Rails seen as relief for North Carolina congested roads

Steady growth across the Triangle near Raleigh, N.C., will make traffic worse over the next decade, and thousands of students and workers will be eager to park the car and catch a train, the News & Observer reports. That's the forecast in a new report on demand for commuter trains that would run every 40 minutes during the morning and afternoon rush hours. Now the area will have to see whether taxpayers, elected leaders and commuters buy into the idea.

The state-owned N.C.
Railroad commissioned the ridership study for a possible 140-mile line from
Greensboro to Goldsboro. The study found healthy interest in service between
Greensboro and Burlington, but the biggest numbers were concentrated in the
Triangle.

A 50-mile stretch, with
11 stops from Durham through Raleigh to the Wilson’s Mills area in northern
Johnston County, would serve a projected 8,238 riders each workday by 2022, or
2.1 million a year.

"It tells us the
ridership is there and will continue to grow," Christie S. Cameron, vice
chairman of the N.C. Railroad board, told a few hundred participants at a
two-day rail and business conference in Raleigh. "We can predict what
investments need to be made."

The findings support
plans by Triangle business and government leaders to consider commuter trains
as a quick-start phase in a long-range effort to boost transit service. Plans
also include more bus routes and, eventually, electric-powered light rail.

Several things would have
to go right for the Triangle to join about two dozen metropolitan areas across
the country that have rush-hour rail service. Students and workers would have
to accept the new way of getting around – and they would have to be assured of
convenient bus connections to get them from rail stops to their destinations.

And taxpayers would have
to agree to help pay for it as part of the proposed half-cent sales tax for
regional transit improvements. The proposed sales tax could go to voters in the
fall of next year.

If the forecast is
accurate, the Triangle would have a busier rail line than the commuter trains
that now serve such cities as San Diego and San Jose.

"Look at other
high-growth areas around the country," said Scott Saylor, the N.C.
Railroad president. "There aren’t many that don’t have commuter
rail."

Commuter trains use
regular diesel locomotives to carry suburban residents to jobs and universities
in urban areas, serving stops a few miles apart. Unlike light rail, and unlike
a regional rail plan that was scuttled a few years ago after it lost federal
support, commuter trains make less frequent stops and do not provide
day-and-night service.

But rush-hour trains
could be introduced at less expense and several years sooner because they would
use existing tracks. A 2008 study pegged the capital cost at $2 million to $9
million a mile. The railroad would have to add double tracks between Cary and
Durham to handle the added traffic.

"It doesn’t make
sense to run commuter rail all the way from Goldsboro to Greensboro," said
Masroor Hasan of Steer Davies Gleave, the transportation-consulting firm that
conducted the study. "If you want to start with one section, I think that
section should be Durham to Wilson’s Mills."

The ridership forecasts
were based on projected population and job growth, traffic congestion levels and
plans for improved bus service in the Triangle. The study found relatively weak
demand for commuter trains between Burlington and Durham, including a proposed
spur line from Hillsborough to Chapel Hill. Students, university workers and
other commuters in that area already have free transit or other good options.

Leaders in Wake, Durham
and Orange counties are working out details of a transit plan to be submitted
to county commissioners in the coming year.

"There have to be
cost-benefit decisions made," Saylor said. "No one suggested that
we’re going to run out and do it tomorrow. But if we don’t to something, we’re
all going to be stuck in traffic in 10 or 15 years. We know that."