Can you imagine the shadows all the sky traffic would cause?!?!
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im only a former raleigh native…40 years there, transit rider, cab rider, car driver and bicyclist and only read of growth projections. near campus, western blvd and hillsoborough to me, from what i read, seem the most agreeable for BRT style transit in raleigh. the dwellings near and along the big streets that serve nc state and possibly into downtown for leisure and state govt interaction i guess make some sense. beyond wake med on new bern i dont see the need for that kind of multi-millions for dedicated brt. better covered bus stops, sure, if this is true. but it looks to me that there are to many large grassy lawns just off new bern beyond tarboro st. i dont claim absolute knowledge on this though.
The existing New Bern bus lines have the highest bus ridership per mile of any line in our current system. So, I see BRT there as doubling down on what already works. Should be the line with the best probability of being a success right out of the gate.
I have lived near this line, at the North Edge of Longview, for the last 5 years.
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I naively signed up to speak at the Tuesday CC Public Comment section. Something I haven’t done in 2+ years. My 3 minute comments were reduced to 2 minutes. As I stated I supported the BRTs to get folks out of their cars, to make Raleigh & our Earth more “livable”, there was audible hissing. I’m just a citizen trying to promote cutting future emissions from our gas guzzlers, for the citizens much younger than me. I didn’t stay for what came later, now I know why MAB had a big smile, when I finished.
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stop it… surely you’re exaggerating… please tell me you’re exaggerating
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Read the room - I don’t think he’s exaggerating. 
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(yeah that was extreme sarcasm on my end hahaha)
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ok…i thought maybe a capital blvd bus would have had that crown. what has been the trend on that new bern/wake med route over last 5 years or so? significant upward growth? modest? i didnt know if there was an accesible study from the city that might have a comparison between just better better bus service to major infrastructure overhaul.
Capital has the most riders total, but because it is longer there are less riders (it’s still #2) per mile than New Bern. Lots of riders close in and from OTB. Longview is def not where the big ridership comes from. lots and lots of people take the bus to Wake Med. The east end of the New Bern line is also where busses from Knightdale come in and connect to. Knightdale (and New Bern between 440 and Knightdale) has been growing more than people think, and it is more affordable (compared to the other directions growth is happening at) so increasing the number of people who need to take the bus from that direction.
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Shifting away from Raleigh for a second, I was looking through the 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan that CAMPO and DCHC collaboratively released recently and found that a few new BRT projects I wasn’t aware of are listed for our neighbors to the northwest. This has impacts for our regional transit system if these projects become part of the next transit plan.
It looks like BRT is being considered for several corridors in Durham and Orange counties, including Chapel Hill-Durham, Chapel Hill-RTP, and Durham-RTP. I don’t recall seeing these specific routes ever listed, but someone correct me if this is nothing new.
Not sure if it’s simply an oversight, but the southern BRT route to Garner, plus the extension to Clayton that seems to also be planned, is not included in this list but it is on the accompanying map.
Using all those projects and the horizon year listed, I compiled these maps showing what our BRT and CRT system might look like as it is built out between now and 2050. (Since the Garner-Clayton BRT lines weren’t listed, I assumed a horizon year of 2030 for the initial route from Raleigh-Garner and a horizon year of 2040 for the extension to Clayton)
2030 horizon year projects:
2040 horizon year projects:
2050 horizon year projects:
The complete system:
A few notes (click me)
• The Chapel Hill N-S BRT line appears to have an extension to the south to Old Lystra Rd., which I have not seen in any other plans.
• There are a few interesting route choices for the Durham County BRT lines, such as detours into shopping centers or routing along I-40 and NC-147. These might help the line achieve faster service but could it perhaps come at the expense of easily serving useful areas where people actually live? Of course, these are very conceptual alignments and have not been studied in detail yet, so it is very likely some of these could change.
• I’m surprised the alignment for CRT south of Apex is being displayed as such rather than continuing past to serve Sanford as we’ve heard some talk from leaders down there about planning for commuter
rail.
The combined CAMPO-DCHC 2050 MTP can be found here: https://nmcdn.io/e186d21f8c7946a19faed23c3da2f0da/8bfec28a290449a7b10eb1fee3a0e264/files/transportation-plan/2050-MTP/Final-Plan/2050-MTO_Compiled-Ch-1-9_2022_01_14.pdf
A map showing CAMPO projects can be found here: ArcGIS Web Application
A map showing DCHC transit projects can be found here: ArcGIS Web Application
Thoughts, anyone?
