light rail transit – The Naked City Blog

Is the “economic development” tail wagging the transit dog?

Map from Charlotte Area Transit System shows current plan for the Silver Line light rail, which would be built after funding is found for it. A closer view of the west section of the route is below.

Some controversy continues over the decision by the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) to route the proposed Silver Line light rail outside of the heart of uptown Charlotte, bypassing the most convenient transfer points with the existing Blue Line. ) See “Five key takeaways from Charlotte’s newest transit plan”)

The Silver Line would run from Matthews, through uptown, out Wilkinson Boulevard to the airport and west to the Gaston County town of Belmont. One idea studied would have run it through uptown via a tunnel under Trade Street. That would add roughly $1 billion to construction costs. In my reporting, I referred to the tunnel idea as costing less to operate over time and shortening travel time considerably. But Brock LaForty, the Carolinas area manager for the consultant WSP, which CATS hired to study Silver Line routes, contacted me to make clear that WSP’s analysis found the tunnel route would save two minutes per trip, a difference he and CATS officials both called marginal, and he said WSP had not analyzed whether the tunnel would cost less to operate over time.

The statements about travel time and lower operating costs were the personal opinions of Ron Tober, a former CATS CEO with extensive transit planning and operating experience in multiple cities, who was working for WSP as a consultant on the project.

Tober’s remarks created a bit of a stir between WSP, CATS and Tober. Tober told me he was deliberate in speaking out about CATS’ decision to opt for a route bypassing the heart of uptown Charlotte and the Charlotte Transportation Center in favor of one farther north, along the side of the Brookshire Expressway. Tober said he recognized there might be blowback if he went public with his concerns. And there was. Tober was to have left WSP at the end of March. Instead, he left last week.

CATS Chief Executive John Lewis told Steve Harrison of WFAE, Charlotte’s public radio station, that the decision not to select the tunnel option was influenced by the city’s goals for economic development. “From a purely mobility standpoint, the tunnel was a great alternative for us,” Lewis told Harrison, but said CATS couldn’t look only at mobility. “Lewis said CATS is a part of the city of Charlotte and the city has other goals, like economic development. The area around I-277 is mostly empty today,” Harrison reported.

He quoted Lewis: “And being a part of the city, we had to look at it beyond just the mobility aspect of, how do we move people from one point to another” Lewis said. “There were the economic development goals, there was supporting affordable housing.”

Remember, Lewis works for City Manager Marcus Jones. And the City Council, as well as many others in the community, have deep and appropriate concerns about the city’s need for more affordable housing. Putting affordable housing along the city’s new light rail lines is a longtime – if under-realized – goal.

But look at the areas near the Brookshire and North Tryon Street where the Silver Line would go. The area is already redeveloping and gentrifying. Residents and small businesses in Belmont, Optimist Park, Druid Hills, Lockwood and the Greenville neighborhood are already worried about land prices zooming upward. (See “North End Is Hot, But Can It Handle Coming Change?”) It isn’t as if those areas will see no new development without the light rail. To contend the Silver Line is needed for “economic development” is – to put it diplomatically – misguided. Some might even say untethered from reality.

Plus, there is no funding to build the Silver Line. Today’s GOP leadership at federal and state levels are either virulently anti-transit or just not interested in spending more money on it. Any new taxes to support CATS and the Silver Line would need a state legislative OK and would presumably involve surrounding counties which have not in the past two decades offered to tax their own residents for transit. Do not hold your breath that anything will happen until well after 2020, and quite possibly 2030. In other words gentrification will have swallowed the area now being eyed as needing economic development long before the Silver Line gets built. A deep concern that development needs a boost is, to my eyes, misplaced.

Is this just the latest impatient development push from Charlotte’s uptown leaders, who have not in my 40 years of residence here ever met a glitzy development project they did not welcome? Are they embarrassed that North Tryon Street is not yet glossy enough? After all, there are two facilities for the homeless on North Tryon near where the Silver Line would run, and the area can look at bit down at the heels. Can’t have that, can we?

I’m not a transit analyst and not equipped to say whether long-term cost savings of the tunnel would make up for the extra cost to build it, or whether the inconvenience of the Silver Line bypassing the heart of uptown will be a serious impediment to ridership, or not. That deserves clear-eyed study. The local nonprofit Sustain Charlotte contended just that in comments to the Metropolitan Transit Commission. Assessing the way the route will affect real estate development deserves some clear thinking as well.

