This is a short one but a good one. Some great news out of the future Raleigh Union Station last week.
Mayor Nancy McFarlane welcomed Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo to Raleigh today for the announcement that the Union Station Project will receive the full $60 million in funding.
*Full Funding for Raleigh’s Union Station Project Is Announced
The video of the announcement can be seen below or on Youtube.
Capital Area Transit (CAT) is currently working on a new branding scheme which will include updated brochures, information, and even a bus paint job. CAT painted a single bus in order to get a real-world look at the design. If approved, the whole fleet may one day sport this red and white design. What do you think?
Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.
I recommend email readers click through to the website to see the embedded video.
At the Raleigh City Council meeting on September 4, 2012, the council discussed funding for the Union Station project as well as approved some changes at the Moore Square Bus Station that will effect the R-Line.
Union Station
During the meeting, council discussed a future commitment of $3 million towards the Union Station project. Comments were generally positive about the station and it really feels that Raleigh and NCDOT want this project to succeed. With a 6-1 vote, the council approved the additional funds.
The city also approved the allocation of funds towards development of a schematic design for the project.
Bus Traffic at Moore Square Station
We haven’t talked about it on this blog before but there have been grumblings about the bus and pedestrian traffic along Wilmington Street and the effect it has on nearby businesses. To catch readers up, I’ll point you to a few articles from the local news media:
Business owners and residents in the Moore Square area met with the City of Raleigh on Tuesday, trying to come up with ways to address loitering, panhandling and bus congestion in the Moore Square District.
*Downtown Raleigh residents decry loitering, panhandling, ‘riff-raff’
Business owners say the crowds, coupled with bus congestion along the street, create an uninviting atmosphere for customers.
*New merchants chafe at crowds from Moore Square bus terminal
Here’s an alternative viewpoint from Barry Saunders at the N&O.
Here’s my advice to the business owners who are so dismayed that a city’s downtown transit center has people occupying various rungs of the social ladder: go out and meet them and talk to them. You may find that they are just like you, except they don’t have a car.
*Saunders: Respect needed among Moore Square’s old and new
Now that you are caught up, at the city council meeting this week, the recommendations from the Law and Public Safety Committee were unanimously approved. Those include:
While this may or may not solve the bus traffic issue on Wilmington Street, the R-Line may be the victim. R-Line riders could potentially experience added wait time as the bus will always make the trip around Moore Square rather than driving straight up Wilmington Street during the daytime operating hours. However, this may be a temporary solution until the Moore Square Bus Station is significantly upgraded for more bus capacity.
Some people love to get into intense debates over a variety of topics. Apple versus PC. Romney versus Obama. State fairgrounds July 4th versus Downtown Raleigh July 4th. You get the idea.
I’m not so big into these but I absolutely LOVE talking about parking. There’s something about moving all those 2,000 pound metal boxes on wheels in and out of an area that I think gets the problem solving juices cooking. Especially when it’s in downtown and people compare it to the suburbs.
I’d like to go over some of the parking issues downtown faces today and what might help improve them. Most of this comes from what I hear talking to visitors and residents and there is an ongoing theme here.
Parking is a lot like transit. The service has to have some basic respects to all the users. Whatever a visitor is coming downtown for, eating, drinking, recreation, the experience can be hindered or enhanced by the accompanied parking experience. It must respect the things that are valuable to us, some of those being comfort, time, money, and safety.
Perception #1: “Parking in downtown is confusing”
Downtown has on-street parking, parking lots, and parking decks. These spaces can be owned by the city, the county, the state, or a private company all with their own enforcement hours and rates. Some take coins and credit cards but no bills. Some take it all. Others take cash only. Some have tellers that you can work with and some have metal boxes with little slots for you to insert your money. Some charge on special event days and others do not.
You see where I’m going with this? I feel that this inconsistency in parking rules and regulations can hurt some visitors’ experience to downtown as it may be a new story each time they arrive.
It is important to note however that the eight city owned decks are very consistent with each other. Except for the special occasion only Performing Arts deck and the required 24-hour enforcement deck under the Marriott, the other six are exactly the same. However, some may not see it that way as I bet only very few Raleighites are aware of the deck ownership situation.
The experience of “going downtown” can be lessened because of this inconsistency. If there was a way to somehow standardize the parking experience and create some kind of consistency between parking in one area and then being able to assume it’s the same elsewhere, the experience would be enhanced. This could include small changes including all decks accepting credit cards and all types of currency or something more controversial like a city-wide set parking price.
An easier experience in this aspect pays respects to downtown visitors’ time as they will know what to expect beforehand. This lowers the “obstacle” that parking in downtown can be when compared to a shopping center in the suburbs.
