I agree that light rail isn’t a good fit for the Triangle (as much as I wish it was…). But if we want to actually improve transit in our region instead of failing at the same thing over and over again, I think it’s just as important to remember why it keeps being brought back from the dead.
I agree, and the recently-approved updates to the Wake Transit Plan is a solid step forward for that! The real challenge is to get the rest of the public to buy into that idea. Like @daviddonovan’s implying, light rail being brought back from the dead every few years is not a debate about evidence or reason; in my eyes, the real road block is that people feel like saying “light rail or die” without thinking through it.
But why? I think it’s because we have no inspiring examples to look up to. The Triangle’s transportation ecosystem is polycentric and is growing both economically and in prominence. At least for cities with BRT operations I can think of off the top of my head, those properties make the Triangle stand out from its future peers:
Many of these BRT services are too new to be a proven solution, and too low-key to be inspiring to non-transit nerds’ eyes. They don’t capture the public imagination like trains do, they aren’t a part of popular cultures like subways, and they don’t have rose-tinted associations of Disney magic like monorails.
Without those mental aids, of course BRT and commuter rail won’t matter to people; the Average Joe doesn’t know any better than light rail and subways, and has no reason to imagine anything new. Call me a Debbie Downer, but I’m not a fan of the chances of overcoming that kind of ignorance and indifference -and I’m not sure what’s the best move here 