“Economic development” brings higher land prices to an area. That makes affordability even harder to provide. The city has not to date ensured that any affordable housing gets built near its existing light rail line. It hopes to rectify that, which is admirable and I wish them well. But so far those plans are embryonic, not a proven and successful strategy.

So do they want “economic development,” or do they want affordable housing? It is very hard to have both at the same time in one place, especially if that place is in an extremely hot development market, like Charlotte.

I’m left with this question: Should the city reject without further study what may be a better mobility option – which would benefit all transit riders – in hopes that its still elusive transit-oriented affordable housing wishes bear fruit?

A closer view of where the Silver Line would run through west Charlotte, across the Catawba River and into the town of Belmont. Map courtesy of CATS

Five key takeaways from Charlotte’s newest transit plan

The chosen Silver Line route is shown in green, at right, along 11th Street. The blue line shows where the Trade Street tunnel would have run. Other options not chosen are a surface route along Trade Street (purple) and a route along the existing Blue Line.

No tunnel uptown. A light rail line crossing the Catawba River into Belmont. Finally light rail to Pineville?

When the Charlotte Area Transit System’s policy body on Wednesday unanimously adopted an update to its 2030 Transit System Plan, those optimistic visions became part of the official CATS planning process.

Note to readers: CATS doesn’t currently have money to build any of those things, estimated to cost $6 billion or more. Just so you know.

But here are some key takeaways from what the Metropolitan Transit Commission adopted.

1. No tunnel uptown. CATS hired consultants WSP (the former Parsons Brinckerhoff) to study a tricky issue – how would the proposed Silver Line (formerly known as the Southeast Corridor), get across all the freeways encircling uptown, then through uptown and head west on its route to Charlotte Douglas International Airport and over the Catawba River?

CATS’ existing light rail line, the Blue Line and Blue Line Extension, travel through uptown on a pre-existing rail corridor. The proposed Silver Line would not. It’s planned to run alongside Independence Boulevard and then head west, thereby adding the former West Corridor to the Silver Line. Any way you look at it, getting that sucker through uptown will mean complicated engineering and high costs.

One option WSP proposed was to tunnel under Trade Street to the existing Charlotte Transportation Center, a hub for most bus routes as well as a Blue Line light rail stop, and up West Trade Street to the not-yet-built Gateway Station, which would also hold a new Amtrak station. Gateway Station is also envisioned as the terminus for the long-proposed-but-still-distant Red Line commuter rail to north Mecklenburg. More about that later.

The MTC opted not for the tunnel but for a route running the Silver Line above ground, beside 11th Street, then alongside the existing Amtrak route beside Elmwood Cemetery, over to Gateway Station and then heading west to the airport. It’s less expensive to build, ~~although the tunnel route would have cost less to operate, over time, the consultants said, and would have shortened Silver Line travel time considerably~~. (Update as of March 8: Brock LaForty, the Carolinas area manager for WSP, says the consultants’ analysis found the tunnel route would save two minutes per trip, a difference
LaForty called marginal, and said WSP had not analyzed whether the tunnel would cost less to operate over time. The statements about travel time and lower operating costs were the personal opinions of Ron Tober, a former CATS CEO who was working for WSP as a consultant on the project until this month.)

2. At long last, Pineville welcomes light rail. Ever wondered why the Lynx Blue Line ends where it does, just outside the south Mecklenburg municipality of Pineville? The stated reason from Pineville officials when the Blue Line was planned almost two decades ago was that the town didn’t want the high-density, transit-oriented development that would, rail boosters proclaimed, spring up all along the line. So the Blue Line ends at I-485, just outside Pineville.

“Saved us $30 million,” recalled Ron Tober, who was CATS CEO at the time and who happened to be sitting next to me Wednesday night.

For the record, to date no high-density, transit-oriented development has yet come anywhere near Pineville.

