I am headed out of the Triangle to Asheville, and today was my last day in an official capacity at the Triangle J Council of Governments. As such, I can finally say something about the transit proposals the Triangle has been chasing as a region for 2 decades. Mind you, these are my personal views. Personal views that happen to be relatively well informed as an insider to the process.
First--Losing New Starts money under the Bush Administration was a blessing in disguise. As much as I want a train, I don't want a boondoggle. Research Triangle Park is unservable with anything other than buses because it has spread out, gated campuses. You can't walk to your office once the train drops you off, you have to catch another circulator bus. If you start the trip with a car to the park and ride in Clayton, then catch the train, then the circulator bus...well, you'd just keep driving. Those 2 transfers are perceived as being longer than they are, and the uncertainty ("can I get home if my kid gets sick at school?") make it really unappealing to most commuters.
The loss of New Starts money got the region looking at how to make a successful system, and one part of the answer we got right was to develop 2 separate systems (one for Raleigh/Wake and one for Durham/Orange). Connecting them in the future will make business sense, but it's a big drain on trying to get a new system up and running (see above about the unservable Park).
What didn't happen was abandoning the idea of using the NCRR corridor. NCRR wants to expand the current tracks to 3 tracks, mostly devoted to moving freight inland from the ports. Except for the Boylan Wye, 2 stops at NC State, the Fairgrounds, and Downtown Cary, this is a lousy place to develop transit. These 5 places are already developed and [except Cary] not typical transit oriented mixed use. We want to put high or medium density mixed use development next to a busy freight rail corridor? That's just dumb. I don't care if we have access to the right of way, just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's what we need. I know I'll love city life as they are coupling tanker cars full of ammonia under my window.
I lived in Nuremburg, Germany for a few years. After the war, German cities were rebuilt, and many, like Nuremburg, were able to build in things like subways and streetcar lines. I thought, If Raleigh were a clean slate (and I am not wishing Raleigh gets firebombed like Nuremburg, it's just a metaphor for not having preconceptions), where are the important places? Where are people likely to go, and what neighborhoods would support some kind of transit on a higher order than a city bus?
Here is what I came up with. I am not putting lines on the map (What if we could have a section of subway downtown?). I could envision a streetcar in traffic with signal preemptions on Peace Street from Oberlin Village to Seaboard; another going down Wake Forest road to Mordecai, and one going down Glenwood Ave to Five Points.
I see the connection to Durham and farther-flung places like Wake Forest, Apex, and Clayton all being served by DMU commuter rail. The current commuter rail proposal from Clayton to Durham makes sense, and is the other blessing to come out of the New Starts rebuff. The drawback is that commuter rail tends to breed park and ride lots in the suburbs going to employment cores like the 2 downtowns; commuter rail doesn't foster the same mixed use development pattern as a light rail or Bus Rapid Transit.
I think light rail is a good long-term goal for the remaining stations, but Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) makes more sense for Raleigh. It has a lower startup cost, and anyplace where there is separate right of way, it can be refitted with rail later. Where there is a barrier to separate right of way, the BRT can jump into traffic, get past the barrier, and jump back into its own right of way. This will get the system running sooner instead of later. This is also why I didn't put lines on the map.
Because the Durham to Chapel Hill System did not have an existing corridor, they have done a good job connecting places on their proposed corridor already. The only fault I find with the current proposal there is the insistence on light rail again. I think it is a good long term goal, but BRT makes sense in the short term here too.
As for the Airport, once we have a decent transit system in place, it needs to be connected. Until then, visitors will need a car to get around anyway. No need to put that burden on the startup. Seriously. I had a relative from the NY metro call me one weekend: "Can you drive to the Sheraton Imperial and rescue an employee of mine? He is there for a class next week, and he is stranded. He grew up in the city and doesn't drive." And all the families flying at Christmas (think, Home Alone). Yeah. They are going to schlep all those kids and suitcases on a train. I doubt it. We may get there when the system matures, but I've seen the ridership numbers from more than one model, and it's a waste of money for the next decade or so.
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