On Tuesday, Oct. 26, Mayor Vivian Jones and the Town of Wake Forest hosted the Transit Oriented Development Planning Study Advisory Kick-Off Meeting in the Centennial Plaza at Wake Forest’s Town Hall.
Let us unpack that. The CSX Railroad track through Wake Forest is called the S-Line, running from Norlina to the north down to Hamlet. In the future it could be part of the Southeast High Speed Rail line, but that is unfunded. The S-Line is not connected to any other rail line because the tracks in Virginia were torn up and in some cases the right-of-way was sold.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation is negotiating with CSX to purchase the 95 miles of the S-Line to develop local commuter rail service and intercity passenger rail service. Locally that would provide commuter service between possibly Norlina and Henderson and certainly Franklinton and Wake Forest with Raleigh. The study will evaluate opportunities for potential rail stations in those communities, the transit oriented visioning initiative. Other towns in the study are Sanford, Apex and Raleigh.
Wake Forest may have a leg up in the process since we already have a building that once was a railroad station, although it was sold to the Wake Forest Chamber of Commerce in 1976 as the chamber’s first office and is now owned by Cameron Park Botanicals LTD, or Bob Johnson. It is the small brick building near the South White Street parking lot (site of the freight depot at one time) and may not be at all suitable.
This meeting was a big deal because North Carolina Transportation Secretary Eric Boyette as well as Deputy Secretary for Multi-Modal Transportation Julie White and Jason Ortner from NCDOT’s Rail Division were under the tent in Centennial Plaza, outdoors because of a large group during COVID. There were also representatives from Franklinton, Youngsville, Henderson, Vance County, Franklin County, Wake County, Raleigh, Apex and Sanford, and Jones said there were “probably others.”
“DOT won a grant to conduct this planning procedure in the towns along the S-Line in preparation for possible passenger rail,” Jones said. “The planning staffs of all the towns are very involved in this process. They will be looking at station site possibilities and how the area around the stations might develop.”
The S-Line Transit Oriented Development Study will evaluate market conditions, affordable housing considerations, multi-modal transportation opportunities, and regulatory conditions in the various jurisdictions. It will also identify opportunities to prepare for transit in a manner that is responsive to the community’s needs and local contexts.
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6 Responses
Looks to me like the best place for a station would be where the baseball fields are at the factory. There is plenty of room to build a train station and parking for that.
If it runs from Wake Forest to downtown Raleigh, and can get people to the airport, I think it could be viable.
I agree with Louis about parking. The downtown area does not seem to me to be a viable option for a decent sized station since there would need to be a significant parking area.
Not sure what else would go into that decision. I like the idea of commuter rail much more than I like the idea of a 100 MPH train comping through town.
Sounds like a big money spending boondoggle to me. Taxes will go up for a train with few riders. If there were a market for this, the private setor would be doing it.
I don’t think the private sector would be doing it as you say since most public transit is taxpayer funded “Public Transit”. The name itself implies that it will be paid for by the public. Most of the infrastructure is already mostly in place, and there is a desire to see this sort of option. This is especially true in fast-growing areas such as ours. Now would it be a boondoggle? Possibly. The oversight for such a project would need to be completely transparent with a lot of input from those affected communities. Your thoughts on this remind me of similar thoughts folks had about 540 years ago.
Readers please mentally change the “540” to I-540, which he said is what he intended.
Carol Pelosi
Please read my comment again. I said that if this were economically viable, the public sector would be dong it. Since the public sector is not interested, then I assume that it is not eonomically viable, putting a big burden on the already tapped taxpayers.
I hope that consideration of any station in downtown Wake Forest also includes the provision of parking. Few people will use a commuter line unless there is some way of getting to the station and leaving their transportation there until they return.