Light Rail: What works for Raleigh

[orulz]

I believe Wilsons Mills was the officially studied endpoint of commuter rail service if it were extended into JoCo. That would be close enough to serve people from the whole Smithfield-Selma area.

Long-long-long term, more frequent intercity rail east of I-95 might be a thing, and in that case, a rail-rail grade separation so the NS line can cross over the CSX line might make sense, but for now, not really. Putting the yard at the NCRR facility in Selma is not a good idea either because trains would have to cross the CSX line to get there.

[Francisco]

" As expected, last night the Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to discontinue the Durham-Orange Light Rail Project. This step formally discontinues the project. - Sally Greene"

We know need to move the discussion over the Commuter Rail thread.

[scotchman]

Darn who designed the Selma passenger station, it fronts on CSX and NS/NCRR tracks. Also walk right out of station onto platforms. LOL they should be fired.

Interesting note — Looking at street view on Google there is a train load of wind turban blades passing by on CSX.

[Nickster]

@scotchman

train load of wind turban blades passing by on CSX

Watch out, I hear those things can give you cancer.

[evan.j.bost]

Wind turbines? Those are Russian made military training hindrances to undermine our air Force!

FACEPALM*

[cxbrame]

BRT could be a much larger part of US infrastructure. We generally have large stroads often with inefficient use of space and continue to devote too much land area to single family housing even in areas that could accommodate transit support densities and lifestyles. Rail certainly has its place but so does frequent and reliable bus service.

[softfurrykitty]

The aftermath, comment from reader in the NY Post,

Reader Calvin Chin is disgusted with the rising cost of living — and traveling — in New York. He writes: “As the politicians raise taxes and tolls and introduce congestion pricing to force people to take mass transit, they also raised prices on commuter trains.”

Friday I was on 40 coming back from Southpoint at 430, traffic was backed up. As I inched along for 7 minutes I was side by side with an express bus. Nice and new by the way, they look great. It had 4 ppl on it at rush hour. Maybe they will need to force us on to fill it and then charge us more when we do.

Anyway, after passing a fender bender accident of 2 cars that refused to move from the high speed laneto the breakdown lane, I cruised into the city from from exit 285 in 15 min of open road, alas, at the the Trophyhouse with cold beer in hand and the weekend was here.

I am for transit of all types but we just do not have the density yet.

I was in Hawaii for a year, they have been building a cummuter rail for 10 plus years, billions and billions over budget, a horrific looking infrastructure of 2 and 3 story raised track supports, not one inch of it works, I don’t know if any actual track exists, the locals despise it and no end in site for completion. The good news is they just increased taxes to continue it.

Sometimes it’s just not needed or it’s not time for it.

[keita]

Wait. How are any of those related?

You’re saying that buses are nice but barely-used, and traffic can sometimes suck, but that’s why we don’t have the density to support mass transit. And poor project management is why they sometimes shouldn’t be a thing in the first place.

What do you mean by that? I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time seeing the logic behind what you wrote.

[softfurrykitty]

In a nut shell, just look around, the buses are empty, the TTA report for last 2 years shows ridership is down, there is no demand for a rail system to downtown.

Not enough ppl live or work downtown and commute in. If you already live downtown what do you care, you are already downtown.

Downtown proper will never be big enough, as it keeps spreading ever so slowly it just reaches access to more highways. The roads are improving all the time.

Don’t build a bridge to nowhere just because you think it should be.

Get the BRT running and when it shows 80 percent capacity on a year by year basis for several years then think about it.

We don’t need a bunch of empty trains because it’s cool, we have tto have the demand.

Is far as relation to article comment, I was referring to politicians, once they get there hands in it, it’s a mess.

And as far as Hawaii, the infrastructure is rotting before it’s even got one train car running because s these things always balloon out of control.

We don’t have the denisity to fill a bus even with all this growth and we are obsessed with rail, just build more bike lanes for now.

Even when looking at the map for stations on the orange to chapel hill line, that thing is useless, it does not go where the ppl that really need are located. It’s a straight line back and forth with some crappy stopes. Ppl will need to walk miles to get to it. Mine as well just have a car, it’s faster.

