Raleigh Union Station

[Subway Scoundrel]

Boylan Heights sure does seem to be getting the crap-stick lately. First the prison expansion and now a giant MTC. Although I really hope the MTC doesn't see much opposition.

But you can not live in a city and enjoy all the benefits and not have some issues, especially how close they are to DT. Where BHs is now, they are lucky someone is not proposing to mow the entire neighborhood and build on it. It is right next to a large railroad set of lines and a large prison. The people knew that when they moved there.

[Jones_]

But you can not live in a city and enjoy all the benefits and not have some issues, especially how close they are to DT. Where BHs is now, they are lucky someone is not proposing to mow the entire neighborhood and build on it. It is right next to a large railroad set of lines and a large prison. The people knew that when they moved there.

So would that apply to say, people who live near North Hills but would not want Quail Hollow connected to Anderson too? I'm just saying...

Seriously though, the prison WAS there already. Actually, when I was biking by there I saw several homeless camps uprooted that were in that tree buffer. I would think safety would see an overall improvement ...there sure were alot of stolen computers and TV's ditched off the bridge there....

Edited July 23, 2008 by Jones133

[serapis]

What about our part time city government?

[DPK]

What I see is a desire to move to a tired, old, unpopular paradigm of spending vastly more per person to move people. What we need is a new paradigm, but that will probably come at the hands of people far away from here, given that the very wise School of Engineering at NCSU doesn't have any interest in creating new, cost-effective methods of moving people.

I take offense to this being in the School of Engineering at NCSU. There is ALOT of research that takes place within the school and it's various departments (Civil, Mechanical, etc). It also is a matter of funding as we only have so much to work with. I know that within MAE (Mechanical & Aerospace) that we have some staffing problems right now in regards to who is around to teach what. I think I last heard we are going to be hiring around 15/so people when we get moved over to our new building on Centennial next year. When you only have so many people to work with students it gets hard to balance the load between research, teaching, and trying to do what is best for everyone.

I have made some great friends within Engineering while I've been at State and everyone here truly cares. The matters of research and development often comes down to availability of time to do the best at your job. I don't think I've ever met someone in the Engineering program here that hasn't been passionate about their work.

NCSU itself is quickly remodeling itself to be more pedestrian friendly. On Main Campus alone they are restructuring the bus line by adding more stops and consolidating others in an effort to speed up local traffic. Last year they upgraded their entire fleet to utilize Bio-Fuel. On Main Campus you are also seeing the majority of buildings get renovated right now and when they are ready to come back online the surrounding streets usually are reworked. Two lanes of parallel parking with a vehicle lane are reduced to one parallel parking lane with one vehicle lane. Sidewalks are expanded and vegetation planted on each side. NCSU's Transportation Department is striving to lower vehicular traffic on campus.

The NCSU Master Plan also calls for a monorail system to be implemented between Main Campus and Centennial Campus. New outlying parking decks are planned as well to deal with the decrease in on campus parking. ALL outdoor lighting (including parking decks) on campus is now being retrofit to use more efficient technology and diminish light pollution. New buildings are being built to use better lighting as well (Engineering Building III for example which will house Mechanical, Aerospace, and Bio-Medical Engineering).

Some of the best things have come out of NCSU. Greg Hatem himself was a Chemical Engineer at NCSU.

Edited July 23, 2008 by DPK

[orulz]

Guys, I'm a grad of NCSU myself and I think you should be a little less touchy. Dmccall is not berating NCSU specifically. He's expressing his frustration at the overall lack of research into "new, creative" forms of transportation. But I, for one, am quite glad that nobody at NCSU is working on PRT or whatever new fangled hair-brained gizmo transit that's supposed to solve all our problems. I've seen dozens of such proposals, and so far everything that I've seen so far is some combination of technically infeasibile, extremely expensive, unduly complicated, and predicated on the development of far too many tehcnologies and concepts that don't exist yet (and may not ever exist) -- all of this in spite of the inventor's attempts to use rhetoric to convence us that "it can be done now! cheaply! and with existing technology!"

