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I got a chance to catch up with Eric Lamb, Manager, Transportation Services Division, City of Raleigh Public Works Department or as I like to call him, guru of all things transit-related. If he doesn’t know the answer to something, he’ll be sure to find out. Eric is probably one of the most outgoing and knowledgeable city staffers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. When I asked him to do a five questions interview for the blog, he was on it. I was curious about a few things from all the chatter about rail in Raleigh to Neighborhood Traffic Management (does this mean speed bumps on your neighborhood streets?). Let’s see what Eric has to say:

1) There is a lot of talk about rail. Is the City of Raleigh ready for rail? What are the current financing options being discussed?

First, some full disclosure: I love trains.  When I travel to other cities, I spend part of my free time exploring their transit systems (and my generous family puts up with me).  I recently had the pleasure of exploring the London Underground system, which was both spectacular and overwhelming.  The answer for our region really depends upon which kind of rail you’re referring to!  As I noted above, the planning for high-speed rail is moving forward.  This is one of the most exciting new developments for our area in many years, as Raleigh used to be a major rail hub for the east coast (as memorialized in the James Brown classic, “Night Train.”)  Successful implementation of SEHSR (Southeast High Speed Rail) from Washington, DC to Atlanta, GA through Raleigh will create a major, positive impact for our region.  Yes, we are ready for high-speed rail service, and we are excited for the opportunity to plan for a multimodal transit facility, our Grand Central Station, to support this service.

Commuter rail is the next tier – think of Amtrak-style service along existing rail lines.  The NC Railroad has been examining options for providing the region with some level of commuter rail, which I believe is promising.  The corridor I think that is the most viable is from Johnston County (Selma, Clayton) to downtown Raleigh.  I know that’s not what comes to mind about when most people think about rail service for “the Triangle.” But for rail to be a viable alternative, it has to be an effective alternative to a traditional single-occupancy car trip.  I-40 from Johnston County is fairly congested, and the existing rail corridors parallel the highway corridors fairly closely.  There’s also an advantage with a town like Clayton that has a defined town center adjacent to existing rails.  There are similar advantages to the north as we consider rail corridor options to Wake Forest and Franklin County parallel to the congested US 1/Capital Boulevard corridor, as well as to the east for future service to Knightdale, Wendell, Zebulon, and perhaps even Wilson at some point.  A peak-hour service from these kinds of outlying areas into downtown Raleigh is likely a much stronger short-term candidate for rail than something feeding into the Research Triangle Park, as RTP has no centralized development pattern to receive this kind of service.   So the short answer is yes, I think we are ready for commuter rail.

Triangle Transit has struggled with the implementation of a regional rail concept for many reasons.  One of the biggest issues is that there is not currently sufficient development around the potential station locations to support the use of either a self-propelled diesel-based system or an electrified light rail system.  Personally I think light rail is the best choice: electrified rail has no air quality emissions, it has the most design flexibility with regards to track alignment and station orientation, and it can shift from dedicated corridors to shared corridor operation as a modified streetcar system.  This last option is of great interest to Raleigh, as we believe the original Triangle Transit plan was too restrictive being married exclusively to existing rail corridors.  A light rail streetcar model has been successfully used in places like Portland and Minneapolis, and we think it’s a good idea.

Another big issue is funding, which is why you’re starting to hear about the discussion of the need for a half-cent sales tax to help pay for it.  But major decisions have yet to be made, such as what type of technology will be used, which segments will be priority corridors, and exactly where the stations will be located.  I think that the station location component is extremely critical in this evaluation so that the individual jurisdictions can program the necessary land use tools and development patterns needed to support rail.  It’s important to keep in mind that a half-cent sales tax isn’t just for rail, but for all transit, which includes buses.  Charlotte’s success of their Lynx system wasn’t based solely on the rail line itself, but in allowing higher density development to occur around station locations and then providing a high level of bus service in advance of the rail.  I think that in order to justify an additional level of taxation to the public, we collectively will need a clear plan with options for phasing and long term extensions of the complete transit system.  In my opinion, we’re not quite there yet.

2) Is Avent Ferry Road eligible for resurfacing? If so, when?

Both City and State resurfacing programs have taken a monstrous hit due to the economic downturn.  The results of this hit are evident in the increase in potholes and bad pavement throughout our region.  This will be a major point of discussion as we move forward with the consideration of our next CIP (Capital Improvement Plan).

With respect to Avent Ferry Road specifically, it is technically a state-maintained road from Western Boulevard to Tryon Road, which is the responsibility of NCDOT to maintain.  I checked with Reid Elmore, who is the NCDOT District Engineer for Wake County.  He indicated that Avent Ferry Road is slated for resurfacing in Summer 2010 from Athens Drive to Western Boulevard.

