A lot of the ridership projections for the commuter rail are dependent on transfers from the light rail. The failure of the light rail project may end up making the commuter rail non-viable as well. Duke has absolutely dropped the ball for the entire region and it will take us decades to recover from this, if we do at all. Hate to be all doom and gloom, but them’s the facts.
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We’ll just add some more lanes to I-40 instead.
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That’s disappointing.
I’m disappointed in you, Duke.
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Perhaps there is a way to reroute around Duke, preferably in the most passive aggressive way possible?
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I think there’d be some serious issues with ridership numbers if it didn’t involve Duke in some form (which could be a problem with getting funding)
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Reminds me of the Purple Line extension in Los Angeles. It was suppose to go all the way through Beverly Hills in the 1990 but the city of Beverly Hills thought that public transportation is only for poor people so they blocked it. Even though the line would have been DEEP underground they used the excuse that it would harm the local school foundation.
Now the purple extension has only restarted work this decade and will be completed in several years.
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I am interested in how this will all pan out for the Raleigh BRT. It may go from being the least sexy and exciting thing to the ONLY public transportation effort going. It is fascinating that when you talk to people in general it seems like there is huge public support for public transit, but when the details of actually doing it come up and people who would be near it see plans the slings and arrows come out against it. It might be best to expose the forces against new transit to the greater public earlier so a public will to get it done can override the opposition before a deadline shows up and we don’t make/the plan dies.
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That’s an interesting point. Chapel Hill is also planning a N/S BRT line, but I wonder if the derailment of the DOLRT will have repercussions with that too.
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Maybe they should scrap the light rail and make the it BRT instead. Take the savings and use it for the regional commuter rail.
Of course Dook would probably find some BS excuse to fight that as well.
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I’m sure Duke and Chapel Hill have large numbers of people who would use mass transit but the population centers and work centers of Garner, Downtown Raleigh, Cary, RTP, and Downtown Raleigh would seem to be higher numbers than Duke and Chapel Hill. Additionally, the public perception is better since it is less expensive and the commuter trains proposed are pretty attractive and the pathway doesn’t need multiple private entities for approval since it follows existing lines. Even with just announcing stations would lead to higher density development along the route as has been proven just about everywhere that commuter rail has been added. To me it is an absolute no-brainer to do this as the first step in mass transit for the region.
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I said Downtown Raleigh twice but I meant Downtown Durham. Students can walk and take buses to the Downtown Durham station. Adding stops at Meredith and the fairgrounds and somewhere as close to RDU as possible would help as well. The bus can be used for the last mile.
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The only concern that holds any water at all is EMI. Their concerns are probably overblown. But eliminating the catenary and running on battery power along Erwin makes the issue go away. The technology to do this exists. Charlotte is using it for their streetcar. It’s not a small change, since it may have some consequences in terms of requiring a substation to be relocated (or requiring an additional substation altogether).
To me, this seems to be the only way forward. Not sure whether there’s enough time to figure this out.
Eminent domain may seem attractive but is not going to be easy since I do not believe they have a fully approved environmental impact statement yet that includes all the recent modifications (like the Erwin viaduct and the Pettigrew tunnel. It is the EIS that clears the way for eminent domain, basically providing the justification that allowa federal money to be spent condemning and acquiring private property.
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The only transfer point between the light rail and commuter rail would be downtown Durham, right? I can’t see that being a crippling blow to the commuter rail.
I don’t like Duke so I’m biased and I admit that. Nevertheless I’m hoping maybe this whole thing could be scrapped and a comprehensive rail project from DTR to UNC via PNC, RDU, RTP and DTD could get planned. #alphabetsoup
I tried explaining the Duke controversy to someone recently, in the context of the whole transit plans thing. They’re like, so we’re supposed to take slow buses to BRT in Raleigh, get off in RTP, transfer to light rail, and go to Durham? Why would someone do all of that when they could just make the 25 minute drive?
This whole thing is a mess.
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The one thing is that it won’t always be a 25 minute drive in the future; also if you can take the train you can drink.
strong textI think this would be a great time to step back and re-envision the entire transit plan for the Triangle as a whole. That’s the best way to get it to work IMO. Maybe l things are too spread out right now but it’s not always going to be that way.
Unfortunately things that don’t have immediate or near immediate payoffs are really hard to pull off because the political will isn’t there or the long arc of the project leaves it susceptible to tinkering or cancellation.
But I believe some sort of rail solution, supplemented with bus and whatever else, across the Triangle would be transformative.
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Reading this while considering people using this to commute to work makes me lol.
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This is spot on. Build the commuter line between Garner and Durham. That is the spine of the system. Feed that with BRT or regular busses. Leave Dook out of it and let them come crawling back after it’s implemented and have them beg for a station on their campus.
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Does anybody know the facts around the federal money that would be available if Duke was on board and if that is lost forever if they bail even if it’s another NC project? I’d definitely be a HUGE proponent of the “spine” route mentioned above several times.
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There is a very long process that must be undertaken in order to compete for the federal money. It is called the “New Starts” grant program and is run by the FTA (Federal Transit Administration).
Given that process, it will be years before any other project reaches the stage DOLRT is at today.
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Downtown Durham and West Durham, near our wonderful private university sweethearts. The DOLRT and Wake-Durham Commuter Rail were always meant to have a symbiotic relationship. I’ll point back to something I’ve said on here a few times: our region does not have one, large, centralized job center that can pull people in from all sides. RTP is too spread out, DT Raleigh and DT Durham are growing but certainly can’t do it alone, then you have the densest job corridor in Durham (that would be Erwin) as pretty much a no-fly zone thanks to Duke. Also, UNC/UNC Medical Center is an enormous job center that won’t have any major transit connection now. The regional transit plans relied on these being all interconnected through, at most, a two-seat ride, those two seats being on either rail line.
I would love to see either 1) the light rail go around Duke or 2) a BRT system in the same relative path as the DOLRT. But the problem with 1 is that you’re missing the largest job corridor in the western part of the Triangle, and the problem with 2 is that Duke will find some nonsense excuse for opposing BRT on Erwin (the colored bus lanes could distract EMT vehicles!!!1111).
Pay close attention to the draft STIP released by NCDOT. The next highest-graded transit project is a BRT between RTP and Garner. This would just be an extension of the current lines being planned in Raleigh, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
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