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We should get this going in the Triangle area, it makes so much sense and would make it much easier to get around the area espically in Raleigh. Also bring a lot of business
We should get this going in the Triangle area, it makes so much sense and would make it much easier to get around the area espically in Raleigh. Also bring a lot of business
These previous discussion describe the challenges to bringing this type of transportation to the area. In a nutshell, it will likely be a decade or two before we see a light rail, if ever.
I would love to see light rail, but anyone else from Miami can tell you how it can be a waste. We are too spread out and don't have a nice central mass that people need to go from and to.
Where would the light rail go to? Drop people off at their offices in RTP? People would not get door to door service and need busses or other transportation at either end. If we were like NY, DC or Denver where you could have that critical mass that its easy to walk or bike to a station and get our close to where you want it works.
As soon as you add: take bus A to bus B, then train C to bus D before you get to where you want to go, no one wants to ride. They prefer the "convenience" and flexibility of driving.
Its a shame, but I just don't see it working here.
I would love to see light rail, but anyone else from Miami can tell you how it can be a waste. We are too spread out and don't have a nice central mass that people need to go from and to.
In Miami, I have only used the free Metromover a handful of times. But, that's mostly because I live in Miami Beach and don't go over to Miami that often. However, each time I have taken it, I have been impressed that Miami has a nice 3 loop FREE system connecting people from one part of downtown to another and to the Metrorail train. The problem is that people still don't seem to take it all that much.
Southbeach (where my condo is) is served by a network of buses that tend to get pretty good business. It also has a nifty "South Beach Local" system that runs both clockwise and counterclockwise buses around South Beach for both tourists and locals every 10-15 minutes. The fare is only 25 cents and I use it all the time. Raleigh's free "Raleigh Trolley" seems to be the closest thing I can think of to what I have in South Beach.
I think the trick is to find alternative transportation to fulfill a variety of needs. South Florida has a variety (whether used or not!) of transit options on a variety of scales:
1. Macro Scale (Tri-Rail): This train connects Miami to Ft.Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
2. Intracounty system (Metrorail): Connects communities within MiamiDade Co.
3. Urban community systems (Metromover+SouthBeach Local): Provides transportation within a greater urban community
I think this is the formula that the greater Triangle should follow. We need a high speed rail to connect the major cities in the area and even to the Triad and Charlotte. Then, Raleigh/Wake needs a countywide system to connect the communities at their most urban/dense areas. Then, the individual cities need to address how to address specific needs at the community level. The Raleigh Trolley is beginning to address the needs of the downtown community and that idea should be expanded to allow urban dwellers the opportunity to "live" their lives in the greater area without clogging the streets with more vehicles. This is the basic idea behind Miami Beach's SouthBeach Local bus and I think it works really well.
I can imagine smaller buses running clockwise and counterclockwise loops from Fayetteville St., through the warehouse district, then down Hillsborough Street to Oberlin Rd where it would reach Cameron Village and head back to downtown via Peace and Glenwood Ave. It could head directly toward the Capitol building before re-connecting to Fayetteville St.
Stop building new roads and end growing sprawl into rural areas.
Its a little late to put that genie back in the bottle. Given the decentralized nature of the Triangle work areas, I'm not sure that living near where you work solves the sprawl problems. With property values near the major work centers being much more expensive than those farther out, not everyone can afford to live near these distributed work centers. And those who live farther from their work need some way to get there, and the Triangle lacks the centralized work area with a high population density to make it cost effective to have extensive mass transit.
I've seen in Salt Lake (much smaller than Denver, or LA, or everywhere else talked about here) when it was being built as part of 2002 Olympic prep, where all of the press prior to it being built was saying it would never work after the Olympics and they'd never get people to ride, and when it was finished it has been above rider capacity and needed extra cars ever since - now 6 years past Olympics.
A good "park & ride" system might work here. Drive your car to a station, then ride to where you need. Three doughnuts - one for Durham, RTP, and Raleigh - all with a central line through them all as well - kind of like a do-not-enter symbol. Durham/Raleigh riders catch the outer band into the central & it connects to RTP... then travel the outer band of RTP to offices (maybe small shuttle busses from there). Hub & spoke might work too - ride into RTP (follow the current driving paths everyone takes & do park & ride at busiest entrances) & then spoke out to your business once it reaches central RTP.
I do see the point of no major masses of people though. There's not that single, central stop to get off of in RTP where you can easily walk 3 or 4 blocks to the right office building among a bunch. Thinks are sooooo spread out there, businesses have "campus" mentality, rather than office buildings in a downtown. There would have to be shuttles or bus to the various companies "campus" since they are so spread out & huge on their own.
