It’s hard to believe that raleigh would be one of the least stressed cities. I agree with Dana that we have horrific commute times, really crowded roads, and a serious sprawl problem that is approaching that of Atlanta. I have lived in other cities and never felt as stressed by the traffic as I have here. Try going down Six Forks Road at almost any time of day – doesn’t matter what time.Makes you want to stay in and never go out, whether on weekday or weekend.

Um, no..I was saying that we DON’T have a commute time problem. As long as your commute may be and as much traffic you may see, we only have the 59th-worst commute in the country (yes, that is a 2002 stat, but our commutes certainly haven’t gotten more difficult in the last 8 years). Inside the beltline, where population density is the greatest, we have NO traffic tieups. I-440 puts pressure on the few arteries that can pass it, but still this is a very easy city around which to maneuver.

Atlanta’s problem with traffic is that they did not adequately ZONE and BUILD enough roads in the middle third of the 20th century. Every city has arteries like Six Forks, however Atlanta did not design major arteries through the older and mid-sections. Therefore major amounts of traffic in Atlanta are relying on roads equivalent to Anderson Drive and St. Mary’s street. If high-occupancy heavy rail were the answer for a southern city, people in Atlanta would have shown some propensity in the last 40 years toward desiring high-density developments along MARTA’s rail lines. The reality is that people would rather sit in Atlanta traffic than center their lives around really expensive transit lines.

Awesome comment Dana! As someone who has spent time in the DC area and visited Atlanta many times, I agree that Raleigh has no meaningful traffic problems. Looking at Atlanta’s awful traffic and their simultaneously poor usage of the MARTA shows how looney light rail is for the triangle, given our small size and low population densities. Light rail in the Triangle is simply a political device thrown around by politicians pandering to folks who have a desire to be “more European”.

I agree that Raleigh’s traffic is nothing compared to DC or Atlanta. Those cities are on a magnitude scale worse than anything I have ever seen here.

I am confused as to why an area that is growing as fast as the Triangle would be somehow caught up in some phoney culture war True Americans vs. Faux Europeans when it comes to planning for future public transit needs. It is not as though the growth is some rumor or falsehood. It is here. We can keep adding lanes for only so long and then other than it being a visual nightmare, it will mean we grow into…oh, let’s see, another DC or Atlanta.

DC and Atlanta HAVE HAD rail for 40 years, but still have ever-growing sprawl and massive traffic congestion. The addition of rail here would have extremely little impact on those two factors.

Sprawl is not the result of roads. Roads follow sprawl. Over the past 40 years, people here have chosen to live out in the county in big neighborhoods serviced only by 2-lane roads. Only after their population grows do the roads get expanded and laid to service these areas. Traffic congestion is a road design problem. As I said earlier, Atlanta has 6 radial interstates and a circle. Beyond that they have poorly planned roads that were built too narrow to begin with, and never widened. Raleigh is WAY easier to get around than Atlanta was when it had our population.

Dana, do you think building 540 was a good idea? I’m just wondering.

Yes.

There were 10s of thousands of people who lived in N. Raleigh and worked in the RTP long before 540 opened. They traveled long commutes on winding, dangerous, 2-lane country roads with extremely heavy traffic. The 10s of thousands of people who moved to that area since were coming any way. They sought that type of development, and would have opted for some similar development somewhere else (Apex, Durham, Morrisville) if 540 were not built.

How we allow residential and commercial developments to find themselves along this corridor is a totally different argument.

I-540 is NO DIFFERENT than the construction of I-440, yet I hardly find people who say that I-440 should never have been built. The difference is the character of the zoning around the two. Ironically many of the people bemoaning sprawl would love to live in Hayes Barton, the epitome of a sprawl neighborhood off of two major arteries. Somehow Hayes Barton gets a pass these days. It sure didn’t from those who lived on Hillsborough Street when St. Marys was on the edge of town.

One point people forget is that the people attracted here to those outlying neighborhoods are not attracted to riding high-occupancy rail. Period. So rail won’t do anything the change the demand for those types of development. It’s like offering fish food to a dog.

So we end up getting more and more of a mess. Start putting limits on the type of development around 540, and people will say “Folks do not move here to drive 5 miles to a grocery store, etc.”

