May 20, 2025 • 23 mins
The Research Triangle area of North Carolina keeps trying—and failing—to develop effective transit solutions despite strong voter support for improvements. After a promising light rail project was derailed by Duke University in 2019, the region has pivoted to Bus Rapid Transit projects with mixed success.
• Voters approved a half-cent sales tax in 2011-2012 specifically for transit improvements including the 17.7-mile Durham Orange Light Rail
• Duke University refused to sign necessary agreements in 2019, effectively killing the light rail project that would have connected three universities
• Raleigh has developed plans for four BRT lines extending from downtown in all directions
• Despite a groundbreaking ceremony in 2023, Raleigh's BRT project has faced two failed contractor selection attempts and completion is now projected for 2030
• Durham is pursuing its own BRT plans but remains in earlier planning stages
• A proposed 43-mile commuter rail connecting West Durham through Raleigh to Clayton lost federal funding support in 2023
• The Triangle region already has Amtrak service with about five daily trains between towns, but frequency and reliability need improvement
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
My stop's train tracks, it's mydaily grind.
Public transit, it's the rhythmof my life.
This week we discuss threetransit projects that have each
had a hard time getting startedin the Research Triangle area of
(00:24):
North Carolina.
After failed attempts at lightrail and commuter rail, can the
region finally pull off along-awaited BRT project?
All of this and more coming upon Transit Tangents.
Hey everybody, and welcome tothis episode of Transit Tangents
.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are going to be
revisiting a state we haven'ttalked about in a while but we
(00:45):
have in the past, which is thestate of North Carolina,
specifically the TriangleResearch Area.
So that encompasses the citiesof Durham, raleigh and Chapel
Hill, and this area has had abit of a rocky past with transit
in the last decade or two.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I would call it a series of false starts on
transit.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, so today we're going to be kind of talking
about why this region seeminglycontinues to struggle getting
different transit networks offthe ground.
They do have a bus system, kindof, in each of these cities as
well as a regional system, butas far as doing any sort of
light rail, commuter rail, brt,there's been a lot of starts and
not a lot of groundbreaking.
Well, there's been groundbreakings, but not a lot of
actual construction taking place, so today we'll specifically be
(01:34):
, talking about the DurhamOrange Line light rail, some BRT
proposals in both Raleigh andDurham, as well as a commuter
service that again almost gotoff the ground.
It's not all negative.
In North Carolina, though, I'llsay we were just kind of, as
we're getting ready here,looking into the kind of
(01:54):
frequent rail service on thePiedmont service through North
Carolina, which is prettyimpressive.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It is.
Yeah, the Amtrak service that'sin the state is actually not
bad, and we may get into that alittle bit more a little later
in the episode, but it's likethe bones are there for it being
such a powerful transit stateand they already are off to a
good start.
It's just how do you fullybring it home, how do you
continue to expand on thatsystem?
And we'll talk about thatthrough the episode.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Before we jump into the specifics here, this was
actually a recommendation fromone of our Patreon subscribers.
Thank you to all of our Patreonsubscribers, but that was in
our exclusive Discord channel,just for them.
So if you want to get involved,request episodes and support
the show, that is the best wayto do so.
So exclusive, I know right,it's a tight-knit community
(02:42):
right now.
Yeah, very tight, yes.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
All Right, it's a tight-knit community right now.
Yeah, very tight.
Yes, All right.
But getting into sort of themeat of the episode, there is a
will of the people in NorthCarolina to really create more
transit in their state In2011-2012, voters around Durham.
They approved a half-cent salestax to fund more transit
(03:06):
initiatives.
This included the Durham Orange.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Light Rail Right and in this vote, basically, like
the project spans two counties.
One of the counties had theirvote in 2011, one in 2012.
In addition to the light rail,it also added to their bus
network, increased frequencies,kind of updated some of the
infrastructure and whatnot.
But these votes passedoverwhelmingly and the orange
(03:29):
light rail was kind of like theshiny object involved in this
that folks were really excitedfor.
It was a 17.7 mile light rail.
They're excited because lightrail is sexy.
It is.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Buses aren't.
Buses aren't, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Although this is something we should do in the
future.
I'll link that article to this.
But I read a recent articlethat kind of was talking about
why don't we just make busessexy, and I think it kind of
goes against some things we'vesaid in the past, but it'll be a
future episode.
I'll link the article for folkswho want to get it.
Unfortunately, I could not findthis article anywhere.
If anyone knows what I'mtalking about, please link.
But this 17.7 mile system wasgoing to encompass 18 stations
(04:12):
along the way.
It bridges the gap betweenthree universities.
You would have had DukeUniversity, you would have had
UNC their kind of hospitalscampus to the south, as well as
the North Carolina CentralUniversity, which is just to the
east of Durham.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
All of those have been connected together in this
system, Yep and all of thatconnection would have served
about.
It was estimated about 26,000riders per day.
So pretty decent, you know,ridership for this sort of local
service.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Totally.
And what was really encouragingwith this is you know this area
is if you've been to it before.
I haven't been directly butI've spent a lot of time on
Google Maps, just kind oflooking from above.
Chris has been to the areabefore.
It is fairly suburban, fairlysprawly, mostly car-centric
infrastructure to get aroundSprawly Raleigh, that's what
they call it.
(05:05):
That's how I can say it rightSprawly Raleigh.
