just a few ways we can encourage that change in trend. It doesn’t mean everyone has to get rid of their cars as I’m sure they don’t want to. It can however mean less trips and maybe less cars per household and eventually slowing the expansion of roadways because the dependency is less.
No one’s under any impression that cars or roads are going anywhere. The goal is to be less reliant on them in urban areas, where the priority needs to be rebalanced in favor of pedestrians, bikes, and transit. This is urban planning 101.
No I don’t agree that there “should be” a monorail. Well that would be super cool, our city is having enough of a hard time getting bus rapid transit off the ground and in place in any kind of meaningful way. Simple cheap and fast is the way to build any kind of connection.
I agree downtown South should be connected. But there has to be ample parking at downtown South for the thousands of suburbanites in cars who Don’t live anywhere CONVENIENT for public transit, who will be attending events and eating and restaurants.
How many people live downtown, 10,000, maybe be generous call it 20,000. That’s not enough to support an expensive monorail or underground subway or whatever. For that matter it’s not enough people to support an Apple store downtown either.
Please explain why the priority of any urban (or in this case, urbanish) development must cater to the throngs of suburban residents that already have plenty of places to go around the county with more than ample places to park their cars? Why must everything be car oriented or convenient for those drivers?
As for a monorail, why can’t this be part of the development? Why isn’t it reasonable for DTS to leverage the thousands of parking spaces already in place at/near the Convention Center for special events at a yet-to-be-built small stadium? https://ral.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=6d14ad6014c04e7a9ffb765afa50785a
Instead of the developers spending money on more event parking, why not spend that money on a driverless system that will connect it to downtown proper? Why waste land and “experiences” space at DTS for excessive parking cars for special events? Why not connect DTS in an automated way to the Convention Center, Duke Energy Center, and Fayetteville St. to provide conventioneers with more resources like the hotels that are slated for DTS? Why does downtown’s first priority need to be suburbanites’ cars?
If a growing city like Raleigh and growing county like Wake want to be fiscally viable for decades to come, they are going to have to find ways to create more revenue going forward. The vastness of Raleigh’s and Wake’s suburban infrastructure is constantly aging and it’s going to need to be constantly repaired and replaced, and that money needs to come from somewhere. It could either come from more urban development that will prove more financially productive, or it could come from rapidly raising everyone’s property taxes. It’s in everyone’s best interest to move forward with as much urban development as we can, and so sorry if that sometimes means that suburbanites aren’t going to have the same car convenience that they enjoy in their neighborhood strip centers.
It appears that there will be a good , bad for us , turnout for the virtual public comments that will speak against the City TIF Tax Support for the DTSouth Stadium Project . Raleigh Leaders think that this virtual meeting will take place in December . No date @ this point has been made . Some city councilors seem to think that this meeting will happen in December . The City Clerk will read emails from the public during
this meeting concerning this project .
My general, uninformed, and dispassionate view is that most of my taxes go to crap I don’t get any benefit from, and may or may not be effective overall. I’m always happy if my taxes go to anything remotely related to me. Parks, greenways, public transit, and apparently cool developments with stadiums. If it doesn’t work out, it’s no worse off for me. Just my thoughts, not any strongly held beliefs.
As DTS is a John Kane development, does anyone remember his idea for a “people mover” “PRT” he had for North Hills?
Maybe he could use this for travel between DTS and DTR?
A friend of mine is in the PRT business. They appear to have moved on after PRTs have had very limited success to, ironically, a monorail type of solution they’re selling. Shaking my head.
Personally, I’m not surprised. What problems do PRTs solve, and in what situations would they be more practical than other kinds of transit? Maybe with the exception of ecoPRT and how insanely lightweight (cheap to build) it is, I haven’t heard any solid arguments besides “because it looks cool”.