That's the reason that basically none of these "creative" ideas ever make it off the drawing board. When it comes time to find VC to develop the ideas further, nobody buys in - because in the end it's all a bunch of pretty pictures and words about an idea that just won't work.

As I said before, somewhat paradoxically, the primary mode of transportation that transit encourages is not use of transit. It's walking!

What really needs to happen is that we need to rethink our cities to be more dense and more walkable. (Conventional) transit helps achieve this by tying walkable areas together. It supports development patterns that allow us to make 3/4 of our trips on foot or by bike. It will take decades of gradual change for Raleigh to move significantly in that direction, but this movement will be significantly crippled without getting some transit improvements on the ground soon.

[ERG]

i was kidding when i threatened a knife fight.

but yes, dpk, ncsu is kind of a leader in the state in terms of transit. the wolfline is the most used bus system in the state. it warms my heart every time i see an onld wolfline bus going down capital.

p.s.--i heard MAE move-over date was pushed back another year (to 2010). fyi.

[orulz]

but yes, dpk, ncsu is kind of a leader in the state in terms of transit. the wolfline is the most used bus system in the state. it warms my heart every time i see an onld wolfline bus going down capital.

I heard that same thing too, but statistics I saw somewhere this year showed it to no longer be the case. Perhaps it was true up until about the year 2000 or so. Wolfline has since been surpassed by both CATS and CHT. CATS had their 1/2% sales tax instituted in 1998 resulting in massive service increases, and CHT went fare-free in 2002. Now let's get back on topic: the Raleigh MTC.

I hope that the final design properly addresses all the streets it borders with entrances to the transit concourse and retail. I don't think that there should be any emphasis on public plazas or grassy green spaces. I would like to see Glenwood, Martin, West, and Hargett all placed on viaducts and extended over the tracks. That would allow the area to be broken up for air rights development, and create enough space below so that all bus circulation and train platforms can be below street level.

I think that we shouldn't connecting the existing Amtrak station to the center in any way is a waste. When SEHSR is built, most trains will come into town on the S-line anyway.

Lastly, any design should not preclude converting the rail line along Glenwood Avenue into a light rail line.

[DPK]

I get defensive about my school, Wolfpack Pride so to speak. I didn't really intend for that post to be as long as it was. Even when I finished typing it I was like "did I really just do that".

It wouldn't surprise me that the Wolfline ranks pretty high in the state with transportation. I particularly love the NCSU TVS system which has since gone public at other institutions across the US. It was also founded by a couple guys from NCSU. One was a guy in Computer Science and another was a Mechanical Engineer (I think, don't quote me on that).

http://ncsu.transloc-inc.com or http://www.transloc-inc.com

[ChiefJoJo]

FYI, I noticed that the MTC actually has $18.5M in capital funding this year (pdf pg 55). Now, that won't get it built, but it's probably enough to get the land purchased.

I hope that the final design properly addresses all the streets it borders with entrances to the transit concourse and retail. I don't think that there should be any emphasis on public plazas or grassy green spaces. I would like to see Glenwood, Martin, West, and Hargett all placed on viaducts and extended over the tracks. That would allow the area to be broken up for air rights development, and create enough space below so that all bus circulation and train platforms can be below street level.

I think that we shouldn't connecting the existing Amtrak station to the center in any way is a waste. When SEHSR is built, most trains will come into town on the S-line anyway.

Lastly, any design should not preclude converting the rail line along Glenwood Avenue into a light rail line.

Agreed on the rail line. They need to preserve some long term options while building what's needed w/r/t STAC, frieght, HSR, and buses.

[ncwebguy]

I was talking to the TBJ reporter about the MMTC on a TTA bus last Friday, and the value of the air rights is being looked at as a revenue stream to pay for the different transit entities at the surface. Extending Glenwood south but at a Morgan Street height would allow for bus/street car connections to points north and west without having to go into Boylan Heights. Bus/streetcar service to downtown and points east and south could be handled at the warehouse district's level, possibly using Cabarrus Street. Amtrack may be called on to sacrifice its station to get something more useful/spacious/modern.