I was having a hard time sayingRaleigh before I was like I'm
going to say it wrong.
Sprawly Raleigh.
I'll never get it wrong now.
Okay, that was good.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I have been to the area.
It's beautiful, such a niceplace.
There's, like these sort oftown centers everywhere.
It's what you think of as sortof that East Coast region, but
again, very, very suburban.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
What I was going to say, though, is it was really
encouraging with this.
They had a really well puttogether, transit-oriented
development plan that was goingto go along with the light rail
proposal, talking about how theywere going to include more
housing around the stations,increasing connections to other
buses and whatnot, so that theridership, over time, would
(05:48):
continue to grow and the systemwould really serve a major net
benefit to the communities, bothfrom a perspective of having
folks be able to travel aroundthe region easier without a car,
but also from an economicperspective for all of the towns
and cities and countiesinvolved, from generating more
(06:09):
property tax revenue and whatnot, which continues to help the
system.
Just for some additionalcontext before we go any further
, the transit agencies thatserve this area are as follows
Go Triangle for regional tripsbetween cities, go Durham for
trips within Durham, go Raleighfor trips within Raleigh and Go
Chapel Hill for trips withinChapel Hill.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And there's already some service that exists today.
It's the 400 bus that's run byGoTriangle and it serves sort of
that similar purpose of whatthe light rail would do.
But, as we've talked about many, many times, light rails or
light rail is just moreefficient than generally, than a
bus service is.
Buses also get caught up intraffic.
Highway 501, which kind of runsbetween Chapel Hill and Durham,
(06:50):
highway 501, which kind of runsbetween Chapel Hill and Durham,
it's going to be a heavily usedcorridor, so buses are going to
get stuck in that traffic aswell, which is where maybe
something like a VRT could comein line.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Right, and the hope was that by replacing this bus,
which is a well-used route inthe area, with a light rail, you
encourage even more ridership,because again, more folks would
be willing to take a train thanwould be willing to take a bus,
and you can kind of helpalleviate some traffic along the
corridor and provide optionsfor folks instead of basically
(07:20):
being, you know, sitting trafficin your car or sitting traffic
on the bus so the durham orangelight rail as sexy as a light
rail can be, uh, ultimatelyfailed.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Uh, and it was around March of 2019.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Right, and it wasn't sexy enough for Duke university.
Apparently, uh, Duke citing uhconcerns over how it would
affect the kind of precisesurgical section of their
medical institute or theirmedical facilities.
Uh, they were worried about, Ithink, some of those
construction and whatnot.
They do, some surgeries thatrequire precise instruments and
(07:54):
whatnot.
They would not sign acooperative agreement to move it
forward and the project kind ofjust fizzled out.
Now there was a lot ofspeculation over whether that
was actually the reason why Dukedidn't move forward or not, but
regardless, the project is deadas of now.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, I'm really hoping that's not the full
reason.
I mean you're not doingsurgeries 24-7, probably at this
place.
I feel like there's ways toschedule around it.
Also, I feel like a lot ofthose instruments should be
calibrated for some groundvibration.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, unfortunately, I feel like the real reason
probably lands somewhere in therealm of Duke University.
Doesn't want people from thecity necessarily in the middle
of their college campus aseasily, which is not a good
reason to not fund it.
But yeah, we'll move on.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
We will allow you to come up with your own
conclusions on why Duke did notmove forward.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, so we'll fast forward a little bit here.
You know 2019, that projectgoes away.
2020, obviously you've gotCOVID and everything happening
with that and since then,essentially both Raleigh and
Durham have moved forward withdifferent options for BRT
(09:12):
service in their areas and atthis point they're at very
different stages.
Raleigh has moved forward quitea bit more and is in the
process of putting together fourBRT lines that would all
terminate in the downtown core,with one line going north, one
line going south, one line goingeast and one line going west.
So pretty straightforward, andthat's kind of what they've
(09:35):
proposed so far.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Cool, that's all the directions.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
That is all the directions.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
So as this BRT system sort of goes out from the city
center, it kind of changes howthe BRT operates.
So in the middle of the citiesthe BRT is kind of common, what
you would see in a really densearea.
They have dedicated bus lanes.
We see this pretty often, likein cities like Austin, where Cap
Metro runs through downtown.
As it gets sort of out a littlepast the downtown areas it
(10:02):
turns into what I would callmore true BRT, where it is
separated lanes, completelyseparate from traffic.
For the most part Buses are offree-flowing in this in the
center.
Basically, too, it's like centerrunning brt yeah yeah, and then
as you get out um past thatinto the, the sprawly parts of
raleigh, uh, it turns into ummore of like mixed traffic use.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So the bus is now mixed in with with regular
traffic when traffic is lighterright and some of these are
still kind of in the designphase, but that's based on, like
the designs we have so far, andspecifically based on the kind
of eastern line which is the onethat is furthest along, so that
would be running along New BernAvenue, and it is essentially
(10:46):
just awaiting construction.
And, interestingly enough, thisproject actually broke ground
in 2023.
And you notice how I said itbroke ground in 2023, but we're
awaiting construction Kind ofstrange, huh.
Did the ground break Well youknow, the ground broke for
whatever ribbon cutting eventthat they did in 2023.
(11:06):
But unfortunately the projecthas had a series of kind of
missteps here.
