This route also opens up the possibility of direct greenway access for some diverse neighborhoods - Carolina Pines, Robinwood, Renaissance Park, Fairway Acres, The Greens Apartments and Tryon Village Apartments.
I like it.
5 Likes
I agree! And who knows… maybe easier to implement.
2 Likes
Such a great picture. Thanks for sharing.
1 Like
I have very little confidence that anything first presented at a public meeting will make it into the next Parks & Greenway bond, but there’s this:
1 Like
This would need a detailed engineering study to confirm… but it’s worth a shot, if you ask me 
(by the way, I sent you an email the other day)
1 Like
Yeah, of these, I really like the green route. It makes sense to run the new line past the cemetery. It’s kind of a dead area, and the noise from the trains won’t wake anybody up.
But seriously, though, folks, I also like that the green route would get the rail line completely out of the Carolina Pines neighborhood and eliminate the at-grade crossing there. The Peach Road Community Center would also make a very nice trailhead for the ensuing greenway.
Obviously, I really, really like the two southernmost proposals, but I suspect that would be a really difficult lift politically.
As always, we are so lucky to have @orulz in this community to calculate the hard stuff like grades and elevations that are light-years beyond my ability to model.
5 Likes
Just gonna leave this right here (again). 
3 Likes
Okay, I am now totally caught up on this (mostly). Whew! Yeah, @Patrick I would love to get looped into discussions about what we can do with this line, because I’ve been following this closely (except for the last two weeks, when I have been slammed with work stuff, which is of course when this took off), and it’s something I’m very passionate about, and I’ve come around to the idea that re-routing the line is a better idea and/or more realistic/feasible than trying to build a greenway all the way from DTR to Fuquay-Varina.
4 Likes
The southernmost ones might not be as hard as you think. They are longer, but the aqua has possibly as few as two structure impacts, and all the property impacts are industrial, mostly undeveloped, and otherwise just things like corners of parking lots. The wye where it connects to the NCRR is state owned property.
2 Likes
Looks like the agenda for the next CAMPO TCC meeting (on Thursday) includes a Resolution of Support for the S-Line. There’s three docs in there regarding the S-Line and SEHSR. We still have a long way to go, but this is actually gaining ground faster than I anticipated.
9 Likes
Light Rail could be coming back in the future if you vote Maria Cervania for Wake County Commissioners District 3 (endorsed by Indy Week) over Audra Killingsworth to see that dream become reality. Audra wants the cheap way out.
Not sure specifically what her platform is/was but light rail was always a terrible idea for anywhere that has an existing rail line (eg Wake Forest-Raleigh-Cary-Durham). If you want electric trains then fine, but start with the commuter rail project they are already planning, make it electric, add more stops, and run the trains every 10 or 15 minutes.
I think that BRT is a sensible complementary effort. Long term there are some corridors that might make sense for LRT: Glenwood for example- but there are undeniably some challenges, and so that would have to happen decades from now.
I am wary of someone with that platform. Do they want to scrap current planning and start over?
11 Likes
No they just want to add it to the agenda she for BRT, and CRT.
But wait why couldn’t LRT not go against the rail corridor, when it can go around or under it. Can someone explain that it never made sense to me.
Having a light rail route run along a rail corridor means the heavy rail operator (NCRR, Norfolk Southern, and/or CSX) needs to give up some of their land, plus ensure that light-rail trains are sufficiently separated and protected from heavy freight trains in case things go wrong. Norfolk Southern is especially protective of their freight rail; this is one of the several reasons why Durham’s light rail was killed off, plus why Charlotte’s still struggling to launch commuter rail.
And having light rail run above/under active tracks means an expensive environmental study (what if the landscaping you’d need to create slopes, foundations for bridges/tunnel supports etc. could cause severe erosion, release of toxic underground chemicals, or destroy previously-unknown Native American artifacts?). It seems like a good idea until you realize it’s a landmine of problems that you shouldn’t take lightly.
TL/DR: people don’t like it when you steal their stuff and maybe destroy things and/or put them in danger of low-risk/high-impact problems.
7 Likes
Okay but how about in non-Rail corridors she meant Crabtree and Glenwood and Capital maybe or North Hills, not Downtown where the original light rail line was. Or perhaps a streetcar or tram that runs on road which is still like light rail
Taking advantage of existing rail corridors makes great sense. Especially the NCRR and the S-line, which parallel congested corridors and go through some reasonably dense areas. But on other corridors, to me, it makes more sense to maximize buses first - with full dedicated busways, and articulated buses running frequently (every 5-10 minutes). After that capacity is utilized, then think about upgrading to rail.
When we do get there, rather than light rail, maybe think about something automated and elevated like Vancouver’s SkyTrain? Of all the major corridors, perhaps the biggest one that is not closely paralleled by a rail line is Glenwood. This could double as the way to finally build a rail connection to RDU. But this only makes sense after we’ve first spent a few decades with beefed up buses.
8 Likes
So you’re saying light rail has no future in Raleigh, casue o don’t see monorail either.
There’s a reason why the plan without light rail was the one that finally got past the finish line. We need to stop worrying about specific modes of transit, and just worry about improving transit regardless of mode.
10 Likes
Exactly. We Americans have this tendency to think that rail is the difference between a good and bad transit system. Great example: Charlotte, a city with one great LRT line and a rather disappointing bus system. The result? A system that works really well for people who live near the light rail line and intend to travel in a linear direction, and terribly for everyone else.
Rail is sexier than the bus, sure, but it’s not always practical or even necessary. Bus lanes can be implemented in a much shorter amount of time and can more easily adapt to changes in ridership and routing. That being said, if you do happen to have a route where rail is relatively feasible (in Raleigh/Durham’s case, the planned commuter rail), by all means, get on that. But light rail? Let’s shelve that one for now.
12 Likes