Looks like they are wrapping part of the parking garage (which is already built) with some great looking condos. Living in one of those facing this new park would be pretty sweet.
3 Likes
Not even one person doing push-ups or parkour thoā¦
4 Likes
Iām thinking thatās what West Street should be facing Devereaux Meadows park (5-7 floors residential, ground floor retail spaces).
5 Likes
Drove through Charlotte today. Still ugly. Lots of cranes though. Looks like latest wave of towers a little better than last wave. I donāt know if itās the landscape or the proliferation of tackiness that ruins it for me.
2 Likes
It is very similar: tan and neutral colors in the towers from the 90s earlier and very blue glass on the new towers
Because 1. Money, to say nothing of political will, is not an infinite resource 2. Thereās absolutely zero reason to have both LRT and BRT running side-by-side serving the same corridor 3. With LRT you have the problems of what land to gobble up to get around all these obstacles, and 4. If you had LRT and BRT serving the same corridor, what would happen to LRT once you reach the downtown grid? Would BRT and LRT run in the same ROW or would you need a second ROW now?
@niko This kind of perfectly exemplifies what I find exasperating about the constant push that we need light rail specifically without any regard for where it would run, exactly, just so long as itās light rail. It could follow Capital or it could follow 440? So we could either have a light rail that runs right through the urban core, or maybe we could have a light rail that totally bypasses the urban core and instead follows a much longer (and obscenely expensive) route to serve people traveling specifically from North Hills to Penmarc? Light rail is a means to an end, which is moving people place from one place to another. Sometimes itās the best means of doing that, and sometimes itās not. But itās never an end in and of itself.
Tying this back to the topic of the thread, which is showing off things from other cities, Charlotteās Blue Line is pretty well designed to move people in the context of Charlotteās unique circumstances. Charlotte grew up around freeways, so connecting its urban core to its suburbs was always going to require light rail. It was the right/only call for Charlotte despite the hefty price tag. But Raleigh grew up around railroads, and most of its suburbs have heavy rail lines running through them. Why not just run the transit on the rail lines that already exist rather spend a billion dollars to create new lines that would just serve the exact same function?
And light rail is overkill for a short trip like Penmarc to downtown. In Charlotte, if you look at their Gold Line, which runs east-west mostly through the urban core, itās not light rail, itās trolley-replica streetcars, which are basically just twee little busesātheyāre far more expensive than good old buses, but still much, much less expensive than light rail. In Raleigh, for analogous trips beginning and ending inside or near our street grid, thereās no reason why youād ever try to use light rail for thatāyouād want to use something like ā¦ BRT ā¦ which is exactly what the transportation plan calls for.
5 Likes
I agree with you. Letās develop an excellent network of BRT and then use heavy/commuter rail to connect our core to the suburbs. Those two things alone would be huge game changers for DT in a way that most of us canāt even imagine.
8 Likes
Orrrrr, you could have both LRT and BRT and they serve different corridors. Whoa, mind blown!
6 Likes
Well, my post was in reply to a post that specifically discussed a proposed southern corridor, and this only addresses half of the issues raised ā¦ but okaydude, mind definitely blown now.
But, again, I feel like this still gets transit issues backwards. A lot of the conversation here about light rail usually goes āWe need light rail!ā āUm, okay. Where?ā āI donāt know where. But we need light rail!ā So what specific corridors did you have in mind that canāt be adequately served by either heavy rail or BRT and require that je ne sais quoi that light rail and only light rail can provide?
Trying desperately to steer this thing back on topic, Charlotte grew up around freeways, and the southern half of the Blue Line closely follows the I-77 corridor and then veers northeast to pick up part of the I-85 corridor. (The northern part of I-77 is the Red Line, which was supposed to be heavy rail, but Norfolk Southern refused to share the line, so it became BRT instead, which is also not light rail.) The proposed (and phenomenally expensive) Silver Line would connect the western part of the I-85 corridor before turning southeast to pick up the big population center in and around Matthews. And the Gold Line, again, is streetcars, which are just twee little buses.