The "problem" is F Street has been established as the core for highest density, and there are no "connecting" cores established (yet), making it feel out of "walking distance". The state government complex around Halifax Mall to the north is closer to its station, but still a bit of a hike thorugh the existing built environment. Near the MMC, the warehouse district has a established a sense of character due to Dillon Supply's lack of updating the area. It would be hard to recreate that in new 10-20+ story buildings that would replace them.

I started at NC State as Aerospace, transferred to Mechanical, but there didn't seem to be anything going on for students like me not going to their dad's firm or had an interest in cars or heat transfer. Looking back, I probably should have gone to civil -- they had a decent transportation engineering department, but it was mostly focused on highway construction and intersection design. The city's Transportation Systems Manager is a graduate from that department and former Student Senate president. I don't know how much his department has had to do with the multi-modal center, but I think he understands the impact it can have on getting people into and out of downtown.

[dmccall]

What I was talking about is the drum beat of Al Gore. We need to be self-sufficient with regards to energy. The chief reason America is #1 is our ability to freely move, but that is based on cheap oil, and someone else is holding the price tag maker.

The problem when it comes to alternatives to gas-burning cars is that the only alternative anyone ever talks about is high-occupancy rail transit built on custom lines. This is one of the most expensive and restrictive ways in history to move people. We used to have this and people quit riding for a reason. Why? Because they loved the freedom of having a car. Why are we stuck, though, with a car paradigm that hasn't changed since Henry Ford? Really the only improvements to that paradigm consist of air conditioning and minimum access highways. For 100 years now we've sat here with our thumbs up our you-know-whats and the only people who recognize that there is a problem insist that we revert to pre-1908 lifestyles.

While a "monorail" is still on the master plan for NCSU, don't you think they would have built it by now if it were the real answer? Centennial Campus was designed 25 years ago. Back then they determined that rail is too expensive, even for a densely populated campus. One of the chief designers said they concluded that it would be cheaper to buy each faculty member a Mercedes, and have them drive the students. Even cheaper? "Buy 24,000 red and white bicycles and leave them scattered across both campuses".

Even Disney, who has more money than most companies in the world, could not even justify extending their monorail line less than a mile to include the MGM Park. It's NEXT DOOR to Epcot!!! They have decided that even though their monorail is the sexiest transit system in the world, they still can't justify it over buses (CLEAN buses, that is).

One may yearn for the lifestyle of those in urban areas like NYC, but many conveniently ignore that fact that an extreme, mass majority of people in America do not want to live like that. In fact, a heck of a lot of people who work in NYC don't either, and they live in sprawl land, spending hours per day with restrictive transit modalities.

So, apparently, the engineering school at state thinks that we're just fine with two paradigms: Pre 1908 lifestyles or what Henry Ford concocted. Here's a project that at least shows someone is eager to find an alternative. Do we really need a multimodal center if we develop smart cars and smart roads or PRTs or a fantastic bus system?

[Gard]

^^^

Smart cars and smart roads could be decades away, rail is not. Americans are not that patient. They want a solution NOW. If you go and look at the recent statistics, ridership of rail services is UP 40% in some areas, and even in the southeast, its UP 15% . Public opinion about mass transit is changing almost as fast as the oil prices. Also note that the Europeans have largely been unfazed by the increase in oil prices and that can be credited to their highly developed mass transit system, which includes quite a few trains. Japan also makes use of a large number of trains and is one of the largest economies in the world.

North America is about the only place in the world that makes little use of trains. Its hard to argue that its a part of "pre-1908 lifestyles" when emerging economic powers such as India and China are building more and more trains and their economies are no doubt benefiting from them.

[DPK]

While a "monorail" is still on the master plan for NCSU, don't you think they would have built it by now if it were the real answer? Centennial Campus was designed 25 years ago. Back then they determined that rail is too expensive, even for a densely populated campus. One of the chief designers said they concluded that it would be cheaper to buy each faculty member a Mercedes, and have them drive the students. Even cheaper? "Buy 24,000 red and white bicycles and leave them scattered across both campuses".

So, apparently, the engineering school at state thinks that we're just fine with two paradigms: Pre 1908 lifestyles or what Henry Ford concocted. Here's a project that at least shows someone is eager to find an alternative. Do we really need a multimodal center if we develop smart cars and smart roads or PRTs or a fantastic bus system?

