Quote :

"If you "don't give a shit" about race and racial issues then you are insensitive to the victims of racism."

I'm a racist if I refuse to treat people differently based on their race?

Quote :

"If doctors "didn't give a shit" about a certain disease, they would be screwing over everyone who had that disease."

You are a fucking retard.

7/15/2010 2:42:05 PM

no buut if you don't acknowledge the FACT that minorities are often discriminated against then you are a bit racist

Quote :

" This is a thread about rail, not a racial debate. "

sadly, racial tension is one of the biggest things holding back the expansion of light rail in america.

Nobody wants "those people" gaining access to move throughout the city nor would they use such a thing that might require them to have to actually sit next to "those people".

7/15/2010 6:43:35 PM

Can you find some sort of poll showing that "nobody" wants "those people" moving throughout the city and that "nobody" wants to sit next to "those people"?

You're talking about your own prejudices, not facts.

7/15/2010 7:03:32 PM

I can see why they have to close jones street at the tracks for cars. If it were an overpass, you'd need 25 feet of clearance underneath. If it were an underpass you would need like 16 feet. There's not enough space between Glenwood and West to descend below the tracks or rise above them, and come back to the same level within a single city block. However a pedestrian underpass would be great. Those only need about 7 or 8 feet of clearance.

What I dont understand is why they want to close Fairview Street near Five Points at the tracks. That is stupid. There should be PLENTY of room there to build an overpass. If they have to tear down a building or two to do it, who cares.

7/16/2010 3:12:48 PM

Quote :

"If it were an overpass, you'd need 25 feet of clearance underneath. If it were an underpass you would need like 16 feet."

Overpass needs 23 feet. The underpass isn't part of a highway, so I don't think there's a mandated minimum height. The bridge over Peace St is about 12 feet (though trucks still get stuck under it because they don't consider that their cab will be going up hill before their trailer).

Would Hargett St need the same treatment?

7/16/2010 3:26:59 PM

Hargett towards Boylan would need no such treatment. The intersection of Hargett and Boylan is already significantly higher than the tracks (25 feet?) and is also about three times further away than the intersection of Glenwood and Jones.

The plans on sehsr.org do call for some crazy treatment on the West Street side (east of the tracks) wherein Hargett would be elevated over West, descend, block off Harrington, and return to ground level between Harrison and Dawson.

I would say instead, start descending as soon as you clear the tracks, and reach ground level close to Harrington street. Raise West Street by 10 or 15 feet so that it matches with the new elevation of Hargett Street. Yes the old Dillon warehouses and Five Star would have to be torn down to raise West Street, but those buildings are toast anyway - they are owned by TTA and planned to be the site where the high speed rail station will be built. This preserves the grid.

7/16/2010 5:21:22 PM

I don't see why they can't just put up a nice gate at the damn intersection and leave the road open. I guess that would make too much sense

7/17/2010 10:30:02 AM

The good engineers don't work in places like NC

7/19/2010 9:43:21 PM

7/19/2010 9:50:55 PM

Quote :

"I don't see why they can't just put up a nice gate at the damn intersection and leave the road open. I guess that would make too much sense "

Because at the speeds these trains would be traveling you really want to avoid car collisions as much as possible.

Actually, the more I read about this project, the more I'm surprised they're going to try and route it through downtown. For comparison's sake, these trains would be going slightly slower than the high speed trains in Japan. All shinkansen tracks are elevated and aside from some few exceptions, the stations for them were built outside of the city center with standard trains connecting the shinkansen station to the city center train station. Of course over the years the metro areas of these cities have expanded to where the shinkansen stop is, but the only cities I can think of where they went to the trouble of sticking the high rail stop in the city center are Tokyo, Nagoya, and kind of Kyoto.

7/19/2010 10:04:35 PM

if you read the article though it said the trains would definitely not be traveling at high speeds within the city, especially that close to the station(s).

7/20/2010 7:56:01 AM

Quote :

"Because at the speeds these trains would be traveling you really want to avoid car collisions as much as possible. Actually, the more I read about this project, the more I'm surprised they're going to try and route it through downtown. For comparison's sake, these trains would be going slightly slower than the high speed trains in Japan. All shinkansen tracks are elevated and aside from some few exceptions, the stations for them were built outside of the city center with standard trains connecting the shinkansen station to the city center train station. Of course over the years the metro areas of these cities have expanded to where the shinkansen stop is, but the only cities I can think of where they went to the trouble of sticking the high rail stop in the city center are Tokyo, Nagoya, and kind of Kyoto."

