Triangle road & traffic thread

[Gard]

NBC 17 reporting on tv tonight that the state put together a committee to study what options they have for eliminating the transportation budget shortfall due to people driving less and will report back in January. Options mentioned include raising the sales tax and making more future projects into toll roads (the option I prefer). That being said, I think that there should be a top-bottom review of all the projects in the pipeline and those are aren't essential should be cut and more money should be shifted towards mass transit projects. I believe after seeing this that it was only a matter of time that the remainder of 540 to be built would become a toll road.

[orulz]

Wait, so they're talking about generating more money for road improvements, and they're talking about sales taxes instead of gas taxes??

[Gard]

^

Pretty much. They said that the gas tax is no longer cutting it because of lower amounts of people driving, so they need to raise money for roads somehow. Oh they also mentioned taxing you by mileage (if the gas tax isn't cutting it because people are driving less, how is taxing by mileage going to be any different????). I am quite amazed at how the state seems determined to build more roads, regardless of the fact that people are driving less. This is quite the oxymoron! They figure that if they can't get your money with the gas tax, they'll get it from you with a sales tax, which is pretty much unavoidable unless you buy everything from the internet. Once again, I think that if they are going to build major projects, toll roads are the way to go, so only those using it will be paying for it, at least a good portion of it.

[DCMetroRaleigh]

When I lived in Charlotte in the early-mid 80s, US 74 in Monroe was adequate, but the city seemed determined to concentrate all retail, etc. on it.

I disagree. I lived in the area back then, and the area already was seen as congested. Nonetheless, Union County had only 70,436 people in 1980, 84, 210 people in 1990. In 2007, it had 184,675 people and is one of the nation's fastest growing counties. Indeed Union County's roads are woefully inadequate for a county that will likely have over a quarter of a million people a decade from now.

[Gard]

Found an article on N&O website with more details on the state's plan to increase taxes for road construction:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1187678.html

I find it rather humerus that some legislatures are arguing that if they cede control of some roads to local municipalities, that they will raise property taxes. Property taxes aren't an issue if the given municipality, like Raleigh for example, is already the one that is maintaining the road because NCDOT won't/can't! They just need to give up control formally and get it over with. As Shakespeare once said, "Life is a tragic comedy."

[orulz]

Part of me says that the gas tax is better than a per-mile tax. Part of me doesn't.

Pros of the gas tax:

• Comparatively simple to enforce, no need to track mileage on cars
  
• Charges are proportional to the impact a vehicle has on road maintenance and the environment. Heavier vehicles and lead-footed driving habits do more damage to roads and pollute more, but that is balanced out by the fact that they pay more gas tax
  

Pros of the per-mile tax:

• Charges are proportional to the amount of congestion they cause (a motorcycle that gets 70mpg causes just as much congestion as an Expedition that gets 9mpg)
  
• Adds another cost to driving that is not 'hidden' like the gas tax. Makes driving seem less "free" so therefore might discourage driving.
  

I still think that the gas tax is the best solution. What we need to do is pass a law that the highway fund must have a balanced budget. That is, each year the gas tax must be adjusted to generate enough revenue to cover all the road work in the TIP. This does two things: encourages realistic planning by the MPOs, and avoids situations that we're in right now where the money doesn't add up. If you want to drive, then pay for it!

[Gard]

NCDOT eliminating "inner beltline" and "outer beltline" from the 440/40 signs and just naming them "east" and "west."

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/story/1191403.html

[DPK]

NCDOT eliminating "inner beltline" and "outer beltline" from the 440/40 signs and just naming them "east" and "west."

While I'm happy for upgraded signage, I'm going to still call it by inner/outer beltline. It's a circle/oval, you aren't always going east/west, it's all relevant on your current position. In their defense however I will say that everyone I know who comes to Raleigh who has never been on the beltline always goes the wrong way at least a few times before they get the hang of it. Heck, I admit to doing it when I first moved here. I think one time I got so confused I rode the entire thing just because I had no idea where I was, lol.

Pros/cons to everything I suppose.

[RaleighRob]

Well I think the point is to make the part that's I-40 JUST I-40 again. The rest will be an "arch" instead of a circle...which does make sense for a east/west designation. (I-540 as well as I-240 in Asheville, are done similarly.)

This would also get rid of the confusion in the Crossroads area where you have to "exit 440 to stay on 440". Instead, 440 will be ending and you have your choice to go straight (US 1 South) or on I-40 East or West.