Did you even fully read my post on the last page? You're really getting on my nerves here. How can you even say what you just wrote about the school of engineering? Seriously.

They haven't built a monorail/people-mover because it is not currently feasible. The bus system currently handles the needs of NCSU for students traveling between Main and Centennial Campuses. Centennial is no where near full build out. That is the purpose of the Master Plan, any Master Plan. It's a goal for the future. Why would you invest all of your time and money on something that wouldn't be utilized! I can do one better and even quote from The History of North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus by Paige Meszaros which can be found in the Special Collections Research Center at the NCSU Library:

One method of doing this would be to focus on building road networks and alternative transportation to alleviate damage to residential areas. A people mover or monorail system could be used to connect main campus to Centennial Campus as well as to RDU International Airport and even downtown Durham and the Research Triangle Park. "A people mover is an automated transit system that provides frequent, high-speed service with one or more passenger cars that move along a fixed guideway or rail installed either on the ground or above ground."[19] To date, a mass transit system, other than main campus Wolfline bus routes, has not been built. Reasoning for this is that the population of staff and students at Centennial is not large enough to justify the expense yet. Approximately 700-800 students ride the bus from main campus to Centennial now.[20]

Also in regard to Centennial build out, I cite an interview with Jaine Place who was the Partnership Development Specialist for Centennial Campus and now is currently with Research Administration doing Research Proposal Development on Centennial:

I think they’re only about a quarter done. In terms of actual business space, I think they’re about a quarter done. David Winwood can answer that for you but a lot more than a quarter of the infrastructure is in. There are more sites than buildings. And when you include the veterinary school, the biomedical research campus over there [technically also part of Centennial Campus], of course they have a lot more land as well. And then there’s parts of the Dorothea Dix campus that are now part of this that we haven’t even begun to build on yet. This will be—we’ll have a whole new university when this is over with.

I'm going to hold my tongue on anything else because I'm about to go off and say things that would probably get me banned here.

Edited July 24, 2008 by DPK

[dmccall]

It's not "currently feasible" now for NCSU...and never will be. Bet on it. They will continue to find, like every university that is substantially larger than they are, that without a massive monetary influx from the taxpayers, they won't be able to justify a monorail (as we know it today) over a good bus service.

Sorry to offend, but if there are so many in the engineering departments who care so much about revolutionizing mobility, what university programs are in place to revolutionize mobility?

San Jose recently scrapped their rail plan in favor of BRT. We better figure out our plan before developing a multimodal center that becomes immediately obsolete. This isn't like being stung by buying an HDDVD player. This is a major investment . Are we designing this thing for a diesel choo choo (diesel prices are up 63% in the last year) that requires a big ventilation system if indoors?

I think a lot of questions need to be answered, and this project is at least 15 years off.

Edited July 24, 2008 by dmccall

[sax184]

Chapel Hill Transit ridership is nearly double that of the Wolfline. Something like 29,000 riders a day to 15-16,000 riders a day at State. Charlotte is way ahead of both of them.

[ChiefJoJo]

No more comments on NCSU. That has nothing to do with the MTC. Consider this a warning for everyone.

San Jose recently scrapped their rail plan in favor of BRT. We better figure out our plan before developing a multimodal center that becomes immediately obsolete. This isn't like being stung by buying an HDDVD player. This is a major investment . Are we designing this thing for a diesel choo choo (diesel prices are up 63% in the last year) that requires a big ventilation system if indoors?

I think a lot of questions need to be answered, and this project is at least 15 years off.

As I posted above, the project actually has $18.5M in funding this year. That may be enough to buy land, though not until the study is done (of course). I think that sale of air rights and potentially TIF could potentially finance the rest.