We have also been contacted by NCDOT’s Project Development & Environmental Analysis Branch regarding a potential replacement of the bridge over Lake Johnson.  They are currently in the “due diligence” phase and do not have a production schedule at this point.  In both cases, we will coordinate with NCDOT regarding lane markings and bicycle and pedestrian elemennts.

3) What were some Transportation Services Division projects completed in 2009?

Our biggest accomplishments last year were the completion of the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan and the adoption of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan.  These two documents are incredibly fundamental to what we do, and I can’t underscore their importance enough.  We spent a lot of time behind the scenes and with the public developing both of these plans, and it’s a huge relief to have them behind us.  We also successfully implemented a new Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, which was adopted by the City Council and updated our strategy and methodology for approaching traffic calming on residential streets.  Lastly, we successfully moved part of our division staff to new offices at One Exchange Plaza! (OEP)  In order to support the City’s Development Services initiative, we split our division and moved half of our staff to new offices on the 7th floor.  The 3rd floor of OEP is now a multi-departmental development review center, where five of our employees will be located.

4) What are the top initiatives for the City of Raleigh’s Transportation Services Division for the next 6 months?

We have a lot of ongoing activities on our plate this year.  Here’s a quick overview, in no particular order:

• UDO – The City is embarking on creating a new Unified Development Ordinance as a replacement for our current development code.  The new approach will integrate zoning, subdivision, and site plan requirements, but it also includes many transportation-related elements, like street sections, sidewalk requirements, building envelopes, street lighting standards, and provisions for street trees.  From our perspective, this unified code is intended to link transportation needs to urban form and land use requirements.  We will be working directly with the Department of City Planning as they craft the new code.
• Corridor Planning – As we completed the development of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan last year, one statistic jumped out at us unexpectedly: Raleigh has over 40 planned future thoroughfares across the City.  All of these new streets and highways will require some degree of environmental study and coordination with state and federal agencies.  Refining the alignments for these future corridors is important to allowing future growth in these areas, but this has only been completed for a handful of these projects.  Our goal this year is to assess each future corridor and determine which ones should be our highest priorities, and then we will begin to coordinate the analysis with state and federal agencies.
• Crabtree Valley Transportation Study – our staff has been managing a study to update the transportation plans for the Crabtree Valley area as a follow-up directive of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan.  We do not feel that the current transportation plan for this area is feasible, either from a construction and financial standpoint.  Our goal is to develop new scalable solutions – how can we tackle small projects incrementally in this area that have high benefits?  The other aspect of this study is determining the measures that are necessary to improve the multimodal elements of the Valley.  Crossing Glenwood Avenue on foot is challenging, and the I-440 interchange is an openly hostile environment for bicycles and pedestrians.  What steps can we take to overcome those challenges?
• Hillsborough/Western/Jones Franklin Study – another focus area identified in the 2030 Comprehensive Plan was around the convergence of Hillsborough Street, Western Boulevard, and Jones Franklin Road, affectionately referred to some as “Dysfunction Junction” or the “Spaghetti Bowl.”  NCDOT has been planning to replace the flyover bridge at the intersection of Hillsborough and Western, and we have taken the opportunity to investigate the ultimate future land use and transportation plan for the area in this context.  The flyover is a vestigial remnant of an old 1960’s-era plan that involved other similar highway-style solutions that were never built.  The need never materialized, as the construction of freeways like I-40, I-440, and the Wade Avenue Extension redirected the regional traffic.  We are conducting a study to determine if a different roadway pattern should planned for this area, if the NCDOT’s bridge project should be rescoped for an at-grade intersection, and how these options might affect future land use opportunities in this area.  We are currently scheduled to hold a public meeting on the subject on Wednesday, April 28th at the Powell Drive Community Center.
• Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) – The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) will be transitioning their thoroughfare plan to a Wake County CTP.  Where the old thoroughfare plan format simply provided road and highway classifications, the new CTP process expands the typology and identifies specific roadway segments for improvement.  We will be working with CAMPO to identify all of these future projects and to ensure that the City’s Comprehensive Plan is reflected accurately in the new CTP.
• LED Streetlights – We have been working with Progress Energy to investigate potentially transitioning our streetlights to LED-based technology.  After examining pilot installations on several streets downtown, we are now developing a pilot program to install LED-based streetlights on several residential streets.
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  Image provided by Eric Lamb

  Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) Work Plan – The City Council appointed a new standing commission dedicated to improving conditions for cycling and walking in Raleigh.  We have been working with the BPAC to develop their inaugural work plan, which includes several focus areas: strengthening education, awareness and safety outreach; developing both private and public partnerships; coordinating bicycle and pedestrian special events; and improving enforcement of laws and regulations.

