TTA = Triangle Taken Apart
Excellent post-mortem on the travails of the TTA rail project by “ysf,” who is undoubtedly the author of this excellent website (from which the image at left was taken). He’s Yonah Freemark, a Yale College student from Durham. To summarize his take: No local leadership; no help from either Liddy Dole or Richard Burr; the Bush Administration ain’t transit-friendly, that’s for sure; and finally, no local leadership.
Raleigh, meanwhile, keeps pawing over Plensa Plaza, as if shining a light toward the heavens will somehow be the “iconic” evidence of our visionary wonderfulness. What I think would be iconic of some vision is a transit system that reels in the region’s sprawl, connects our various centers, and anchors a new era of sustainable, metropolitan growth in the Raleigh-to-Durham (and eventually to Chapel Hill) corridor. Or perhaps we should start thinking of it as the High Achievement corridor that goes from NCSU-to-NCCU-to-Duke-to-UNC. (And let’s put our public art in the corridor. Now that would make a statement.)
In other words, how about an iconic public undertaking that says we know what we’re doing as a region, and are out to be THE best place to live in America going forward — not just a scattered bunch of subdivisions & condos that finally choked on their own automobile fumes.
Ain’t happenin’ so far.
August 23rd, 2006 14:15
Bob,
You’re right in your assumption that “ysf” is me… I’m surprised, though, that you made it to Live from the Third Rail.
I have to say, though, I think that since I wrote that blog post, I have lost some of my unabashed pessimism about the future of transit in the triangle and replaced it with the optimism I’ve felt for the last, well, always.
While we certainly have a long time to go before we have rail transit between Raleigh and Durham, the basic realities of our region continue to be true, whether or not we want them to be so. A rail link (or dedicated bus one) to the airport will always be expensive, and the high costs associated with working within an existing rail corridor will pale in comparison with those we would experience were we to consider building in the right-of-way of freeways or through other areas.
Then there’s the fact that no other corridor better connects the basic building blocks of our region - the downtowns, RTP, and the universities. No one can deny that reality.
And our traffic continues to get worse. Soon there will be no region our size with an inferior transit network… and we’ll have no choice but to force ourselves to pay for a better mass transportation option.
So the basic conclusion that has to be made - unless I’m crazy - is that we will have to build in this rail corridor, maybe not now, but eventually. In the meantime, you’ll find me living somewhere a bit more transit friendly.
Cheers.
August 24th, 2006 13:57
Yonah — I’ve been looking at the Charlotte (CATS) plan, which includes a mix of commuter rail, light rail, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and streetcars. But first, they had a PLAN. And then they decided to build the light-rail element first, which they are doing. We in the Triangle don’t have a plan. We only plan to have a plan, once the first element is built — the commuter-rail part. I think it’s a good place to start, and you think so too, but many others say, Yeah, but what’s the PLAN? They believe, with some justice, that you shouldn’t build Phase I without some idea of what Phases 2 & 3 (& 4 & 5) are going to be. You’d have thought that in the 10 years since Phase I was hatched, our local “leaders” would’ve figured out what comes next. You’d have thought wrong, however.
That said, I, like you, remain optimistic. As someone else said recently, there’s no point in NOT hoping for the best.
More on this soon.
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