And on Oct. 9 of last year, the Town of Pineville adopted a resolution to support the prospect of CATS someday extending its light rail line to Pineville’s Carolina Place Mall and then to Ballantyne in far south Charlotte. “Pineville stakeholders now recognizes (sic) the need to extend the line into Pineville, the Ballantyne area and beyond to … improve the accessibility of rapid transit and provide a faster link to and from other parts of the Greater Charlotte area …” the resolution states.

3. Finally, light rail to the airport, and into Gaston County. Someday. The proposed transit corridor formerly known as the West Corridor, and (sort of) planned to be a streetcar is now officially part of the proposed Silver Line. It would be light rail along Wilkinson Boulevard past the airport, across the Catawba River and end in the Gaston County town of Belmont. This would be CATS’ first light rail venture across county lines. Further, an ongoing Regional Transit Study would evaluate light rail to downtown Gastonia.

Gastonia Mayor Walker Reid III on Wednesday presented a city proclamation supporting the idea of light rail to Gastonia. Politically, Gaston County has been deep red, with Republican county commissioners less than a decade ago complaining that greenways were, in essence, creeping socialism. So this is progress of a sort.

The West Corridor, now renamed part of the Silver Line, would run along Wilkinson Boulevard (the route shown in purple) and cross the Catawba River into Belmont in Gaston County.

4. Still no commuter rail to north Mecklenburg, for now. The updated plan calls for short-, medium- and long-term options heading north. Short-term would be enhanced express-lane bus service along I-77 to and from the north Mecklenburg towns, using the soon-to-open I-77 toll lanes. Medium term would be bus rapid transit from Gateway Station to Mooresville in southern Iredell County. This service would be all-day, including nights and weekends. Bus rapid transit (a.k.a. BRT) uses dedicated lanes so it’s faster than regular bus service.

Long-term, the plan would be to keep talking with Norfolk Southern about using its rarely used rail right-of-way from uptown Charlotte to Mooresville for rail transit – maybe commuter rail as was originally proposed.

5. Even some Union County enthusiasm. If Gaston County is red, then Union County is, if such a thing is possible, even deeper red. Nevertheless, the town of Stallings passed a resolution asking CATS to at least study the possibility of extending the Silver Line from Matthews into Union County and to a potential terminus in Stallings. So CATS will study that.

Remember, though, there’s no money for CATS to build any new light rail. And to date not one of the surrounding counties has proposed taxing its own residents, as Mecklenburg does with its half-cent sales tax for transit, to help build out the transit system.

A chat with the godfather of Charlotte’s streetcar

Driver Danny McQueen on Tuesday, awaiting a carload of dignitaries to launch Charlotte’s streetcar. The historic replica streetcars now in use would be replaced during the expansion phase with modern streetcars. Photo: Mary Newsom

Before Tuesday morning’s ribbon-cutting that launched Charlotte’s new streetcar, it seemed appropriate to check in with Ron Tober. It was Tober who originally proposed adding the streetcar to the larger transit plan for Charlotte. One might even dub him the godfather of the streetcar idea.

Tober was the Charlotte Area Transit System CEO from 1999 to 2007 – the longest-serving CATS chief to date. The original transit plan, crafted before the 1998 voter referendum that OK’d a transit sales tax, did not include a streetcar. It roughly sketched five corridors: South (now the Lynx Blue Line), North (the still unfunded commuter rail to Mooresville), Northeast (being built as the Blue Line Extension), Southeast (envisioned running roughly down Independence Boulevard), and West possibly to the airport and possibly not.

Other than the South corridor, where the city already owned rail right of way, and the proposed extension to the northeast, it was left unclear in those early days which corridors would get bus rapid transit and which would get light rail. That did not sit well with east and west Charlotte neighborhood champions, who clamored for rail service, not bus rapid transit.

In 2004, Tober proposed a streetcar to connect east and west Charlotte. It would run in rails along Beatties Ford Road, through uptown, and out Central Avenue to Eastland Mall, which at that time was open, he reminded me Tuesday morning. The streetcar idea was adopted into the 2006 transit plan update.

Some background: The newly opened 1.5-mile streetcar segment is not funded with the county’s half-cent sales tax for transit. That money goes to the Blue Line, the Blue Line Extension and to run the bus system. Not enough revenue has come in to pay to build more of the 2030 transit plan. (See New CATS chief faces funding questions.) The first streetcar leg was built with a $25 million federal grant and $17 million in funds from the city of

Charlotte. A hoped-for 2.5-mile expansion would cost $150 million, paid with $75 million in federal dollars and the rest from city money.