As for the Shinkansen, I am a serious student of the Japanese martial art of trains. Most Shinkansen stations have actually been built where the main downtown rail stations are. Moving from west to east, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Kitakyushi, Hiroshima, Okayama, Himeji, Nagoya, Shizuoka, Tokyo, Nagano, Niigata, and Sendai (to name a few) are major cities where Shinkansen trains stop at the same place as conventional trains, aka downtown. When the Hokkaido shinkansen is complete, add Sapporo to that list. Osaka, Kobe, and Yokohama have separate stations for Shinkansen (add Aomori and Hakodate to that list once the Hokkaido shinkansen is done.)

Trains will be limited to 110mph overall because that it is the practical limit for diesel powered trains. Actually the trains probably won't be going faster than 80mph through most of Raleigh, and will actually be moving quite slowly downtown because they will be stopping there. Even a hypothetical express train that doesn't stop at Raleigh would have to slow down to maybe 30 mph or so to round the sharp curve at the wye.

There are several reasons they are removing all the standard railroad crossings. One, if Raleigh gets to keep even one crossing open, that leaves the door for other towns like Henderson to demand that THEIR crossings be kept open, too (after all, they're poor! Why should the rich folks in Raleigh get preference?) Pretty soon, every podunk burg along the line will demand that their crossings stay open, and too many crossings means no more high speed rail. Two, this line is being designed to make it as easy as possible to electrify in the future. Literally all they would have to do is add the poles, wires, and substations. That would allow trains to go faster (the curves along the line are mostly being designed with 150+mph in mind) in the future without having to go through the cumbersome NEPA environmental impact study process again. For reference, 150mph (240km/h) is the speed limit for many trains along much of the Tokaido Shinkansen (some parts are even slower due to curves.)

[Edited on July 20, 2010 at 2:01 PM. Reason : clarifying]

7/20/2010 1:59:48 PM

Quote :

"Moving from west to east, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Kitakyushi, Hiroshima, Okayama, Himeji, Nagoya, Shizuoka, Tokyo, Nagano, Niigata, and Sendai (to name a few) are major cities where Shinkansen trains stop at the same place as conventional trains, aka downtown. "

Some of those cities listed, I would not consider where their shinkansen stop is as the downtown area. For example, the Hiroshima stop is really on the outskirts of what is considered the main part of the city and you need to take the street cars to anywhere else. I would say the same goes for Himeji.

7/20/2010 9:58:10 PM

I lived in Hiroshima for a year. Depends on what you call "downtown." You probably can't pinpoint an exact geographic center, but take the Fukuya department store as an approximation. That's 1.4km from Hiroshima Station. The Raleigh station will be about 0.8km from Fayetteville Street. Guess that's a difference, but the truth is, the 1.4km walk from Hiroshima Station to Fukuya is much nicer than the 0.8km walk in Raleigh because things are so built up in Hiroshima along the entire route, but in Raleigh there's some activity but in comparison with Hiroshima it feels completely desolate.

7/21/2010 10:03:04 AM

^Here's what I'd consider the center of Hiroshima...

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=hiroshima&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&hq=&hnear=Hiroshima+City,+Hiroshima+Prefecture,+Japan&ll=34.39518,132.45321&spn=0.006215,0.009538&t=h&z=17

7/21/2010 11:51:44 AM

^^ Yep, what ^ said. One thing you'll hear Japanese tourists whine about in regards to Hiroshima's shinkansen stop is it's location. But the fact of the matter is, you do need to build these sorts of things where there's space for them, not try to retrofit them into an area. Businesses and residential areas will soon follow, just as they do at new highway interchanges.