[elevatoroperator]

Current ridership is not a good metric for future ridership on an improved system.

The buses are empty because our bus service is complete shit, and a 20 minute drive most often turns into a 2 hour bus ride with multiple transfers. Our system is so bad that the only people who ride it are usually the ones with no other options.

You also don’t seem to recognize that transit in cities with a strong automobile culture is what spurs density, not the other way around. Yes, routes need to be thoughtfully considered and incorporate nodes of medium density - the North Hills of sorts. But transit (especially LRT) is a tool for spurring higher-density transit-oriented development along its corridor.

[Nickster]

I took a whirlwind 36 hour trip to St Louis this weekend. I didn’t use their light rail, but I saw it several times. It seemed to be fairly frequent, and everytime I spotted a train it looked like it was more than half full each time. Each train (that I saw) had one passenger car, and an engine/passenger car, so two cars per train. They only had one line that split off midway to form a “Y” down into another part of they city. AND it was the first thing I saw as I walked out of the airport terminal. The whole trip was eyeopening. St Louis metro really isn’t that much bigger than the Triangle as a whole. St Louis metro was pretty spread out too, but they did have clusters of density scattered around. The most notable (transportation related) item was they had tons of highways everywhere, where we have I-40 and a couple loops. They weren’t in the greatest condition, and could use some TLC, but there were multiple ways to easily and quickly get from A to B. In short, I think the biggest takeaway is that St Louis has been bigger longer, whereas the Triangle has only recently grown to be a “bigish” city. In another hundred years, we will have the density that St Louis had 100 years ago. With or without a transit system in place now, some “guided planning/development” will help foster transit for future generations.

[Deb]

@softfurrykitty

Friday I was on 40 coming back from Southpoint at 430

I wouldn’t necessarily consider 4:30 pm the typical time most people leave work. The same drive at 5:30-6:00 is a quite different. Anecdotal experiences are just that: anecdotal.

I’m fortunate to live 2.5 miles from where I work and commute by bicycle when I can. If I took the bus, it would take nearly 30 minutes to get from my house to work (lots of walking), and I’d end up arriving quite a bit earlier than I need to (and have to wake up much earlier). It takes 8-10 minutes in a car and 15 minutes on a bike.

As elevatoroperator said, people aren’t using the current system because it’s pretty crappy. If I could get to work in 15 minutes on the bus without having to wake up so much earlier, I’d take it on days when the weather is bad instead of driving. Bus fare would be a lot less expensive than paying for parking.

I agree that we should quickly make improvements to bus service and add BRT, but this should have been done 10 years ago.

[pierretong]

For the record, project management/costs are a huge problem in this country. I’m not sure what the problem is but it costs us 2-3 times to do a major infrastructure project in this country (especially when it comes to rail) compared to other first world countries.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-expensive-to-build-urban-rail-in-the-us/551408/

[OberlinSouth]

I think there’s kind of a stigma with buses here in the south. Part of it’s the functionality of the lines, but some of it’s social and historical.

I’m hoping that the BRT is done well enough to be functional, and is different enough to avoid the perception that it’s just a fancy bus. With the right station design, marketing, and efficiency I think it could be a huge success and prompt TOD nodes along the line.

I think our best hope for a light rail in the future is that the BRT spurs the kind of development that supports rail, and that when we build the lines they’re built with a future conversion to Light Rail in mind. The best strategy being an expansion to the BRT system map in the future, with the oldest parts of the line being converted to Light Rail, having had the benefit of transit oriented growth for period of years. It’s slower than jumping right into rail, but it lets us learn what works for Raleigh, while serving and developing our growth. It’s not as hard to pay for up front, but could provide the strongest evidence for a jump to light rail in the future and justify the increased costs.

This seems entirely logical to me from a growth perspective, and how you should plan a system if you’re starting from scratch.

