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Site SearchRaleigh, N.C. — The North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRR) has announced plans to conduct a commuter rail ridership and market study on the NCRR rail corridor through the Triangle and Triad.
The study, announced at the company’s "Progress in Motion: 2030" forum on Thursday, will focus on the rail corridor from Goldsboro to Greensboro. It is a follow-up to a study done last year, which determined rush-hour commuter trains can operate on NCRR tracks along with freight trains in that stretch.
The market study will examine where potential riders live and work and whether enough demand exists to make the project feasible.
The study is expected to take between six and nine months to complete.
NCRR owns a 317-mile right-of-way from Morehead City to Charlotte.
The railroad is a private company but has been wholly state-owned since 1998.
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March 24, 2009 4:48 p.m.
The taxpayers underwrite all forms of transit, including the highways. Last year just at the Federal level, $8 Billion of our Income Tax dollars went into the Highway Trust Fund to keep it from going bankrupt. It's estimated that the HTF will need at least $9 Billion this year.
With regard to the population density you don't need to be DC. Salt Lake City has a commuter rail line that serves two counties whose combined population is just about 500,000 people. That line was so successful in its first 6 months, that they've already broken ground on an extension.
March 23, 2009 6:51 p.m.
You are right, but taxpayers underwrite most of the bus systems too.
March 20, 2009 2:58 p.m.
If the communters were to pay the full-cost of operating the train, it wouldn't be cheap! Taxpayers' $$$ underwrite the cost of the system. And we have nowhere near the dense infill of the D.C. area.
March 20, 2009 2:48 p.m.
- the TTA study looked at rail from North Raleigh through downtown Raleigh to RTP and Durham. It didn't happen because assumptions made about non-NCRR segments of the route were changed during the designing/planning phase.
The "finish line" to get federal financing was changed mid-race to divert funds to the war in Iraq, and Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr said "too bad, so sad." Dole's flip-flop leadership killed the project.
The system would run all day (not just during rush hours) and run more frequently.
- The NCRR study is conducted for commuter trains (a few a day) on tracks they own. The Morehead City to Charlotte line runs locally from Clayton to downtown Raleigh to Durham to Burlington to Greensboro.
It is obvious that some people don't like studying anything, because that is actual work they'd rather not do.
March 20, 2009 12:56 p.m.