7/21/2010 12:37:07 PM

Getting way off topic here, I can see what you mean, most of the things that a tourist would go to see in Hiroshima are pretty far from the station. But I still think that the station is in downtown Hiroshima. (or at it's edge, much like how the Raleigh station will be at the edge of downtown Raleigh). Here is my "self-described" map of where things lie in downtown Hiroshima. The areas left blank are either peripheral neighborhoods, or else frankly I just don't know what's there.http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=116658137107650977656.00048be894342f61a8833&ll=34.393454,132.465291&spn=0.02787,0.055747&t=h&z=15 And as Wolfpackgrr states, the center of gravity is gradually shifting closer to the station. That is where most development is happening these days. There are active revitalization projects going on right in front of the station, the new Fukuya department store is phase 1 (the old fukuya is in Hatchobori, further west.) Also there is the new baseball stadium on the site of the former railroad yard east of the station.

Bringing it back to Raleigh, I guess the fundamental thing is exactly what Wolfpackgrr says, the station and the line has to go where there's space for it. Even when they built brand-new lines for the Shinkansen, they still followed existing rail lines through most major cities. Why? Too expensive and too damaging to acquire new right-of-way in urban areas. The same principle applies to Raleigh. Either you completely bypass Raleigh and run the line along 540 or something, or you follow the existing railroads through downtown. You can't go anywhere else, because no right-of-way exists. One of the big advantages of trains over planes is that they can go into cities and get you within walking distance of many (though of course not all) destinations. By taking a bypass route you give that up.

7/21/2010 2:29:23 PM

^^

She's got it. Same thing here with high speed rail in Korea (well, AFAIK it's not as high speed as Japan, of course, but still)...

They tended to build where they could, and in the case of Daegu, there's a totally separate train station for KTX etc (well slow trains stop there too, incidentally, even though it's such a short ride from the main/older train station).

The high-speed train stops at some random locations up north (such as Cheonan-Asan station) but every time I go by, I see more stuff building up.

7/22/2010 1:20:22 AM

Quote :

""Is everything going to shake for a couple of blocks away?" asked Chip Russell, the Wake Forest town planning director. "How loud is this thing going to be? Is it a swoosh, or is it a roar?" "

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/07/26/597726/raleigh-to-make-way-for-high-speed.html#ixzz0umlJ7Vgm

7/26/2010 7:09:13 AM

It glides as softly as a cloud!

7/26/2010 9:38:44 AM

Quote :

"Raleigh City Council to hear high-speed rail proposal A task force is scheduled to present its proposal on the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor to the Raleigh City Council on Tuesday. The high-speed rail line will eventually connect Charlotte to Washington, D.C., and has some concerned about where the rail's potential corridors in downtown Raleigh could run. A task force plans to recommend that the trains follow the Norfolk Southern tracks north from Jones Street along the west side of Capital Boulevard. This option would keep North-South streets of West and Harrington open to vehicle traffic and would avoid the need for a bridge near Glenwood South, according to the task force. The Norfolk Southern lines would also allow for a pedestrian bridge to be built to maintain existing access along Jones Street. William Allen, with the Passenger Rail Task Force, said using the Norfolk Southern tracks would avoid major traffic reroutes but would impact more neighborhoods. "I can't say how many (homes) are totally impacted, but of the historic homes there are four or five," Allen said Monday. Residents along Bickett Boulevard, where the historic homes are located, are likely to come out against the task force's recommendation. "It's our job to mitigate the impacts on the neighborhoods," Councilwoman Mary-Ann Baldwin said. "What we have to figure, is that in the greater public interest or not?" Baldwin said the Norfolk Southern option would also cost $44 million more than the alternative. The alternative the task force is not in favor of would have trains travel along the east side of Capital Boulevard, using the CSX tracks. The CSX line would permanently close West and Harrington streets to vehicle traffic and require a bridge over Jones Street that would negatively impact commercial activity in the area, the task force says. Baldwin said the City Council will carefully consider both options as their recommendation could greatly influence the Department of Transportation's final decision. "This has an impact on our city for the next 100 years. It's huge," Baldwin said. The DOT has held several public meetings on the rail project. The department says public input will be taken into consideration as it designs the train corridors. The state was awarded $545 million in federal stimulus funds to support the high-speed rail system. Plans are to complete the track from Charlotte to Raleigh within three years. The time frame for the rail from Charlotte to Richmond is projected to be 2017 or later."

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/8074700/

Bickett Blvd never struck me as that attractive of a street anyway.

8/3/2010 11:10:34 AM

LOL at how many people would be killed if the San Diego trains traveled at 30-60 MPH through the city.. damn I've only been there a few times for business trips and I'd have probably been put in my Sunday Suit.

