Wait, I’m not sure if you got my message in that last post? The whole point was that, if you were to build a new rail line, there’s a whole pile of inherent hurdles you’d have to jump over that makes it too impractical without fundamental shifts in how things work in the Triangle*.
If you want to build a structure for heavy trains, you need to build heavier bases that are dug deeper into the ground -assuming the ground that our interstates run on can support them in the first place, including all the bridges that you’d have to (re)build.
Light rail is called light rail for this reason: the Durham-UNC route could get away with their 18 miles of tracks filled with aerial segments and tight turns because their trains would’ve been smaller and less heavy. Each station idea was also immediately surrounded by transit-oriented development which are dense, walkable, and multimodal, and they didn’t require miles of access bridges to connect pedestrians to every station. Even though you had density (read: demand from a captive market), lots of land donations, and smaller infrastructure from the Durham light rail attempt, it still would’ve cost about $110 million per mile ($2.2 billion divided by 18 miles).
If you want to build along an existing highway’s right-of-way, assuming you have permission, you’d need to either build on the median (and take away shoulder space that could be used to evacuate vehicles in an emergency for months on end) or on the edge (and restrict chances for highways to widen in the future). Keep in mind that there are plans to eventually add express and/or toll lanes to most Interstates in the Triangle by the 2040s, too, which will probably shrink or eliminate some of the grassier medians we have in the area. I’d think the DOT wouldn’t be very happy if a wrench got thrown into those plans for a rail system that hasn’t even gone through a Major Investment Study yet.
Add in the fact that you asked about heavy commuter rail, with its higher construction costs, geometric limits due to how it can’t make tight turns, legal restrictions on what you can pull off because of its shape and size, and this…
…then the costs seem to far outweigh the benefits of building rail in outer Raleigh right now, when we haven’t even built a core network yet. Priorities, maybe?
I’m a fan of a comprehensive rail system in every corner of the Triangle. But the devil is in the details, and on closer inspection, it looks like an even bigger field of landmines than Vincent Price’s backyard. And this is before we bring the environment and ridership onto the table.
Besides, it looks like BRT (purple) may be a better solution that’s already being considered by CAMPO’s 2045 plans, anyways:
*: don’t get me wrong; I want everything reasonably possible to happen to make public transit a reality around here. It’s just that… uh… see previous post; pretty sure the land/business-owners and commuters who would get caught in the crossfire would burn supportive politicians at the stake when they get their chance in the ballot.