Isn’t it interesting how poorer neighborhoods resist transit improvement out of fear of displacement by wealth (gentrification) while wealthy neighborhoods resist transit improvement out of fear of the poor? 
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Seems to speak to the auto-centric idea that car infrastructure is neutral while transit is not. I’m glad that’s shifting (slowly), in Raleigh and nationally.
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Anybody heard an update on the status of New Bern Avenue actually starting?
The community engagement for Western and Southern, which was already in progress, has been paused and notes resuming in Spring 2025.
Whether this delay is to focus specifically on New Bern Ave or because staffing changes have impacted all routes I cannot say, but my guess is they are simply focusing their attention on New Bern with some more limited staffing.
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I still don’t think they’ve found a contractor to take it on, yet. 
Some of the utility and drainage work is underway, at least.
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Yeah I got an update at the South St event. Didn’t love the answer but appreciated the honesty. Since N.C. doesn’t have BRT and we want to use NC contractors, this will be the contractor’s first BRT project. The original plan was to bid out the entire project and it got no bids because it was too big of an undertaking for contractors who had never build BRT before, specifically the stations. So the city is breaking it down into separate portions to bid out (stations vs paving, for example) to attract more bids and get started. All of that was shared publicly already, but talking with the city at the event, I didn’t get any real red flags. The delay and explanation was legitimate and you could tell they’re working in good faith to get this thing off the ground.
Still, the BRT and Lake Wheeler rd delays are reason to ask questions, and it would be nice to rally around pushing those two projects forward. Surprised by all of the effort and energy spent elsewhere (i.e. red hat which isn’t moving, or union west which is getting built) instead of on these two. Agree it’s taken far too long to get started when we’re already behind the transit 8 ball.
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Would be such a change of pace if we got 30 to 40 people to go to a city council meeting with signs to get moving in BRT. Could even get news groups to come take pictures of people with BRT signs outside of the council building to steal from the Hayes Barton/Livable Raleigh playbook.
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Would be cool to make that a tractor beam.
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No need to reinvent the wheel. The buses should just have cowcatchers
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Really, consistent enforcement by police is the key.
Where are traffic laws consistently enforced? About the only place I am aware of is school zones. And guess what, people take school zone speed limits pretty seriously, on the whole. While most places there’s the notion that 5 over, 10 over, even 12 or 15 over on freeways won’t get you pulled - it’s common knowledge that even 2 over in a school zone is begging for a ticket - so people take the speed limit literally.
If bus lanes, bike lanes, etc were enforced this strictly, people would obey the rules.
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Here’s a great news story about the outcomes of this:
$15 million in fines were issued over the last 9 months [145,000 citations ($100 fine)]
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I can’t find it because Twitter doesn’t work anymore, but someone made the good point that you would never find a news report interviewing turnstile jumpers sympathetically
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Do the fines and use the funds for higher education subsidies and technical programs to bring down the cost of attendance for everyone.
I’m not sure but I’d guess that the funds go towards bus service and active transportation infrastructure improvements.
The fines are only relevant IF Raleigh actually starts this damn New Bern project in the next decade!!! How do you get a pot of federal funds & somehow be incapable of spending it??!!
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It’s a pretty common government issue. Italy’s about to have to hand back billions of euros in COVID funds to the EU because they couldn’t find enough qualifying things to spend it on in time. Spending millions of dollars can be surprisingly difficult.
Italy seems to be in a tough spot economically of late
They have the funds. They have the project. It is 'qualified.
This isn’t a case of trying to ‘find something to qualify’…this is Raleigh being…Raleigh unfortunately.
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@JonathanMelton Has the city found any consultants willing to build out the New Bern Ave project yet? How long can the city afford to wait? I know the total project cost has changed by now.
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