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Please explain whats wrong with the bus system now?
The bus stop nearest my house in North Raleigh is a mud pit on the side of Creedmoor Road, as you might see in a third-world country. No sidewalk, no bench, and certainly no shelter from wind and rain.
I don't know why some of the high-tech corporations in the Research Triangle couldn't band together and expend a hundredth or so percent of their earnings to build a few shelters for the transit systems. Other cities have them, and it makes Raleigh look poor by comparison. I know we're not. Whaddya say, CEOs? Or do any of you read this forum?
U.S. transportation chief: $25 million grant for streetcar an 'economic engine' | CharlotteObserver.com & The Charlotte Observer Newspaper (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/20/2623428/us-transportation-chief-25-million.html - broken link)
Notice the city hasn't figured out how to pay for the operating costs. And if you do the math, each job will cost $100,000 to create. No thanks. If you believe in the monorail, er, light rail, pony up your own money for one.
U.S. transportation chief: $25 million grant for streetcar an 'economic engine' | CharlotteObserver.com & The Charlotte Observer Newspaper (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/20/2623428/us-transportation-chief-25-million.html - broken link)
Notice the city hasn't figured out how to pay for the operating costs. And if you do the math, each job will cost $100,000 to create. No thanks. If you believe in the monorail, er, light rail, pony up your own money for one.
Yeah, because who wants something like this in our capital city?
^^^So, this is what Charlotte wishes to do with its "sprawlicious" and dilapidated Beattes Ford Road/Central Avenue corridor? And somehow this is a bad thing? Sorry my friend, but there is a very GOOD reason why Republicans like Pat McCrory and the Federal government support projects like these. The benefits are far greater than you might think. Moreso than jobs, this street car (though I prefer faster rail myself) will fight the cancer that is urban blight. IMO, money well spent.
U.S. transportation chief: $25 million grant for streetcar an 'economic engine' | CharlotteObserver.com & The Charlotte Observer Newspaper (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/20/2623428/us-transportation-chief-25-million.html - broken link)
Notice the city hasn't figured out how to pay for the operating costs. And if you do the math, each job will cost $100,000 to create. No thanks. If you believe in the monorail, er, light rail, pony up your own money for one.
Operating costs for Transit are always half that of roads or other city expenses. They also spur Dense developments that bring in millions for the city....and jobs....
So, this is what Charlotte wishes to do with its "sprawlicious" and dilapidated Beattes Ford Road/Central Avenue corridor? And somehow this is a bad thing? Sorry my friend, but there is a very GOOD reason why Republicans like Pat McCrory and the Federal government support projects like these. The benefits are far greater than you might think. Moreso than jobs, this street car (though I prefer faster rail myself) will fight the cancer that is urban blight. IMO, money well spent.
Charlotte does not compare to Portland. While the buildings in the video are pretty, how many have thriving businesses? If YOU want a rail system then YOU pay for it, don't ask me to do so. A rail system does not "improve blight", just look at Atlanta, DC and Boston for examples. As others have mentioned, Raleigh can't even develop a decent bus system and yet we are supposed to trust them with rail?
A rail system does not "improve blight", just look at Atlanta, DC and Boston for examples.
Wait, are you really using Atlanta, DC, and Boston as examples of what not to do? On what basis? I guess maybe it's partly subjective and a matter of opinion, but to me, Raleigh should be so lucky as to aspire to the level of vitality and vibrancy in its urban core of Atlanta, DC, or Boston. No?
I certainly don't see how one could argue that rail systems have hurt or failed to help any of those cities. In Boston, the rail system is so old that it's thoroughly integrated into the city and it's hard to isolate its influence on the city's "blight" one way or the other. In DC, the Metro sure seems like a success on the whole. The city has undergone a phenomenal urban resurgence in the time since the Metro opened, and while I don't know how much of that is attributable to the trains, they've helped, and they certainly haven't impeded it. The MARTA system in Atlanta is a lot more limited, and so its effects are more limited, but my anecdotal observations there are that it has definitely benefited the city, or at least some parts of it. Again, I think Raleigh would be doing very well if it could achieve a small fraction of the urban success of Atlanta, DC, or Boston, and some kind of improved public transportation would go a long way to making that at least possible.
Charlotte does not compare to Portland. While the buildings in the video are pretty, how many have thriving businesses? If YOU want a rail system then YOU pay for it, don't ask me to do so.
Fair enough. While we're at it, I don't wish for any of my tax dollars to go towards ANY road projects. Better yet, place a toll booth on every road (pay as you go). Also, ethanol (the corn moonshine that has raised the price of our groceries) also helps fund the automotive petro-Nazis as well as their highway construction projects and such. I want THAT money back too in the form of a government check based on my annual grocery sales slips.
^^^This is what can happen when we all decide to tell each other to pay for your own toy. Everything is subsidized. This is a socialistic country. It is what it is...
This has been food for thought. It seems to me that a light rail would have the same problems the bus system has. Due to our Sprawleigh nature, not enough people want to go from Area A to Point B. We want to go from areas A-Z to Points A-Z. So although the light rail would get you where you are going quickly, You'd still have to get in your car, park it at the station, get on the rail, get off at your stop and find some way to get from your stop to your workplace.
Which is why I don't take the bus to work. I have to walk to my stop, transfer twice with as much as a 20 minute wait each transfer, then walk the rest of the way to work. 1.25 hours one way instead of one half hour drive.
Also, as a single working mom, what am I going to do when the school calls me with a sick kid? make her wait 1.5 hours for me to get there? I run an errand on the way to or from work every day. My workplace has some amenities nearby, but not quite enough. I can't get a carpool because no one in my neighborhood goes where I am going at my inconsistent work times.
In a city like DC where the suburbanites go IN to the city in the AM and OUT in the PM, public transit makes more sense. But how many people do you know who live in one point of the triangle and work in another? LOTS! DCs map of commuter patterns looks like spokes radiating out from an axle. Ours looks like it was made by a spider on crack.
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