I'm actually going to read adirect quote from Mass Transit
Magazine here.
Raleigh held a groundbreakingceremony for the New Bern BRT
line in late 2023 and hoped tobegin construction the following
spring.
At the time, city officialssaid they expected the line
would be completed by the end of2025.
(11:27):
But the two failed attempts tobegin construction set that
timetable back.
In response to concerns fromcontractors, raleigh is also
allowing more time to completethe work, pushing the likely
completion back further,according to Het Patel, the city
transit planner overseeing theproject.
So basically, there were twofailed attempts that they're
(11:48):
talking about.
Don't mind the woodpecker thatis.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
If you could hear knocking in the background.
I have a woodpecker attackingmy window um, so essentially
what happens?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
there are two attempts to get a contractor to
actually build this thing.
In both attempts, uh, the citycan't select a partner.
Due to whether it be financialreasons, timeline reasons, all
sorts of different things theycouldn't agree to get this thing
done.
Right now we have, according toAxios, entered the third
(12:20):
attempt at getting a contractor.
Bids are now open until June20th and if a contractor is
selected, construction couldstart as early as this fall, so
being 2025.
Now, remember, they said thatthey thought this thing would be
completed by the end of 2025.
Now, the best case scenario isa groundbreaking at the end of
2025.
(12:40):
The second groundbreaking, thesecond, maybe the third, I don't
know?
Yeah, so not great.
The city is more optimisticthis time, after kind of
adjusting a few things,including the timeline for
construction, unfortunately kindof slowing it down.
Here's kind of one more quote,kind of covering that, from Mass
Transit Magazine Based on therecent feedback received and
(13:02):
construction timelines thatcontractors communicated were
more achievable, we anticipateconstruction completion and
operations by summer 2030.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I feel like 2030 is kicking the can down the road
for every transit agency.
It seems like every projectthat we talk about it's
somewhere between 2030 and 2033is the finish date.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Have you noticed this .
Yeah, I feel like 2030 is thenew 2020 yeah, a lot of things
were 2020 before you know what Imean.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Like there's a lot of big projects that starting the
2030 conspiracy it's never gonnahappen, yeah, I mean, um, but
at least it's, at least there'sstill a little bit of movement
and the city is still actively,you know, seeking the
contractors and trying to getthis going.
So I would call this one of thetransit false starts, but at
least, uh, it's still kind ofprogressing.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
We'll know in june.
I we'll try to keep an eye onthis and keep folks updated.
We'll know in June if they atleast select a contractor.
But it kills me that in theUnited States it will
potentially take five years justfrom the start of construction
to finishing this thing.
Like we should be able to builda freaking BRT line from like
the day that the vote passes tohaving it operational in like
(14:11):
two years, not five years afterthey've selected a partner,
after it had already beenplanned for several years
leading up to it.
That had a groundbreaking 2023.
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
We would have built a highway in a much quicker time.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Agreed.
I literally like it'sembarrassing.
That's not like what adeveloped country, like other
countries that are, frankly, notnearly as developed as us, can
do this in half the time.
Even if it's like justtemporarily, like throw some
freaking flex posts in theground and paint and get it
going while you upgrade theinfrastructure over time, it's,
(14:43):
it's not not great and thisisn't just an octagon.
I mean, this happens all acrossthe country.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Um, absolutely but on the durham side, their plans
are definitely in the earlierstages.
Um, to make the story brief, uh, they had plans to add brt or
BRT light and they're lookingfor federal funds from the small
starts program.
That's if it's gonna happenright.
(15:09):
There's a lot of things up inthe air on the federal level and
funding trend in fundingtransit, and so maybe this
happens right, maybe it doesn't,but it's one that definitely
it's a keep an eye on yep andsmall starts to is like it's
similar to you maybe have heardus talk about the new starts
program.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
That's for like bigger projects, projects like
project connect here in Austinwould fall into that.
But again, yes, it requiresfederal and we won't talk about
the federal government stufftoday, cause we had a lot of
people who were like you can'ttalk about politics and transit
at the same time, blah, the sametime, blah, blah, blah.
A lot of complaints on ourvideo from a couple weeks ago.
Transit is political.
I know, I know and and most ofmost of the, the hardcore fans
(15:46):
were in there saying that aswell, but we had some naysayers.
But that's fine, go ahead andcontinue naysaying, that's all
right, I'll all right.
So up next on this journey oftransit projects that never were
is the Raleigh commuter line.
This was planned to be a43-mile line with 15 stations,
(16:06):
connecting West Durham throughRaleigh and onward to Clayton,
which is on the east side ofRaleigh.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And a feasibility study came out for this in 2023,
proposing doing it in threephases for a total cost of
around $3 billion.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, and it was essentially this phased approach
.
The phased approach would startby connecting the eastern
suburbs of Raleigh to downtown.
Phase two would then connectfrom Raleigh to just east of
Durham not quite making it allthe way to a big research park
that's out there and then phasethree would finally connect to
downtown durham as well aspoints further west of that kind
(16:48):
of encompassing the full routeand phase three is definitely
going to be the most costly ofthe three phases, but it would
actually link the cities withwith the service, like the more
of the service.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So definitely the the part that is the key part and
definitely be, you know, the onethat's most worth it and part
of the reason of that is a lotof the tracks.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
once you get to Durham and beyond, you end up on
Norfolk Southern right away andit just makes it.
