RDU shuttle makes sense if it improves services to and from Raleigh proper. While on the bus another person who I assume takes route 100 a lot complained as well. Asked the bus drive if there’s a more direct bus to Raleigh.
I don’t mind a RDU shuttle to a rail station, though.
edit I should add using public transportation is a personal choice but most people on the bus it’s a necessity to survive. I can always buy a car and be okay. Adding 30 minutes to someone’s commute, even if temporary adds another hurdle/uncertainty to someone’s quality of life.
GoTriangle’s Operations Committee agenda for Nov. 5 has exactly the chart you asked for, so I figured I’d double-reply to your post here. They stratify number of bus boardings, % rider changes between FY2018-19 and 19-20, etc. Here’s a screenshot of the last few pages:
It’s hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison between those numbers, though, even if you ignore obvious differences before and after COVID. Several routes have changed schedules and frequencies (including during the pandemic).
i guess the trends have been studied. when i left raleigh in 2010 (at spring forest and falls of ‘the’ neuse a state empleyee purchased my former house. a straight shot to downtown if one stayed in the middle lane and segued onto the last stretch of capital blvd to pay for state govt parking on a monthly basis. DownTown raleigh doesnt have a major hospital proper, a health departmentand some of the county offices i thought moved out to poole road some time ago. rapid from the south (ie garner for county and state employees i guess) and from the north from wake forest to dt raleigh and possibly from cary to nc state area seem to make some sense. i used to commute to rtp via 540 in the early 2000s …generally not to bad then. techno beat on radio would be in time with white lines passing my car. much different now.
i wondered about this as relates to raleigh. the hospitals were at blue ridge and on new bern and north raleigh at old raleigh community hos. state , city and county used to be what seemed most prevalent downtown. nc state a huge employer was outside of downtown and seemed to bring in many from cary area as time went on. when i lived in reno nv there was a downtoen station but also one at the mall (about 4 miles south) i guess as crabtree maybe has done and on in neighboring sparks nv about 4 miles east of downtown reno. it was a casino town but coverege seemed easy for its size.
Is there a chart that shows the number of boarding for GoRaleigh? I’ve been on the lookout for GoRaleigh performance numbers (especially before the pandemic).
On a separate note, I’m a little disappointed to find out how poor our bus system is compared to a similar city such as Memphis. Their route that travels 11 miles out (Route 52) has 30 minute frequency from 4:45 AM until 11:15PM). Their MSA, and CSA are smaller than Raleigh’s.
I live 4 miles out of downtown and don’t get that kind of service. I don’t think anywhere does in Raleigh.
I think it’s important to take the opinions of people who’s personal choice is to use public transportation as well. This will help develop a well used bus system that can combat traffic on the roads.
I used to take the 105 bus from RTC to GoRaleigh station in the morning and then have to take the 100 bus back (because the 105 didn’t run long enough). I normally didn’t see too many people get on the bus at RDU so I’m not sure if that takes a huge amount of consideration. I know I would have liked to save the extra 10 minutes by skipping the airport; It’s why I took the 105 bus in the morning.
I do see the plan with the RDU shuttle. It appears the aim was to have the shuttle arrive at the RTC at the same time the other buses were there to ensure a well timed transfer. It adds time to the RDU to Raleigh trip, but doesn’t do anything different for the RDU to Chapel Hill or Durham route.
Just received an email regarding a “Wake BRT Virtual Open House.” See below.
Wake BRT: Virtual Open House
Are you interested in learning about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)? Curious about the progress of each BRT corridor project? You’re invited to visit our Wake BRT Virtual Open House to learn more! The virtual open house will be live from Nov. 2 - 30.
The Wake BRT Virtual Open House will provide information on each BRT corridor and Raleigh’s Equitable Development Around Transit project. Have questions? We will be hosting a live virtual Q&A. Check out the virtual open house for more info!
You’ll be able to share your comments online. We want to hear from all transit users - bus riders, bicyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike.
