Downtown Raleigh looks the way it does BECAUSE of the tracks that are already there. You don't get to be progressive only when it inconveniences other people. Sometimes it inconveniences you, too.

There are solutions to these very minor issues. (in the scheme of the national importance of viable high speed rail)

Oh enough already. Trains are slow transportation with all the stops so why mess up Raleigh to make a train trip faster?

Hi, Wisperjet..

to borrow an analogy, you "missed the train". The Tier I part of the project
(completed in 2002) selected the route and the stations, and evaluated
ridership based on that. The reports can be seen at
http://www.sehsr.org/reports.html

Matt, I have no statistics to back up the assumption that ridership would go down if Raleigh and Durham were to be combined into 1 stop. In my mind I find it very hard to conceive of the idea that people of Raleigh or Durham would not ride because the train didn't stop at their front door. The 2 cities already share an airport. I said before that I rode a TGV in France and in Paris there are 4 different train stations with each serving different destinations. I had to navigate from 1 station to another using the subway. I know we all could add comments but nothing would change because of politics or because some committee has taken ownership of the ideas that are most dear to them and that is the way the train will be routed. I wish that all the public meetings could really have an impact on the routing or design of any aspect of this whole thing.

You need to look back further on the sehsr.org website. This is the result
of the second round of environmental studies. The first round considered
exactly the line you mention. Briefly, leaving Raleigh off the list just cuts
out too much ridership. Combining two stops into one doesn't save that
much time. Running the line into Raleigh returns quite a bit of capacity to the
N-S rail routes on the east coast that was lost when CSX abandoned part of
the S-line in the mid 80's. This line will get used by some high speed intermodal freights in addition to the 4
Charlotte-Washington trains, plus
the Silver Star will be returned to the S-line routing it used to use.

I recently was told or read somewhere that the road bed for the high speed train would either have a 10' wall beside the track or the track would be laid 10' down in the ground. I did ride a TGV in France and in some cases there was a berm beside the road bed or we were in a swale. What will be done to protect the train and civilians in towns like Henderson? How much will environmental studies cost and implementation cost to use existing right of ways and alter them with these protective barriers? Either way that will cost a lot. Back to my original proposal, 1 station in "Morrisville" serving all the Triangle area would cut out at least 1 stop. There is an unused right of way from Durham to Creedmoor and north towards Oxford and Henderson. The bridge across the Neuse was demolished when Falls Lake was cleared. I know I don't have all the answers and probably never will. I have lots of questions that might make the person/s with the answers think.

The only reason why SEHSR is even possibly affordable is that it re-uses existing RR tracks (or abandoned RR right of way) between Raleigh and Petersburg. To construct an entirely new railroad in the middle of I-85 would cost five times as much... not a chance of that kind of money.

Ok Orulz, I probably didn't make myself well understood. I added the comment to try to get anyone to start thinking differently.
The system I am envisioning is a pod hanging from a cable, a high speed disconnect. When the pods go through the stations they disconnect and move at a much slower speed, less than slow walking speed, giving the passenger time to hang a bicycle on the rack and get in the car/pod. The door closes automatically, then the car moves onto the cable and travels over the ground at about 35 miles per hour. The engineering for the infrastructure is pretty much large poles to hold the moving cable above any grounded objects. The poles could be in the median of existing divided roads or just off the road in the no mans land between the streets and sidewalk. I don't think there would be much of an environmental study needed for this application. I don't know the actual cost but would think these stations and cable systems could be placed all over the triangle cities and in between for less the the BILLION price tag just to get a subway/train system from Durant Rd. to Durham at Duke University.

As for the high speed train from Charlotte to DC I also have an opinion and lots of thoughts for that, starting with adding a new train station between Raleigh and Durham. That would cut out 1 stop. The train could leave the new station from, let's just say Morrisville and proceed as straight as possible to I-85 north of Durham and could run in the median. There is enough room for at least 2 sets of tracks in the median of I-85 all the way to it's terminus at I-95. I would run it to that point. That would be for the Virginia people to decide it's route from there. Placing the train right of way between the north and south bound lanes of an existing interstate would cut down significantly in the need for environmental studies and condemnation of land. Most of the bridges in Virginia already have enough clearance for the train to go under them just as they are. Some would have to be replaced. What do you think?

Wisperjet, actually I am not sure what you're talking about but it seems you reference aerial tramways, people movers, and monorails all in the same breath, and without any proof say that they are "cheaper faster better and have fewer impacts."

Firstly you are not going to solve problems revolving around getting to Richmond or DC with any of the technologies you mention. So it sounds like you are comparing your ideas with light rail (not the point of this article but we'll ignore that for now.)

All of the technologies you talk about are in resort areas like Disney or ski resorts. I have no doubt that you enjoyed riding them while you were on your vacation, but here in the real world things are different.

A recent enclosed aerial tramway built for commuters in Portland cost $57 million to build and covers only 3300 feet, about $90 million per mile. That's more than three times as much as a the likely cost of a light rail line in the Triangle. By cutting some frills it could probably be cheaper, but the frills will be missed and that still leaves the fact that these things are S-L-O-W.

Monorails? The Las Vegas monorail cost about $350 million to build for a 3.9 mile line. Again, about $90 million per mile. And though you don't have to close streets for a monorail, the stations are generally big, cast huge shadows, and are harder to get to (you have to climb escalators or elevators.) People will be just as upset (or more so!) about the visual impact of monorails as anything else.