You know, norfolk Southern isnot necessarily wanting to work
for frequent passenger servicebecause they've got big freight
trains moving through.
A lot of this is single trackedand trying to schedule around.
That is always a crapshoot, asthe Amtrak system, especially
(17:28):
the long distance Amtrak trains,know very well and
unfortunately, after thisfeasibility study came out in
2023, the FTA, actually underthe Biden administration, pulled
the plug on any federal fundinggoing to this project, citing
ridership concerns, among otherthings along the way.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
So, mayor Pete, we have to have a talk.
Got to figure out what happened.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's not great.
And that leads us with not one,not two, but kind of three.
The BRT stuff is actually.
I won't say that that onehasn't happened, but they've had
a rocky journey to get to wherethey are.
Again, it's good to see thecity optimistic about at least
(18:14):
getting the construction partnerchosen, but again, it's even
just for one of the foursections.
But you gotta hope that oncethey get the first one underway,
they've, you know, have somelessons learned in you know,
doing the.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
the remaining three yeah, you put out the plan, you
get the first one done.
People write it, you know.
You see, the ridership isactually pretty good.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
People get used to the idea of brt and then it's
easier to do the rest hopefullyyeah and if you have a good
partner on the first one andthings go well, then you can use
that same partner, for theothers probably exactly, and I I
would also like to think toothat you know, let's say,
raleigh gets, gets their firstones going that information
could also be really helpful forfolks in durham as they try to
build out theirs.
(18:55):
I read a brief proposal chapelhill was talking about doing
their own little brt as well.
So, uh, hopefully, you know,with these metros being so close
to each other, especiallyRaleigh and Durham's only I
think you said it was 10 milesaway basically, with them being
so close, the informationsharing and everything should be
there to kind of help usherthese projects along.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, and that's actually a really good point is
that these cities are very closetogether.
We talk a lot about city pairslike Austin, san Antonio or
Dallas, fort Worth.
These cities are much, muchfurther apart.
Totally, I mean, austin SanAntonio is 73 miles downtown to
downtown-ish, so the idea thatthis is only like 10 to 15 miles
really apart from driving-wiseis crazy.
(19:35):
There should be a lot moreservice happening between these
two cities and in fact there issome existing service.
Amtrak does serve this centralCarolina region.
It goes from Charlotte all theway to Raleigh and the trains
between Durham and Raleigh theycome with like six times a day
or so, yeah, I think it's fivetimes a day on the Piedmont and
(19:56):
then you get a couple more withsome of the longer distance.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
So the longer distance ones are probably less
reliable time wise, but the thePiedmont service, from what I
can tell, is actually fairlyreliable.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
So if you are dedicated to using train service
, there is an existing servicein this region.
It can.
Can it be better?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Absolutely, and there there is also part of the the
go triangle regional system.
There are buses as well that goback and forth, but again, with
the buses you end up with thetraffic issue.
So, you know, in the long termand this is now just us throwing
some ideas out there when wetalked about the BRT that's
happening in St Paul andeventually will be kind of
(20:32):
extended to Minneapolis, andthat system in St Paul actually
should be open now, which ispretty awesome.
I actually don't know for sure,I'm curious to go and look, but
that was a really interestingproposal where you're just like
creating real dedicated BRTalong a highway.
And this is an area where, like, I could see that making a lot
of sense.
But, man, it feels sounnecessary that when you have
(20:56):
tracks already that go betweenthese two cities, the issue is
like, just looking at it fromGoogle Maps, I mean, you've got
single track for a decent bit ofit, so there would definitely
need to be some trackimprovements to make sure that
trains can run on time.
You're not holding up othertraffic on the tracks, but it
feels like it shouldn't cost $3billion plus to connect two
(21:18):
cities that already have a railline between them.
I agree.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And already have rail service.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You're just trying to increase the service.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I think there's definitely places where the rail
can be aligned to make moresense, but there's also highway
right-of-ways in this regionthat can be used to realign the
rail.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Or to put BRT infrastructure in Right.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And if anybody showed us that you can utilize this
highway right-of-way, it'sBrightline.
There's opportunities here toreally connect these cities in a
more meaningful way.
You can get the line muchcloser to the airport.
Doing it this way and, like Isaid, with this sort of being
again a kind of a suburban areabut with a lot of little town
centers, all of the bones arethere for it being such a good
transit region and connectingall of these little towns.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, and I think I lightly mentioned this at the
beginning that, like you know,when they were initially going
forward with the first projectwe talked about the light rail
they put together this transitoriented development kind of
guidebook and whatnot.
You kind of lean more into that.
I mean, I know Durham recentlygot rid of parking minimums when
they were kind of working onthis.
So like there is a push to dothis sort of stuff, yeah, but
(22:17):
they're so close yet so far sortof thing on all of it.
They're so close yet so farsort of thing on all of it.
So, yeah, worth noting too.
We did talk about some commuterservice that was proposed in
Charlotte in a previous episode.
We'll make sure that's linkedfor folks.
But otherwise, if you live inthis area, definitely let us
know what you think.
If we missed anything, let usknow.
We'd love to kind of hear moreabout what is going on in the
(22:41):
area.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So anything else we need to.
Anything else when you're done,call it, end it there.
Cool, um.
If you want to support the show, be sure to like and subscribe
to videos and share those also.