[RaleighRob]

Word is that the City of Raleigh is going to finally start the work to extend Edwards Mill Road from Trinity to NC 54, sometime this fall.

They also plan to do some big work on the southern leg of Fayetteville Street (that part below MLK Blvd) and some of the side streets along it. (Perhaps to increase connectivity between Saunders and South Wilmington?)

Also, the City of Durham is in the planning stages to extend E. Carver Street to Old Oxford Road.

As DOT funds get dry I guess we'll be seeing more projects done by the cities instead. Sorta like Raleigh & Cary did widening Tryon Road.

Speaking of Tryon Road, anyone know if it's true that the developers behind Renaissance Park plan to re-route Tryon into the development?

[ncwebguy]

Speaking of Tryon Road, anyone know if it's true that the developers behind Renaissance Park plan to re-route Tryon into the development?

Yes, it has been part of their plans since the beginning. You can see the wide hole veering to the right from existing Tryon for "new Tryon" coming from South Saunders just after the side entrance to the old shopping center. It has enough space for 5 lanes, and ties back in right at the existing bridge over the train tracks.

The right-of-way has been set aside, but it looks like the developers don't want to build it, even after (poorly) paving all the internal infrastructure. From earlier plans, it looks like they plan on putting houses on the exiting road in a later phase. Though with the credit crunch (fewer buyers, more product available via foreclosures) and an article in the N&O months ago saying the master developer (a wakefield parnters subsidiary) was late in making payments, it will be a while before Rennissance Park is fully built out.

[DPK]

Speaking of Tryon Road, anyone know if it's true that the developers behind Renaissance Park plan to re-route Tryon into the development?

Yes:

[ncwebguy]

Existing Tryon is not picutred in DPK's graphic. It runs along the bottom and west side of "full map", and the (not pictured) train tracks run along the west border of most of the development.

[orulz]

The construction of a new alignment of Tryon Road is clearly visible on the satellite images of Google Maps. They'll be taking out the sharp 'S' curve just east of the bridge over the railroad.

I hope the city is requiring the developers to build a new bridge (or add a second one next to the current one) so there are 4 lanes over the RR.

[ChiefJoJo]

The construction of a new alignment of Tryon Road is clearly visible on the satellite images of Google Maps. They'll be taking out the sharp 'S' curve just east of the bridge over the railroad.

I hope the city is requiring the developers to build a new bridge (or add a second one next to the current one) so there are 4 lanes over the RR.

Very unlikely. This is very similar to New Falls of Neuse Rd in NE Raleigh, where it has remained a dead end at the river for several years after Wakefield has been built. There are state laws that limit what municipalities can require in terms of off-site improvements. I believe they can only require payments towards those improvements (impact fees) or on-site construction of facilities (roads, schools, etc.). The only cases I can think of where major off-site improvements were made and paid for by developers are Southpoint and Triangle Towne Center malls, where NCDOT required that the developers build single-point interchanges to access the nearby interstates. Of course, it's been 6-7 years since those were built, and very possible that the legislation has evolved over that time. Developers have more influence than any other lobby at the general assembly.

[RaleighRob]

Downtown Raleigh Traffic alert for this weekend-- Ray Price Bike Fest on Fayetteville Street Sept 26-27: http://www.godowntownraleigh.com/event/ray...-city-bike-fest

[orulz]

Word is that the City of Raleigh is going to finally start the work to extend Edwards Mill Road from Trinity to NC 54, sometime this fall.

Construction is underway on this extension. The ground has been cleared and they're grading now.

What's your take on arterial road projects like this? Do you think this is increasing connectivity and therefore good, or just adding more framework upon which to build sprawl, and therefore bad? Although the Edwards Mill Extension will have some obvious traffic benefits during events at the Fairgrounds, RBC Center, and Carter-Finley, I still kind think that this and other projects like it primarily wind up serving as a conduit to encourage sprawl, rather than to fill a genuine transportation need. This is standard NCDOT 45mph road through an unbuilt wooded area. Any development that it triggers will no doubt be suburban in nature.

[RaleighRob]

^ Well I think the purpose and need for it are pretty clear. It should hopefully ease traffic on 54/Hillsborough around Westover and in front of the Fairgrounds, where it's only one-lane each way.

As for sprawl, zoning and planning could help prevent that if the city is proactive....which is always a hypothetical here. But hey, given all the massive growth of North Raleigh over the past two decades, transferring some of that to South, West, or East Raleigh is, at least, better than moving even further north.