• Pedestrian Plan – Last year we completed our Citywide Bicycle Plan, and this year we hope to tackle a similar Citywide Pedestrian Plan.  We have applied to NCDOT for a matching grant so that we may hire a consultant with pedestrian planning experience to work with us on crafting a plan.  The Raleigh-Cary metropolitan statistical area (MSA) was recently identified as one of the worst places for pedestrians in the US based on accident rates and walk-to-work factors.  While our MSA includes all of Wake, Johnston, and Franklin Counties, about 40% of the pedestrian accidents identified in the study occurred in Raleigh.  It’s our hope that we are successful in our application for the grant to NCDOT and that we can move forward with improving our pedestrian infrastructure and making it safe and universally accessible for all users.
• Grants for Bicycle & Pedestrian Projects – we have been developing grant applications from state and federal agencies to procure funds to help pay for new bicycle and pedestrian facilities.
• Update of sidewalk priorities – we recently completed an evaluation of missing links for City-initiated sidewalk projects.  We identified over 60 projects at a cost of over $8 million on a variety of streets.  This program is specific to improved streets with curb and gutter and available right-of-way.  In conjunction with an upcoming Citywide pedestrian plan, we will also be identifying sidewalk needs on all unimproved or under-improved streets.
• Implementation of Bicycle Projects – With the adoption of the bicycle plan last year, the City Council adopted a “blueprint” for improving the environment for cycling in Raleigh.  The first big component of this was specific facility recommendations – a street-by-street guide for preferred accommodations (bike lanes, wide outside lanes, shared-use markings).  We have embarked on the first phase of implementation of the facility component, coordinating with NCDOT and our own Street Maintenance Division to incorporate the recommended bicycle treatments.  The second part is destination-oriented: once you have somewhere to go, where do you park when you get there?  We are applying for a grant from NCDOT to help us pay for bicycle parking facilities.  Our first rollout will be specifically oriented to using “inverted-U” racks around downtown.  Further efforts will expand the scope of installation, and will also evaluate options for more secure bike parking, such as bike lockers or larger parking facilities.  Lastly, we are about to embark on a pilot bike share program for downtown.  This program will offer paystations for bicycle rental at four locations, where people will be able to rent bikes either online or from a kiosk with a credit card.  If this pilot is successful, we will look at options for expanding this service outside of the Center City.
• Safe Routes to Schools – we have been working with local public health advocates to consider a county-wide assessment of every public school to determine the walkability and bikeability of each campus to the surrounding neighborhoods. The need to conduct this assessment and prioritize specific improvements is especially important given the recent discussion of neighborhood-oriented schools and the recent school zone pedestrian fatalities in northeast Raleigh.
• Neighborhood Traffic Management Program – we have just completed a comprehensive update of our candidate projects for traffic calming based on the updated NTMP that the City Council adopted last year.  We will be presenting the City Council with an updated project priority list for major and minor traffic calming projects later this Spring.  Once the City Council adopts the new priority list, then we will be moving forward with securing an engineering consultant to conduct the public involvement and preliminary design of three major traffic calming projects, and we will initiate ten minor projects with in-house resources.
• Encroachment Program – Our division recently inherited the City’s Encroachment Program from another department.  This program regulates the placement of landscaping, private utilities, and permanent structures in City-maintained public rights-of-way.  We have spent the past three months updating the documentation of the program and verifying the components of a complete encroachment (e.g., legal requirements, indemnification, agreements, archiving needs).  We are in the process of hiring dedicated staff to run this program full-time and to update the elements of the program.
• Updated City Website – We have recently finished migrating our existing web content from the City’s current website to a new web portal.  This new portal configuration will be a significant improvement over our current online presence.  Our next step is to develop new content to take full advantage of the improved functionality. Our goal is to make as much information available on the website as possible, but for citizens and other agencies.  We also see the potential advantage of using the website as an archiving tool for both past and future street projects.
• Capital Improvement Program (CIP) – We recently completed the draft CIP for the City Manager’s review.  This will be further refined and then provided for public comment in May 2010.  The biggest question for this year’s CIP isn’t so much about which projects we include, but how we improve our funding and revenue options to be able to address all of our identified multimodal transportation needs.
• Southeast High Speed Rail (SEHSR) Coordination – The NCDOT Rail Division has completed the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for its SEHSR proposal from Raleigh to Richmond.  This project will present significant opportunities and challenges for the City, both with respect to re-establishing Raleigh as a major railway hub for the East Coast, but also in coordinating the infrastructure needed to support it.  The draft EIS includes proposals for new bridges at existing at-grade railway crossings, possible replacement of existing rail trestles, and possible street closures.  We will be receiving the EIS and all of its associated data soon, so our job will be to read it, digest it, and determine the extent of the proposed changes.  Once we have a handle on the pros & cons of the project, we will develop a series of recommendations on the EIS for the City Council’s consideration.
• Road Diet Study – One of the action items that came out of the Bicycle Plan was to evaluate certain streets for possible changes in their cross-section to accommodate bicycles.  This type of approach is referred to as a “road diet,” such as the City did several years ago along Peace Street.  We will examine the streets recommended in the Bicycle Plan to see if the streets have sufficient capacity to accept lane reductions without causing significant congestion or safety issues.