That could very well drive down rider enthusiasm.
Also, I didn't ride it in SLC because the longest part of my commute didn't have rail. I wasn't going to drive the longest part of my commute (from community to freeway/train) & then ride the train when the freeway ride from there was only 10 more minutes in a car & would have meant 25 more by train. They are now "spoking" out to the communities from the central line. Once a spoke got close to my neighborhood, I would of ridden - especially with price of gas rising like it has in the past year (except I moved here first).
Getting close to central destinations & end-points would be key to getting ridership.
Stop building new roads and end growing sprawl into rural areas.
Many, many times, people can't afford to live near where they work! That said, we could all use some better judgment when choosing where we live. We need to maximize our lives, not just the size of our houses!
I'd also offer that we shouldn't just be thinking about our commutes to work. When I used to live in a more suburban environment, I drove way more living my life than I did to get to work.
So, my advise is to certainly consider your commute when looking for a home but really pay attention to living where you "live".
I would love to see light rail, but anyone else from Miami can tell you how it can be a waste. We are too spread out and don't have a nice central mass that people need to go from and to.
Actually, the Triangle is laid out so differently from Miami, it is not really the best comparison. We don't have one central mass, we actually have a few central masses, which pose unique challenges and opportunities.
There are multiple problems with Miami's system that (hopefully) local leaders in the Triangle and other growing cities will learn from rather than repeat. I mean, the Metrorail system in Miami doesn't even take you to the airport or the beaches - why not? These are places that a LOT of people are going to and from all the time due to the tourist-based economy. No wonder no one rides it - the only people who CAN use it to commute are the ones who work downtown. When I lived in South Miami I only rode it to a few festivals or sporting events downtown. I could walk to the Dadeland station and take it up to the Grove or Vizcaya or the Gables, but you still need a car to get around in most cases. Riding a bus in Miami takes f o r e v e r because you are stuck in the same traffic, but adding (more frequent than necessary) stops and exponentially more time.
Another problem with it is that it really does not connect enough of the communities where people live to where they work well enough, even if they do work downtown. There are a heck of a lot of people living west of the Palmetto, 874, and the Turnpike now, and the majority of them have to travel east to get to work. Even if they work downtown, it will take some of them probably a good 45 min. just to get to the Metrorail if they drive their own car, and much much longer if they take a bus. The infrastructure was never considered when someone got the brilliant idea to drain parts of the Glades and develop it into primarily residential housing - how are we going to get all of these people from where they live to where they work? They are left with lousy surface roads (largely unchanged from before the development), most of them only 4-6 lanes when they really need another east-west expressway, or even two!
Miami is linear and on a grid, with a lot of residential housing spread out in every direction, but most business centers are concentrated in the eastern central part of the metro area. But yet, the metrorail only goes north and south, on the eastern side of things. It really doesn't effectively serve nearly enough people. And the busway system is just a terrible extension of the metrorail further south. Again, nothing addressing the lack of east-west infrastructure.
The Triangle has a much different situation from Miami's, but it should definitely look at the errors that were made in Miami's plan, and its inability to manage funding and make the good ideas actually happen. This region needs to learn from other area's mistakes; at this point in the game, there are no excuses for repeating the same bad decisions. We have plenty of good examples to incorporate as well, such as downtown Miami's metromover, and many other cities with more successful transit systems.
I think that the Triangle could make it work, but there needs to be some shifting of attitudes. We can't base the success of a light rail system on how we see the Triangle today, but rather what the Triangle will look like 10 years from now. It certainly will look completely different, and if we wait until people are begging for such transit options (a few already are), it will be too late. This is the type of thing that a city needs to be visionary about. It is much easier to prevent a problem before it happens, than to try to put a band-aid on it when it becomes unbearable.
Miamiblue- Yeah, I rode it from Dadeland South to the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital, and then to the old Arena a few times.
But the fact that it didn't connect to the airport, beaches, grove or any work places other than downtown made it a pain. If you wanted to go along the linear corrider, great... other than that there was a Metro Mover which was nice.
We have the same problems here. There are a few nice places (North Hills Mall, Downtown, Glenwood South) that would be great hubs... but housing is so spread out and work centers in RTP as well. Any light rail system would either need to have multiple routes and stops like a subway system/metro mover or need a fleet of buses and other transporation at each end.
For the reasons you mentioned with traffic and perceived inconvenience of waiting and switching buses and trains people won't use it as often. For all the cost and expense of the Miami Metro Rail system, too few people use it. If we as another suburb are going to implement a system we need to go all the way like the big cities and not thing a small system will solve a big problem.
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