Triangle Transit "Tent Revival" -- October (maybe)

[vitaviatic]

Repost from Triangle Transit topic:

It's truly amazing how dispirited this topic has become. Once upon a time seeing five and six posts a day, now getting one every other month. And all this during the tenure of one of the most transit friendly administrations in history. My admonitions were pooh-poohed, to wit:

STAC = "blue ribbon committee" = "study project" = extend timelines = essentially kill project.

So let's cut to the chase.

I was purging some files the other day, coming across some that posted on my old web site, which were linked from the old blog. I was ready to put them in the digital shredder, and stopped. Why, I don't know. "One last shot", I said. Unfortunately, some of these may not be recoverable, but oh well.

So here's the deal. I will be in Raleigh from Sat. to Sat., 9th to the 16th in October. If anyone wants to meet with me -- one on one, small group, big group, doesn't matter -- pick a place and I will meet you there anywhere from 4pm to 1am either on Sunday the 10th or Friday the 15th. If not, I am washing my brain of any interest in this topic (I long ago lost interest in the square-wheeled clown circus this has become, but alas hope springs eternal if people are willing to re-invent this particular wheel.) The place could be a tavern, a hotel conference room, a park, or a flash mob at City Plaza. I don't care. If any of my fellow bloggers here are interested, we'll set it up.

This is your crack at the bad-ass carpetbagger.

There are other ways to do this transit thing. And parts of them have very little to do with "planning" or "design", or any of that crap. You can't even get to anything meaningful on those levels without a political constituency. Sure, I made some criticisms of the faddish hardware that TTA intended to use (and I stand by those). But my main contention was that there existed no significant political motive effort to get any large-scale transit project off the ground there. That has been and will be my emphasis.

I have too many projects on my plate, and some of them have to go. Should I devote more time to transit in the Triangle, or not? You tell me. I will post a poll that will serve as a de facto invite or a bug-off. Of course, one can always send me a message.

I will post the poll in the Coffee House and we can bounce some stuff off of the new topic if there are any takers.

[DanRNC]

I think the powers that be in this area got what they wanted-the complete dissolution of this idea. To them train travel equals socialism which completely baffles me. Yea, why do we want to be like the socialist, anti-capitalist Swiss (sarcasm)? After spending a lot of time in Europe this past year I can only laugh at America's aversion to smart, efficient mass transit. I have to say we are a 2nd world country working on becoming 3rd.

[vitaviatic]

Hey Dan, thanks for the reply. I would agree with your assessment, only to the extent that it depends on where you are. A lot of cities are onboard with the idea of transit, but we've made such a Gordian knot of the whole process of implementing it that, if you didn't have what you needed before, it's not likely you'll get it. Look at all the money that was spent "planning" TTA service, which was not even done properly, and eventually boiled down into nothing. Hell, you probably could have built a streetcar line down Hillsborough for that amount of dough!

You can even take this down to the micro-level. I would guess that even parts of Raleigh are more than eager to get serious with transit. I suspect that a poll of people in Cameron Village, or Glenwood South for instance, would yield a "thumbs up", but the problem, of course, is that they are politically hidebound by budget to those that don't in North Raleigh (Fetzer and Coble land). That's why I say that small steps at building a solid constituency group for the matter would concentrate these disparate and outnumbered voices into something with clout. A simple "whisper campaign" in the Legislature to change a few small rules concerning tax collection (without even re-allocating money, by the way) can have serious ripple effects.

In any case, it looks like it'll be a small gathering. Pending any great rush of interest as the date nears, we'll plan on it being that way. We'll file it down to a specific date and place as the appointed hour approaches. Still could be Raleigh or Durham, depending on who responds and where and when they want it.

[vitaviatic]

Not much interest, I see. We'll post a go/no go decision, as well as date, time, and place here on Wednesday, 6 October.

[vitaviatic]

Well the silence here is deafening.

MEETING OFFICIALLY CANCELED, except for those of you who responded privately -- to which the offer is still open of course. But please get back to me before tomorrow so I can finalize my trip schedule.

So with that, I am history.

By the way Gard, did I mention that the one who sent me out on Greyhound had to buy the ticket?...

Chao!