Note: Mayor Meeker is increasingly difficult to understand in meetings, so it sometimes is hard to gather all of the details in City Council meetings

Tonight the Raleigh City Council hosted a workshop and public hearing regarding proposed routes for light rail trains in downtown Raleigh. In early July the Passenger Rail Task Force presented their recommendation for a rail plan, D6a, that would put light rail trains down Morgan Street and up the Salisbury/Wilmington Street pair so as to best serve state government workers. This plan was re-presented in a pre-hearing “workshop” (I use quotes because it was simply a series of presentations with absolutely no interaction with the general public).

However city planners also presented their recommendation, plain ol’ Plan D6, which brings trains down Morgan Street, and up Harrington Street to the point where it joins the existing rail corridor, then crosses over and follows Capital Blvd.

The problems with Plan D6a include the choice to serve government land parcels in lieu of tax-base bolstering parcels that are ripe for private development. D6a also proposes crossing Dawson and McDowell Streets, a state highway pair, which is apparently blasphemy in the eyes of the State Department of Transportation (why can’t the cars just wait an extra cycle every 20 minutes?). Finally, D6a recommends a bridge flying over Peace Street for the southbound track, adding to costs.

The workshop easily blended into the 7:00 public hearing where a 3/4 full council chamber played ostrich given the opportunity to speak. Only 4 people expressed opinions before the mayor quickly and unclearly closed the public session. The Council moved on to closing comments, and voted to recommend Plan D6 by a vote of 6-2. One dissenting councilor was Bonner Gaylord who prefers route D5, however willingly accepted Plan D6. It appeared that Russ Stephenson was the other dissenting voter, however it was unclear why. Presumably his actions regard his consideration of a D6/D6a plan that would run the Northbound train along D6a and the Southbound train along D6. He postulated that this would put train access to prime private land in the Glenwood South area while serving the government buildings; the best of both worlds.

None of the presenters or councilors seemed concerned by the complete lack of coverage of south downtown , however. The assumption is that riders accessing East and South Raleigh will gladly connect to D6a by riding circulator buses, like the R-line, when coming downtown for events. Unfortunately in real life this won’t happen. People in North Raleigh will not take a park & ride downtown to a circulator bus stop in order to get to Memorial Auditorium. They would walk 3 blocks from a station, but they will not take a 3rd mode of transit.

Also absent from discussion was the long walk between Amtrak and light rail platforms for people carrying heavy luggage. The proposed 2-3 block length is too long. This connection needs to be graceful. Most importantly, missing from discussion were ideas about how to best present the plan to main source of funding, suburban citizens.

While I am happy to essentially see the demise of Plan D6a, I still have big concerns about Plan D6. It is a plan that ignores any entertainment and convention venues. However it is a plan that minimizes exposure to traffic, services museums and government offices reasonably, and one that avoids extremely expensive elevated portions of track.

Don’t be fooled, however. The reality of a light rail system is still many, many years away. I have a strong sense that no progress will occur on this project in the next 12 months, in fact, as there are still uncertainties about the engineering and funding of the plan. With an uncertain political climate and a dismal economy extending beyond the horizon, it will likely be a while, a long while, before significant progress is made.

Handout from the Meeting (.PDF)