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Triangle Expressway


RALNATIVE

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To the folks who maintain that this lifestyle is their freedom of choice, I agree only to the point that government is under no obligation to pay for that lifestyle. In fact, your average libertarian should be quite against building 4-lane roads as well as rail. Government...if it assumed that it should be providing transportation (which I do), should be making the best investment, taking into consideration every thing that such a decision impacts (see my short list above).
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Another article from the N&O on the TriEx:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/growth/tr...ry/1645312.html

One interesting tidbit is that it appears it's finally outed that eventually the entire 640 loop will be tolled when the northern half has to be widened due to growth sometime before 2035.

Now we can finally throw that at people complaining about the southern half being tolled and the northern half not being so. Well you cry babies (wral and n&o commenters), there you have it, the entire loop will eventually be tolled. What are you going to bicker about now?

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"Sprawl" is a zoning error, not one caused by big roads. Let's look at North Raleigh as an example. From 1970 to around 1990 most of the land in north Raleigh was used for residential without a single interstate highway and very few roads wider than 3 lanes. When we are talking about initial land use changes, big roads are an effect of where people want to live, not the cause.
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540 was built to solve traffic on the Beltline and 40. It didn't work, as anyone will tell you, and just opened up more farm land for unsustainable development that drains the local tax base, all on the taxpayers dime. Does anyone think Triangle Town Center or Wakefield would have been built, or the Knightdale suburbs would be booming without 540? All that enabled and mostly crappy development and the cherry on top is it will need to be widened soon enough. Rinse, spin, repeat.

For nearly the entire 5,000+ years of history of human settlement, the only form of clustered development of was pedestrian-oriented. Only since the 1940 and 50s has our policy been to try to put all our eggs in the automobile and sprawl basket and to move away from a tried and true method built around compact cities and towns (but with many unintended consequences). So really, the last 60 years of automobile dominance has been a relative blip on the radar for human settlement as viewed from a historical perspective. So, the idea that zoning in isolation is the problem is laughable. If true, we are then left to believe that, while our cities were compact for thousands of years, automobiles and highways came on the scene and the resulting landscape of subdivisions, strip mall, and office parks is merely happenstance. Um, yeah. Land use and transportation are directly intertwined and new highways built on open land provide among the most powerful incentives that drives zoning to allow for the easiest possible movement of cars, which is in direct conflict with a more pedestrian-oriented type of development... period, end of story.

Unlike other industrialized countries, who approached introducing the automobile as a mode of transportation in a more balance manner, thinking we knew better than everyone else (not to mention thousands of years of evidence to the contrary), we wanted full tilt sprawl fueled by auto dominance, and so we enabled it at all levels of govt for mortgages, zoning, energy, highways, and even food. Put simply, private investment follows public policy incentives, and it has had a profound influence on how we live in every way.

If you think highways don't induce sprawl, then I'm sorry I haven't done a good enough job of helping you realize the error of your ways. :)

So, the new 540 will be justified as a short term reducer of congestion, but in the long run, all it will do is worsen the environment, drain our tax base, needlessly waste energy and open space, and provide another taxpayer giveaway to land speculators and developers along the highway. We continue on our path to becoming Atlanta more and more each day...

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With regard to increased auto fuel efficiency, I'll believe it when I see it on a large scale across the US, especially without a commensurate demand side policy shift (big increase in gas taxes). But for the sake of argument, suppose we see a drastic shift in efficiency in the US auto fleet. On that topic, please note the recent testimony of Transportation Secretary LaHood before the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works:

"
Even if vehicle fuel efficiency were to reach 55 mpg by 2030, we would still see only modest decreases in transportation CO2 emissions without a decrease in vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
. Addressing VMT growth plays a key role in decreasing transportation related GHG emissions and should be included in overall efforts to prevent climate change. One way to achieve significant reductions in VMT is to
develop more livable communities
.

First, we can provide
more transportation choices
in more communities across the country. Single occupancy vehicles should be only one of many transportation options available to Americans to reach their destinations.
Walking, bicycling, light rail and buses can be made available in more places.

Second, we can
promote development of housing in close proximity to transit
. In addition to reducing VMT and greenhouse gas emissions from cars driven by commuters, such planning would have the added
benefits of decreasing transportation costs for families and reducing traffic congestion
.

Third, we can
promote mixed-use development
, which incorporates residential and commercial buildings,
allowing individuals the choice to walk, drive a shorter distance or easily use public transportation to reach their destination
."

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  • 2 months later...

From Hopson Road in RTP you can definitely see that a lot of land has been cleared and earth is being moved for this highway.

The News & Observer had an article last week about the push to complete the loop. The southern section is being justified as a bypass to "ease congestion" through central Raleigh but we all know that is a ruse. The real purpose is to allow for more development in southern Wake and to make land owners and developers rich.

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I use the southern Durham Freeway endpoint to go to work, and the clearing for the 147-540 connector is well underway. I hate that there will not be connetivity to Alexander or NC 54 near I-40, but the road isn't for me. Not only will the trees not be replaced, the TriEx will only lead to even more clear cutting down the road.

The NC 55 widening followed development. The 540 extension enables sprawl. The northern arc of 540 enabled Franklin County sprawl in addition to that of Wake Forest, Knightdale, and points east.

Does anyone have traffic counts on NC 540 south of I-40 to NC 55 yet? Has it lived up to its predicted traffic, or was it a solution looking for a problem? Tolling NC 540 south of I-540 was the only way to get traffic on the Durham Freeway extension.

10K seems optimistic for opening day traffic on NC 540 south of NC 55? Other than Apex/Holly Springs to RTP/Southpoint mall, this will be a road to nowhere until it connects to I-40 in southern Wake/Northern Johnston County. When that connection is made, Johnston County sprawl will go into overdrive, and Raleigh/Wake County won't be able to anything about it.

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