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I haven't seen this posted yet, but there is an article at WRAL on Triangle growth and the need for mass transit. I've got some doubt as to the statements being made, but it is always useful to know what our civic leaders think.
Conference organizers say the large-growth predictions – putting the Triangle on track to be larger than major metropolitan regions like Charlotte, Atlanta and New Orleans – make it necessary to make plans now, particularly for housing, jobs and infrastructure.
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"Our citizens are crying out for alternative options," Raleigh City Councilman Thomas Crowder said. "I think people who sit on Interstate 40 in congestion in the morning and the afternoon or people on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh – those folks are looking for alternative modes of transportation."
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"If we had a light rail downtown, imagine the number of people who work in RTP (Research Triangle Park) who would literally walk from their house to the station, get on and (stay) on top of their laptop all the way through the commute out to RTP," Raleigh real-estate broker Ann-Cabell Baum Anderson said.
Jim Goodman who runs WRAL has always been someone who thinks cities should spend millions of dollars on these infrastructure projects....not because we need them, but because other cities have them. He's a big spending advocate. So I'm not surprised to see WRAL reporting this.
Reality check: When this area last proposed a light rail system and tried to justify it, the federal government looked at it and said the numbers were made up and the projected ridership claims were complete fantasy.
IMO the problem with a transit system in the Triangle is that there are too many cities, towns, and burbs that need to be served. It works when there is a single concentration of workplaces (I suppose like RTP) but not when there isn't a logical layout. Exceptions would of course include places like NYC - but that is its own animal altogether. I mean, could you ever justify a train from wake forest to durham or chapel hill ? would it be a single fare or would it be destination based?
I've ridden the rail in LA during a trade show (We were staying north of LA can't remember where Universal is but we stayed at the hotel adjacent to it) There were tons of people who got on at the convention center, but other than that it was a joke. I sincerely hope that they can figure out their rail system, and if they do, maybe then I'll be a believer that a sprawling metro area with multiple commerce and living centers can host a successful transit system.
Conference organizers say the large-growth predictions – putting the Triangle on track to be larger than major metropolitan regions like Charlotte, Atlanta and New Orleans – make it necessary to make plans now, particularly for housing, jobs and infrastructure.
I think all of them have the mindset of the rosy predictions that this area will be growing before this depression set in. I fully predict that after this down turn RTP(triangle) will shrink NOT grow.
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"If we had a light rail downtown, imagine the number of people who work in RTP (Research Triangle Park) who would literally walk from their house to the station, get on and (stay) on top of their laptop all the way through the commute out to RTP," Raleigh real-estate broker Ann-Cabell Baum Anderson said.
Massive simplification I'll bet ninety percent of the people who work in RTP are not living downtown. So they'll walk twenty to thirty miles from the suburbs Cary, Apex, and North Raleigh to catch the lite rail?
Even for those its conveniently close to what happens once they're dropped off in the middle of RTP? Walk the next 5 to 10 miles to their work location? Wait yet another twenty minutes till a transit bus takes them from there to their work location in RTP ? To be cost effect it has to serve many businesses so by the time it snakes it's way to your work location it's yet another fifteen to twenty minutes?
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I think all of them have the mindset of the rosy predictions that this area will be growing before this depression set in. I fully predict that after this down turn RTP(triangle) will shrink NOT grow.
This area is still growing every day, that is the reality of the situation. I know you predict that there will be a mass exodus from this area to go work in industry in other states but I don't see any evidence of that happening. The public wouldn't buy that excuse from civic leaders either without some hard proof to back up that claim, which I have yet to see provided. It is true that Growth has slowed here but it is equally true that the population continues to grow. I'll be happy to come back here one day and eat crow if I am wrong and you can actually show me that the Triangle is experiencing a net loss in population. In the meantime the civic leaders have to plan based on the reality we live in: the population in this area has exploded in recent decades and even with the economic downturn growth has continued and will continue for the foreseeable future.
This area is still growing every day, that is the reality of the situation. I know you predict that there will be a mass exodus from this area to go work in industry in other states but I don't see any evidence of that happening. The public wouldn't buy that excuse from civic leaders either without some hard proof to back up that claim, which I have yet to see provided. It is true that Growth has slowed here but it is equally true that the population continues to grow. I'll be happy to come back here one day and eat crow if I am wrong and you can actually show me that the Triangle is experiencing a net loss in population. In the meantime the civic leaders have to plan based on the reality we live in: the population in this area has exploded in recent decades and even with the economic downturn growth has continued and will continue for the foreseeable future.
I go by some very simple premises. Most of the professional jobs here can be be done elsewhere at much lower cost. The companies that formed the bedrock of RTP did most of their expanding in late 80s and 90s. Their mostly relocated workforce is starting to age and many will soon be retiring or forced out. Many having little on no ties to this area will seek much cheaper areas to live. Most of the growth this area is growth feeding on itself. Very few companies are expanding or starting that will bring significant revenue stream increase into the triangle from outside the true necessity upon which real growth can be based. As it took time for this area to catch up in goods services, housing etc.. for the growth in the 80s and 90s it will take time for the realization that real growth has ceased and much of the overgrowth that now is will collapse. Yes this is different economic environment than many industrial towns suddenly cease to produce. But mark my words the time it takes to take hold may be longer but it's effects will be longer and deeper. These jobs will NEVER return here.