My conversation with Tober:

Me: What made you think “streetcar”?

Tober described a process in which CATS planners were studying major investments, and looked at the bus routes with highest ridership: the No. 9 on Central Avenue and the No. 7 on Beatties Ford topped the list, he said. “So why aren’t we doing something up in there? That was a big question mark for me.” At a 2002 transit conference he saw a presentation on the then-new Portland, Ore., streetcar. He saw that a streetcar could spur development, potentially reduce operating expenses because it carries more riders per trip, and create connectivity between east and west Charlotte. “That was the rationale.”

Me: Why’d it take so long to build the streetcar?

Tober: “Money.”


Art at the streetcar shelters along East Trade Street.

Me: Did you suspect the sales tax should have been higher?

Tober: “I really thought the half-cent would be enough.” The 2009 economic downturn was more severe than anyone projected, he said. That threw off the revenue projections for years.

Me: Compare operating expenses – not cost to build – between buses and a streetcar. (Streetcars run in the street, with traffic, unlike light rail which has its own dedicated lane or rail path.)

Tober: Because a streetcar has higher capacity you can reduce the frequency, which saves labor costs for drivers. Seventy percent of CATS’ budget is labor. But CATS wouldn’t notice any big changes in operating costs until it could convert all of bus route 7 and 9 to streetcar. That would also eliminate the layover time at the transportation center uptown.

We walked over to the Transportation Center on East Trade Street, where the roar of the bus engines and hissing of brakes made for a gritty – and noisy – series of speeches by dignitaries, including U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who as Charlotte mayor had championed the still-controversial streetcar. Tuesday, even some streetcar skeptics and opponents were on hand for the celebration. Tober stood quietly, almost unnoticed, in the crowd.

The mayor’s view: Transit funding (the dilemma), a more diverse city, and more


Local dignitaries at a 2012 ceremony for the Blue Line Extension. Then-Mayor Anthony Foxx, now U.S. Transportation Secretary, is at right. (Photo: Mary Newsom)

Charlotte Magazine’s Greg Lacour has posted a meaty Q-and-A interview with Charlotte Mayor Dan Clodfelter, in which the mayor discusses the city’s dilemma on transit funding, what’s different about being mayor vs. being in the N.C. Senate (where Clodfelter served 1998-2014) and what’s different about Charlotte compared to when he was on City Council (1987-93).

The questions hit heavily on the problem the city and county face in funding any expansion of the Charlotte Area Transit System. (For more background, see this PlanCharlotte.org article about remarks Clodfelter made in September, “Mayor: Transit sales tax funding may be at risk.“)

Among his other remarks to Lacour, Clodfelter had an interesting analysis of state transit funding — or the lack thereof. He suggested that the state would be disinclined to pay any more for mass transit projects (for the first two legs of Charlotte’s light rail, the state paid 25 percent of the cost) regardless of which party is controlling state government. Why? Because statewide transportation needs are great, and gas tax revenue is lagging. Add that up and it’s difficult to fund anything, he said.

On a more political note, although Clodfelter isn’t saying for sure he’s running for mayor, he also recently gave an interview to Qcitymetro.com. Here’s that interview.

(At-large Charlotte City Council member Michael Barnes this week hopped into the mayor’s race, joining Democrats Jennifer Watson Roberts and fellow at-large City Council member David Howard. To date, no Republican has emerged as a likely candidate. But filing isn’t until this summer, with the primary in September.)

Why slow-growing light rail ridership should not surprise anyone

A bus in uptown Charlotte, where most bus routes begin and end. Photo: Claire Apaliski

Today’s Charlotte Observer brings an article from Steve Harrison noting that ridership on Charlotte’s light rail line, the LYNX Blue Line, has finally rebounded to its pre-recession levels but has not increased dramatically despite rapid growth in apartments along part of its route. See “Lynx light rail ridership back to 2008 levels.”

Some background: Charlotte’s first and only light rail line opened in late 2007, just in time for the massive 2008-09 recession that had Charlotte unemployment lingering in double-digits or near it for months. The northern couple of miles of the 9-mile route, closest to uptown, have seen massive apartment development in the past several years. The southern part of the route? Nada.

