RALEIGH -- A new report predicts a healthy demand by Triangle workers and students for commuter trains that could run every 40 minutes during the morning and afternoon rush hour.
The study, released today, says that by 2022 the state-owned N.C. Railroad could serve at least 11,000 riders a day (3 million a year) in commuter trains on its 140-mi. line between Greensboro and Goldsboro.
The forecast projects that the heaviest demand for rush-hour rail - and the most likely place to start - is for trains that would make 11 stops from Durham and Research Triangle Park through Raleigh to Clayton and Wilson's Mills. The second-highest demand centers on five stops between Greensboro and Burlington.
No decisions have been made about whether to launch commuter rail service on all or any of the tracks between Greensboro and Goldsboro.
Commuter trains use regular diesel locomotives to carry suburban residents to jobs and universities in urban areas. The study predicts that rush-hour service on the NCRR line would rank 16th in ridership among the nation's 23 commuter rail systems.
John L. Atkins III of Durham, N.C. Railroad's board chairman, said the study shows that rush-hour trains could help the Triangle handle its continuing growth in workers and residents.
"We see great potential in commuter rail service," Atkins said in a prepared statement. "The study projections tell us that communities have the opportunity to increase mobility options for citizens all along the corridor, which contains about 18 colleges and universities. And if people opt for commuter rail, that frees capacity for businesses to use our roads and reduces congestion, which benefits air quality."
N.C. Railroad carries 60 freight trains and eight passenger trains on its 317-mi. track between Morehead City and Charlotte. A 2008 NCRR study said it would cost between $2.3 million and $9.3 million a mile to add commuter train service between Greensboro and Goldsboro.
The new study supports current proposals by Triangle leaders to consider commuter trains as a quick-start phase for the region's long-range plan to boost transit service with more buses and eventually electric-powered light rail trains.
Unlike light-rail - and unlike a similar regional rail plan that was scuttled a few years ago after it lost federal support - commuter trains would not make frequent stops or provide day-and-night service. But the rush-hour trains could be launched at much less expense and several years sooner, because they would use existing tracks.
The new study also comes as Raleigh and regional officials are considering a proposal to replace the city's cramped Amtrak station and merge it with a regional transit hub that also would serve buses, commuter trains and the planned increase in intercity Amtrak trains.
The study found relatively weak demand for commuter trains between Burlington and Durham, including a proposed spur-line from Hillsborough to Chapel Hill - partly because many students, university workers and other commuters in that area have free transit or other good transit options already.
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. A proposed referendum, which could be held in the fall of 2011, would ask voters in the three counties to consider boosting the local sales tax by one-half cent per dollar - or 5 cents on every $10 purchase - to help pay for improved transit service.
N.C. Railroad officials said successful commuter trains would depend on a good local transit service to take commuters from the proposed rail stops to their jobs and schools.