Looks like there’s going to be more money available for Wake County transit funding this year so they’re looking for input on what that extra money should be spent on.
New Bern corridor station area detailed planning will be 2021-2022
Parcels immediately fronting (or maybe within 100’ of) final West/South/North alignments will get an overlay in 2021. West alignment seems final right now, hopefully N/S are set by then.
I’ve seen a lot of transit plans come and go in Raleigh over the past three decades, and this is the first time I can remember any actual zoning changes – that would inscribe that transit into the built environment writ large.
Thanks for the share. I took a look and 2021 will definitely be interesting to follow this especially the New Bern corridor as within that 100’ area, you have some very low residential density areas as well as NCODs. I expect pushback from residents directly along that line so the council’s commitment to transit will be tested I think.
I’ll also be interested to see the details of what TOD-R can really allow. The slides say,
Allow more housing choice and more affordable housing types that still meet detached scale
That sounds like duplexes, tris, and quads to me, probably an entirely new (lost?) market for Raleigh, I think.
Yup! The policy recommendation from city staffers that Payton mentioned (summary here) says exactly this.
I think city staffers wrote this in a really clever way since it lets us encourage denser, transit-adjacent housing and nerf NIMBYs’ usual playbook of flooding rezoning hearings! The idea is to expand what counts as “detached houses” using this overlay instead of just upzoning to build denser homes.
They’re not truly changing the actual zones that underlie the overlay areas. For residents that have “complaints” in bad faith, I think this little detail will make it harder for them to whine and complain.
So I procrastinated a bit and hopped onto GoTriangle’s planning meeting today. They mentioned several interesting ideas on how to upgrade regional bus services and expand BRT lines for the next 2-ish decades, such as this:
More about this map, this corridor, and 'premium transit corridors' in general...
Towards the end, the meeting turned into a surprisingly honest discussion between several transit policy nerds. Just like all of us on this website, the GoTriangle commissioners were super psyched about these proposals and wanted them to happen as soon as possible, too.
…at least, until GoTriangle president Chuck Lattuca pointed out how all the blue and purple lines in the above map would cost a total of at least $600 million, and that “we’d be lucky if we get those done” by 2045.
Was also on this call. I appreciated the enthusiasm and ambition I was seeing from board members today. I’d love to see them start digging into the chair’s question about NCDOT funding. With the possibility of funding shifts on the federal level amidst the leadership change, I think now is a really good time to be asking that question… even if little has changed on the state level. Time will tell…
I sort of call BS that commuter rail and BRT in exactly the same corridor will not compete.
BRT for all-day frequent service / CRT for infrequent, peak-focused service sounds stupid. I get that buses will be needed to fill in the gaps between CRT stations (which are all at least 1 mile apart) but having one mode for one time of day, and another mode for another time of day, but in exactly the same corridor, and running end-to-end - it just sounds hideous and rider-hostile.
We should either:
Make commuter rail run frequently all day, and reduce the scope of the BRT to be essentially local bus routes that connect from the CRT stations to neighborhoods between and around them
Drop the CRT and put those $billions into making a really kick ass regional BRT system
I totally agree! I still think GoTriangle can make better use (and extract more value out) of their properties -and it could probably help in those fronts, too.
I can see Owen’s point about doubling down on just one of the 2 modalities if either of them was viable as a regional connector on their own. But because the Triangle is decentralized, sprawling, and getting denser (and all 3 trends are getting stronger!), I think regional and local traffic will all have their own markets.
If you force all transit users on this corridor into one transit mode, you’ll eventually be forced to make trade-offs between the spacing of stations and service speed. And even if you had all-day regional rail or express service BRTs, I think your possibilities will be limited since NCRR and local street traffic put operational bounds on CRT and BRT respectively. It might be a bit of a culture shock, sure, but I think people will figure out and get used to how to make the most out of 2 separate transit modes in the same basic route.
As for examples of overlapped BRT and CRT, I don’t think it’s as tightly overlapped, but I thought of these off the top of my head; hope it’s close enough for the sake of this conversation:
