And roads, have been subsidized for decades and will be for the way foreseeable future…imagine how other modes of transit would be if they had as much…
3 Likes
The thing I notice from the Charlotte stats is that 25 million round trips. If you deal with traffic congestion every day and someone said they could reduce the number of car trips by 25 million, doesn’t it make you think it’s going to make it easier for cars to get around?
If you think Climate change is a real thing, does a system that reduces emissions make it worth it?
1 Like
Hopefully we will start getting electric buses even though I believe it’s now low-priority for GoRaleigh. The noice, vibrations, and smell of the current diesel busses nauseates me.
1 Like
No matter how good the public transportation systems are (or will be), it doesn’t matter much for people like me. I will never ride the bus or rail. I am going to drive my car no matter what and I suspect that the vast majority of people in Wake County think the same way I do. (Note that I am generally for light rail or commuter trains). You definitely need those pockets of high density around the stations but that will not happen probably unless you build it first. And maybe the young will eventually think differently than those of us who love our cars and the convenience they provide.
3 Likes
I would agree with you, though I am not one of those people. I believe that it’s a “learned” habit…kind of like, when I have said before that I have 2 vehicles by choice, but I now utilize bikes, the green way trail, buses, whenever I can…
I have been around long enough to “enjoy” slowing down shall we say. I don’t feel the need to have to be transported from point A to point B…NOW
I get up a little earlier, walk to the bus stop. etc… I truly enjoy my life now a lot more than I used too and that was when I ONLY had a car…Lol
5 Likes
It will matter to you and to everyone that will drive a car no matter what. For everyone that does take public transport, it will mean one less car on the road and less traffic for the people that drive cars.
6 Likes
I am not fighting the cost, I know what public systems are all about, I don’t have a beef at all, just make it serve those it’s intended to serve effectively, make it the best ever.
I’ll worry about climate change when all of the other countries on earth can do at least half of what the US has done in the last 10 years to reduce its effects on the economy thank you very much, lol.
4 Likes
Don’t wait…do what YOU can…when you can…you are responsible ONLY for YOUR own actions…
1 Like
Hah. I used to live in Houston and Washington DC and used to visit Chicago all the time. Traffic here in the Raleigh area is a piece of cake in comparison. I have a 12 mile drive from Cary (near Bond Park) and it only takes me about 20-25 minutes and I enjoy it even when Western Blvd is backed up a bit. Again, I am for mass transit although the whole Durham thing makes me waffle a bit on it. But I promise you I will never ride it and again I think most people who currently live here probably never will either. I am just giving you the perspective that most people will have.
1 Like
I already do. But I don’t WORRY ABOUT it!
1 Like
Just as Raleigh keeps moving up in population rankings, so does the "so-called-piece of cake…
1 Like
That’s 100% completely fine that you want to drive everywhere! That freedom is yours #Merica.
As long as you are for people having choices in regards to their transportation needs, and not having to rely on a (sometimes costly) investment in a car as the sole means of transportation in the area.
4 Likes
So how many times do I have to say that “I am FOR light rail and/or commuter train”? In fact I wish we would get the best of the best and have something really nice. Still doesn’t change the facts that I will not ride it and definitely will not ride any bus. And I think most people feel the same way. I think it was smart for Wake County to do the Transit Sales and Use Tax because if we had to vote for the light rail I don’t think it would pass in a bond referendum.
2 Likes
Yep.
Carless in Raleigh. It works pretty well for me. If I had to commute to RTP again and rely on a car to do basic necessities I would rather permanently leave this area.
1 Like
I never said you were against it. I should have added that I appreciate that you support public transportation options 
I think there are many though in Wake County who don’t necessarily share the same sentiment. The last transit referendum didn’t exactly pass by the widest margins and I think that includes people who think that it might be “nice” to have transit (but would probably balk if the plan was sold different or if they knew what it would truly take to get high quality transit options in the area)
Right now most transit plans are sold as “congestion relief!” plans - but really that’s not the goal of transit (or really the end result, transit will never by itself solve congestion).
3 Likes
To be honest I am a fairly recent advocate of light rail. I still think we don’t actually need it today as our density and expected ridership doesn’t seem to warrant it, but I do think we need to start today because by time we get the money and get everything approved and actually build it then we will need it. I may not still be alive when all that happens…
3 Likes
@TedF I’d be intrested to know why you “will never ride” public transit. Just curious. Why the special disdain for the bus as opposed to rail?
