Maybe we can do something like this: https://www.dezeen.com/2022/02/18/paris-cable-car-creteil-france/
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It looks cool, but where would it make sense to do that?
Gondolas are useful where you can deal with a smaller capacity and slower service than trains or BRT, and the terrain would also get in the way of those services. That would make sense for Paris’ suburbs and central LA (since they’re both hilly and congested). But where in Raleigh would that be more useful than a bus?
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I would think that you could use them to feed the BRT lines as an alternative to people driving to a park and ride lot.
Stumbled across this on YouTube. Someone took a drone out to the section of 540 where it intersects with I-40 and US-70. This interchange is going to massive. Props to all the engineering folks out there who can make something like this work.
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Impressive in a way. But also disappointing to see all that space wasted for a Texas sized interchange.
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Probs enough space in the middle to plop in a train station 
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To give them credit, it is a good design for ensuring that cars on all five arms (40 south/northbound, US-70, and 540 in both directions -which will stop being a toll road once it pays itself off) will be able to move around at full speed with minimal interference from construction.
Still, I agree; I think we would’ve made it to August 2024 just fine without that.
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The GoTriangle Board of Trustees are meeting this Wednesday, and their meeting’s agenda listed several changes to the currently-active budget. Most of them were reductions to account for covid service pauses and leftover money from prior years, but then there were these:
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An amendment to the current fiscal year’s transit tax budget to spend $15M (here’s the math) to buy and relocate tenants for 21 parcels for the Cary multimodal terminal
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Pushing back the Hillsborough St./State Fairgrounds transfer point to FY2026 because the state is taking too long with the Blue Ridge Rd. grade separation. Apparently, this project was supposed to break ground last fiscal year…
There weren’t a ton of huge updates about the big projects, but there were a few new regional projects that GoTriangle will be keeping up with monthly:
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Downtown Apex wants to build a multimodal transportation hub, and will start working on design and environmental screening.
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Chapel Hill will also start designing a bus transfer area in its Eastowne neighborhood. There’s a UNC Health-led TOD planned there with some interesting potential for regional connections.
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Some interesting news coming out of our neighbours to the northwest. Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (DCHCMPO), which coordinates regional transportation planning for that area much like CAMPO does for Raleigh and Cary, recently approved its new 30-year plan which moves starkly away from highway-building and toward multimodal transportation:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article258643028.html
Some projects will remain planned, such as the widening of I-40 and I-85, but other freeway widening projects are being eliminated. This is in contrast to CAMPO, which still very much focuses on big road projects.
And where CAMPO includes new “major roadway projects” through 2050, DCHC has no new ones starting after 2040.
DCHC will also move away from using traffic modeling to plan new projects as this tends to only encourage more road-building (and induced demand that continues the cycle). They speak instead of “modernizing,” which leaves significant room for interpretation.
Thoughts?
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My first thought is dang, the whole area needs to be planning together!
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I like this idea because focusing on more multimodal transportation will help make roads safer for all travelers. Plus this will encourage more people to bike or walk when traveling shorter distances.
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For context, this is partially because there’s a limit to how much Durham and Orange counties can develop. The DCHC boundary contains Falls Lake to the northeast, Eno River State Park and the stubbornly small-town Hillsborough to the northwest, Chapel Hill and Carrboro’s rural buffers to the west, and Jordan Lake to the south. And no one seems to want to invest in the poorly-connected, historically stigmatized eastern Durham or the paths toward Person County. This means greater Durham just doesn’t have much room left to sprawl.
The closest thing we have to a Holly Springs or Wendell Falls type of development is Chatham Park, but it’s new, isolated, and well-connected enough to not attract all-new highways.
The Connect 2050 plan has this chapter that explains what infrastructure projects we should expect, and explains what “modernizing” means:
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They do. I’d love it if both MPOs were merged so that they’re equally held accountable by all Triangle counties -but even without that, the truth is that they do work together quite a bit.
For starters, the actual plan that the article’s about is the exact same long-range plan as what CAMPO will base all of its decisions out of: the Connect 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. The two MPOs have “their own” plans (as per federal law) in that there are sections and paragraphs that are color-coded to only apply for specific regions.
The two MPOs also occasionally hold joint work sessions, share the same base computational model to predict transportation demand, and help out in major projects like the commuter rail studies. Their staff also seem to frequently talk to each other to figure out financial constraints for project funding and prioritization for competitive grants, too.
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The rail cars NCDOT purchased a few years ago from Ringling Bros. circus, which were originally planned to be retrofitted for use on the Piedmont before they received a federal grant for new cars, caught fire while being stored in rural Nash County:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article259266829.html
The amount of damage done is unknown.
I can’t tell if the people who reacted with the clown face emoji are doing it because they understand what it means in zoomer/internet culture… but after the disappointment from people not knowing any of the Dreamville headliners, God I hope that’s true.
Hrm, I clicked it because clowns are in the circus. Now I’m wondering if I’m wrong?
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I did the same in this case, though I usually read it as “you’re a freakin’ idiot.”
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I didn’t see this mentioned anywhere except a comment in the ADUs thread. (so correct me if I’m wrong) I’m interested to see more from this week’s Planning Commission meeting about future “Frequent Transit Areas”. From the agenda.
It feels like these are the right steps to get the policy in place but I’m still eager to start seeing the development start to change. I imagine, for Raleigh at least, it will be a “build it [transit], and they will come [higher density development]” 
This is a city-initiated amendment to the 2030 Comprehensive Plan to revise Map UD-1 Urban Form Map. The changes involve designating a “Frequent Transit Area” that is within a half-mile of BRT routes and a quarter mile of non-BRT transit routes. Frequent transit is defined as transit with less than 15 minutes between buses or trains during peak hours.
The “Frequent Transit Area” renames and expands the existing “Core Transit Area” by also including non-BRT frequent transit routes in addition to BRT routes. It also would more clearly recommend an urban approach to frontage in order to improve walkability.
The purpose of the change is twofold:
• To provide policy support for regulatory changes that would allow more people to live and to work in areas served by frequent transit.
• To improve walkability in areas served by high levels of transit.The amendment is a companion piece to text change TC-20-21, which would modify the Unified Development Ordinance to better support “missing middle” housing types such as duplexes, townhouses, and small apartments in areas near frequent transit. That change also would allow additional building height – to a total of five stories – for housing and employment-generating uses in existing mixed-use areas near frequent transit.
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I hope it’s okay for me to share a piece of humor for your Sunday funday. I wasn’t quite sure which thread would be most fitting since there are a few dedicated to light rail and brt transit …and I don’t want to derail those discussions (hurr hurr 
), but I came across this short Onion piece today and it reminded me of the Triangle’s woes with getting light rail off the ground and how the big focus in Raleigh has shifted to making sure BRT is implemented effectively for longterm success. “Funny” how relevant this feels 12 years later 
Full title reads: “Obama Replaces Costly High-Speed Rail Plan with High Speed Bus Plan” || about a 2 min watch. Funny satire on BRT
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I still think the bullet train heads strapped onto the front of the buses are hilarious -but also, wow that’s weird to watch now. Especially because we’re unironically doing what this video is suggesting now??
The Regional Transit Alliance and NCDOT are turning the ideas of running express buses on shoulders and managed lanes (as well as other infrastructure upgrades in “FAST bus systems”) into a part of state policy. So if all goes well, we’re kind of making (a less reckless version of) this video into reality?
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