But the South End neighborhood – an area of old industrial buildings dating from the 1960s back to the late 1800s – is popping with hundreds of new apartments, and hopping with new microbreweries and trendy restaurants.

Car-free in Charlotte? It isn’t easy by Carolyn Reid, published last June at the PlanCharlotte.org website I run, helps explain why ridership may not be growing as quickly as you’d think.

Even in South End there’s little easy or walkable access to routine shopping needs like grocery and drug stores, no easily accessed, widely connected network of bike routes, nor robust bus service with headways under 10 minutes that spreads cross town. Because of lack of funding, the city’s bus service – while much improved over 1990s levels – still focuses on delivering workers to uptown rather than building a widely connected network.

South End remains a place with better transit, bike and pedestrian connections than almost any other Charlotte neighborhood. But it’s still not a place where living without a car is going to be easy. Unless you’re trying to go uptown, the light rail can’t deliver you where you want to go.

My prediction: Ridership will zoom when the Blue Line Extension opens in 2017, taking riders to the 27,000-student UNC Charlotte campus about 10 miles northeast of uptown.

Can light rail reshape this auto-oriented corridor?

I have auto-related uses on the mind this week, because at a 4:30 meeting today the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission is going to recommend yay or nay on a proposed auto mall (a collection of car lots from different dealerships) in the University City area. You can download the agenda for that meeting here.

(Update, 5:20 p.m. The planning commission’s zoning committee unanimously recommended that the site be rezoned for an auto mall. Two commissioners who had earlier expressed opposition to the rezoning, Tom Low and Deb Ryan, weren’t at the meeting. The City Council makes the final decision.)

The city planning staff has switched from recommending against the rezoning to recommend for it, if some design and site plan issues are resolved. Interestingly, their issues earlier were not because it’s for a large chunk of auto-oriented uses within a quarter mile of a planned light rail station area, where the overall city policy calls for transit-oriented (i.e. walkable, compact, mixed-use) development. Instead the staff focused on design issues. (See the commentary on PlanCharlotte.org, “Don’t derail transit areas with an auto mall.”)

Yesterday, I had occasion to drive on North Tryon Street, from the UNC Charlotte Center City campus to the main campus on University City Boulevard. I decided to count the auto-oriented businesses on North Tryon Street up to the corner of U-City Boulevard. I started at Atando Avenue (where the idea occurred to me), so the count starts there. Want to guess? The answer is ….

Looking ONLY at the right side of the street heading north (so I didn’t count Parks Chevrolet, Young Ford, etc.) I counted 32 used car lots, car rental businesses, auto parts stores, tire stores (new and used), repair shops, etc. If you want to count the Auto Bell car wash, make it 33.

Interesting side note: The auto junkyard was among the nicer-looking businesses along this stretch, due to its screening, landscaping, etc. The used tire stores were the junkiest.

My point here is that the new light rail line will plow through territory that is already heavily aimed toward automobile uses. And most of that territory carries zoning that already allows very nontransit-friendly uses. (See this, about a gated apartment complex at U-City Boulevard and North Tryon – no rezoning needed. Multifamily is fine at a transit station area, but large surface parking lots and a gated development are not.) Until the land use zoning in the area changes – and especially the standards for form and design – it will be difficult for the city to transform the area into a walkable, mixed-use and mixed-income neighborhood.

HOT proposal for Indy Blvd should spark some heat

Forget putting light rail transit down the middle of Independence Boulevard, and instead put bus rapid transit on high-occupancy-vehicle lanes already planned. Send a streetcar down Monroe Road. And convince the state to move its Regional Farmers Market to some of the vacant properties on Independence.

Yep, I think the recommendations this morning from a panel from the nonprofit Urban Land Institute will prompt some talk.

“My eyes lit up at the options,” was the reaction from Carolyn Flowers, chief of the Charlotte Area Transit System. Even before the panel presentation had wound down, she was emailing to see if a presentation could be made to the Metropolitan Transit Commission, CATS’ governing body, next month.