1 Like
Don’t want to ride it. I have a car. I love the freedom that my car gives me. I leave my house when I want to. I return when I want to. I don’t have the check any schedules or get on my phone and figure out where the bus is now or where I need to be. And I know without a doubt it will always take me longer to get to and from work with any system of transit other than my car. And I have ridden a bus, monorail, subway, metro etc in a variety of places while on vacation. I am not against riding them when I need to. But I will never need to here in Raleigh.
Ahhh that’s what I was curious about. Thanks for answering my next question! That makes a lot more sense.
1 Like
I don’t have a problem with cars per se. I do have a problem with the way we have built our infrastructure for cars only, to the exclusion of all else.
I think if everyone were a bit more honest about the consequences of our society’s complete and utter surrender to cars (I call it “automobile supremacy”) the calculus might change a bit.
I am not talking about Climate Change.
In Raleigh, it is extremely difficult to get around without a car without also dying. Chew on that for a moment. The “freedom of movement” that cars bring for their users have come at the enormous expense of restrictions on movement for all other modes.
Let us not even talk about transit for now. Let’s talk only about other individual means of mobility. Walking, biking, scooters, whatever.
- Some roads may have pavement 100’ wide or more for cars, with little 5’ wide sidewalks on each side, where there are sidewalks at all, and zero space for bikes.
- Most roads have so many driveways that you literally have to check over your shoulder every 20 seconds to be sure that some motorist is not going to mow you down, even when you as a pedestrian, are supposed to have the right of way.
- Many roads have stoplights spaced apart by a quarter mile or more to aid with the free flow of traffic. Somebody trying to walk to a destination across the street, 100 feet away, has three choices: 1. Walk 5+ minutes to the stoplight, push the beg button, wait 2 minutes, dodge right-on-red drivers who NEVER actually stop, walk 5 minutes back. 2. Be a criminal: jaywalk, risk death (which in some people’s opinion would be a well-deserved death), or 3. Just forget it, if you don’t have a car you don’t matter anyway
- Right on Red is extremely hazardous for pedestrians because everybody (yes even me, yes even you) stops on the crosswalk (in order to see oncoming traffic) and does a rolling stop if no cars are coming. There is absolutely zero enforcement of proper behavior on this nor will there ever be.
- Police officers, judges, and juries are also universally motorists and in a situation between a pedestrian and a motorist, even when the pedestrian dies, are likely to sympathize with the motorist.
- Don’t get me started on the treatment afforded to cyclists.
This has become a self reinforcing cycle where walking and biking becomes less practical because of how badly our awful car-centric infrastructure gets in the way, so nobody does it. And then because nobody does it, planners, engineers, and officials can say “look, no demand! So we shouldn’t spend money on it.”
So that “wonderful” sense of freedom you experience in your car actually comes at an extremely high cost. It has a lot more to do with how hard our city and country have worked to keep every other means of transportation out of the way of motorists, which in turn makes everything else completely miserable and impractical, rather than the actual virtues of car travel itself.
Imagine a world where pedestrians always have the right of way and could walk across the street wherever they please and cars had to stop. Car speed limits would need to be set to 20mph or less so that they wouldn’t hit people. This would be a more egalitarian system and that alone would change the balance away from cars in a very real way.
Another way would be to build a first rate set of dedicated infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians, including lots of pedestrian grade separations in those stretches of road where you don’t have a stoplight nearby for a crossing. Right-on-red would need to be prohibited and beg buttons eliminated. The costs of these changes should be borne entirely by motorists because it is their infrastructure that makes it so impossible to get around without a car in the first place.
I was a bit hesitant at first with the term “automobile supremacy” since it connects this with some very significant civil rights issue and it may seem not very politically correct for a white male like me to co-opt that terminology. But if you think about it, it really is apt: a powerful majority (motorists) continually working to maintain and strengthen their position, some of them actually quite militantly, with a subjugated minority (pedestrians) so subdued that they just accept the status quo as an inevitable fact of life and don’t even dare to aspire to more.
In conclusion I must admit that, like all of you, I too am a motorist. But I am a WOKE motorist dammit. 
14 Likes