This. Is. Hilarious. This is why I always vote NO on transportation bonds, and affordable housing bonds. The amount of money squandering done at the tax payers expense is endless. Any other business that needs profits to survive, every single person would be fired for this stupidity. I feel like this amount of wasteful spending also happens at a National level with zero oversight, but who cares have you seen any cool new Netflix shows lately?
“Before getting approval from all parties to make sure the 18-mile train tracks and associated access were kosher, the project undertakers decided that it was necessary to do the engineering, design and spend additional money on management consulting — all before they got the green light from Duke University”
“The GoTriangle board approved the contracts relating to the management and design of the project to at least four major companies that received a little more than $130 million of the $157 million. Staff, office expenses and administrative made up about $16 million, and real estate expenses were about $6 million.”
I really can’t argue with this and it is maddening. I do vote for them generally because I do want to see the things they’re designed for happen. But my god man, NO private entity would ever get away with the decisions and massive mistakes these departments are making. I really hope I’m wrong with our recent affordable housing bond that was approved and I really hope they don’t study and research the plan to death and at the end of the day, don’t have any money to actually do the thing the bond was approved for. Call me naive but I have faith…
It’s completely infuriating, especially when you see gilt-edged good ideas (cough California high speed rail cough) turned into a consultant feeding frenzy and nothing useful actually come out of it.
But how else will we even have a chance to see those good ideas come to life in our current system? I wish we could just have a Brightline model everywhere, but that doesn’t seem likely.
Yea the consultants have zero blame in this. If anything good for them for maximizing profits, that’s what it’s all about.
The blame falls at the feet of the fools who signed the checks, GoTriangle.
Here is an interesting perspective to grasp in all of this. We constantly hear statements about taxing the rich more and how the government would be a better purveyor of money, do you honestly believe that?
I didn’t mean to impart blame - Drew said it better, the conditions in place mean they get all the money because they’re the first part of the process, and they’re just doing their jobs, it’s just frustrating that in the end it’s a big waste of tax money because there’s no incentive to actually do the project beyond the fuzzy “public good”.
And unfortunately, I think Brightline was successful only thanks to lucky coincidences, and it’s really difficult to replicate them elsewhere.
Brightline is not run by a railroad company; they’re run by an investor-owned real estate holding company. That holding company also used to hold the Florida East Coast Railway, but they took over FECR’s legal obligation to run passenger trains when they became their own business. It’s only because investors held and pawned off a freight rail company that Brightline could even be born as an independent entity.
If we wanted something like that to happen in the Triangle’s commuter rail attempt, then Norfolk Southern, CSX, and/or NCRR need to diversify, get into the commercial real estate world to build transit-oriented, mixed-use developments near potential stations, and realize commuter trains as a way to maximize such an investment. The only problem is that state and rail company leaders are both big, lazy, conservative, and generally unwilling to overhaul their business models in favor of long-term revenue increases and the public good.
Also, friendly reminder for everyone: GoTriangle had third-party investigators look into what went wrong with the light rail project in late 2019, just months after the project ended:
You could also read this old Indy article, too, from back when they had better quality checks in their articles.
Remember, though, that this investigation only looked into problems in the context of how the project was managed within GoTriangle. It also doesn’t dive deeply into other factors like cost or external stakeholder feedback beyond individual interviews.
And is the private transportation industry any better?
It’s incredibly frustrating when governments and public agencies fumble at their jobs, and I get that. But I don’t think it’s fair to blame left-wing politics and government power or whatever when the truth is that EVERYONE is incompetent. Building a new mass rail transit system within an existing metro region in America to 21st-century physical and social expectations is new. So when one agency does that for its first time when nearby influential businesses and state governments are hostile to it, I think it’s unfair and unreasonable to become so immediately cynical to it (even if you’ve grown up to be skeptical to governments from day 1). You’re a part of this, too, as a taxpayer; are you really going to give up on yourself so quickly?
GoTriangle badly screwed up in a ton of places (see above report). But remember that, since DOLRT’s death, they’ve gotten better at managing complex projects like getting RUSbus to start construction. They’ve also clearly learned their lesson from light rail in the commuter rail project by doing extensive market research to show it’s a viable business and being more willing to work with external partners to define their project.
Does GoTriangle need to do more to show they’re trustworthy enough to run a new regional transit project? Absolutely, and the ball is currently in their side of the court. But at the same time, that won’t mean anything if we remain close-minded and unreasonably distrustful of them.
What alternative solutions do you suggest to reduce car-dependency and address the housing crisis? It seems like you think the government can’t be trusted to solve any of this, but who else has any incentive to solve it whatsoever? And if GoTriangle learns from this and tries to fix the root problems, how can they prove that without a bond for a project?
I don’t see how private industry can do anything besides perpetuate the status quo - most people in Raleigh own cars, the government has already subsidized car-ownership with streets and roads, and the supply of houses is significantly out-paced by demand. Solving that isn’t going to be profitable.
