Thank you! 
I like this one more…imo it offers more for Goldsboro and in the short-term it could bring in more people to the Triangle region that would be more helpful. (I have quite a few family and friends that would love this) 
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Would travel time reliability be a problem the longer the network gets stretched out? (since we are talking about a route used for “commuting”) I know other countries run their trains with near clockwork efficiency but this is the US we’re talking about haha
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Either of these plans would get my support. It seems like it would be a good shot in the arm for this towns and cities down east.
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As always, it’s up to the cooperation of the host railroads. If there had been profit in it, they’d still be hauling passengers in addition to freight.
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The answer is, of course, yes. Since all of these routes use or cross the CSX A-line, that would probably be the biggest source of possible delay. I would expect there would need to be some construction, not sure exactly what. Maybe some triple track, maybe a flyover where it crosses the NCRR in Selma. Dunno. Certainly not saying this would all be free, but compared to $3 billion or whatever for complete 540, probably not too bad?
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Flyovers. One of many things that killed TTA Regional Rail.
In reality, I’m not sure that a flyover is necessary or not. If we’re talking about operation of Federal Railroad Administration-compliant equipment (49 CFR, Part 238), it would be dispatched by the host road. Follow the signal, wait for clearance, then proceed.
Again, that’s more transportation modeling than my brain can handle.
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I’m not sure if the demand for this type of service would exist using commuter equipment, but I could see something like this as an extension of the Piedmont trains for sure.
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I found some interesting (but low-key disappointing) things in the draft minutes for the GoTriangle Board of Trustees meeting due later this month:
This post will mainly be on the slides talking about more sexy, speculative things that don’t belong on the other transit-related threads.
Specifically, I found this interesting prediction on that GoTriangle report. Do y’all think this could really happen?
Also, this is a friendly reminder from your neighborhood grad student: yes, someone on this planet will always be reading that thing you thought no one will ever look at. 
Click me to read the full context
Here’s what he said about “TaaS” (transit as a service) as a possible new industry:
Do you think this is true? If so, does it mean that investing in rail in the Triangle has to happen soon (or else, it won’t be worth it)?
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Yeah, this is well said. I think sometimes ordinary folks can fall into this trap (“Charlotte has light rail! We need light rail!”), but the people who are actually responsible for designing our transit system understand that we need to take national and international best practices and figure out how to integrate them into Raleigh’s existing infrastructure (such as the fact that Raleigh has a massive, if latent, advantage in that our development grew up mostly around heavy rail lines).
There’s absolutely no reason why we should be trying to reinvent the wheel or come up with some Cool New Thing that no one has ever seen before. We can make massive, massive steps forward in our transit service simply by taking best practices from other cities and tweaking them slightly to fit our own idiosyncrasies. Innovation can be good, but it tends to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and right now we have a long way to go in catching up to other comparable cities in the U.S. (to say nothing of the rest of the world).
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You know orulz, everything you said in your response to my comment is probably true, and, no doubt , based on extensive research,facts and figures - I get it! You missed my point. What is the next big innovation in transit? When do we get off the road? Every public system relies heavily on Buses, trolleys, and in large metros rail. When will someone realize a bus has to travel in the same traffic as everyone else! Whatever pitfalls the cars have to contend with, so do busses! Trains are either above or below the traffic, but they don’t go to or through neighborhoods. I refuse to believe - in this technology rich, R&D, 3 major university area…we gotta settle for the same old same old! Yeah, I’m saying “Let’s put on our thinking caps”! Let’s be the system that other cities go- Man! This is amazing! Wish we woulda came up with that! Welcome to Raleigh- Home of the world’s most innovative and efficient transit! It is high time that Public Transit stops being treated like “the stepchild”! I’m passionate about this issue because (you guessed it) I rely heavily on transit! I would challenge every person who regularly drives everywhere to park your vehicles, and take the bus for ONE WEEK!!
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I would love to be able to do that. But from what I have looked into, my current commute from near north hills to RTP would take about 1.5 hours vs 30-40 minutes by car. Give me a viable option and I will be on public transit to rtp on the first day it runs. Don’t care if it’s commuter rail, BRT, light rail or monorail. But it cannot take 2-3X amount of time to get there.
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The solution to making buses work better is simple: bus lanes. This works all over the world. It can also be practically free - if we take existing traffic lanes and make them bus lanes. This has also worked well all over the world.
If we do that, we would be the first city in the US to aggressively prioritize buses over cars. And we would be the place that other cities look to and say “Man this is amazing!” - All of this would be great.
But it is definitely not innovative.
We here in the US keep flailing around looking for ways to make our transit better while also doing absolutely nothing to upset the status quo. Throw lots of money at it, make people feel bad for driving, wifi and USB charging on board. I think that “let’s innovate our way out of this” is another one. Allows us to pretend that there is some feasible way out that doesn’t inconvenience anybody, if only we could be Real Disruptive Innovator Geniuses like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs or whoever.
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So, another media piece states what we’ve already figured out. Transit solutions are expensive.
What bus??? 
In my view the next big innovation will be self-driving vehicles. But with all innovation, being on the leading edge means willing to take on the risks, such as self-driving cars killing people. I look forward to the day that self-driving cars are so reliable that the steering column can be hidden while a tray table is in-use for breakfast! 
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But we have these already, there called “trains”…Lol 
Seriously though, I really don’t look forward to that type of world… 
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I mean, lots and lots of people in transit have known this for a very, very long time. The solution for this is to create lanes where buses are allowed but cars aren’t. From a technological standpoint, this is incredibly easy: you just need some signs and some colorful paint for the lanes. The stumbling block is simply political will–a lot of people get very upset when you try to take space away from cars and give it to buses.
And, actually, the political sphere is a place where it might indeed be incredibly helpful to have some groundbreaking innovation. It would be super cool if we could find an innovative way to pitch this idea to the electorate so that it garners strong political support. And if we can find a way to do that, I promise you, people in other cities–and in this city, too–would go, “Man, this is amazing!” 
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Was looking at some of the ridership numbers today after riding the relatively new 26 route this past weekend to/from PNC (with nobody else on the bus) and yikes, the new Northwest Raleigh routes (26, 27, 36) are not doing so hot:
I wonder if it’s worth keeping all-day, 30 minute service on these routes in the meantime (until it’s better connected by frequent service at either ends of the route), while there are already routes that are more crowded that still have hourly service nights and weekends.
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One of our two prospective office locations, I could take 36 and 26 and get to work without a car!! I hope 1) we move to the Raleigh location, and 2) Go Raleigh keeps frequent bus service along these routes so I can have an alternative to my car to get to work. I just wonder how the travel time of taking the bus would compare to the drive time in a car… Also, how much of a lag would there be each way to transfer between the two buses. I’m not a bus rider, but if we move to the Raleigh office location, I would be willing to try it out for a while.
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