8/3/2010 11:30:38 AM

so whats the expected time from here to charlotte, and from here to DC?

</lazy not wanting to read the whole thread>

8/3/2010 11:40:44 AM

Quote :

"Dillon Supply building could become rail hub for Raleigh The old Dillon Supply steel fabrication building, once used to assemble boilers, smokestacks and the skins of North Carolina skyscrapers, could find new life as a rail and transit hub for Raleigh. It’s an idea that has captured the attention of city leaders looking for affordable ways to meet Raleigh’s transportation needs at a time when state and federal aid has all but dried up. The vacant building, already owned by the Triangle Transit, could be upfitted for $20 million, N.C. rail officials said this morning on a tour of the building. The city’s match would be 10 percent. “For $2 million, the city would essentially own a $20 million facility,” said Will Allen III, chair of a city rail task force. An earlier plan called for building a new Union Station to serve travelers on Amtrak, commuter rail and future high-speed Southeastern light rail. The Dillon building could meet those needs, rail planners said. Built in 1960, the 3.5-story building housed an erecting shop where workers fashioned huge sheets of steel into industrial parts and exteriors for steel office towers. Triangle Transit bought the building in the mid-2000s, at the end of Martin Street in the center of the Boylan Wye, a busy rail junction on the western edge of downtown. ...."

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/06/29/1309639/dillon-supply-building-could-become.html

I think it's good that they're scaling it back a bit. This also means that the TTA's 2 dead blocks on S West St would be redeveloped.

7/15/2011 4:08:32 PM

we need a monorail dammit

7/15/2011 5:36:22 PM

I just realized this thread is 6 years old... That might be as epic as the Hillsborough street thread

7/15/2011 6:11:13 PM

7/15/2011 9:06:46 PM

If they are going to build it, build it right.

If they have to make dumbass compromises that make the system inconvenient such as putting stations in bad spots or making it slower than driving+parking or bussing (sloooow), then don't build it at all.

Cheaping out on something is expensive.

7/16/2011 8:16:34 AM

^This.

I think the Passenger Rail Task Force did a good job with the preferred route they selected. It is important for it to go through the center of downtown.

7/16/2011 8:40:47 AM

Oh yeah, and the price has to be right -- not like fucking amtrack where it is more expensive and as inconvenient as planes.

7/16/2011 11:36:47 AM

which link shows the projected track map

7/16/2011 11:42:54 AM

plz2embed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQTuYo6HmiQ

7/16/2011 11:49:11 AM

Another thing:

On-time performance has to be in the 99% territory to be good. The US has a bunch of poorly-run rail systems that get ~90% on-time performance -- which is really bad because the stat is inflated by trains empty trains in off-peak hours.

That 90% means that during a work week, if you believe the figure, you are going to be late at least one time during your work week. The real on-time numbers for rush hour are probably around 50%.

Japan has 99%+ on-time performance and an average delay less than 30 seconds. That should be the goal. Anyone official trying to push a 90% figure is trying to fleece the public.

I don't really think we are going to be able to setup a good service unless we farm the job out to the asians or some other country that can actually run a rail system well.

Again, if we can't do it right, don't do it at all.

7/16/2011 12:07:07 PM

FYI the Charlotte Lynx light rail line has a 99% on time rating. Most modern systems do. Rail, especially when grade separated, is by far the most predictable form of transportation. Even the heavy rail commuter trains going into NYC (NJ Transit, Long Island Railroad, and Metro North) are 96% on time.

The one thing that could add some unpredictability to the Raleigh light rail is that it may become more of a streetcar downtown (after entering West Morgan St near Charlie Goodnights), so it could share traffic with cars at times therefore being subjected to lights and drivers.

7/17/2011 12:18:49 AM

^^American companies are building a lot of the trains out in Asia.

7/17/2011 1:19:32 AM

Quote :

"The one thing that could add some unpredictability to the Raleigh light rail is that it may become more of a streetcar downtown (after entering West Morgan St near Charlie Goodnights), so it could share traffic with cars at times therefore being subjected to lights and drivers."

This is always a mistake. Separate it from grade, make it dedicated, and people will use it. Otherwise it'll be just as unpredictable as the bus.