The only other solution I can think of is a “nonprofitization” idea, like the Dix Park Conservancy, where it’s a mix of public funds and fund-raising. The Raleigh Area Land Trust is that idea applied to affordable housing, though I’m not completely sure how a non-profit transportation service would work, since that requires at least some cooperation with the government.
No one mentioned which side of the isle made this mistake, nor did I throw stones at another side to make my point…
If we don’t have accountability for flushing $150 Million dollars down the toilet, before asking Duke if they were also on board, then this problem will continue to keep happening.
Typically the problem isn’t the lack of available funds, it’s the fiscal irresponsibility that checks can be written with zero oversight and zero accountability. I don’t remember reading about any new upper management shuffling as a result of this, it would obviously need to involve a scandal for anyone in the government to be fired, even then I’m not holding my breath.
I’m not against light rail, or public transportation, in fact we moved downtown because we hated being reliant on a car to do anything and now barely drive on the weekends. But at what point can we be honest and say this was a monumental mistake and someone needs to be held accountable before I feel confident enough blindly voting for this again. (BTW I voted for the original transportation bond almost 10 years ago)
Jeff Mann, the CEO and president of GoTriangle who led the light rail project stepped down after it failed. Their current CEO, Charles Lattuca, managed the purple line light rail in Maryland. Notably, that project is projected to be $1.4 billion over budget and 4.5 years late, but with inflation and NIMBYism, that doesn’t seem that bad. At least it’s under construction.
The private sector has been building infrastructure and housing within the framework of zoning and banking regulations that were put in place mostly to keep classes and races separated and protect property values. This has led to the transportation problems, housing affordability issues, social injustices, and environmental damages we are now trying to fix.
But really it’s not a matter of private sector versus government works. These are human problems that need to be solved by humans working together, regardless of whether the money comes from tax dollars, philanthropic donations, or Wall Street.
But let’s be honest, there is not a transit system built or proposed within 300 miles of here That isn’t just an appendage strapped onto a car dependent framework in order to check a box. We have to change The underlying framework before any transit will work.
Edit: I think Raleigh’s BRT system has the potential to be The best transit system in North Carolina, but there is still a lot to be seen whether that is going to play out or not
I agree with this. If they actually manage to do what they’re saying they’re going to do, particularly in the land use department, it could complete transform the city as we know it, for the better.
The biggest disadvantage Charlotte has with the light rail is that a lot of folks there won’t ride anything but the light rail. But, if you can people on BRT, then they might feel more inclined to use other buses as well. BRT changes the perception of what a bus is and what it could be. Most Americans still view buses as welfare. A good BRT system could change all of that.
have polls in raleigh been done to say that car drivers want to reduce their dependency…is it worded to indicate that or is it worded to say sure i love my car but a better bike lane for short trips would be nice too?
To your point, TOD is arguably more important that the actual transit service. Transit needs to be a means to an end, not an end itself. So by incentivizing valuable places along a defined corridor, the transit could be bus based, trolley car, or rickshaws; it would still be successful in the lens of creating mobility between places of value and cultural importance.
Cheers to Raleigh making it happen
At first, the sentence I quoted sounded to me less like a nuanced, specific criticism of GoTriangle and more like partisan dog-whistling against Big Government™, so I felt the need to shoot that down before someone else takes that idea and runs with it. But after your reply, it sounds more like I read too much between the lines and overreacted; that’s my bad.
Anyways, yeah, I think we’re on the same page then. GoTriangle definitely could’ve done much more in terms of being held accountable. In their defense, though, they have successfully:
created more robust reporting frameworks for how the county transit taxes are spent in all three counties (Wake County’s for FY2023 is open for public review now!), and;
been revising how they’ll work with other localities like Durham and Orange counties (see this agenda entry at the DCHC MPO) by rewriting their “interlocal agreements”, mainly so that the counties have a bigger say in future major investments.
The last bit is super important, especially with the infuriating truth that this presentation from last March about Durham County’s transit plan update efforts hints at:
Remember: even though elected officials and their appointees sit on its Board of Trustees, GoTriangle is an independent company. This means they fundamentally make their own decisions within certain constraints, so they’re only directly subject to checks and balances by governments if they agree to them. This makes it important to know when and how elected and appointed leaders can call GoTriangle out for their mistakes and hold their feet to the fire -and changing ILAs is how they do exactly that.
Like @evan.j.bost said, we have to change the underlying framework of how development works for transit to work (and vice versa). And in the Triangle, that needs to start by having new visions (e.g. GoRaleigh’s BRTs) and having GoTriangle be more trustworthy. And I think we’re making good progress in that; it’s just so deep in wonky policy documents that it’s hard to know and appreciate that, sadly…
This is absolutely key. We can’t sell the BRT as “better than buses”. We have to be absolutely clear that BRT is a bus and that the project is about making buses better.
There’s actually been a ton of complaints around the street car in charlotte, saying that it doesnt move as many people as expected and actually impedes the flow of traffic along the route. IMO charlotte is just a rich people’s playground at the moment, and they do a lot of flashy things that are not necessarily practical.
