Commuter Rail: Clayton to Durham by 2030? (Charlotte: versus, airport, trains)

[BoBromhal]

Originally Posted by cashonly

They've been talking about this for something like 30 years now and the only thing that has happened so far is:
1. GoTriangle commuter rail related employees have maintained job security
2. A number of companies have profited nicely from studies that are never used

it appears that in 30+ years, they (government or NGO advocates) have never figured out how to either get on existing rail lines or find cost-effective (read: ridership) alternative routes.

We're left with advocates FOR some mass transit method who are essentially just advocates for mass transit because they personally want to use it or they think it's a panacea; for whatever reason arguing with politicians who say "well, if we just had more billions, then we could..."

I mean, I don't know all the deets, but why would the collective local governments bow to RDU over a line that goes to the airport? It would be stupid not to have one. Yet, in the media, we've been led to believe that the RDU Authority essentially said "sorry, won't allow it", and off they slunk.

[BoBromhal]

Originally Posted by dariusxiv

From the article, it does appear that positive momentum and support is stronger now.

it does?

I didn't see anything in that clickbait that was something I haven't seen already over the last 30 years, other than which people they got short quotes from.

[BoBromhal]

Originally Posted by dariusxiv

Question for those who are opposed; if the plan satisfied the 4 C's, would that sway your opinion?

The commuter rail was:

Convenient
Clean
Comfortable
Cost-Effective

first - if it cost you $20 every time you stepped on the train - because that's what the cost divided by ridership worked out to be - would you still be in favor of it, and would you uphold your intended usage at $20/pop?

Ergo, if it was cost-effective then who would be opposed to it?

[MikeJaquish]

Hindsight says this is when rail planning should have been well underway. Since 1969, corridor acquisition costs have risen exponentially, so there are a million more NIMBYs and denialists.
Foresight missing the opportunity to steer development when the population was much less than a quarter of what it is today.....

Originally Posted by paytonc

Found this thread when looking up 1970 population stats to compare to this map:

1969 regional plan for Triangle by Payton Chung, on Flickr

This was from a giant atlas I found at the Durham main library recently: a 1969 "Research Triangle Region Development Guide" by the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission which forecast the future needs of a Triangle with 1.14 million residents, almost three times the 1970 tri-county population of 418,841.

The three-county Triangle was just shy of one million residents in 2000, so it would've passed 1.14 million pretty shortly thereafter.

[RunD1987]

I feel it's less about use and more how could this be beneficial. Long term benefits will out weigh short term benefits.

By that we have to look at by 2050 NC has the potential to have 20 Million people living here. 75% of the population will be in Charlotte, Triad, and Triangle metro areas. Those metro areas will have an area 30 to 50 miles wide.

Lot of factors may deter building or implementing rail infrastructure. Such as working from home and self driving cars.

However, rail infrastructure has some positives that could potentially encourage rail being utilized. Trains usually have a better carbon footprint than vehicles. Trains can be autonomous as well. New girl sources. Diesel lines transitioning to electric. Electric transitioning to hydrogen. Trains are becoming faster.

Trains can connect rural communities and improve access to other areas of infrastructure such as healthcare.

Raise taxes, generate new tax revenue, and create new industries to continue to grow GDP.

[dariusxiv]

Originally Posted by BoBromhal

first - if it cost you $20 every time you stepped on the train - because that's what the cost divided by ridership worked out to be - would you still be in favor of it, and would you uphold your intended usage at $20/pop?

Ergo, if it was cost-effective then who would be opposed to it?

That does seem rather expensive. Would you mind providing a deeper breakdown of how that figure was derived?

Also, does it take into account the cost savings (road infrastructure/maintenance, etc.) of shifting commuters from the highways to rail?

(Not trying to argue, just understand...)

[don6170]

Originally Posted by SFspiderman

No, for all the reasons discussed in the past...its location out of the railroad corridor makes including it very expensive and would severely impact travel times for the entire line, and it's a relatively small job center so it wouldn't add much regular ridership to the system.

I think most of the riders going to the airport would be travelers, not airport workers.

Originally Posted by pierretong1991

Yes the airport is included! You get off at Morrisville and you can take a shuttle bus from the station to the airport like at other major airports like LAX!

How 'bout what they do at the World's Busiest Airport - MARTA has a station inside the airport. You can get on there and not have to worry about the weather. Back in the day, I did many day trips to ATL, taking MARTA to/from the BellSouth tower and never even seeing the outside (except for a quick walk over The Varsity !)

[DPK]

Originally Posted by don6170

How 'bout what they do at the World's Busiest Airport - MARTA has a station inside the airport. You can get on there and not have to worry about the weather. Back in the day, I did many day trips to ATL, taking MARTA to/from the BellSouth tower and never even seeing the outside (except for a quick walk over The Varsity !)

In an ideal world RDU would be right beside an existing rail corridor. In reality however RDU is not adjacent to any convenient rail access and would require a lengthly spur from the proposed existing rail corridor. That spur would also have to thread the needle so to speak as you can only get to it from the corridor from the South due to runway orientation and other infrastructure in the way.

Rail to the airport long term will probably happen, but it won't be in any initial phases of any rail plans. It doesn't make logistical/financial sense as there is little net gain in ridership serving the airport right now that couldn't be served by a connector like bus rapid transit or shuttle.

[muslim12]

Originally Posted by RunD1987

I feel it's less about use and more how could this be beneficial. Long term benefits will out weigh short term benefits.

By that we have to look at by 2050 NC has the potential to have 20 Million people living here. 75% of the population will be in Charlotte, Triad, and Triangle metro areas. Those metro areas will have an area 30 to 50 miles wide.

Lot of factors may deter building or implementing rail infrastructure. Such as working from home and self driving cars.

However, rail infrastructure has some positives that could potentially encourage rail being utilized. Trains usually have a better carbon footprint than vehicles. Trains can be autonomous as well. New girl sources. Diesel lines transitioning to electric. Electric transitioning to hydrogen. Trains are becoming faster.

Trains can connect rural communities and improve access to other areas of infrastructure such as healthcare.

Raise taxes, generate new tax revenue, and create new industries to continue to grow GDP.

lol 20 million. Where do you get your numbers from?

[rfb]

We should skip commuter rail all together and jump straight to a monorail.