So as you can see, our plate runneth over…  Accordingly we have been making adjustments to our division’s staffing to be able handle this volume of work.  We have also just hired the City’s first full-time bicycle & pedestrian coordinator to tackle many of our multimodal needs.

5) What is neighborhood traffic management?

Fundamentally, it’s all about getting traffic to behave in neighborhoods.  Its goal is to manage how people travel on public residential streets, and to make the transportation environment safe for people who live there.  Managing traffic volumes and speeds on residential streets can be a real challenge.  I’ve been passed by speeding drivers in my own neighborhood more than once and it’s incredibly frustrating as both a resident and a practitioner.

The City’s Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP) encompasses three elements: speed limits, multiway stop controlled intersections, and traffic calming.  We utilize a combination of policies, physical measures, and public outreach to influence drivers’ behaviors on public residential streets. When our staff receives a speeding concern from a resident on a street, our first step is to figure out the extent of the problem.  There are occasions where the perception of speeding traffic doesn’t always match the reality, or where a very small population of “bad apples” is not representative of the larger majority of drivers.  Often there are no speed limit signs on residential streets, as all local streets fall under the statewide 35 MPH policy.  We can offer residents the option to lower the posted speed limit to 25 MPH on their street by a petition process.  We also work directly with Raleigh Police as they rotate enforcement around each of their districts.

Many folks ask about using multiway stop controls (i.e., four-way stops or three-way stops) as a means of addressing speeding traffic, but that’s really not what it’s intended for.  Multiway stops are used to address situations like limited sight distance, a specific crash pattern, or a location with high pedestrian crossing volumes.  It’s a poor choice for speed reduction, as drivers often speed up quickly once they’ve passed the stop sign in order to make up for lost time.

That’s where traffic calming comes in.  With a traffic calming project, we are installing physical measures in the street to alter the path of a vehicle, thereby making drivers alter their behavior and forcing them to slow down.  For the projects we’ve rolled out to date, we modified the curbs and installed medians to prevent drivers from travelling in a straight line.  These measures resulted on average in a reduction of drivers’ speeds by three to eight miles per hour on each street.  We consider these kinds of traffic calming projects to be major initiatives (I have referred to them as “Extreme Makeover: Street Edition”) as we are altering the character of the street from its original construction.

With the update of the NTMP last year, we developed separate tracks for projects.  Previously all candidate projects were ranked by a technical score regardless of how much work was required.  We have now created three categories of traffic calming: major projects, minor projects, and spot safety projects.  All of our previous projects qualified as major projects, and we believe we can reasonably manage three new major projects per year.  Minor projects are intended on streets with narrower cross-sections that don’t lend well to curbline modifications or additional medians.  For these narrower streets, speed humps are the most effective type of countermeasure for reducing speeds.  With the new minor project category, our goal is to roll out at least ten new minor projects per year.  With both major and minor projects, we will continue to require petitions of support from at least 75% of the residents along a street.  Spot safety projects are a new category that allows us to propose countermeasures to address a specific safety issue at a residential intersection.  We have just finished updating all of the evaluations on each of the 200+ streets considered for the program, and we will be taking an updated priority list to the City Council shortly for their consideration.

Tags: avent ferry, bike plan, BPAC, cars, cip, crabtree valley, CTP, curbside, downtown, Eric Lamb, hillsborough_street, LED, ncdot, pedestrians, people, rail, raleigh, road_diet, sehsr, sidewalks, speeding, speed_bumps, traffic_calming, trains, transportation_plan, udo

This entry was posted on Monday, April 12th, 2010 at 9:34 am and is filed under DDNA, Raleigh Planning, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.