Thoughts on how this may or may-not be effected by the new administration (Biden/Buttigieg)?
I think it might be Franklinton, not Youngsville, but yes, that’s my guess. Not sure what the thirteenth was… maybe the FTA site was off on their count.
Also, apologies for the graininess of said map… I couldn’t read it during the presentation either.
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I was thinking the same thing. I know it was mentioned somewhere that Pete was keen for this job because mayors actually have a better idea about infrastructure implementation than some bureaucrats in DC. Hoping Biden’s infrastructure plans will come to fruition.
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Oh, good catch. I was thinking Franklinton but wrote Youngsville instead. Fixed!
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I’m hoping they give it (and all rail infrastructure) a major boost in terms of timeline and funding. Would love to see the US start cranking out projects like this. I’m cautiously optimistic. Really hoping Amtrak Joe lives up to his name (and that Congress doesn’t get in his way if he does).
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I feel cautiously optimistic about Pete heading the DoT, too. He’s not exactly a rock-star candidate for this particular post, but he has a clear track record of promising actions like supporting TODs, pushing for a national Vision Zero initiative to reduce traffic deaths via better sidewalks/bikeways, and getting more frequent transit service.
The Raleigh-Richmond higher-speed rail corridor is already fully planned, though (read: it just needs money for construction), whereas plans for this Sanford extension(?) will hopefully be just as complete in a few years. That means whether trains will regularly run on the Southeast Corridor is a budgeting question, and that’s the job of Congress. This means, I think, the big unknown depends more on Congress than the FTA.
But before anything else, Buttigieg needs to be confirmed by the Senate. And unless Georgians vote out both incumbents in the senate run-offs this January and take away Republicans’ ability to prevent Biden’s ability to get anything done, I wouldn’t take that for granted. Let’s be honest: would Moscow Mitch let Pete (or really, any Biden appointee) through? 
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high speed not thru Sanford. on current tracks for Amtrak. this is new for commuter only
yeah i think the 13 stops in combination of VA and NC is how they got the count to 13…
While I appreciate the optimism, when it comes to federal budgets, I have a feeling we’re all in for a very rude awakening once COVID winds down and the Feds have to figure out how to pay for all pandemic related debts (stimulus, ppp, vaccine development/implementation, unemp. benefits) it is incurring. I would love to see a great rail network in the US, but when it comes to funding, there are much bigger fiscal issues to address before we get to infrastructure.
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Or the other way to look at it, infrastructure spending is a way for the government to create jobs and prime the economy for recovery during a recession. But I agree there is a lot of uncertainty right now around a bunch of things.
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Agreed, my company (large infrastructure engineering firm) is counting on federal infrastructure spending to get their books back on plan.
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Why can’t the fed just print enough money to pay for Covid relief AND build high speed rail network? Makes sense to me…
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Risk for hyperinflation or stagflation? Or even if that doesn’t happen (idk I’m not a macroeconomist), wouldn’t this massively piss off treasury bond investors? With a nationwide high-speed rail network costing maybe north of $200B and COVID shaving off $16 trillion from America’s GDP through the next decade, wouldn’t it hurt the economy at large if you devalue the dollar by printing so much more money?
To be transparent about my biases, though, my family is from Japan, where quantitative easing just did not help people feel more comfortable about opening up their wallets.
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I mean that was mostly tongue and in cheek but if the CARES Act taught us anything its that the fed can essentially print unlimited amounts of money. What’s another couple trillion? I say ignore the abstract economic consequences and build some railroad!
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A much larger concern than doing too much is not doing enough. We should be debt financing as much as possible when real interest rates are negative. Especially in projects that are investments in long term growth like energy, infrastructure and education. Almost irresponsible not to.
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Yeah, having lived in Japan for a year myself (but not being an expert) I can say with some conviction that, while the stimulus may have yielded diminishing returns from an economic perspective, that Japan’s physical infrastructure is vastly more sophisticated than ours - not just in the megacities like Tokyo or Osaka, but even in second and third tier cities like Hiroshima (where I lived) or Fukui (which I visited). There are no doubt many reasons that this is the case, but it’s hard to escape the thought that “cheap money” policies probably play a role. And for Japan’s economy to have done as well as it has in spite of the aging (and now, declining) population is really not that bad of a performance perhaps?
Good infrastructure means better quality of life, and that’s a benefit that goes beyond just the economy. Coming back from Japan in 2004 after spending a year there was an intensely disillusioning experience, in large part because I felt for the first time how bad things are here. Things that you come to take for granted so easily over there, like good pedestrian infrastructure, good transit, and streets that are safe to bike on, are just completely absent here. That was what led me to start stanning for this stuff online, first over on Urban Planet and now here.
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Super interesting. I’d like to go to Japan at some point. And yes, I’m sure your theory is correct.
Oh yeah no, I absolutely agree: I don’t think the government should try to maximize shareholder profits, so I’m all for governments helping to fund projects in transit, education, and other industries to help people recover from the pandemic (and even come out stronger than they were before). What I wasn’t too sure about was specifically about printing money, since I didn’t realize @Phil was joking 
Before I get to Owen’s post, though, the inflation-on-purpose thing I’m worried about is based on one of the 3 arms of Japan’s Abenomics initiative. That’s different from the period in history I’ll talk about below.
I think artificial currency control was absolutely a part of it, too. Dollar-yen conversions were fixed at 360¥ to the dollar after WWII instead of being subject to market forces. This currency manipulation totally helped Japan get back up on its feet, not be tempted to become an ally of the Soviet Union, and (re)build lots of walkable developments and rail lines.
But that was a postwar effort that took four decades to bear fruit. I think public transit infrastructure is still an important (sometimes literal!) foundation to a resilient economy. But I’m not sure if the economic tools they used then are helpful for us now, especially when serious investments could also get the job done?
Click here for a fun fact about Japan's postwar boom!
Lots of Japanese people look back on the 70s and 80s as the golden years -but the asset bubble burst in the 90s and made the Japanese economy stuck in a rut. Since I was born in 1995, everyone there who’s more than 20 years older than me say that I’m a part of the “lost generation” with pity. This economic gloominess is said to have affected more than the economy, but also people’s splurging habits, sexuality, and willingness to travel abroad.
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CAMPO is updating the Northeast Area Study and their recommendations are open for public comment. The study is for all transportation and land use for the study area, which includes parts of Franklin and Wake Counties, the City of Raleigh, as well as the Towns of Bunn, Franklinton, Knightdale, Rolesville, Wake Forest, Wendell, Youngsville, and Zebulon. Their recommendations for commuter rail from Sanford to Franklinton are relevant to this discussion topic.
From the study team:
“The study team has identified biking, walking, rail, bus, and roadway recommendations and needs your help on prioritizing them into near, mid, and long-term buckets. The recommendations will feed into the Triangle region’s long-range transportation plan, which is how we get state and federal dollars for transportation projects.
Check out the virtual Open House where you can:
- Take the prioritization survey.
- Visit (and revisit!) the online map to view recommendations and let us know if we missed anything.
- Learn about the study process.”
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