Aug

City Council Advises Light Rail Route D6

Note: Mayor Meeker is increasingly difficult to understand in meetings, so it sometimes is hard to gather all of the details in City Council meetings

Tonight the Raleigh City Council hosted a workshop and public hearing regarding proposed routes for light rail trains in downtown Raleigh. In early July the Passenger Rail Task Force presented their recommendation for a rail plan, D6a, that would put light rail trains down Morgan Street and up the Salisbury/Wilmington Street pair so as to best serve state government workers. This plan was re-presented in a pre-hearing “workshop” (I use quotes because it was simply a series of presentations with absolutely no interaction with the general public).

However city planners also presented their recommendation, plain ol’ Plan D6, which brings trains down Morgan Street, and up Harrington Street to the point where it joins the existing rail corridor, then crosses over and follows Capital Blvd.

The problems with Plan D6a include the choice to serve government land parcels in lieu of tax-base bolstering parcels that are ripe for private development. D6a also proposes crossing Dawson and McDowell Streets, a state highway pair, which is apparently blasphemy in the eyes of the State Department of Transportation (why can’t the cars just wait an extra cycle every 20 minutes?). Finally, D6a recommends a bridge flying over Peace Street for the southbound track, adding to costs.

The workshop easily blended into the 7:00 public hearing where a 3/4 full council chamber played ostrich given the opportunity to speak. Only 4 people expressed opinions before the mayor quickly and unclearly closed the public session. The Council moved on to closing comments, and voted to recommend Plan D6 by a vote of 6-2. One dissenting councilor was Bonner Gaylord who prefers route D5, however willingly accepted Plan D6. It appeared that Russ Stephenson was the other dissenting voter, however it was unclear why. Presumably his actions regard his consideration of a D6/D6a plan that would run the Northbound train along D6a and the Southbound train along D6. He postulated that this would put train access to prime private land in the Glenwood South area while serving the government buildings; the best of both worlds.

None of the presenters or councilors seemed concerned by the complete lack of coverage of south downtown, however. The assumption is that riders accessing East and South Raleigh will gladly connect to D6a by riding circulator buses, like the R-line, when coming downtown for events. Unfortunately in real life this won’t happen. People in North Raleigh will not take a park & ride downtown to a circulator bus stop in order to get to Memorial Auditorium. They would walk 3 blocks from a station, but they will not take a 3rd mode of transit.

Also absent from discussion was the long walk between Amtrak and light rail platforms for people carrying heavy luggage. The proposed 2-3 block length is too long. This connection needs to be graceful. Most importantly, missing from discussion were ideas about how to best present the plan to main source of funding, suburban citizens.

While I am happy to essentially see the demise of Plan D6a, I still have big concerns about Plan D6. It is a plan that ignores any entertainment and convention venues. However it is a plan that minimizes exposure to traffic, services museums and government offices reasonably, and one that avoids extremely expensive elevated portions of track.

Don’t be fooled, however. The reality of a light rail system is still many, many years away. I have a strong sense that no progress will occur on this project in the next 12 months, in fact, as there are still uncertainties about the engineering and funding of the plan. With an uncertain political climate and a dismal economy extending beyond the horizon, it will likely be a while, a long while, before significant progress is made.

Handout from the Meeting (.PDF)

4 Comments

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jasdelaney Said:
August 2nd, 2011 at 11:34 am
While the advantage of D6 from an economic development potential is clear, it’s also viewed as the best route (D6A the next best but too many problems) for attracting the required suburban votes. The only people today who could imagine getting out of their car and into a train is a commuter, and there are 40k office workers making the trip each day. In the interim, the destination and resident riders can be served through an enhanced bus service, and in the longer term via streetcars. But getting the rail here is the first step and without the funding, nothing happens!
Anonymous Said:
August 2nd, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Thanks for commenting, jasdelaney. I think the reality is that the general public will not vote for a rail plan that completely excludes the airport, Memorial Auditorium, and the convention center. Therefore I think all plans presented are DOA.

They should break this long line into two separate ones. It would offer far more flexibility in downtown services, enabling services to the destinations at the southern edge of downtown. Also a fender-bender wouldn’t shut the entire rail system down with a two line system, and there would be more flexibility with servicing demand. (if the East/West segment were twice as popular as the North/South segment, we could run more trains on E/W without having to service N/S stations equally.)

While not directly servicing the airport is understandable given the constraints stated over the last 15 years, running service to Cary and not even including an airport shuttle connector is political suicide for this plan. At least run the plan to a Morrisville/Airport Shuttle stop.
orulz Said:
August 2nd, 2011 at 2:42 pm
I think this whole alternatives analysis process we’re going through right now isn’t the alternatives analysis process that will be used to determine what actually gets built. This Alternatives Analysis process is intended to determine what will be in the plan that is pitched to voters as a part of a transit referendum.

If the transit referendum passes in all three counties, and we decide to seek federal funds for construction, then a whole new “FTA compliant” alternatives analysis process will take place.

I agree with your assessment. The biggest chunk of ridership on the rail line will probably come from people who live in Cary or North Raleigh who commute to downtown or NC State daily. HOWEVER, that’s a tiny minority of all the people who live in Wake County. The plan needs to show at least something that the rest of the county can see themselves using, at least occasionally. Missing the airport, the RBC center, memorial auditorium, and the convention center is an awful lot of strikes. They’ll have to convince everybody that bus service improvements will adequately serve those who the rail line doesn’t. That will make it harder to sell the referendum.
jasdelaney Said:
August 2nd, 2011 at 2:46 pm
In my view this plan at it’s beginnings was not going to be ambitious since a primary driver was to avoid right of way problems and save money by staying in the rail corridor as much as possible. The public needs to appreciate the bigger picture, and see this new transit option as only a first step, with the more expansive plan for connecting buses / shuttles and streetcars as a natural follow on. I do believe it’s a reasonable first step that balances ridership with cost.

If indeed it ends up being DOA for the reasons you mentioned, this would be a huge blow to public transit for our region for years to come.