Sunday, May 25, 2008

Taking Light Rail to the Speedway

So it's a Sunday and I'm watching a Nascar race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. I'm not sure if I'm a part of that demographic but to me its better than Golf as a background while I'm surfing the news on a Sunday afternoon. Mostly because its similar to my former life as a distance runner and I can relate to the strategy.

But the point of my post is that people in the county in which Lowe's is located want to extend light rail to the track (blue line extension map here). It would be an interesting juxtaposition and show a lot of people who probably don't take transit what rail can do. If the track pays for a spur from another route to the mall it would be helpful for pre and post race traffic. That is if there are races and with oil cheap enough to race.

CharlotteSpeedway

The one thing however I find discouraging is that they are saying if it does happen, it wouldn't be till 2020. Give me a break. We need to move much faster than that on all of this stuff. I'm finding that this country moves way too slow. Think about the time between 1950 and 1970 and how much of the interstate system was built. We're going to have to get at it if we're going to keep up with the demand, especially when gas is $10 a gallon.

4 comments:

nb said...

As gas continues to rise in price, the willingness to expand rail should (hopefully) speed things up. As always, great info here..

Anonymous said...

This Carolina boy reckons there will still be NASCAR in 2020. Race cars run on ethanol (aka moonshine), a fact any true child of the South would surely know.

Pantograph Trolleypole said...

Well since I'm from Texas I should have left that up to you Payton. It's a whole nother country.

Jay Heikes said...

2020 actually doesn't sound that bad compared to some other Project timelines for CATS. The 2025 plan won't be finished untill 2035 under the current funding strategy. 2020 is also well ahead of NCDOT's plan for widening or building any new roads in that vicinity. However if gas prices keep it up there won't be much of a need new roads anymore.