Her eyes lit up because the transit recommendation for Independence would, in essence, mean the state builds that Indy Boulevard transit line, and all cash-strapped CATS would have to find is money to buy buses and other equipment and to pay drivers. The ULI panel recommendation would even mean cost savings for the N.C. Department of Transportation for its long-planned Independence Boulevard widening project.

That’s because the current plans to widen Indy Boulevard – a project for which there is at present no money in the state’s five-year plan, but which is likely to get funded at some point later – call for a 52-foot center section to be reserved for a future CATS transit project – maybe light rail (LRT), maybe bus rapid transit (BRT); the MTC still has to decide. If you eliminate that 52-foot section but still build the planned HOT/HOV lanes, you could run BRT or express buses in the HOT lanes (and remember T=toll=revenue stream), and still need a narrower overall corridor, i.e. less money needed to buy right-of-way.

NCDOT secretary Gene Conti was part of the panel, so I’m assuming he’d have scotched recommendations that were thoroughly unworkable from NCDOT’s point of view.

But …..

East Charlotte residents have spent years pushing for light rail transit, not bus, along Independence. They know LRT in general attracts more development than bus transit, because the rail means the route won’t get switched, unlike a less permanent bus route. How will this new idea go over with them? Will the suggested addition of a streetcar along Monroe Road be enough of an inducement?

Several ULI panel members, from cities such as Houston, Denver and New York, all sang variations on this theme: Putting light rail along a limited-access, high-speed and high-volume highway like Independence won’t attract much development. That’s been a lesson from Denver’s light rail, which runs next to a freeway, they said. “Nodes [neighborhood centers] on high-speed corridors do not work,” said Carlton Brown, an economic development expert with Full Spectrum, a development firm in New York and Jackson, Miss.

So, they say, plan to put rail along the smaller commercial corridors where it does have a chance to attract transit-oriented redevelopment: Central Avenue and Monroe Road. Of course, no one had concrete proposals for how to find revenue to build even the Central Avenue streetcar, much less adding another. Their suggestions: Get creative. Build in phases. Find a benefactor, like Bill Gates helping the Seattle-to-Tacoma line. That led to a quip from an elected official in the audience – whom I’ll not name, and so this person owes me one – about the “Leon and Sandra Levine Line.” After all, the Family Dollar headquarters is right on Monroe …

I was sitting next to East Charlotte activist Susan Lindsay. Her immediate reaction was that she wanted to know more before coming to a conclusion about whether to support or oppose the suggestions. But since the MTC lacks money for any transit of any form down Independence – or for any streetcars, any West Charlotte transit, or even enough money to extend the one light rail line past UNC Charlotte – a proposal that might allow rapid transit there in our lifetimes could just win some support.

Note: The ULI panel’s recommendations are simply that – ideas from a group of experts from around the country. They don’t supersede any existing plans or change any priorities.

Photo: Streetcar in Portland, Ore.

HOT proposal for Indy Blvd should spark some heat

Yep, I think the recommendations this morning from a panel from the nonprofit Urban Land Institute will prompt some talk.

NCDOT secretary Gene Conti was part of the panel, so I’m assuming he’d have scotched recommendations that were thoroughly unworkable from NCDOT’s point of view.

But …..

Note: The ULI panel’s recommendations are simply that – ideas from a group of experts from around the country. They don’t supersede any existing plans or change any priorities.

Photo: Streetcar in Portland, Ore.

A ‘CATS’ fight for transit money?

Looks as if the Charlotte Area Transit System may finally be getting some in-state competition for federal transit money for light-rail. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Sunday (“Triangle Transit proposes 2 light-rail lines”) that Triangle Transit, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill transit agency, is looking at two potential light rail routes. The TTA timetable has it applying to the Federal Transit Administration next summer and, in fall 2011, asking Triangle-area voters for a 1/2-cent sales tax to fund the transit plans.

“In a fall 2011 referendum, Triangle voters are expected to consider approving a half-cent sales tax – which would add 5 cents to every taxable $10 purchase – that would cover a large share of new bus and rail costs.”

For now, the TTA has dropped its earlier idea of commuter rail to the Research Triangle Park. It’s looking at light rail instead, because light rail – which is powered by overhead electric wires – need not run on a railroad right of way as it does in Charlotte, but can run in the streets as well, i..e., as a streetcar. (For terminology geeks, just fyi, “heavy rail” doesn’t mean Amtrak-like passenger rail. It means a rail system powered by an electrified rail on the bottom, like subways, with the so-called “third rail,” hence the allusions to a “third rail” that one must never touch without deadly effect.)