[ScrantonUSC]

The main problem is walking to the bus stops. With the exception of a few neighborhoods, the area was developed without pedestrians in mind. I’d love to take public transport, but I refuse to walk along major thoroughfares without sidewalks. It’s dangerous, awkward, and disgusting at times when it rains. Raleigh dug itself into a very deep hole in this regard, and it will be insanely expensive to rectify it.

[ctillnc]

Take Creedmoor Road, for example. The City and NCDOT widened it to 4 lanes in the late 1980s, but to my amazement no sidewalks were included – even though CAT already ran a bus up and down the road. Yes, the bus stop nearest my home was a sea of mud half the time. The City did require developers to build sidewalks as new properties were built, but that merely produced a patchwork of sidewalks connected by dirt ruts. Only when Nancy McFarlane became Mayor were all the missing parts of sidewalks installed.

I’m sure the same story can be told for a hundred other places in Raleigh.

Oh… and as far as bus stop shelters are concerned, forget it. I suspect that fewer than 2% of the GoRaleigh bus stops have shelters. Half of them don’t even have a wooden bench to sit on. And half of the bus stop signs still say CAT not GoRaleigh.

It’s difficult to take the bus initiative seriously.

[OberlinSouth]

The BRT isn’t for everyone, and I don’t think all of the ridership is going to come from current residents. The point is that Raleigh can’t expand out any further. New developments and redevelopments are going to be more dense than what we’ve seen in the past. By identifying where the corridors are you can help focus areas of intensity. For a couple of examples, the Kmart at Western and Blue Ridge is ready for redevelopment, as is Mission Valley Shopping Center. Developing both with BRT stations as a Transit oriented development you can develop with lower parking ratios, incentivizing higher density. That allows your city to keep absorbing growth with lower vehicular traffic than you would see otherwise. More density without the same level of traffic is the benefit to existing residents.

You need a baseline of ridership around the stations to support them, but it isn’t necessarily being built for riders who live 2 miles away from a bus stop. The hope is that the TOD’s will become vibrant enough that they’ll be attractions in their own right. Without a viable alternative to cars, you’re limited to 100% car dependent development.

It looks to me like the stops are mostly planned for spots that are ready for some intense redevelopment.

[softfurrykitty]

I would I guess compare Charlotte, the last report was 2015, the ridership was down 1.4 percent from 2015. They had 25 million round trips, pretty good. Not sure how many of those trips are the same person commuting yearly. They charge 2.20 to 4.40 a trip. They have both BRT and train. The fares for all these trips somehow how only braught in 19 million. It takes 149 million to run the joint with 345 employees.

It servives on grants. I know it’s designed to not make money. But if the grants dry up and the Economy goes south they will suffer greatly.

The majority of the train trips on that line are to the malls, outlet stores and the Airport. The line is basically a straight shot of 25 stops. They are planing cross lines and such in the future.

As ppl here are pointing out our infrastructure for the damn bus system alone is not even set up properly and it comes closer to their homes than light rail will ever provide.

If you can’t provide a safe walk to the bus stop, a place to sit a wait for the bus that a person walked to for 20 minutes, and then you can only get me 20 mins walk to my destination then you are giving me more reasons not to ride than to ride.

I’ll just buy a used car for 1500 and enjoy the warmth, AC and comfort of my hoopty door to door.

Raleigh is not Europe, it’s huge and spread out.

Get the existing bus system and the BRT right first before attempting
Light rail, silly rabbits.

[ctillnc]

I’m not opposed to bus transit; I voted for the referendum, even though I live OTB. But my point is, for decades the city’s bus operation has been run on a shoestring with very little regard to quality service. As long as the buses ran, that was considered good enough. Even without increasing frequency of service or new conventional bus routes, much less BRT, we are a long way from a high-quality bus operation.

My concern is that our city won’t make a “right angle turn”. Otherwise, what we will get from our tax money is a poorly run and still passenger-unfriendly system, albeit larger.

[OberlinSouth]

That makes me think of the last time I owned a sports car. Hit a pothole and had to replace a $500 wheel. Haven’t had low profile wheel since then.

None of the public transportation systems are going to be perfect, even roads.