GOING LIGHT RAIL IN TASMANIA

[Ocklawaha]

Yep, it's true, Tasmania is having those Light-Rail birth pains...

TASMANIA'S Sustainable Transport Minister Nick McKim is standing by his commitment for light rail to Hobart's northern suburbs despite criticism from the federal independent member for Denison Andrew Wilkie.

Mr Wilkie said the Tasmanian Greens were not being fair dinkum about restoring passenger rail between Hobart and the northern suburbs.

"The Tasmanian Greens are all talk and no action on light rail," Mr Wilkie said.

"The party promises to bring back passenger trains, is in the balance of power and holds the sustainable transport ministry no less.

"But then it apparently goes into Cabinet and signs off on a wish list to Infrastructure Australia that does not include the project."

Mr Wilkie's comments were yesterday slammed by Mr McKim and federal Greens Denison candidate Anna Reynolds.

"Mr Wilkie claims to have delivered hundreds of millions of dollars into Denison but he has failed to deliver a single red cent for a light rail system," Mr McKim said.

"The reason a light rail submission has not yet been made to the Commonwealth is because I am having the business case reviewed, as requested by the Northern Suburbs Light Rail Group."

He said consultation was ongoing and a final report was expected by the end of the year.

SOURCE: http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/10/24/364519_tasmania-news.html

[Ocklawaha]

Aurora Colorado, where I was exploring the Light Rail System a few weeks ago is worried that they need better access to the new Light-Rail Line. If you visualize the Denver system as a giant 'x' the plan is for that bottom right corner to reach out just a bit further then turn due north through Aurora to Denver International Airport. In the process, the Veterans feel they might be left out of the action, and they want in.

Aurora vets worried about reaching new hospital by light rail
POSTED:   10/23/2012 05:37:40 PM MDT
UPDATED:   10/23/2012 07:56:33 PM MDTBy Kurtis Lee
The Denver Post
Patients traveling by light rail to the new VA hospital will have to travel about a half-mile from Interstate 225 and cross busy Potomac Street to reach their doctors, and that's got veteran's advocates worried.

Hospital administrators will meet Wednesday with members of the Aurora Veterans Commission to talk about how to make the journey easier when the hospital opens in three years.

"What they need to do is provide the best possible care for our veterans," said Aurora Veterans Commissioner Bernie Rogoff. "We're going to be treating thousands of patients and they're just going to have these patients dropped off at a congested stop at Colfax. We need to provide optimum access."

The elevated stop will be near the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Potomac, while the main entrance to the VA hospital on the east edge of the Anschutz Medical Campus is off north Wheeling Street and faces to the west â€" the opposite direction of the light rail station.

Rogoff and members of the United Veterans Committee of Colorado raised the concerns with hospital officials in September, noting that this would create difficult access for patients arriving by light rail.

The $800 million state of the art hospital â€" which will feature a spinal trauma unit and nursing home community living center â€" is slated to open in 2015 while the light rail station is scheduled to open in January 2016.

"The purpose of the meeting is to come up with creative solutions to ensure there's no difficulty with veterans getting from the train station to the hospital," said Lee Thompson, chief of voluntary and pastoral care service at the VA hospital. Thompson is the former interim spokesman for the hospital.

Thompson said Wednesday's meeting â€" which is likely to be the first of several â€" will spark "creative solutions" that help mitigate problems.

For its part, the Regional Transportation District will not be involved with how patients are transported from the Colfax station to the hospital's entrance, said Tom Tobiassen, who represents Aurora on the RTD board .

"Here we have the hospital being opened around the same time as the light rail getting done and it seems the hospital didn't worry about the long walk," Tobiassen said. "It makes sense that they're now working together with veterans groups to solve this."

Rogoff said he's going to propose a bridge be built to a east entrance to the hospital.

"A shuttle bus is not an option," Rogoff said. "It's not financially sustainable and not environmentally sound."

Kurtis Lee: 303-954-1655, klee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kurtisalee


SOURCE: Read more: Aurora vets worried about reaching new hospital by light rail - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21838982/aurora-vets-worried-about-reaching-new-hospital-by#ixzz2ABBkGoon

[Ocklawaha]

Norfolk has their highly successful 'TIDE' Light-Rail System, a system that initially was rejected by the conservative voters and government of Virginia Beach, home of the US Navy's master jet base (the one we could have had that Peyton rejected). When the trains started running and the people of Virginia Beach saw Light-Rail magically transform an entire corridor through the heart of Norfolk, suddenly their tune changed to BEGGING FOR LIGHT RAIL. Looks like they are going to get their wish.

Light rail study, bus station approved
Updated: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2012, 8:43 PM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 23 Oct 2012, 8:36 PM EDT

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - Norfolk City Council voted in favor of a bus station facility downtown as well as extending a light rail extension study.

The light rail resolution means Hampton Roads Transit has been approved to initiate studies of light rail extension stations, including destinations in Virginia Beach and Naval Station Norfolk.

The Downtown Plaza site has been approved as a bus transfer site for HRT. The Cedar Grove lot has been used as the temporary bus transfer site since 2008. With the Downtown Plaza approval, the City of Norfolk will begin designing and developing the facility. The budget for design, construction and interim facilities are projected to be between $4 and $5.5 million.

The presentation indicated the planning stage for the project would last through July 2013, with construction starting in October 2013 and ending in December 2014.

SOURCE: http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/light-rail-study-bus-station-approved

TO SEE THE BUS TRANSFER FACILITY PRESENTATION CLICK HERE: http://www.norfolk.gov/city_hall/meetings/2012/10-09-12/presentations/Bus_Transfer.pdf

[Ocklawaha]

CHAPEL HILL AND DURHAM TOO, PASS JACKSONVILLE ON THE MAIN LINE? Yes, the old question of building a 'cheap' BRT system that 'will do the job' or a Light-Rail System that will cure much of the problem is raised and answered in this story. Does ANYONE at JTA, FDOT or CITY HALL read? I wish.