I think 540 invited more and more development in the mess up north of Falls of Neuse and Six Forks.

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but 10 years ago when I moved here a lot of people said no one would want to live in downtown Raleigh…or Durham…and it is happening.

Where are they moving? It’s probably a bad time to ask that given the entire real estate market, but it worth noting that Bloomsbury Estates hasn’t sold enough to open, Hue and 712 Tucker had to go apts., ?RBC tower and Paramount are something like half full?… and about half of the projects slated to be open by now never got built. I’ve been pretty disappointed with the demand for housing in new downtown projects… but like I said, maybe it is a really bad time to reach any kind of conclusions.

I’m not attacking downtown in any way, and wish that all of this stuff had gotten built. My point really is that even if everything had gotten built, it would have been a tiny fraction compared to what people moving here want.

I just wonder if 440 ruined Hillsborough, Wade, Lake Boone, Glenwood, Ridge, Six Forks, and Wake Forest Rd.

“Ironically many of the people bemoaning sprawl would love to live in Hayes Barton, the epitome of a sprawl neighborhood off of two major arteries. Somehow Hayes Barton gets a pass these days. It sure didn’t from those who lived on Hillsborough Street when St. Marys was on the edge of town.”

Comparing Hayes Barton to the more modern suburban sprawl of North Raleigh is ridiculous. The yard sizes in Hayes Barton are HALF what they are in N. Raleigh. Also, homes are spaced much further apart in N. Raleigh compared to HB. Almost all the streets in HB are narrow and have sidewalks, both of which encourage more walking and biking around the neighborhoods. And, believe it or not, some people in HB actually use public transportation on a somewhat regular basis. I know, I’ve been one of them in the past when I lived there. While HB certainly can’t be considered high density living, it is not anywhere CLOSE to the nightmare of suburban sprawl that is N. Raleigh.

And the reasons why we need more (and better) options for public transit, and improved conditions for walking and biking, go beyond simply addressing sprawl. They also help address concerns of fuel consumption, climate change, and obesity. Further, owning and operating cars is an expensive undertaking, often costing as much as the sticker price over the life of the car. With global economies being what they are, we could all stand to cut back on our spending so that we can save more money. Living in denser developments helps reduce our need for a car.

Ashe,
Imagine we are sitting in Oakwood talking about a new, planned neighborhood in some woods on the outskirts of town where the lot sizes are at least twice as big, the setback is WAY farther back on most streets, and there is no retail within walking distance, so a car is a must for 99% percent of all needs. It is 1925 and we’re talking about Hayes Barton.
While the bus travels Glenwood, I’d venture to say that 99.9% of the people within 1/2 mile from Five-points rely on the car for 99% of their transportation. Their lifestyles aren’t any different than the people in North Ridge.
I used just as much gas when I lived in Cameron Village condos as I do living near North Hills.
While public transit theoretically leads to a lower cost of living for people who ride, often-times this argument forgets that somebody has to pay for this incredibly expensive method of transit (usually employers who would otherwise create jobs with that money), and almost always ignores the dramatically reduced efficiency of a person who relies on others for their transit.

You can argue about pollution, but find me the most polluted cities in America and I’ll show you cities that have high-occupancy transit. If air quality is so bad in those areas, then why doesn’t everyone ride the rail? (They don’t WANT to.) Show me underdeveloped roads like North Raleigh had before 540 and I’ll show you densified clouds of pollution with stagnant traffic. So many environmentalists want to outlaw drive-thrus, but they don’t want traffic to FLOW in places where people WANT to live.

If “options” for transit are all that are needed, then buses will do everything people want an inflexible 1+ billion money pit train system to do.

If the City of Raleigh were really serious about transit, they would offer CAT shuttles to the RBC Center for events from areas around Raleigh. The arena is over a decade old, and the city continues to ignore one of the key transit opportunities sitting in front of them.

The reason fewer people take transit in Raleigh (and much of the south) has to do with the fact that A) transit has an air of being “for the poor minorities” and B) because conservatives don’t believe in the collective good of society and therefore push for lower taxes for the rich which leads to cutting back on services like transit which COULD benefit a lot of (if not most) people.