Perception #2: “Parking in downtown costs too much”
Oh I love this one. You’ll occasionally meet those that view a parking fee as just another tax. The reality is that the commodity of parking lots in downtown and decks cost money and to use that commodity, Joe Consumer must pay the fee.
Downtown Raleigh has some of the highest property values in the city and to dedicate that space to parking a car for free when demand is high makes little sense. We’ve talked about some examples where the spaces are worth more than the cars that sit in them!
It’s more appropriate to think that a shopping center in the suburbs has zero fees rather than being free. The cost of building and maintaining a parking lot in the suburbs is all calculated down and the owner then puts that cost back into the leases. If the parking lot cost goes up, leases go up, and so do the prices of the goods sold that consumers buy. It’s like a hidden cost that people either forget about or just don’t know exists.
So the theory goes with a downtown where businesses don’t have to pay for parking, the consumers now have a choice. Want to park close to your destination? We have that but it’ll cost you a few dollars. You could choose to ride the bus and pay a little less. Or, if possible, you could ride a bike or walk at no charge. If you believe in this theory, then walking to or riding transit to a shopping center makes little sense because you have to pay the price that the business puts into their products to cover the cost of the parking lot anyway.
Now let’s talk about the parking decks in downtown. The city owns eight parking decks and sets a competitive hourly rate to park in them. With a larger supply like this, the city has leverage to keep rates low among competing decks. We actually have some of the lowest rates in the country according to the 2011 Colliers International Parking Survey. The city also dedicates a large portion, around 75%, toward paying back debt, some of the highest in the country. This is good to hear as we are currently digging ourselves out of a hole because of the down economy.
Based on our city’s size, I say downtown is doing pretty well on the parking cost game. Educating citizens on this may be necessary but the low parking prices in downtown pay respect to our wallets, directly at the teller as well as indirectly through our city taxes.
Perception #3: “There is never enough parking in downtown Raleigh”
I’m a big fan of Wilmington Street. It’s like the little brother to Fayetteville Street. Fayetteville has the view, the large sidewalks, and all the flare but Wilmington Street in downtown is smaller, cozier, and has a different sort of buzz. Those that claim that there are not enough places to park need to get to know Wilmington Street as it is the main parking artery of downtown.
For five blocks, vehicles have access to six parking decks consisting of over 5,000 parking spaces. Add the surface lots and you could push it to 6,000. This is the densest area of parking in the city. The five blocks with parking decks along Wilmington Street have a total area of about 10 acres. Do the math and you get an estimated 500 cars per Wilmington deck acre.
For access into the city core, this is also one of the best places to go to park and walk to your destination. The Fayetteville Street district is the most pedestrian friendly area so getting to a deck quickly and walking is the best option.
Perhaps more people need to realize this and get to know the city’s Parklink program. Keep an eye out for the blue Parklink signs around town and you’ll know you are working with city owned decks or lots. Did you know they have a Guide (pdf) with some great information? I think the included map, shown below, is THE source for parking information in downtown.
The city has had success in tweaking the parking situation over the last few years. Better resources on the web are available as well as increased signage on the streets. Over the next few years, the city’s parking program will work to fine tune the prices of deck parking versus on-street parking. This has been delayed because of the debt that needs to be paid and the down economy but it is in the works.
A TIGER grant of $21 million bucks was awarded to our city for ongoing work towards Union Station. On August 6, the city, NCDOT, and Triangle Transit are having an information session with more information and everyone is invited to the Convention Center to get all their questions answered. The information session is from 5pm-7pm and no formal presentation is planned so show up when you can.
Construction of the new train station is tentatively scheduled to begin in the fall of 2013. The size and location of the current train station cannot accommodate the current passenger demand much less the anticipated growth in passengers that increased train service will bring.
Currently there are four daily round-trip passenger trains that serve the Raleigh Amtrak Station. To meet service demands, two additional daily Raleigh-to-Charlotte round-trip trains are planned for the near future.
Raleigh Union Station Citizens Information Workshop
Ballroom B at the Raleigh Convention Center
August 6 from 5pm-7pm
I’m planning to do a Municipography post for tomorrow cause there is good stuff to talk about in government this week. Yesterday, the Wake County Board of Commissioners had a meeting and the floor was open to those for and against the transit plan for the county. Today, there is a Raleigh City Council meeting and the Capital Boulevard Corridor Study is on the agenda. Hopefully, I can get video of both for tomorrow’s post embedded here along with some overview.
But the transit argument is one I talk about a lot, especially offline, so after hearing how yesterday’s meeting went on the 7th floor of the Wake Courthouse, I wanted to hopefully offer a different view on Transit for County and Raleigh.
