Before the hearing, DOT had said the first version of the hybrid idea presented by citizens wouldn't work because the elevations required to lift the tracks over Capital Boulevard in that specific location would be too steep. A different version presented last night by lawyer Ben Kuhn, though, would push the bridge a little to the north, thus allowing a more gradual rise over an area where Capital Boulevard dips down.

Simmons told the Indy that DOT doesn't have the data it would need to assess all of the various locations where a cross-Capital bridge might go, but will work with the city to gather it in the coming weeks.

The Council should tell DOT what it wants, Simmons said at the hearing, and DOT will "faithfully try" to make it happen.

For background on the hybrid plan, see our previous Citizen posts here and here.

Following the session, City Councilor John Odom said the hybrid option "looked pretty good to me." Regardless of whether it survives scrutiny, however, Odom said, the NC3 option that is so unpopular with his constituents in the Five Points neighborhoods should be eliminated from consideration by DOT. Odom said he hopes the Council will join him in calling for the NC3 idea to be dropped when it decides what position(s) to take — if any — at next Tuesday's Council meeting.

Councilor Russ Stephenson, who's taken the lead in getting the hybrid idea in front of DOT, said he was pleased by Simmons' pledge "to give it full consideration." Stephenson said he concluded from what Simmons said that taking the time to study the hybrid option won't jeopardize DOT's ability to compete for federal funding down the line. Simmons did say, though, that in the new "competitive and discretionary" federal funding processes, time is of the essence — being "shovel-ready" is what helped DOT get $500 million for rail improvements between Raleigh and Charlotte, he said.

Councilor Mary-Ann Baldwin said she wanted time to digest what she heard. "We have a lot of neighborhoods with a lot of legitimate concerns," she said. And while the hybrid plan looks attractive now, she pointed out, no one has assessed what its negative impacts would be to the same degree that the negatives of NC3 and the NC1 and NC2 alternatives were revealed by DOT's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS).

Baldwin and Stephenson are the Council's two at-large members, elected citywide. Odom represents District B, where Five Points is located.

Also of note:

* The Council chamber was packed to overflowing by some 300 people. Most, but not all, were from Five Points and opposed NC3. But about 20 were residents of the West at North condominium, and they submitted petitions with 65 signatures opposing the NC1 and NC2 options as proposed, since either would force the closing of West and Harrington streets in Glenwood South.

* Speaking for the city administration, Raleigh transportation planner Eric Lamb said the staff supports NC3 because the positives outweigh the negatives, unlike with NC1 or NC2. Lamb asked the Council to endorse NC3 but with one change from what DOT proposed: Instead of bridging Hargett Street over the railroad tracks, Hargett could be closed if DOT would agree to extend West Street to connect with South Saunders Street.

* Extending West Street to the south, however, would destroy the developing and affordable Rosengarten Park community, said resident Dan Meyer. The conflicts between the HSR project and city streets in the area of West and Hargett streets have not been given much attention thus far, but they're just as real as the ones in the Glenwood South area.

* A continuing theme last night: "No rush to judgment." Stephenson used that term in an interview with us Monday. Last night, Tom Worth, an attorney working with the Five Points neighborhoods, picked up on it, saying decisions about the rail alignment are "a hundred-year play at least" for the city and "there should be no rush to judgment.

* Another theme: The city and DOT have done a poor job of bringing the public into the debate over where the HSR line should go if it should go through Raleigh at all. Carole Meyre, a leader of the Don't Railroad Historic Five Points group, accused Raleigh officialdom of "treating this as a neighborhood pothole issue" instead of a major land-use and transportation decision.

A little history. The state DOT picked a general route for the Southeast High-Speed Rail line from Richmond to Raleigh eight years ago, when nobody was paying any attention and there was no prospect of it being funded in anybody's lifetime. The general route: Right through Raleigh; details to follow (or they don't matter).