Because transit isn’t funded as it should be (especially in towns like Raleigh) it has the unfortunate reality of low frequency trips. This leads to transportation times on transit being three or four times what they would be in a car. That is a significant enough inconvenience to deter many people from taking transit when they easily could. Add to that the stigma I already mentioned that transit is for the poor and minorities, and of course you have a situation where people prefer to use cars over transit. There are many cities (New York, San Francisco, and DC, in particular) where ridership for transit is at close to full capacity now. And thanks to economic cutbacks those transit systems are struggling to add capacity.

I recommend you read just the first half of the book “Divorce Your Car” by Katie Alvord. It is at the Cameron Village Library, so you don’t even have to buy it. The book explains in very good, and well documented, detail how we got to this place in US society where we are completely dependent on cars for transportation. It wasn’t by accident. There are plenty of countries in Europe which are not nearly as dependent on cars as we have become. If we had made better decisions in the past, things could have been very different. If we begin to make better decisions from this point forward, we can improve things for everyone.

Dana,
The Paramount is not “something like half full”. The builing is fully sold and mostly occupied. There are resales in the building now but it’s a complete distortion to claim that it’s half full.
As for the apartment conversion of The Hue…I don’t see that as a bad thing. There is a demand for housing in the form of apartments downtown. 712 is VERY successful. I don’t know the stats but I heard it was full. Are people how live in apartments somehow inferior residents?
As for RBC, it was victim of its timing vis-a-vis the financial crisis and the national housing meltdown.
Regarding Bloomsbury, it’s just the wrong business model for housing downtown. I thought that to be the case BEFORE teh housing collapse. Let’s see…build the highest end condos in the city next to a train track and with west views of central prison. Then, let’s not give everyone a balcony or a covered parking space. After that, let’s ignore the amenities like pools and gyms that the competition is offering….get my drift?
Using what I think is your logic around this issue, I guess nobody wants to live the suburbs either as some outlying subdivisions sit incomplete and unsold?
Regarding your assertion that people who live inside the beltline rely on their cars just as much as those on the fringes of the city, I completely disagree. When I moved from outside the beltline to inside it, I found that my overall miles driven dropped dramatically. I was still driving to my job but I found that, other than that, my personal driving miles reduced significantly becuase things were a lot closer to me. This is probably true for many others as well. Your experience in North Hills is a hybrid between living ITB and in the far flung burbs. So, I don’t expect that your driving habits were as significantly changed.
When I lived out on Duraleigh Rd., I thought I was close to things but it was an illusion. I thought I was close to Crabtree in distance but I am actually closer living ITB. I thought I was close to a Harris Teeter but I couldn’t walk there. I can walk to Cameron Village now. And, even when I choose to drive, I drive much shorter distances. This is why there isn’t as much traffic ITB. The aggregate of everyones “fewer miles driven” reduces the traffic. It doesn’t make sense to many people at first but higher density actually reduces traffic. Lower density, limited access subdivisions, and asphalt rich development strategies that spread people, goods and services further apart do just the opposite. If we want to save Raleigh from being Atlanta in the future, we need to realize this dynamice and prepare for it. It’s not just about what our current situation is. It’s about having the balls to stand up and do what’s right for our future. North Hills is a perfect example of doing the right thing for Raleigh’s future.

Thanks for clearing up my confusion on the Paramount, John. Yes, the national housing crisis definitely skews anyone’s perception about what the downtown housing market _really_ means, and that’s why I included it as a caveat in my assertion. I was responding to Ron’s implying that people have flocked to downtown, but the reality is that they really haven’t. There has been some movement, but generally the downtown changes have been more in the nightlife and tourism realm. (I’m not saying it’s a failure by any means, but there is certainly not some paradigm shift in the Triangle toward urbanism. I’ll show you 10X growth in Morrisville compared to downtown Raleigh).

Owners are clearly superior to renters. They invest more in the economy, play a more active role in their communities, and care for the property in ways that renters never will. This is why the ownership society was a chief Bush concept. While people overextended themselves to own, it doesn’t change the desire for a society to be full of owners instead of renters.