First, I doubt that we are going to see a mass exodus from the region. The real value in the area lies not in the jobs that were brought here per se, but in the brainpower that lies in those who relocated here -- and, especially, the PhDs, MSs, JDs, MBAs, etc. churned out of UNC, Duke, NCSU, NCCU, and all of the other local colleges and universities.
Nortel shed, what, thousands of jobs in the past decade... but until recently, unemployment stayed low. That's because there's other new businesses here to take advantage of that workforce.
Large businesses shutter around the country, and the world, all the time. And the RTP area is not uniquely affected. The question becomes, where will businesses expand again when they're ready to grow?
Certainly the large metros are one target -- Boston, NYC, DC, SF, Chicago. But there are many smaller cities well-suited demographically to attract top-shelf companies. Raleigh-Durham, Austin, Boise, Salt Lake City all come to mind, amidst many others.
The only way you're going to see a "mass exodus" is if, for some structural reason, our competitors are so much better at attracting new businesses than the Triangle is. Given what our friend here calls our "low COL high QOL," though, I think it's hard to see that.
I don't know your age, unpronounceable-symbol-name (I'll call you "the poster formerly known as Prince") but I know many who harbor such beliefs tend to be older members of the workforce who've faced layoffs and skill challenges, and who may have worked at companies where the idea of "lifetime employment" and growth within a career applied. Unfortunately, I just don't think those are realistic assumptions.
I have significant (economic class- and justice-related) issues with this reality of the workforce, but it is a reality that we can all expect a faster velocity of employers, of job roles, of skills demonstrated. That's how employers are changing... worldwide.
As I noted in another thread, the real issue to me seems not to be post-recession growth, but energy costs. The Triangle has a high QOL but our growth in current form is not sustainable. Good Lord, people drive into RTP from Mebane and Fuquay-Varina. What happens now that those towns are full? Are people going to drive in from Dunn? Aberdeen? Henderson?
At $1/gal. gas, sure. At $2, maybe. But the availability of oil plus climate change risks plus regulation all add up to tell me prices will be much, much higher.
And that's where other cities that are investing in transit will have a leg up, 20 years from now.
If we don't invest in denser, transit-oriented development in addition to single-family, you are going to see housing prices close to jobs rise quickly. Yet that means that employers will face higher wage pressures, as well as employees disgruntled at their expensive, long commutes from the hinterlands, or the cost of a house in places like Raleigh, Cary and Durham.
Other cities, where apartments and townhouses and condos are available closer to transit, will eat our lunch economically.
Which is, I think, the real point of Reality Check.
As I noted on another thread, I was one of the 300 citizens chosen to participate in the exercise. I posted a full run-down of the event, as well as the challenges of regional planning I took away from the event, at my blog. I'd post the content here, but at 3,500 words it's a bit long, so check it out at Bull City Rising: The challenge of regional planning: Next verse, same as the first? (http://tinyurl.com/cbmsur - broken link).
Just to clarify on a point that the unpronounceable poster made:
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Massive simplification I'll bet ninety percent of the people who work in RTP are not living downtown. So they'll walk twenty to thirty miles from the suburbs Cary, Apex, and North Raleigh to catch the lite rail?
Even for those its conveniently close to what happens once they're dropped off in the middle of RTP? Walk the next 5 to 10 miles to their work location? Wait yet another twenty minutes till a transit bus takes them from there to their work location in RTP ? To be cost effect it has to serve many businesses so by the time it snakes it's way to your work location it's yet another fifteen to twenty minutes?
A couple of thoughts here.
First, the point of transit isn't to run it to the places where everybody lives *today*. It's to run it in corridors that can support new and adaptive re-use to add density. Put a transit stop somewhere in an old industrial brownfield, and allow a developer to adapt that land from underused space to, say, thousands of condos, apartments and townhomes.
In other words, concentrate your density on in-fill, and concentrate it around the transit system. Residents in places like N. Raleigh and Cary and N. Durham will likely still drive to their jobs ... or to a park-and-ride station and take transit. Residents in BFE will still drive to their jobs or take park and ride.
Without transit, you can't have in-fill density. Without in-fill density, there's no way to add the next million new residents without spreading out low-density suburbs across more land.
BTW, these projects are already getting built ahead of transit. Station Nine in Durham; Davis Park in RTP. Also look for RTP to change the rules of the game to add density and residential units within the park, too.
When our economic competitors like Salt Lake City are building transit lines and transit-oriented development (TOD) to accommodate growth... they're getting ready for an inevitable future.
People thought Gov. Luther Hodges was crazy for turning some ol' tobaccky farmland into this high-falutin' Research Triangle Park. 50 years later, it was a genius masterstroke.
Are we going to get caught up in the old ways of thinking or get ready for our own future?
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I'll bet ninety percent of the people who work in RTP are not living downtown. So they'll walk twenty to thirty miles from the suburbs Cary, Apex, and North Raleigh to catch the lite rail?