You can support us via ourpatreon, or buy me a coffee, or,
if you would like some transittangents, merch uh, we have our
merch store as well.
I think we're definitely goingto add a shirt about make buses
(23:05):
sexy again, or something likethat.
Maybe sprawly raleigh orsprawly raleigh.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
We'll have to go to raleigh before we do that.
I think if you have ideas, formerchandise, let us know totally
, uh.
With all that being said,though, thank you all so much
for watching and enjoy the restof your transit.
Tangents tuesday.
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
My stop's train tracks, it's mydaily grind.
Public transit, it's the rhythmof my life.
This week we discuss threetransit projects that have each
had a hard time getting startedin the Research Triangle area of
(00:24):
North Carolina.
After failed attempts at lightrail and commuter rail, can the
region finally pull off along-awaited BRT project?
All of this and more coming upon Transit Tangents.
Hey everybody, and welcome tothis episode of Transit Tangents
.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are going to be
revisiting a state we haven'ttalked about in a while but we
(00:45):
have in the past, which is thestate of North Carolina,
specifically the TriangleResearch Area.
So that encompasses the citiesof Durham, raleigh and Chapel
Hill, and this area has had abit of a rocky past with transit
in the last decade or two.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I would call it a series of false starts on
transit.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, so today we're going to be kind of talking
about why this region seeminglycontinues to struggle getting
different transit networks offthe ground.
They do have a bus system, kindof, in each of these cities as
well as a regional system, butas far as doing any sort of
light rail, commuter rail, brt,there's been a lot of starts and
not a lot of groundbreaking.
Well, there's been groundbreakings, but not a lot of
actual construction taking place, so today we'll specifically be
(01:34):
, talking about the DurhamOrange Line light rail, some BRT
proposals in both Raleigh andDurham, as well as a commuter
service that again almost gotoff the ground.
It's not all negative.
In North Carolina, though, I'llsay we were just kind of, as
we're getting ready here,looking into the kind of
(01:54):
frequent rail service on thePiedmont service through North
Carolina, which is prettyimpressive.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It is.
Yeah, the Amtrak service that'sin the state is actually not
bad, and we may get into that alittle bit more a little later
in the episode, but it's likethe bones are there for it being
such a powerful transit stateand they already are off to a
good start.
It's just how do you fullybring it home, how do you
continue to expand on thatsystem?
And we'll talk about thatthrough the episode.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Before we jump into the specifics here, this was
actually a recommendation fromone of our Patreon subscribers.
Thank you to all of our Patreonsubscribers, but that was in
our exclusive Discord channel,just for them.
So if you want to get involved,request episodes and support
the show, that is the best wayto do so.
So exclusive, I know right,it's a tight-knit community
(02:42):
right now.
Yeah, very tight, yes.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
All Right, it's a tight-knit community right now.
Yeah, very tight.
Yes, All right.
But getting into sort of themeat of the episode, there is a
will of the people in NorthCarolina to really create more
transit in their state In2011-2012, voters around Durham.
They approved a half-cent salestax to fund more transit
(03:06):
initiatives.
This included the Durham Orange.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Light Rail Right and in this vote, basically, like
the project spans two counties.
One of the counties had theirvote in 2011, one in 2012.
In addition to the light rail,it also added to their bus
network, increased frequencies,kind of updated some of the
infrastructure and whatnot.
But these votes passedoverwhelmingly and the orange
(03:29):
light rail was kind of like theshiny object involved in this
that folks were really excitedfor.
It was a 17.7 mile light rail.
They're excited because lightrail is sexy.
It is.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Buses aren't.
Buses aren't, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Although this is something we should do in the
future.
I'll link that article to this.
But I read a recent articlethat kind of was talking about
why don't we just make busessexy, and I think it kind of
goes against some things we'vesaid in the past, but it'll be a
future episode.
I'll link the article for folkswho want to get it.
Unfortunately, I could not findthis article anywhere.
If anyone knows what I'mtalking about, please link.
But this 17.7 mile system wasgoing to encompass 18 stations
(04:12):
along the way.
It bridges the gap betweenthree universities.
You would have had DukeUniversity, you would have had
UNC their kind of hospitalscampus to the south, as well as
the North Carolina CentralUniversity, which is just to the
east of Durham.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
All of those have been connected together in this
system, Yep and all of thatconnection would have served
about.
It was estimated about 26,000riders per day.
So pretty decent, you know,ridership for this sort of local
service.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Totally.
And what was really encouragingwith this is you know this area
is if you've been to it before.
I haven't been directly butI've spent a lot of time on
Google Maps, just kind oflooking from above.
Chris has been to the areabefore.
It is fairly suburban, fairlysprawly, mostly car-centric
infrastructure to get aroundSprawly Raleigh, that's what
they call it.
(05:05):
That's how I can say it rightSprawly Raleigh.
I was having a hard time sayingRaleigh before I was like I'm
going to say it wrong.
Sprawly Raleigh.
I'll never get it wrong now.
Okay, that was good.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I have been to the area.
It's beautiful, such a niceplace.
There's, like these sort oftown centers everywhere.
It's what you think of as sortof that East Coast region, but
again, very, very suburban.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
What I was going to say, though, is it was really
encouraging with this.