I'd hate to see Raleigh make the same mistakes as Ogdenville, North Haverbrook and Brockway

[Edited on July 17, 2011 at 7:58 PM. Reason : ]

7/17/2011 7:49:09 PM

The streetcar system works well in Hiroshima but that may be the exception more than the rule.

7/17/2011 9:01:59 PM

Quote :

"This is always a mistake. Separate it from grade, make it dedicated, and people will use it. Otherwise it'll be just as unpredictable as the bus."

I can't agree with this. It should definitely be separated from grade outside the city center with no exceptions, but access to the heart of downtown is critical to any light rail system, and if the way to do that is by making it a street car for a mile or so in the downtown area, then so be it.

7/17/2011 9:36:48 PM

^^More than likely. There's still enough of the car-rules-the-road mentality in downtown Raleigh that pedestrians trying to cross the street to get to the streetcar station in the middle of the road will become cannon fodder during the rush hours. Plus Hiroshima was fairly spacey in terms of road space available. I like it's uniqueness but I don't think it's very practical, especially compared to bus capability in similiar applications.

7/17/2011 9:56:35 PM

It's very important to have a change in elevation when it comes to trains and downtown areas, as running a river of infrastructure at grade can have unintended consequences beyond the immediate scope of the train system itself. It can dividing urban zones, create traffic jam areas, disrupt pedestrian zones, limit access and station points, etc. I'm not saying that a streetcar system has no merit, but it often is implemented in a way that isn't conducive to increasing ridership. And that is to make no mention of how it can create unpredictable travel times. A train systems single greatest benefit, in my opinion, should be to give riders a consistent travel time. That is what makes people choose the train over simply waiting in traffic in their cars.

Now, I haven't seen any plans/diagrams/images of the proposed plan (do those exist yet?) so its hard to give a valid criticism, but in my opinion, half-assing the proposal will kill any opportunity of its success. The goal here should be to facilitate the demands of a larger population, so Raleigh is gonna have to start thinking as if it already has a big population rather than trying to retroactively tweak half-assed solutions that were made under the guise of compromise.

7/17/2011 10:28:56 PM

The division of urban zones that comes from a streetcar is minute compared to the division of urban zones that comes from an elevated railway running right through the center of a city.

No route has been selected yet, but the Mayor's Passenger Rail Task Force preferred alternative is detailed here: http://dtraleigh.com/2011/07/municipography-light-rail-through-downtown-raleigh/

7/17/2011 11:36:15 PM

skokiaan spittin awesome truth itt

7/18/2011 3:06:39 PM

ZOOOOOOOOMMMMMM

8/2/2011 8:32:12 AM

Quote :

"This is always a mistake. Separate it from grade, make it dedicated, and people will use it. Otherwise it'll be just as unpredictable as the bus."

Here's an idea. If we are going to build something separate from grade, why not a friggin' bus line. Then people could use whatever is built as it is built to improve all the bus routes in that area. Also, no need to change modes of transit just because the dedicated right of way doesn't go where you want to go.

8/2/2011 9:28:02 AM

huh, guess I missed this topic. Maybe people shouldn't start something with "omg" if they don't want it passed over as an irrelevant gossip thread.

8/2/2011 11:10:33 AM

The city council has chosen it's preferred alternative, which essentially means it is the planned route going forward.



D6

[Edited on August 2, 2011 at 7:52 PM. Reason : .]

8/2/2011 7:52:13 PM

I personally think D6 is a good choice. I can't remember the exact figures but I know it's one of the cheaper alternatives, if not the cheapest. While it doesn't penetrate downtown it will encourage development on that side of town, which is good.

8/2/2011 11:56:36 PM

So, I just watched a portion of the city council meeting during which they voted for the D6 alternative. Meeker ended the meeting by saying, "Let’s go ahead and get this system built as soon as we can." In regards to that, what is the next step exactly? Do we still have to go through a whole series of locally preferred alternatives from one end of the route to the other? Bottom line, how soon can the half cent sales tax increase be put on the ballot so that the city can potentially move forward with actually constructing this thing?

8/3/2011 9:43:51 AM

No way would they get their shit together enough to have it on the ballot this year, but I could see it getting on there next year.

8/3/2011 10:34:14 AM

Question someone else asked me:

Why not make it go to the airport?

I think that's good point.

8/3/2011 11:17:59 AM