The person in that house is not going to use BRT. New Bern Ave is a stroad. No density now and still will be not dense enough in a decade. Way too many much more desirable areas to build apartments and higher density residential in Raleigh.
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It’s a build it and they will come situation. If we had lots of density down New Bern without transit, then something like light-rail might have been a good consideration. Since we don’t, BRT is a nice compromise. (don’t forget the DOLRT fiasco, am I right?)
Man, you hit on something. Please tell the transit consultant we hired, a company that plans transit networks all over the world, that they got it WRONG. Hurry, before it’s too late and billions of dollars across the world are spent on running empty buses up and down streets you will never use. 
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I don’t remember the exact arguments at the time, but the gist of it was
- ridership. this area has one of the highest transit ridership currently, so give back to the community that is using transit the most already,
- equity. Southeast Raleigh and the Black community have usually been left behind by the City. This was the city’s chance to change that by putting our new, shiny object there!, and
- ease. It was my understanding that there weren’t too many complicating factors about ROW issues, and that most of the route could be built in already existing roadways/roadway medians.
While it might not be going places you use, or won’t go there until new places pop up, a lot of people live over there, a lot of them use transit, and the city has lagged in investing in it before. For all these reasons, despite maybe it not having all the neat points of interest the rest of the city may like to go to, I think it was the right choice for the city.
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And to add to this, I think I remember hearing that if the city was able to get one line up and running, it would make the feds feel better about unlocking more funding for the rest of the system. Therefore, why not get the “easiest” one up and running first.
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My friends and I will be riding the BRT and can’t wait for it to open. I have several friends who live in the 4-story townhomes at 625 New Bern, it becomes quite annoying and cumbersom to organize 2-3 Ubers for 10-15 people who are all going to the same location. Now we all can ride together on the same Bus at the same time while everyone can socialize, which will pick up every 15 minutes or so. I’m SOLD. Everything doesn’t need to be so rigid and assume I need transportation to the grocery store or airport, sometimes people are just looking for an easier option into downtown.
In college we would walk almost half a mile to the Wolfline bus stop every Thursday night for bowling at Western lanes. I enjoy riding the bus when it’s an option, you can focus on something else besides driving or riding in the backseat of someones shitty Uber looking out the window trying to avoid small talk.
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This is not a daily occurrence. Not for work, not for basic errands. Ridership will suffer, public will sour and complete system never gets built. We shall see in a few years whose crystal ball is the most accurate.
Like this message if you will be riding the bus, at least when it’s most beneficial. I most definitely will be, even though I have a car.
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Kind of a strange way to refer to disadvantaged black folks trying to make a living, but OK go off I guess… 
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Not just black people but still “undesirable people”. This argument is very familiar to what’s used against the proposal for dense projects in the suburbs.
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Improving transit service where ridership is already the highest, is (ironically?) often the best way to increase ridership.
Given the ridership on the existing New Bern Avenue buses, one thing can be said with certainty: these buses will not be empty. Every time I travel down New Bern Avenue (admittedly not very often) there are always lots of people (by Raleigh standards anyway) waiting at nearly every bus stop.
Turns out giving better bus service to people who already ride buses, grants greater freedom and mobility and encourages even more use.
You do have a point that maybe full blown BRT isn’t necessary today because traffic isn’t that bad yet, but it’s extremely important to get it in place before traffic gets bad, or else you will be in the position of having to either pay to widen the right-of-way, or make the politically frought decision to take away an (already congested) traffic lane to speed buses up. Think of it this way, we are preemptively reallocating a traffic lane that might wind up getting built in 2040, for BRT - today. If, for whatever reason, that traffic lane still has to get built in 2040, then the roadway project, not the transit project, will have to bear the cost of widening the right-of-way.
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I know this conflicts with the fact that you are the center of the known universe, but there are people other than you that use the bus system, as evidenced by the fact that it currently exists and is used.
This doesn’t really make sense. This is a low-traffic street, so nobody will use the BRT, but the city knows that and wants it to spur gentrified housing in the area, which will come because people want to use BRT? What? I’m very sensitive to concerns about gentrification, but a lot of those concerns tend to boil down to “don’t provide services or more people will move here”.
Light Rail costs more than $100 million per mile to install, so just kiss that pipe dream goodbye. I’m not totally sold on BRT either but if (i) you’re not sure how a transit investment would work in a car dependent area like ours and (ii) the only additional infrastructure for the first try is building out some bud stops and painting a lane of traffic, then that seems like a no-brainer. If I were responsible for a first attempt at mass transit and wasn’t sure how it would go, I personally would not opt for the most comically expensive option. All you have to do is look at the Durham attempt, where people are in real danger of being tarred and feathered, to understand that.