So two years ago DOT showed up at City Hall and said the specific routes they had in mind would requiring closing and/or screwing up the streets that connect Raleigh's first successfully revitalized downtown neighborhood — Glenwood South — to the second revitalizing downtown neighborhood, which is the downtown itself.

These were the so-called NC-1 and NC-2 routes, both of which followed — with slight variations — the CSX rail corridor.

No, no, no said the city planning staff, the City Council and Mayor Charles Meeker. PLEEZE consider going through Raleigh another way. They wrote an official letter to that effect.

So DOT went away and studied the city's proposed alternative, now known as the NC-3 route. It follows the Norfolk-Southern rail corridor.

A few weeks ago, DOT was back with NC-1, NC-2 and NC-3, putting Raleigh officialdom in a box. Everybody in Raleigh is "for" high-speed rail. But almost nobody's in favor of the only three options for HSR that DOT has thus far presented.

All of which is prelude to the City Council's hearing on the subject next Tuesday, Aug. 31, 6:30 pm at City Hall.

Remember, the city has already, in effect, said no to NC-1 and NC-2.

Well, last night the vote at the Five Points CAC meeting on NC-3 was 0-81, meaning zero in favor and all 81 of the folks still there three-plus hours after the start of the meeting opposed. (About 150 opponents were there altogether; everybody who left signed anti-NC-3 petitions on the way out, it seems.)

NC-3 may be better than NC-1 or NC-2 in the Glenwood South area, you see, but north of Peace Street NC-1 and NC-2 are rather benign, while NC-3 would do real damage to the neighborhoods in the Five Points area. Or so the residents there believe — and they believe it unanimously.

(Just to be polite, Five Points also voted 65-27 in favor of HSR "being constructed in the Raleigh-Triangle area." But, of course, that assumes DOT can come up with an acceptable route somewhere in the Raleigh-Triangle area. Nobody wants to be against progress, after all.)

From a standing start three weeks ago, when all of Five Points was still blissfully unaware of what DOT and the city had in mind for them, an opposition campaign has arisen and is gaining steam. And, oh, it may be worth mentioning that it's in no way partisan — it's riled-up Democrats and riled-up Republicans joining hands and wondering why the city has forsaken them.

So what will Mayor Meeker and the Council do? They've already said they don't like NC-1 or NC-2.

Will they now:

1) Relent on NC-1/NC-2, while perhaps asking DOT to consider tunneling the project or, if it stays at-grade, to let the cross streets remain open?

2) Endorse NC-3 over the growing chorus of opponents in the Five Points, Roanoke Park and Glenwood-Brooklyn neighborhoods?

3) Telll DOT that none of the three alternatives are acceptable, and that unless a better way through town can be found, either the HSR line should go around Raleigh or the city will be forced to advocate for the "no-build alternative" that, as Planning Director Mitch Silver told the CAC last night, is inherent in any transportation alternatives process.

On the periphery of the meeting, meanwhile, an unofficial "NC-4" idea was floating around in the form of a map showing HSR coming into Raleigh from the north on the CSX tracks but then cutting over to the N-S tracks via a railroad bridge/rail platform that would span Capital Boulevard. Like this:

(Or, to see it in all its glory: FINAL_TheMap_FivePager_Option1SEHSR.pdf)

If you're following along at home, the best way to get such an NC-4 alternative on the table now, it seems, would be to suggest that NC-1 or NC-2 could be acceptable if "mitigated" — that's government-speak
for why didn't we think of this in the first place? — by the addition of a cross-Capital Boulevard RR bridge.

What's interesting to me is that nobody on the city planning staff seems to know whether Raleigh took a position for, against or neutral eight years ago when DOT made the call to punch the HSR project through the center of town. Nine alternatives were studied back in 2001-2, we're told, before the "go through the middle" alignment was picked instead of, for example, using the current Amtrak route that comes to Raleigh via Rocky Mount. I'm trying to find out more about that, not that it matters much now.