John proves my point in the last paragraph. North Hills and “mid” Raleigh is a much smarter way to grow then cul de sac neighborhoods with strip mall lined arteries. Those grew in the presence of heavy rail that laughably underserved the expanding Atlanta population. They have a ZONING issue, not a rail transit one.

Ashe, I lived under bus rule for 8 years in Chapel Hill, and can say that no transit system in America serves its community better without having to spend over a billion on high-density rail transit. STILL, though, it was incredibly inefficient to rely on the system. Trips to the grocery store routinely took well over an hour. To get errands done, it took less than 25% of the time with a car than it would relying on transit.

It is THIS efficiency that has been the heaviest (by far) factor in the USA leading the world in the industrial revolution. I wonder if Alvord recognizes this point?

Nevertheless, for our money, we can do everything with buses that rail can do at a tiny fraction of the costs. If people are too snobby to get on a bus, then perhaps the dirty, uncomfortable bus paradigm needs to be changed. There is certainly room for thought on improving the bus experience. I’d rather see us lead the nation in that realm than chunk well over a billion into rail service that will do absolutely nothing in changing outward grown patterns (as has been proven by American cities).

John, how can you conveniently disregard your commute times to work in RTP and the airport when considering your car use? The drive from the Paramount to RTP is not an easy one.

I lived in Cameron Village condos and worked nearby for 3 years, yet STILL found that I spent as much time in my car as I currently do. Try buying shelves, office supplies, specialty groceries, underwear, etc without driving out to the beltline. It’s hard (but still more convenient than living in Carrboro).

“because conservatives don’t believe in the collective good of society”

AShe, one of the things I enjoy about the site is we can tackle exciting subjects like transit without feeling as though we have to take our feelings about it and just label it a fact, hoping it goes unnoticed.

Having lived in Chicago and DC (don’t know about Atlanta), I observed it was many times more expensive to even own a car, much less get around, and people were basically forced to use public transportation. You could not just get in your vehicle and head to the huge big box store anyplace and always find parking. There is no comparison between these places and Raleigh in that regard.
It does not appear light rail makes much economic or practical sense for this area right now, as much as you would like someone else to buy it for you. I also don’t feel that the bus system could be improved enough that I would hop on it with my kids to go get 2X4′s at Lowes. Ridership could perhaps be increased to some extent, but not enough to make a measurable difference.

Dana,
I have actually compared my commute from RTP to DT to others & have found that they are often bettet than suburb to suburb commutes. Commuting is not just about the distances but also the nature in which a community is planned. Limited access subdivisions force traffic to specific feeder roads, wider boulevards and eventually freeways. Many suburban commuters are essentially forced to take certain routes, then they are all stuck together in commuter Hell.
Let me chime in about North Hills. The reason why I think it’s the right thing to do and a good example of smart growth is that it leverages existing infrastructure. When we do this as a community, we are bringing more value to our investment in our collectively paid community resources. When we continue spread our development outward, faster than we are adding population, we have to invest and support a rapidly expanding infrastructure. We are essentially setting ourselves up for a huge financial mess when we have to repair/replace all this infrastructure in the future.
Raleigh’s “plan” doesn’t call for just one urban core, it calls for many in key locations. These urban corridors will undoubtedly be the cash cows for the city in the future when it finds itself replacing sewers, power lines, roads and other infrastructure in the future. This is smart city planning. Everyone who enjoys their suburban life within the city limits should encourage and support denser development within the city. This is especially true for downtown development because it contributes much more tax revenues than it requires in services and maintenance.
Regarding owners vs. renters, I couldn’t disagree with you more. Having a healty rental community downtown brings in a younger, more energetic crowd. It allows people to “learn” the advantages of urban living early and before they have accumulated enough cash to invest. It’s sort of like how car manufacturers build brand loyalty with good entry level cars in hopes that they keep the customer for life. Frankly, I think it’s dangerous to ONLY have an individual ownership housing model for DT. At the end of the day, the property is owned and someone pays taxes. In my book, it’s a win/win for the city.
BTW, sorry for all the typos in my previous post. It was late at night and I was writing under the influence of 3 cocktails!