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I mean, you asked. But this is just the first impactful use I would have from the BRT, it opens itself up to several new options I would not have without the BRT. If I needed to visit someone at WakeMed, I would walk a couple blocks then ride the BRT to avoid the parking decks, seeing a movie at the Alamo drafthouse, or picking up parts from Autozone on New Bern, all could be achieved from the BRT.
For instance on Saturday I was replacing my power steering pump, in the process got ATF all down the back of my shirt and instead of going inside to change clothes, start up my other car and drive to Autozone for more ATF, I could just walk two blocks to the BRT stop and get there.
But beyond what I would use it for, is there anywhere in the city you see more people waiting for the Bus than New Bern Ave? or more people walking home with groceries in their hands than New Bern? I have no concerns with the ridership here.
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This “poor man’s light rail solution” is working for cities around the world, including Richmond.
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Bus ridership has significantly declined even though the system has been enhanced. Remember this forum is an echo chamber for mass transit. Very different views exist.
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So what is your alternative solution? @GucciLittlePig you can answer this too since you have the same stance. I’m genuinely curious.
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From what I can gather, GoRaleigh ridership has recovered to 98% of 2019 (pre-covid) levels. And I dont recall many service improvements since pre-covid; although fares are free and that’s certainly providing a boost, I’ve heard about staffing shortages and frequency cutbacks rather than service improvements.
Systemwide ridership for the month of August:
2019: 468,400
2020: 284,900
2021: 362,800
2022: 459,600
And of course we know other viewpoints exist about transit. I welcome the opportunity to debate and discuss those viewpoints, even though this forum is mostly stuffed with transit boosters, as you say. I always do my best to counter with facts and examples, and acknowledge truth and good points when they are spoken, even when they do not support my argument.
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Precisely this. @trueurbanist cited the wildly successful Pulse BRT line in Richmond, and man, y’all need to see what’s going on there, so let me show you.
Here’s March 2016 at Broad & Lombardy:
And here’s the same intersection in August 2022:
Here’s some abandoned buildings in 2016:
And here’s some restaurants and a Whole Foods in 2021:
Here’s an abysmal wasteland at the edge of Scott’s Addition in 2016:
And here’s the new Scott’s Addition station earlier this year:
But wait, there’s more! Here’s the northern terminus of Indianapolis’s Red Line in 2014:
And here it is in September of this year:
Capitol & North in 2014:
And again in November of this year:
I can keep going here, but I’d rather try drilling down to the root of the whole “iT’s jUSt a bUs” argument. I really can’t help but feel that this whole thing has strong elitist undertones. You don’t want to ride a bus, fine, whatever. But what’s the reason that you would ride light rail but not a bus? If it’s comparable in terms of time savings (which, as we’ve discussed before, BRT is), then what’s the difference? Perception, perhaps? Stigma? You know poor people ride light rail too, right?
Calling BRT a “poor man’s light rail” says to me that you a) think that you’re better than people who ride the bus and b) think that Raleigh should primarily cater to the needs of the wealthy. I thought we wanted Raleigh to be for everyone? Or are we hellbent on being perceived as a prosperous city?
Esse quam videri. In other words, who gives a damn how we’re perceived. Let the data speak for itself. And the data says that BRT, paired with proper TOD, works. Complain all you want.
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Mostly construction for VCU. Not the same for New Bern. Put it down Hillsborough you have a point. Speaking of facts looks like daily ridership is well below what it was a decade ago.
That’s a national trend, not exclusive to Raleigh. Also, that decline that started around 2014 could potentially be related to another national trend…
Additionally, GoRaleigh is actually recovering ridership faster than peer cities (source):
Route performance recovering from COVID-19 pandemic
• Several service expansions saw their development impacted
• Nation-wide bus ridership for mid-sized cities is down 24% compared to before
pandemic; Raleigh down 7% (APTA, April – June 2022 Ridership Report)
As for your VCU argument, there’s not really a lot of VCU kids living in Scott’s Addition. But either way, you’re still kind of proving the point: if housing demand exists, and the city makes it possible to build denser housing closer to amenities, then people will live there. That’s why most of the private student housing built for NCSU in the past decade has been tall apartment buildings on Hillsborough instead of little student “villages” outside the beltline. That’s why rent is so high in the new buildings near Cameron Village. That’s why Smoky Hollow packed in before they even finished the retail portion. That’s why NYC has nearly 8.5 million residents. People (maybe not you, but many, many people) want to live in walking distance of amenities. TOD makes this possible in more parts of the city, and frequent transit (regardless of mode) connects people to those nodes.
And, by the way, here’s a great article on Richmond’s Pulse that I read yesterday. They’ve nearly doubled their ridership targets and plan to build a second line to compliment the service.
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Curse you and all your pesky data and statistics!!! /s 