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My thoughts are that this is all well and good, except I that I will be long retired by the time this is all implemented. Moved here 10+ years ago and there was talk of commuter rail in 10 years…. At this rate I will be able to commute from Raleigh to my workplace in RTP (without a car, and without it taking 3x as long) the day I retire. Maybe….
Nonetheless I fully support all efforts to implement this. Late is better then never. And my kids will be able to enjoy the benefits if they stay in the area.
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That’s why I’m begging for a tram car in Raleigh while not a part of the wake county transit plan, Raleigh could pay it itself to connect union station and to PNC Arena.
Make it make sense, BRT and a future tram line are crucial to development.
Nice work Jack!
Minor comment, but I think it would benefit the conversation if we transitioned the term commuter rail to regional rail or inter city rail.
Crazy that there is still no connection to the airport by BRT or rail
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Maybe the Commuter Rail will have an interchange station with a nearby connection to the airport. Ralegh could pay for it own transit expansion it’s the city’s willingness. Doesn’t always need GoTriangle.
Yes, and in this case perhaps the airport itself would build/fund a BRT connection to regional rail
We’ve actually seen the BRT line ideas in Durham and Orange counties before, though they are new to our MTPs.
The lines in Durham County are nearly carbon copies of the routes that they asked for comments about last summer. The proposals for Chapel Hill also first came up in recent updates to elected officials about their own county transit plan updates. The Chapel Hill NSBRT has been in the works for nearly a decade and already has a project rating from the FTA to determine how likely it is to receive funding, and the 15-501 one is essentially a replacement of the failed light rail project.
Also: the BRT line that goes between the SAS headquarters, downtown Cary, and the US1/64 split also appeared in the 2045 MTP (i.e. our region’s transportation plan published five years ago).
I’m not surprised, though. The Apex line is also just an initial guess, and Sanford’s not in CAMPO or DCHC-MPO’s boundaries in the first place (read: CAMPO can’t enforce plans that include them anyways).
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If fact I would advocate for GoRaleigh to become the dominate agency. GoTriangle has proven to be incompetent many times over.
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Maybe our agency for Raleigh and GoTriangle for regional stuff like how BART is regional for the Bay Area but MUNI is locally for San Fransisco. Since we’re handling BRT, we can put a tram connecting GoRaleigh Union Station with PNC with expansion to Crabtree Valley Mall, and an additional line to North Hills. I would ask mayor Baldwin, the next council member to replace Cox, my good friend Minu Lee, he’s actually open to it. 2020-2030 is a crucial decade for our city, starting with the merger of the Raleigh-Cary MSA with the Durham-Chapel Hill MSA. I’m sure we have enough taxes to take care of GoRaleigh ourselves.
One of those signs really jumped out at me, about how “students need housing.” Well yes, and I guarantee that rezoning Western will create thousands of units of student housing… just like rezoning Hillsborough did, at sites like Stanhope. And two things about the MMH2 package stood out to me: the ability to do “tiny house” duplexes everywhere, the Frequent Transit Development Option allows stacked townhouses (“apartments”) pretty broadly
A while ago, I interviewed (among other people) the former mayor of Storrs, CT about how they redeveloped some small strip retail into mid-rise mixed-use. It’s a terrific and instructive project:
- Adding more housing for students in a managed complex reduced demand for “group houses” that were disrupting neighborhoods further out
- Higher density was needed to sustain walkable retail than they expected
- Everything was way more complicated than anyone thought
- Almost all of the existing businesses were retained, even an auto shop, thanks in part to federal relocation assistance, to intentionally creating smaller retail spaces, and because the residential offsets retail costs
That’s exactly the term TTA used in the 1990s - a DMU service, though IIRC (it’s been soooo long) still peak hour focused. Still maddening that the Triangle was “too small” for such a service, but somehow Denton TX, Antioch CA, and Wilsonville OR have managed to get it done in the intervening few decades.
Now excuse me while I go find some Werther’s Original candy… oh my, it’s 2 PM, almost time for the K&W blue plate special
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