N.C. 54 light-rail plan based on cost, riders, development

BY TAMMY GRUBB, TGRUBB@NEWSOBSERVER.COM
CHAPEL HILL - Regional leaders weighed their options for more than 15 years before choosing N.C. 54 for a proposed light-rail corridor connecting Orange and Durham counties.
It isn’t everyone’s first choice.

U.S. 15-501 from Chapel Hill to Durham seems just as, if not more congested and already has the commercial and residential density necessary to support light rail, plan critics say.

A 2009 survey by the Orange County Comprehensive Transportation Plan steering committee found 20 percent of 491 respondents identified U.S. 15-501 as one of two county roadways that need improvement most. N.C. 86 was the top choice, with U.S. 70 Bypass and N.C. 54 the third and fourth choices, respectively.

In that same survey, 31 respondents said they use secondary roads to avoid U.S. 15-501 altogether.

Both U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 54 could benefit from multiple transportation options, leaders say. In the end they chose the latter based on three factors: cost, ridership and development potential.

Carrboro Alderwoman Lydia Lavelle, chairwoman of the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Transit Advisory Commission, said the U.S. 15-501 corridor has a number of challenges. Besides environmentally sensitive New Hope Creek, there is limited undeveloped land, raising questions about how to integrate rail stations and mixed-use projects, she said.

There’s also the matter of where to build the rail line.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton, another TAC member, said they could have built it in the middle of U.S. 15-501, similar to Interstate 66 in Washington, D.C. However, it would have been more expensive and more complicated for people to board safely, he said.

Environmental concerns also exist in the wetlands along N.C. 54, but there’s a route around them. The corridor also has large undeveloped tracts where homes, offices and businesses could grow around the light-rail stations, leaders said.

The bus comparison

Some light-rail critics have suggested the transit plan should focus on both corridors using bus-rapid transit, which has lower start-ups costs and more flexibility.

Bus-rapid transit is cheaper to build, but personnel and vehicle costs are higher, Triangle Transit senior planner Patrick McDonough said. BRT â€" in which buses travel more often on dedicated routes â€" also attracts sprawl, because centralized mixed-use development doesn’t grow around the stops like it tends to do around train stations. Moving riders to light rail also frees up buses for more neighborhoods, supporters said.

Transit officials said N.C. 54 generates some of Chapel Hill’s highest bus ridership numbers.

The 17.3-mile N.C. 54 route links UNC and UNC Hospitals with Duke University and its medical center â€" both counties’ biggest employers. While a future connection with Carrboro and Carolina North would be ideal, Lavelle said the line to UNC Hospitals is what Orange County can afford now.

Light-rail construction costs roughly $80 million a mile, McDonough said.

Commuting patterns

Commuting patterns showed a light rail line along U.S. 15-501 would not have addressed the county’s biggest transit challenge â€" how to move university and health care workers, McDonough said.

According to available data, 39 percent of Orange County’s 52,836 workers are employed in the county, he said. Another 26 percent work in Durham and 12.8 percent work in Wake County. They only fill 3.5 percent of Research Triangle Park jobs, he said.

“RTP improves the regional identity,” McDonough said. “In actuality, people in Orange County earn much more of their salaries from Durham, Wake and UNC.”

Triangle Transit runs two weekday bus routes between Chapel Hill, southern Durham and Research Triangle Park on the hour and every 30 minutes at peak times. About 11 passengers is normal, and Wake County routes also are underused, he said.

On the other hand, riders between UNC, Duke and Veterans Affairs hospitals are so full that people stand in the aisles, he said.

Congestion is not so easy to solve. Light-rail investments alone leave the N.C. 54 corridor severely congested in 25 years, according to last year’s DCHC-MPO corridor study. The route already serves roughly 45,000 cars a day, and long-range transportation plans show it could grow to 70,000 cars daily by 2035.

Similar studies have not been done for the U.S. 15-501 corridor between Chapel Hill and Durham, McDonough said.

Boosting light rail

Light rail combined with dense, mixed-use projects could have a bigger effect by encouraging more people to walk, bike or use public transportation for short trips, the study stated.

The bus is not as flexible if you want to run a quick errand or grab lunch, McDonough said. People also won’t use the bus if parking is free or plentiful, he said. But living or working within walking or biking distance of light rail gives you more options.

Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said the town has been making land-use decisions based on future light-rail in the N.C. 54 corridor for more than a decade. East 54, Glen Lennox and Meadowmont, are ripe for light-rail hubs, officials say.

The university and UNC Health Care also are expanding through the corridor. UNC owns several hundred acres, including several parcels belonging to UNC Health Care affiliate, Health Systems Properties LLC. The health system also holds leases on 107,500 square feet of land at N.C. 54 and I-40, where it runs clinical and clinical research offices.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Army Corps of Engineers own another several hundred undeveloped acres as preservation lands.

Light-rail critics said they don’t see how the limited amount of rail in Orange County will make a big difference. In any case, where the light rail is planned is mostly irrelevant. The real problem is cost.

“We expect federal money to support that as if that money is coming from Mars. We pay federal taxes, too, and I run into people every day concerned about that,” said Bob Randall, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party. “At some point, there’s going to be no way to get ourselves out of (debt).”

Grubb: 919-932-8746

SOURCE:  http://www.chapelhillnews.com/2012/10/23/73489/nc-54-light-rail-plan-based-on.html