They had a really well puttogether, transit-oriented
development plan that was goingto go along with the light rail
proposal, talking about how theywere going to include more
housing around the stations,increasing connections to other
buses and whatnot, so that theridership, over time, would
(05:48):
continue to grow and the systemwould really serve a major net
benefit to the communities, bothfrom a perspective of having
folks be able to travel aroundthe region easier without a car,
but also from an economicperspective for all of the towns
and cities and countiesinvolved, from generating more
(06:09):
property tax revenue and whatnot, which continues to help the
system.
Just for some additionalcontext before we go any further
, the transit agencies thatserve this area are as follows
Go Triangle for regional tripsbetween cities, go Durham for
trips within Durham, go Raleighfor trips within Raleigh and Go
Chapel Hill for trips withinChapel Hill.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And there's already some service that exists today.
It's the 400 bus that's run byGoTriangle and it serves sort of
that similar purpose of whatthe light rail would do.
But, as we've talked about many, many times, light rails or
light rail is just moreefficient than generally, than a
bus service is.
Buses also get caught up intraffic.
Highway 501, which kind of runsbetween Chapel Hill and Durham,
(06:50):
highway 501, which kind of runsbetween Chapel Hill and Durham,
it's going to be a heavily usedcorridor, so buses are going to
get stuck in that traffic aswell, which is where maybe
something like a VRT could comein line.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Right, and the hope was that by replacing this bus,
which is a well-used route inthe area, with a light rail, you
encourage even more ridership,because again, more folks would
be willing to take a train thanwould be willing to take a bus,
and you can kind of helpalleviate some traffic along the
corridor and provide optionsfor folks instead of basically
(07:20):
being, you know, sitting trafficin your car or sitting traffic
on the bus so the durham orangelight rail as sexy as a light
rail can be, uh, ultimatelyfailed.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Uh, and it was around March of 2019.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Right, and it wasn't sexy enough for Duke university.
Apparently, uh, Duke citing uhconcerns over how it would
affect the kind of precisesurgical section of their
medical institute or theirmedical facilities.
Uh, they were worried about, Ithink, some of those
construction and whatnot.
They do, some surgeries thatrequire precise instruments and
(07:54):
whatnot.
They would not sign acooperative agreement to move it
forward and the project kind ofjust fizzled out.
Now there was a lot ofspeculation over whether that
was actually the reason why Dukedidn't move forward or not, but
regardless, the project is deadas of now.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, I'm really hoping that's not the full
reason.
I mean you're not doingsurgeries 24-7, probably at this
place.
I feel like there's ways toschedule around it.
Also, I feel like a lot ofthose instruments should be
calibrated for some groundvibration.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, unfortunately, I feel like the real reason
probably lands somewhere in therealm of Duke University.
Doesn't want people from thecity necessarily in the middle
of their college campus aseasily, which is not a good
reason to not fund it.
But yeah, we'll move on.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
We will allow you to come up with your own
conclusions on why Duke did notmove forward.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, so we'll fast forward a little bit here.
You know 2019, that projectgoes away.
2020, obviously you've gotCOVID and everything happening
with that and since then,essentially both Raleigh and
Durham have moved forward withdifferent options for BRT
(09:12):
service in their areas and atthis point they're at very
different stages.
Raleigh has moved forward quitea bit more and is in the
process of putting together fourBRT lines that would all
terminate in the downtown core,with one line going north, one
line going south, one line goingeast and one line going west.
So pretty straightforward, andthat's kind of what they've
(09:35):
proposed so far.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Cool, that's all the directions.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
That is all the directions.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
So as this BRT system sort of goes out from the city
center, it kind of changes howthe BRT operates.
So in the middle of the citiesthe BRT is kind of common, what
you would see in a really densearea.
They have dedicated bus lanes.
We see this pretty often, likein cities like Austin, where Cap
Metro runs through downtown.
As it gets sort of out a littlepast the downtown areas it
(10:02):
turns into what I would callmore true BRT, where it is
separated lanes, completelyseparate from traffic.
For the most part Buses are offree-flowing in this in the
center.
Basically, too, it's like centerrunning brt yeah yeah, and then
as you get out um past thatinto the, the sprawly parts of
raleigh, uh, it turns into ummore of like mixed traffic use.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So the bus is now mixed in with with regular
traffic when traffic is lighterright and some of these are
still kind of in the designphase, but that's based on, like
the designs we have so far, andspecifically based on the kind
of eastern line which is the onethat is furthest along, so that
would be running along New BernAvenue, and it is essentially
(10:46):
just awaiting construction.
And, interestingly enough, thisproject actually broke ground
in 2023.
And you notice how I said itbroke ground in 2023, but we're
awaiting construction Kind ofstrange, huh.
Did the ground break Well youknow, the ground broke for
whatever ribbon cutting eventthat they did in 2023.
(11:06):
But unfortunately the projecthas had a series of kind of
missteps here.
I'm actually going to read adirect quote from Mass Transit
Magazine here.
Raleigh held a groundbreakingceremony for the New Bern BRT
line in late 2023 and hoped tobegin construction the following
spring.
At the time, city officialssaid they expected the line
would be completed by the end of2025.
(11:27):
But the two failed attempts tobegin construction set that
timetable back.
In response to concerns fromcontractors, raleigh is also
allowing more time to completethe work, pushing the likely
completion back further,according to Het Patel, the city
transit planner overseeing theproject.