The N&O’s Bruce Siceloff reports:
“So, at public meetings last week and this week, Triangle Transit officials and consultants are explaining that the first light-rail trains will not run through the region’s suburban center. The two most promising corridors are about 20 miles apart in the western Triangle and Wake County:

– Northwest Cary through N.C. State University and downtown to Triangle Town Center in North Raleigh, 18 miles. It rates high in projected rider counts, job and housing density, development potential, and capital costs compared to the number of weekday transit trips.

– UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill to Alston Avenue in downtown Durham, 17 miles. It rates high in rider counts, low-income residents who are more likely to depend on transit, and capital and operating costs. This corridor is rated weak in housing density and development potential.

And don’t read right over that part about “bus.” A close relative of mine was trying to get to Chapel Hill from the Durham Amtrak station on Labor Day and realized, with some shock, that the TTA’s Chapel Hill-Durham bus didn’t run on the holiday. Better bus service in the Triangle would likely be welcomed by many.

TTA is also looking at “a limited kind of region-wide rail service that was not in the cards a few years ago. Commuter trains pulled by standard diesel locomotives are proposed to run from west Durham to the Wake-Johnston county line. These trains would operate on weekday rush hours, every 30 or 60 minutes, and make stops in RTP.”

I was joking when I wrote that headline about a CATS fight. While CATS and every other transit agency in the country knows competition is tight for federal money, in the long run it’s probably better for all N.C. cities to have multiple mass transit systems. That way the N.C. DOT, the legislature and all the entities holding the money bags – not to mention the voting (and riding) public – can get their heads around the concept that “transportation” means more than just private-auto transportation.

Anyway, the CATS fight currently is what’s going on in the Mecklenburg County Metropolitan Transit Commission, between backers of the proposed commuter rail to North Mecklenburg and those of the being-built-but-rather-slower-than-planned extension of light rail to UNC Charlotte.

In hindsight, maybe bridge idea not so hot

Even hindsight isn’t always 20-20 of course, but if you look at the breakdown of which transportation projects across the U.S. won pieces of that $1.5 billion in federal stimulus money, it’s pretty clear the feds were favoring transit, rail and pedestrian projects. The top-ranked highway-only project was 10th on the list.

So did N.C. officials miscalculate by putting their big weight on repairing highway bridges over the Yadkin River, instead of making a big push for Mecklenburg County’s languishing-for-lack-of-federal-money commuter rail line? Charlotte and CATs submitted the request, of course, but in order to be team players with N.C. DOT and the governor they weren’t pulling out the big guns to lobby for it.

New York City’s project to improve dowdy Penn Station (the “Moynihan Station, Phase 1”) got $83 million. The “Tuscon Modern Streetcar” project won $63 million. A commuter rail project in Massachusetts (“the Fitchburg commuter rail extension and Wachusett station”) won $55.5 million. The DC area got $58 million for bus enhancements, and Philadelphia got $54 million for pedestrian and bicycle improvements. A lot of the money went for freight rail improvements, too.

“Selected projects must foster job creation, show strong economic benefits, and promote communities that are safer, cleaner and more livable,” the press release said. Later, it said the 22 so-called “livability projects” were “aimed at giving Americans more choices about how they travel and improving access to economic and housing opportunities in their communities.”

I think North Carolina’s Yadkin River bridge project, although a sorely needed repair job, failed to score on the “cleaner and more livable” factors. And I think it’s quite possible the shovel-ready but fed-funding-lacking North Corridor commuter rail line to Davidson would have hit high marks for “cleaner and more livable,” because of its obvious connection to more environmentally sound development, and for taking a load of traffic off I-77. It’s an example of regional cooperation, too, with four municipalities (Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson) involved.

Conti demurred when I asked him to second-guess the request on Thursday. “It would have been just as hard to get any significant funding for the North Corridor,” he said. I wonder.

In any case, now that the state has learned the bridge repair project gets only $10 million in stimulus money, it’s moving to start the repairs in a few months.