Aside from the fact that the Gold Line should have been buses, Charlotte had a sensible plan to build a transportation network, and light rail was the means to that end because it was the only feasible option given the inherent weaknesses of the existing infrastructure. It wasnāt an end unto itself.
1 Like
I donāt want Raleigh to become a city where we just add things to check off the box for that item. I want a strategy in place to achieve a vision that we have for the city center. I want vibrant, interesting, walkable neighborhoods with different vibes and experiences that will draw me into them, and I want projects to be associated to a strategy that leads to that vision.
8 Likes
Very similar to Charlotteā¦ Raleigh had a plan for LRT from Cary to DTR to North Raleigh along existing infrastructure. Start with that and BRT south down Wilmington and east out New Bern, cross town connections in North Raleigh. Commuter rail line Garner to DTR to RTP/ Durham. Pretty solid network in my opinion. 
4 Likes
Yeah, that at least is a vision for what the transportation network is intended to accomplish, but thereās a big difference between transit running along existing infrastructure and running near existing infrastructure.
Heavy rail runs along existing infrastructure (the train tracks) and BRT runs along existing infrastructure (roads). Light rail typically runs along existing infrastructure (the roads) in some places, but for much of the route youāre condemning land and building new infrastructure from scratch. This sort of expense and political fight is inherent in light railāif you could run the whole thing on existing roads, you would just use buses.
Hereās a story from Streetsblogs USA that includes a map of what I think is the same plan youāre talking about. (Trigger warning: Angie refers to us as Raleigh-Durham voters.)
The map provides a good side-by-side comparison of commuter rail vs. light rail. The proposed light rail route is about half as long as the proposed commuter rail route, but would cost at least twice as much in capital costs. (It would have higher predicted ridership, although Iām guessing probably significantly lower total people-miles.) The reason light rail is at least 4x as expensive per mile is that it runs near existing infrastructure, not actually along existing infrastructure. (And BRT is significantly cheaper per mile than commuter rail is.)
Charlotteās light rail is super nice, and Iām really, really glad they built it. And as a lesson about planning for the future and marshaling political will, thereās a lot that Raleigh can learn from Charlotte. But a lot of Charlotteās choices were forced by the weaknesses of the existing infrastructure. Raleigh can leverage existing strengths that Charlotte doesnāt have.
3 Likes
Yea I shouldāve been clearer. I think using the existing rail corridor for the majority of the LRT is an excellent idea. Thanks for the flashback link!
1 Like
I think that the existing rail corridors are more aligned with commuter rail than to light rail. Then again, I think that we often use the different rail terms interchangeably since they somewhat achieve the same goal.
Heavy/commuter rail is arguably more appropriate for a multi-node metro like the Triangle, with multiple cores, employment centers, universities, etc.
3 Likes
Agreed that Raleigh to RTP to Durham connection is best accomplished with commuter rail. I think Raleigh is developing where trips within the city would benefit from LRT and BRT.
1 Like
I think we need to keep the historic, vibrant neighborhoods. In Montreal, there is a neighborhood near the St. Josephs Oratory with a place called Fairmount Bagels. The neighbourhood is very cool, it is all brownstones (if I remember correctly) and is large and has a few main large walkable avenues.
1 Like
I would at that āregional railā is a better name. Commuter rail implies peak period service - into the city in the AM and out of the city in the PM. Since the Triangle has multiple job centres along the line and daily work schedules are no longer ātypicalā 8-5, the line should provide frequent service in both directions all day. Like an S Bahn or RER.
1 Like
Iām not opposed to that, but I disagree. Donāt really think there is a demand for mid-day travel between Raleigh, Durham, and RTP. Think most of trips mid-day and after evening would be served by LRT and BRT within each city. Who knows in 15 years though. And easy enough to shift schedules once the infrastructure is in place.
1 Like
Not sure if want to use this thread also to look at Durham new development:
The Roxboro at Veneable Center started advertising on loop net.
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/464-Pettigrew-St-Durham-NC/15506070/
Edit: ācoming summer 2020ā sounds ambitiousā¦
1 Like
It seems standard that developers ācoming in xxxxā sort of messaging is usually overly ambitious.