People Movers are perhaps the most realistic of your suggestions but most are designed for very short distances because they are slow. Vancouver's skytrain is basically a citywide people mover and it is pretty fast, but it was also expensive. They also have no less right-of-way requirements than any other type of train.

I think we are only exploring the ideas that have been around for over 100 years. I think we should explore an idea that is not as expensive as tunneling, not as inconvenient as closing street crossings and not as expensive to build as trains and right of ways. Or is it rights of way? I snow ski a lot. I have ridden in enclosed lifts that are made for 2 or 4 people, hold skis on the outside, have an environment system and an entertainment system in side. The ski racks can be changed for bicycle racks. Forget the snow. Think of people movers such as Epcot Center or Disney World all over Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill/Carrboro and points in between, taking over an hour to ride from Durant Rd to RTP and costing $2 or $3 each way. For much less than the cost of building a subway system from nowhere around Durant Rd, to downtown, to Cary, Morrisville, RTP, to Durham and or Chapel Hill we could install people mover all over all these areas. If the current paths (routes) are used the environmental impact studies would be minimum. We need to start think inside a different box.

Now closing Fairview, however, is stupid. That should be kept open, even if it means rebuilding the bridge over Capital Blvd (which it might) and even if it involves cutting down a few trees, re-grading and re-landscaping a couple of folks' front yards (which it probably would.) As with any grade separation, it's just a question of costs and impacts. In this case they probably said "This NS option is already more expensive, let's cut costs wherever we can." I don't think that's appropriate here. This would probably add $5 million to the project cost. (whereas, for example, a downtown tunnel as DLA demands would probably add $500 million.)

1. You can have quiet zones where trains don't blow their horns at crossings. You have to meet certain criteria for the gates, etc.

2. The issue of closing Jones Street or not goes way beyond just Raleigh. Because if Raleigh gets to keep even a single crossing open, then Henderson, Norlina, Kittrell and every other small, poor town on the line will demand that they get to keep their crossings open, too, ("Why should the rich folks in Raleigh get special consideration?") and with now dozens of crossings kept open, that will be the end of the high speed rail line. Actually by FRA rules, you can have grade crossings on a 110mph line. But the reason the line is being fully grade separated now is in the "build it right the first time" category. This makes it as easy as possible to electrify it and thereby increase the top speed to 150+mph in the future.

3. Arguing for a downtown tunnel just because of the Jones Street crossing is stupid and would break the bank for this project. If people dig in their heels and demand that the tracks are tunneled by Glenwood South, then the High Speed Rail project won't happen. There is not an unlimited pot of money for this. It's that simple.

4. Closing Jones Street to cars is not that big of a deal. As for pedestrians, everybody I've seen says "Ooh, a pedestrian BRIDGE would be 24 feet above the tracks, icky icky" but remember: a pedestrian TUNNEL only has to be 10 feet below the tracks. Raleigh already has plenty of precedent for heavily used pedestrian tunnels under railroads, been to NC State lately?

5. There's a very elegant possible solution to the viaduct that will be built next to Glenwood under the NC3 option, over Peace, Johnson, Tucker, and north; one that is implemented all over the world in urban centers: Build the viaduct to allow retail space underneath. Can you imagine something like this along West Street? http://voony.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/v… That would IMO be even better for Glenwood than a tunnel, plus it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars less.

You've failed to cover another potential closing. If the Norfolk Southern lines are used, the access bridge from Fairview Street onto Capital Blvd. would also be closed, slowing and complicating access to downtown from the Five Points neighborhoods. This would force traffic onto Glenwood, a slower neighborhood street with less capacity than Capital. The DLA recommendation fails to take this into account.

Sorry, in my post above I didn't mean to say that closing a crossing would be hugely expensive. It's the tunneling of tracks that would be hugely expensive (and destructive).

Glenwood South is one of Raleigh's few pedestrian-friendly areas. If accommodating cars at Jones Street is too expensive, focus on preserving the pedestrian access.

I read DLA's statement and it seems to serve the downtown residents well. The problem is that what DLA's asking is unfeasible without an ungodly amount of cash.

Any time a train crosses a road, it is required by federal law to sound its horn (http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/1773.shtm). Thus, you can't have "quiet zones" without closing (or elevating) grade crossings. That can't be done without a protracted, hugely-expensive construction project. Tunneling the tracks would be even more expensive.

Glenwood South wouldn't exist without the warehouses that sprung up as a result of the rail lines. I don't like seeing streets close, either, but I've seen far too many (often drunk) people climb over trains at Jones Street to think that keeping it open for high-speed rail would be a good idea. Tunneling tracks at this crossing would cause the destruction of many nearby buildings. Closing the Jones Street crossing would have the least impact on the area.

Perhaps we should consider putting a pedestrian tunnel under the tracks at Jones instead? After all, it's much cheaper and the need for it exists today.

Man has been putting trains under ground for about 100 years now. If we can't pull this together in the year 2010...

Ironically, there was talk several years ago of relocating the NS freight yard to the vicinity of Clayton... but NIMBYs there put a stop to that.

One advantage to the NS route for SEHSR is that the low-clearance bridges over Peace St and nearby streets would be replaced -- I hope.