I'm not going to get into a philosophical argument on transit here (that belongs in the 2035 transit topic, not here), but with rising gas prices, it's a fact that passenger and rail transit ridership is way up nationwide. If gas prices continue to increase with global demand over the long term (as most economists believe), it's natural to project a continuation of high demand for those services. Long distance car travel will become less viable, and high speed rail has a chance to become a reality by 2015 or so to fill in the gap. The MTC could be ready to go by then.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

Why do so many people, (including HDR), believe that including the rail line,(high speed,amtrak,TTA's possible line), into the MTC building is not a good idea? I was looking at the San Francisco project and though there's is on a much larger scale, one building for everything appears to be a feasible and smart way to proceed. IMHO!

[dmccall]

Warning or not, the type of vehicles used are germane to this topic. Silver wants to basically fly over the tracks with development from the Boylan Ave grade down to the warehouse area - meaning that the station would be rather enclosed. Are we really sticking with diesel while doing light rail in the Durham/CH line?

[orulz]

I'm OK with doing diesel for now. The ventalation systems probably won't add more than $1m to the cost. However, I should hope that every bridge and station built, widened, or modified for construction of the Raleigh - Durham line is made with enough clearance to accommodate future electrification. The NCRR / SEHSR mainline should be electrified eventually as well, probably concurrent to the electrification of the TTA corridor, and I hope they're done with compatible electrical systems, as a mainline railroad electrification - 25kv 60hz AC power, not the light duty 500-750v DC generally used for LRT.

The reason the MTC can't include the current Amtrak station in a single building is that it's just too far away. I think tying this station in to the MTC in any way is quite honestly a waste of money, since it will go the way of the dodo anyway once the S-line is reactivated.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

The reason the MTC can't include the current Amtrak station in a single building is that it's just too far away. I think tying this station in to the MTC in any way is quite honestly a waste of money, since it will go the way of the dodo anyway once the S-line is reactivated.

Please help me understand, I was under the impression that once this new MTC/complex was built then the Amtrak building and bus stations across town would then be closed down? Most of these are very old anyway? If we are not to include the "train" portion of this complex into the design, why not wait until everything can be included. As a visitor, I would think it odd to come into town on a bus into a new station and then have to walk to the old Amtrak station. Sounds a bit weird? Also somewhere along the way I missed the explanation of what the S-line is? Reactivated? Thank you in advance for your patience with me and my questions.

[orulz]

I think a train station element absolutely has to be incorporated into the MTC, and it should be in the same building as all the other transit. However, it should definitely not be the CURRENT train station.

The S line is the former Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Think of it as a straight line "shortcut" between Raleigh and Richmond, via Henderson. It was abandoned between Henderson and Petersburg, VA in the early 1980s when the Seaboard Air Line and the Atlantic Coast Line merged. Any train going from Raleigh to Richmond actually has to head southeast (over the bridges at McDowell/Lenoir, South, Dawson, and MLK) to Selma before turning north, which adds a lot of time onto the very important Raleigh-Washington trip.

Reactivating this S-line is part of the Southeast High Speed Rail project which is supposed to shave about 2 hours off the trip time between Raleigh and Richmond. When the S-line is reopened, trains will depart directly north out of Raleigh - under Morgan and Hillsborough, then across Jones, West, and Harrison, over Capital, Peace, behind Logan Trading Co., and so on.

So what I'm saying is that, while the current Amtrak station works now since northbound trains have to depart in a southeasterly direction, it won't work once the S-line is active again. Any attempts to connect the MTC to the current Amtrak station will be a waste of money, because the current Amtrak station will be abandoned once the S-line is active.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

I think a train station element absolutely has to be incorporated into the MTC, and it should be in the same building as all the other transit. However, it should definitely not be the CURRENT train station.

The S line is the former Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Think of it as a straight line "shortcut" between Raleigh and Richmond, via Henderson. It was abandoned between Henderson and Petersburg, VA in the early 1980s when the Seaboard Air Line and the Atlantic Coast Line merged. Any train going from Raleigh to Richmond actually has to head southeast (over the bridges at McDowell/Lenoir, South, Dawson, and MLK) to Selma before turning north, which adds a lot of time onto the very important Raleigh-Washington trip.

Reactivating this S-line is part of the Southeast High Speed Rail project which is supposed to shave about 2 hours off the trip time between Raleigh and Richmond. When the S-line is reopened, trains will depart directly north out of Raleigh - under Morgan and Hillsborough, then across Jones, West, and Harrison, over Capital, Peace, behind Logan Trading Co., and so on.

