My ideas on ride sharing are a little farther out. I’m not talking about hitch hiking. I think it could grow out of social networking to facilitate interactions which are ad-hoc but with trust. They are still fermenting, so I know I may not be expressing them well. Whether due to global warming, peak oil, etc., the cost of travel in the future is going to shape our lives in ways we can’t even think of yet. Yes, I think much business travel could be done by teleconference, but I don’t think personal travel will be unaffected. Nothing can ever take the place of being there, but I think we have not yet realized the potential of communication which combines very high speed internet connections with large, HDTV monitors.

I should stress I’m certainly not opposed to passenger rail returning to Roanoke. We just need to think about how fundamental and radical changes could be.

I’m talking passenger service for pleasure as well as business, so you can forget about buses, ride sharing and simply not traveling long distance. Greyhound? Shudder. You’re probably right though about Elliston not seeing a passenger station as incentive although I do think it could be, if done correctly with a shuttle bus going to Roanoke. Better and closer than driving to Clifton Forge which has no Roanoke shuttle service. Looks like Roanoke airport is in trouble and if they start cutting even more flights or worse this’ll become one depressed area. Advance Auto is already starting what I think will be a pull-out in the future. We need more travel options and I think passenger rail service is a good one.

On passenger rail, it would be nice to see a station in downtown Roanoke. I am skeptical, however, about how cost effective passenger rail -either intercity or urban- will ever be in the United States outside of a few very densely populated cities or corridors. Buses, ride sharing, and simply not traveling long distance (using teleconferences with big screen, HDTVs) seem more practical to me.

As far as carrots are concerned, I don’t know what kind of enticement it’s going to take, but so far no one has bothered to ask.

The carrot idea is a good one in concept. However, the area has new schools and preservation of green space might be heard as limiting property rights and, there’s not much development pressure there anyway. A bike trail/greenway would be more popular with Roanoke/Salem and Blacksburg residents than locals, I believe. The hiring preference is a good idea, but I don’t know how practical or legally enforceable it would be. And, of course, workers could just move to the area. Even if there’s a project which would be popular with locals, I doubt it would budge their opinion on the intermodal facility. I’m not really sure why it has generated such opposition since Rowe Furniture’s large facility, which certainly generates truck traffic, was built across 460 from the site with no opposition I recall. About the only thing that I think would soften opposition would be the support of former state Senator Madison Mayre.