I’m not going to mention congestion cause I feel transit doesn’t make a noticeable dent in it. I will not use words like “soaring”, “sky-high”, or “astronomical” if I mention gas prices because I’ve been to other countries and I just can’t complain at all seeing $8-$10 per gallon prices. All I want to talk about is the Raleigh of the future and what I want to see.
So they say that Raleigh and the county are going to grow. Great. The question is how do we want this city of the future to look like?
Continuing in the same pattern as today will result in more destinations with greater distance between them. Eventually Raleigh will be unable to grow her borders but the surrounding towns will swell outwards and continue weaving the fabric of this great metropolitan area. We citizens will move around that area as we’ve been doing for years now and to accommodate this future transportation need, roads and highways will be built. As growth continues, so does the cycle of building roads to meet the demand of transportation, the same transportation methods of today.
If that is your Raleigh of the future, fine. Make a convincing argument for it and I’ll respect you for that.
An alternative view is a Raleigh metro that seeks balance with it’s surrounding environment. I strongly believe that one of the North Carolina Piedmont’s biggest selling points is the vast amount of lush greenery and tree cover. I hear it all the time about how many trees there are here and how leafy it is. This appeals to a lot of people. Take away those trees and lush environment and you have a scene that isn’t Raleigh at all. This is part of our brand, this “city within a park”.
To keep Raleigh just like Raleigh, I want to see the future seek balance with the mountainous trees that took decades to grow so big. When driving out of the area, we should hit the beautiful North Carolina wilderness head on and not go through countless strip malls and neighborhoods like some larger cities have today.
To achieve this in some way, I want the future Raleigh to spend it’s transportation money in the city we’ve already built, not on the fringes where land can be exhausted. I see it as a way to re-innovate ourselves, not continue doing what is comfortable.
While my Raleigh of the future may sound like a treehugger’s fairy tale, there is some more to it. Investing in public transit within the city does amazing things for how we use our land. Public transit is a human scale investment because it moves people around. When people move around, buildings and shops that cater to people start popping up. When compared to a city where cars move around, the city is built with parking lots and plenty of room for those cars to get around.
I see two things happening when public transit is invested within the city. When people, not cars, are moving around, the resulting development ends up occurring near this new investment (transit) and on already existing infrastructure. (electricity, sewers, etc.) Investments on existing infrastructure cost citizens much less when compared to new developments that push our infrastructure further and further out. There’s an example in Asheville, NC about this very topic:
We tend to think that broke cities have two options: raise taxes, or cut services. Minicozzi, though, is trying to point to the basic but long-buried math of our tax system that cities should be exploiting instead: Per-acre, our downtowns have the potential to generate so much more public wealth than low-density subdivisions or massive malls by the highway. And for all that revenue they bring in, downtowns cost considerably less to maintain in public services and infrastructure.
The Simple Math That Can Save Cities From Bankruptcy via The Atlantic Cities
I strongly encourage everyone to read that article.
So to wrap this up, I hope everyone is thinking about what they want this area to be like in the future. There is strong evidence that the growth is coming so it has to be dealt with in some way. What way is up to us and we are deep into the planning stages for this right now.
Voice your opinion, for or against, public transit. It doesn’t matter if you never use it, you are a part of this city and it will impact you in some way.
Voice your opinion, for or against, new road construction. It doesn’t matter if you never use it, you are a part of this city and it will impact you in some way.
First, let’s start off with the city’s press release:
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) have released a report recommending to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) the preferred rail alternative for each of the 26 sections of the Southeast High Speed Rail (SEHSR) corridor between Richmond, Va. and Raleigh, N.C. (R2R).
The report alternatives are based on considerations concerning the human and natural environment, costs, and operability/constructability. Also considered were the public, local government, and agency comments received following the May 2010 publication of the SEHSR Tier II Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the R2R portion of the SEHSR. Eight public hearings were held in July 2010 to provide information on the alternatives and obtain public input, and several alternatives have been redesigned based on comments received from the public.
Once approved by FRA, the preferred alternatives will be presented in the forthcoming Tier II Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), anticipated to be published in early 2013, followed by a Record of Decision from the FRA and a second round of public hearings.
The SEHSR project proposes to implement approximately 162 miles of high speed rail as part of an overall plan to extend high speed passenger rail service from the Northeast Corridor (Boston, Mass. to Washington, D.C.) southward through Virginia to Charlotte, N.C. and Florida.
The Recommendation Report is available for download on the project website www.sehsr.org.
A lengthy process but another milestone achieved in this plan to better connect North Carolina’s cities to Richmond and points north. For more posts about the Southeast High-Speed Rail project and how it relates to downtown Raleigh, dive into the archives tagged SEHSR.
Looking at the draft recommendation report, there are sections that go over the public hearings that took place starting in 2010 as well as an overview of the comments received. I pulled two of the charts from the report and have them below.