So what I'm saying is that, while the current Amtrak station works now since northbound trains have to depart in a southeasterly direction, it won't work once the S-line is active again. Any attempts to connect the MTC to the current Amtrak station will be a waste of money, because the current Amtrak station will be abandoned once the S-line is active.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! That helps a lot!

Orulz, did you forward any plans, ideas to HDR? Can you share your ideas, pics?

Thanks again!

[ChiefJoJo]

I think a train station element absolutely has to be incorporated into the MTC, and it should be in the same building as all the other transit. However, it should definitely not be the CURRENT train station.

The S line is the former Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Think of it as a straight line "shortcut" between Raleigh and Richmond, via Henderson. It was abandoned between Henderson and Petersburg, VA in the early 1980s when the Seaboard Air Line and the Atlantic Coast Line merged. Any train going from Raleigh to Richmond actually has to head southeast (over the bridges at McDowell/Lenoir, South, Dawson, and MLK) to Selma before turning north, which adds a lot of time onto the very important Raleigh-Washington trip.

Reactivating this S-line is part of the Southeast High Speed Rail project which is supposed to shave about 2 hours off the trip time between Raleigh and Richmond. When the S-line is reopened, trains will depart directly north out of Raleigh - under Morgan and Hillsborough, then across Jones, West, and Harrison, over Capital, Peace, behind Logan Trading Co., and so on.

So what I'm saying is that, while the current Amtrak station works now since northbound trains have to depart in a southeasterly direction, it won't work once the S-line is active again. Any attempts to connect the MTC to the current Amtrak station will be a waste of money, because the current Amtrak station will be abandoned once the S-line is active.

Good summary, O. The only scenario that could put the Cabarrus Amtrak station back in play would be the potential NCRR commuter rail study/project. It may be years off into the future (who knows?) but that would reactivate the NCRR line SE of Raleigh to Garner, Clayton, Selma, and Goldsboro for passenger travel. The line is mostly straight and in good shape, so long term it could be a viable corridor for commuter rail travel of some sort.

I don't know how they are going to handle all these scenarios with the MTC, but one would hope that the options discussed here would not be precluded by the building.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

By the way, the reply that I got from HDR implied that they would be giving the city of Raleigh there info within the next couple of weeks. I was under the impression that we wouldn't learn anything from this until the fall/autumn? What have ya'll heard...

[Subway Scoundrel]

San Jose recently scrapped their rail plan in favor of BRT. We better figure out our plan before developing a multimodal center that becomes immediately obsolete. This isn't like being stung by buying an HDDVD player. This is a major investment . Are we designing this thing for a diesel choo choo (diesel prices are up 63% in the last year) that requires a big ventilation system if indoors?

Just some points on San Jose

I know the area well where they are talking about and they made a decision to choose what they want and what is faster to build but that said, if this runs into Downtown, which it does, it is then rail connected to run to the north SJ area all the way down through downtown past the airport and south and then crisscrossed the other way with the convention center, HP arena, airport on rail along with many corporate businesses which are on the rail line.

It also would connect CalTrain which runs below SJ/Santa Clara to San Francisco. So yes, busses are being used for this line to connect to DT and other rail projects and for connectivity. The Caltrain (which I have ridden many times along with the VTA line) is very much like the TTA backbone proposal and every time I ride it, I am blown away by how many people ride it and by how many trains there are and most importantly, how everyone is not going to San Francisco. Bt the time I get to SF from SJ international, the train is close to empty since most people got off the train.

The route they are talking about or at least some of it is very much like Capital Blvd and somewhat lower middle class by what I can see which means starter homes start at $400K.

I am all for bus routes and lanes as long as it part of an overall system and the VTA system has a fairly large bit of rail that at the closest point is still 35 miles from San Francisco.

Also, please stay away from the Choo Choo reference, I value your knowledge and opinion too much to loose total respectability on that reference which should be banned from local afternoon radio and one foundations

Edited July 28, 2008 by Subway Scoundrel