[Jones_]

^sprawl definitely has alot of components., mostly in the form of subsidies....roads, water/sewer, lax environmental regs. Commuter roads by themselves would not be a as big a problem if they connected to the neighborhoods they link to the rest of the city better, those neighborhoods themselves were internally connected, and also connected to the next commuter road (NIMBYs hate this), and urban land use was practiced when areas are built. This is indeed a pretty little doughnut hole, with deer and other wildlife that have nowhere else to go...the only way out for the deer herds after Corporate Center Drive gets fully developed and The Wade is built out is either into the City or across I-40 and Wade to Schenck and Umstead.

[orulz]

In case you all are interested in road improvements in the RTP area, there are a couple of public meetings coming up.

NCDOT is holding is a public meeting at 5:00 this evening (10/30/2008) at the Comfort Suites on Page Road about some changes to Hopson Road and Church Street. Hopson Road will be bridged over the NCRR, the Church Street railroad crossing will be closed, and Church Street will be extended to Hopson Road through the Keystone development. As a side note, last time I checked, the Hopson Road extension from Louis Stephens to NC55 was getting close to complete.

There will be another public meeting on November 5th about changes to the Carpenter Fire Station / NC55 intersection. Carpenter Fire Station will be bridged over the CSX railroad, while the Morrisville-Carpenter and Carpenter Fire Station grade crossings will be closed. Closing these two grade crossings will allow NCDOT and Cary to open a new grade crossing on the O'Kelly Chapel Road - Little Drive connector. The meeting is 4-7 PM, Wesleyan College room 216, 2000 Perimiter Park Drive.

[dmccall]

With Detroit on the ropes, what do you people think of the Nancy Pelosi's rush to save the car with taxpayer dollars?

[cthayes75]

With Detroit on the ropes, what do you people think of the Nancy Pelosi's rush to save the car with taxpayer dollars?

You mean save the UAW.

This is nothing but one big payoff/payback for the labor unions.

[Jones_]

I would imagine department of defense might be interested in the big three since most car and truck factories have the ability to be converted to emergency war time production. The old Athey street sweeper plant in Wake Forest could be converted in a few months to being able to produce a couple tanks per month. Granted this is cold war philosophy, but crumbling domestic infrastructure usually has more to it than just its domestic use. Invensys on Capital Blvd, makes UPS's (back up power systems) and when I worked there as a student there was a secured area for Federal Government systems they kept as spares.

[ChiefJoJo]

I wonder if the downward trend in toll revenues nationwide added to the economic crisis (ability to sell bonds) will stop the Triangle Expressway in it's tracks? Personally, I think toll roads have been sold as a convenient freeway-building fix via making users pay for the privilege of driving on the highway, but because these projects are so pricey ($1B), the tolls can't cover 100% of the costs... so, of course, the taxpayers must subsidize the rest (i.e., the inefficient and unsustainable development that will follow) to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars over 40 years. Terrible idea if you ask me.

We have entered a very turbulent time where things are getting turned upside down. Chris Leinberger at the City of Raleigh's planning lecture last week even suggested the real estate bust & the companion bailout is "the last gasp of sprawl." It could be that the financial underpinnings of the sprawl model (overbuilt highways and subdivisions to nowhere) are coming undone as we speak. Even if that isn't true, the average American's behavior is changing, and the market with it. I just hope the policy-makers realize it in time, so we don't end up with massive taxpayer subsidized freeways and subdivisions that no one wants in 10 years. My fear is that we already have too much of that for the emerging marketplace to bear (& not enough walkable urbanism), but that the sprawl lobby will keep pushing hard for more subsidies (roads, subdivisions, etc) until we repeat our mistakes once again.

[ncwebguy]

The Triangle could be a good test market for the GM/Segway PUMA unveiled yesterday. It wouldn't be practical to get from Downtown Raleigh to Downtown Durham, but would be ideal to get commuters from their house to a train station in Wake Forest, Clayton, etc. And I could easily see using one to get from east of downtown to Cameron Village and maybe North Hills if NHE doesn't make Six Forks traffic even worse than it already is. Chapel Hill and the downtown/middle third of Durham could easily support those vehicles as well. If GM doesn't build them, someone else will.

Elsewhere, 40 from Wade to 1/64 would be an ideal "shovel ready but no financing" stimulus bill project, but it looks like the Triangle got nothing from the first wave of NC's money. And the NC 54 and Davis Drive work in RTP seems to be slowed/delayed for lack of funds, but I'm not sure.