So basically, there were twofailed attempts that they're
(11:48):
talking about.
Don't mind the woodpecker thatis.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
If you could hear knocking in the background.
I have a woodpecker attackingmy window um, so essentially
what happens?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
there are two attempts to get a contractor to
actually build this thing.
In both attempts, uh, the citycan't select a partner.
Due to whether it be financialreasons, timeline reasons, all
sorts of different things theycouldn't agree to get this thing
done.
Right now we have, according toAxios, entered the third
(12:20):
attempt at getting a contractor.
Bids are now open until June20th and if a contractor is
selected, construction couldstart as early as this fall, so
being 2025.
Now, remember, they said thatthey thought this thing would be
completed by the end of 2025.
Now, the best case scenario isa groundbreaking at the end of
2025.
(12:40):
The second groundbreaking, thesecond, maybe the third, I don't
know?
Yeah, so not great.
The city is more optimisticthis time, after kind of
adjusting a few things,including the timeline for
construction, unfortunately kindof slowing it down.
Here's kind of one more quote,kind of covering that, from Mass
Transit Magazine Based on therecent feedback received and
(13:02):
construction timelines thatcontractors communicated were
more achievable, we anticipateconstruction completion and
operations by summer 2030.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I feel like 2030 is kicking the can down the road
for every transit agency.
It seems like every projectthat we talk about it's
somewhere between 2030 and 2033is the finish date.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Have you noticed this .
Yeah, I feel like 2030 is thenew 2020 yeah, a lot of things
were 2020 before you know what Imean.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Like there's a lot of big projects that starting the
2030 conspiracy it's never gonnahappen, yeah, I mean, um, but
at least it's, at least there'sstill a little bit of movement
and the city is still actively,you know, seeking the
contractors and trying to getthis going.
So I would call this one of thetransit false starts, but at
least, uh, it's still kind ofprogressing.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
We'll know in june.
I we'll try to keep an eye onthis and keep folks updated.
We'll know in June if they atleast select a contractor.
But it kills me that in theUnited States it will
potentially take five years justfrom the start of construction
to finishing this thing.
Like we should be able to builda freaking BRT line from like
the day that the vote passes tohaving it operational in like
(14:11):
two years, not five years afterthey've selected a partner,
after it had already beenplanned for several years
leading up to it.
That had a groundbreaking 2023.
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
We would have built a highway in a much quicker time.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Agreed.
I literally like it'sembarrassing.
That's not like what adeveloped country, like other
countries that are, frankly, notnearly as developed as us, can
do this in half the time.
Even if it's like justtemporarily, like throw some
freaking flex posts in theground and paint and get it
going while you upgrade theinfrastructure over time, it's,
(14:43):
it's not not great and thisisn't just an octagon.
I mean, this happens all acrossthe country.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Um, absolutely but on the durham side, their plans
are definitely in the earlierstages.
Um, to make the story brief, uh, they had plans to add brt or
BRT light and they're lookingfor federal funds from the small
starts program.
That's if it's gonna happenright.
(15:09):
There's a lot of things up inthe air on the federal level and
funding trend in fundingtransit, and so maybe this
happens right, maybe it doesn't,but it's one that definitely
it's a keep an eye on yep andsmall starts to is like it's
similar to you maybe have heardus talk about the new starts
program.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
That's for like bigger projects, projects like
project connect here in Austinwould fall into that.
But again, yes, it requiresfederal and we won't talk about
the federal government stufftoday, cause we had a lot of
people who were like you can'ttalk about politics and transit
at the same time, blah, the sametime, blah, blah, blah.
A lot of complaints on ourvideo from a couple weeks ago.
Transit is political.
I know, I know and and most ofmost of the, the hardcore fans
(15:46):
were in there saying that aswell, but we had some naysayers.
But that's fine, go ahead andcontinue naysaying, that's all
right, I'll all right.
So up next on this journey oftransit projects that never were
is the Raleigh commuter line.
This was planned to be a43-mile line with 15 stations,
(16:06):
connecting West Durham throughRaleigh and onward to Clayton,
which is on the east side ofRaleigh.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And a feasibility study came out for this in 2023,
proposing doing it in threephases for a total cost of
around $3 billion.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, and it was essentially this phased approach
.
The phased approach would startby connecting the eastern
suburbs of Raleigh to downtown.
Phase two would then connectfrom Raleigh to just east of
Durham not quite making it allthe way to a big research park
that's out there and then phasethree would finally connect to
downtown durham as well aspoints further west of that kind
(16:48):
of encompassing the full routeand phase three is definitely
going to be the most costly ofthe three phases, but it would
actually link the cities withwith the service, like the more
of the service.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So definitely the the part that is the key part and
definitely be, you know, the onethat's most worth it and part
of the reason of that is a lotof the tracks.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
once you get to Durham and beyond, you end up on
Norfolk Southern right away andit just makes it.
You know, norfolk Southern isnot necessarily wanting to work
for frequent passenger servicebecause they've got big freight
trains moving through.
A lot of this is single trackedand trying to schedule around.
That is always a crapshoot, asthe Amtrak system, especially
(17:28):
the long distance Amtrak trains,know very well and
unfortunately, after thisfeasibility study came out in
2023, the FTA, actually underthe Biden administration, pulled
the plug on any federal fundinggoing to this project, citing
ridership concerns, among otherthings along the way.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
So, mayor Pete, we have to have a talk.