Click on the graphics for a larger view.
There are a couple of interesting points in the second figure. The exact numbers aren’t provided so based on the graph we have:
Without deeper surveys, the results can be interpreted in different ways so take it for what it’s worth.
Continuing through, the document then explores each of the twenty-six sections of the route with an overview of alternatives and the final pick of the preferred route for this section. The North Raleigh to Downtown Raleigh piece is the last section mentioned, section V.
The report recommends the NC5 Alternative. We’ve analyzed the NC5 plan back in September 2011 when it was announced. From the document:
The recommended preferred alternative in Section V is Alternative NC5. This decision is based on the fact that it minimizes impacts to neighborhoods, freight operations, and historic resources, and was endorsed by the Raleigh City Council on October 4, 2011. Exhibit 56 shows that NC5 has the least impacts to streams, no residential relocations, fewer business relocations compared to NC3 (but greater than NC1 and NC2), and only one severely impacted noise receptor (compared to 40 for the other alternatives). Additionally, apart from the impact to the historic Raleigh and Gaston Railroad Corridor that is common among all alternatives, Alternative NC5 has no additional impacts to historic resources. Each of the other alternatives (NC1, NC2, and NC3) would have an adverse effect on at least one resource protected under Section 106 of the NHPA, and also require a Section 4(f) use of those properties.
NC5 is also favored by the public. Following the Project Update Meeting, 61 comments were submitted by the public expressing preference for an alternative: three were in favor of NC1 (with no specific reason stated); three were in favor of NC2 (based partially upon cost considerations); three were in favor of NC3 (based upon rail designs, interaction with freight railroads, and downtown connectivity); while 52 expressed a preference for NC5 (based primarily upon minimized impacts to neighborhoods, freight operations, and historic resources).
To see the figures and maps, as well as information on each section, download the report.
Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.
Making their way around Wake County is David King, the General Manager of Triangle Transit, and his entourage to present to all twelve of Wake’s municipalities about the Wake County transit plan. Yesterday at their February 7th city council meeting, Raleigh was given the presentation. It was meant for information only and the county is gathering feedback about the plan from citizens as well as city and town leaders.
One core point of the presentation more people need to be aware of is while light rail, commuter rail, and buses are being talked about, two plans actually exist. The “core transit” plan, as it’s called, is the plan that consists of the bus plan and the commuter rail line. It is estimated that this can be covered with local revenue sources only. The “enhanced transit” plan adds the light rail piece to the mix and King makes it clear that state and federal money would be needed to bring this addition to the area.
The feedback will determine whether county leaders put a 1/2 cent sales tax increase on the ballot one day and if voters approve, all the money generated gets funneled to transit these improvements. Here is the video of the presentation in Raleigh with David King and David Cooke, the Wake County Manager, talking transit, money, and future projections.
Here’s a summary from the city’s press release.
A draft plan that recommends major transportation improvements in Wake County, including new commuter and light-rail services, was presented today to the Raleigh City Council.
Wake County Manager David Cooke and David King, general manager of the Triangle Transit Authority, appeared at the City Council meeting to give an overview of the draft Wake County Transit Plan. In addition to Wake County, contributors to the proposed plan were the 12 municipalities in the county, including the City of Raleigh, and area transit providers and agencies.
Raleigh City Council members did not take action on the draft Wake County Transit Plan but accepted it as information. Similar presentations about the draft transit plan are being made to the governing bodies of the county’s other municipalities. Wake County expects to finalize the plan late this spring.
The draft Wake County Transit Plan takes a two-pronged approach to meeting increasing transit needs as the county continues to grow. Wake County’s population, set at about 901,000 in the 2010 U.S. Census, is projected to top 1 million by 2015 and 1.5 million by 2035. The transit plan’s two-pronged approach is:
Wake County’s share of the of the five-year bus services improvements in the plan would be $138.3 million of the total $344 million needed for both capital and operating costs. The remaining funds would come from state and federal funds. The commuter rail service would cost $650 million, with Wake County’s share at $330 million and Durham County’s at $320 million. The commuter rail system is projected to begin operations in 2019 or 2020.
Twelve (12) stations are proposed for the commuter rail system, including four in Raleigh. The four Capital City stations would be located along railroad tracks at the following locations:
The proposed light-rail service would cost $1.1 billion, with most of the funding coming from state and federal sources. The light-rail system would have 16 stations, including 14 stations in Raleigh. The Raleigh station locations would be:
Local revenue sources to pay for the transportation improvements proposed in the draft Wake County Transit Plan would include:
To view the draft Wake County Transit Plan, visit the county’s website at www.wakegov.com and type “Wake County Transit Plan” in the search engine, or call 856-6160.