Got to figure out what happened.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's not great.
And that leads us with not one,not two, but kind of three.
The BRT stuff is actually.
I won't say that that onehasn't happened, but they've had
a rocky journey to get to wherethey are.
Again, it's good to see thecity optimistic about at least
(18:14):
getting the construction partnerchosen, but again, it's even
just for one of the foursections.
But you gotta hope that oncethey get the first one underway,
they've, you know, have somelessons learned in you know,
doing the.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
the remaining three yeah, you put out the plan, you
get the first one done.
People write it, you know.
You see, the ridership isactually pretty good.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
People get used to the idea of brt and then it's
easier to do the rest hopefullyyeah and if you have a good
partner on the first one andthings go well, then you can use
that same partner, for theothers probably exactly, and I I
would also like to think toothat you know, let's say,
raleigh gets, gets their firstones going that information
could also be really helpful forfolks in durham as they try to
build out theirs.
(18:55):
I read a brief proposal chapelhill was talking about doing
their own little brt as well.
So, uh, hopefully, you know,with these metros being so close
to each other, especiallyRaleigh and Durham's only I
think you said it was 10 milesaway basically, with them being
so close, the informationsharing and everything should be
there to kind of help usherthese projects along.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, and that's actually a really good point is
that these cities are very closetogether.
We talk a lot about city pairslike Austin, san Antonio or
Dallas, fort Worth.
These cities are much, muchfurther apart.
Totally, I mean, austin SanAntonio is 73 miles downtown to
downtown-ish, so the idea thatthis is only like 10 to 15 miles
really apart from driving-wiseis crazy.
(19:35):
There should be a lot moreservice happening between these
two cities and in fact there issome existing service.
Amtrak does serve this centralCarolina region.
It goes from Charlotte all theway to Raleigh and the trains
between Durham and Raleigh theycome with like six times a day
or so, yeah, I think it's fivetimes a day on the Piedmont and
(19:56):
then you get a couple more withsome of the longer distance.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
So the longer distance ones are probably less
reliable time wise, but the thePiedmont service, from what I
can tell, is actually fairlyreliable.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
So if you are dedicated to using train service
, there is an existing servicein this region.
It can.
Can it be better?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Absolutely, and there there is also part of the the
go triangle regional system.
There are buses as well that goback and forth, but again, with
the buses you end up with thetraffic issue.
So, you know, in the long termand this is now just us throwing
some ideas out there when wetalked about the BRT that's
happening in St Paul andeventually will be kind of
(20:32):
extended to Minneapolis, andthat system in St Paul actually
should be open now, which ispretty awesome.
I actually don't know for sure,I'm curious to go and look, but
that was a really interestingproposal where you're just like
creating real dedicated BRTalong a highway.
And this is an area where, like, I could see that making a lot
of sense.
But, man, it feels sounnecessary that when you have
(20:56):
tracks already that go betweenthese two cities, the issue is
like, just looking at it fromGoogle Maps, I mean, you've got
single track for a decent bit ofit, so there would definitely
need to be some trackimprovements to make sure that
trains can run on time.
You're not holding up othertraffic on the tracks, but it
feels like it shouldn't cost $3billion plus to connect two
(21:18):
cities that already have a railline between them.
I agree.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And already have rail service.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You're just trying to increase the service.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I think there's definitely places where the rail
can be aligned to make moresense, but there's also highway
right-of-ways in this regionthat can be used to realign the
rail.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Or to put BRT infrastructure in Right.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And if anybody showed us that you can utilize this
highway right-of-way, it'sBrightline.
There's opportunities here toreally connect these cities in a
more meaningful way.
You can get the line muchcloser to the airport.
Doing it this way and, like Isaid, with this sort of being
again a kind of a suburban areabut with a lot of little town
centers, all of the bones arethere for it being such a good
transit region and connectingall of these little towns.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, and I think I lightly mentioned this at the
beginning that, like you know,when they were initially going
forward with the first projectwe talked about the light rail
they put together this transitoriented development kind of
guidebook and whatnot.
You kind of lean more into that.
I mean, I know Durham recentlygot rid of parking minimums when
they were kind of working onthis.
So like there is a push to dothis sort of stuff, yeah, but
(22:17):
they're so close yet so far sortof thing on all of it.
They're so close yet so farsort of thing on all of it.
So, yeah, worth noting too.
We did talk about some commuterservice that was proposed in
Charlotte in a previous episode.
We'll make sure that's linkedfor folks.
But otherwise, if you live inthis area, definitely let us
know what you think.
If we missed anything, let usknow.
We'd love to kind of hear moreabout what is going on in the
(22:41):
area.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So anything else we need to.
Anything else when you're done,call it, end it there.
Cool, um.
If you want to support the show, be sure to like and subscribe
to videos and share those also.
You can support us via ourpatreon, or buy me a coffee, or,
if you would like some transittangents, merch uh, we have our
merch store as well.
I think we're definitely goingto add a shirt about make buses
(23:05):
sexy again, or something likethat.
Maybe sprawly raleigh orsprawly raleigh.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
We'll have to go to raleigh before we do that.
I think if you have ideas, formerchandise, let us know totally
, uh.
With all that being said,though, thank you all so much
for watching and enjoy the restof your transit.
Tangents tuesday.
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