And what you posted doesn’t invalidate that the main city bus terminal should be downtown. It just needs better policing, lighting, and (let’s be honest) homeless / loitering cleanup around it.
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As a resident east of Moore Square, it’s just a fact that the current station is a blight that many people go out of their way to avoid. In many cases, it can be enough to discourage people from even walking downtown since it requires going out of our way several blocks.
All this is even more frustrating since it was supposed to be a temporary solution that they’ve just let stand in place. The buses going in and out break up traffic and sidewalk flow. And is the parking deck it’s built under even used? It all just seems like an unfortunate use of space.
I sincerely wish we had a vibrant local bus station downtown. And I’m reluctant to make any blanket assumptions about the people who do use the current station. But I wish something would change – whether that’s a redevelopment or a move somewhere else. For the time being, it feels like we’re stuck with a main entry point effectively choked by this half-measure, especially since the other side of downtown is getting all this investment for their station.
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Didn’t someone mention that there is a police patrol center being built above or in this station? If so, this is will help with this issue. There also need to be multiple emergency poles, like this one, in and around the station:
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I mean, it kind of invalidates the notion that it should be moved out of downtown.
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But isn’t the DMV site downtown? Other proposals for the site were a downtown botanical garden, a downtown library, a downtown cave of wonders, etc…
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IMO, its not “downtown.”
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This reminds me of one point that I think isn’t apparent to most people but GoRaleigh is at or above capacity in terms of bus stops. We have a system where most routes terminate/begin at GoRaleigh and “pulse” their way out. This way, people can transfer from one route to another.
The plan is that once RUS is up and running, the routes will be distributed in a way so that GoRaleigh is back at or below capacity. Will this help with the issues we’ve mentioned? No idea but we should have less buses parked along Hargett and Blount. That’s still a few years out and I anticipate the BRT construction to make things more confusing but that is “plan” for now.
Long range “hope”, for me at least, is that the city start planning for more cross town bus routes compared to the hub-and-spoke we have today. I’m not a transit planner so maybe that’s a bad idea but as the city goes through their new comp plan process, I’m interested to see if we can do more routes that go from one end of the city to the other with lots of little “mini-hubs” for key transfer. Then GoRaleigh and RUS should be less of a bus station and can be repurposed for other uses.
Long range plan I know but you got to start somewhere.
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Google Maps says it’s close…
(I’m being facetious with this. I’ve never understood how this specific locale got designated as “Downtown.”)
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If there’s a way that cuts down on all of the exhaust-y, traffic-y, loiter-y inconveniences of the current setup, while still allowing for low-income workers and voluntary transit-choosers to come and go downtown when they need to, I’m all for it!
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East Raleigh Transit Center (aka the planned terminus for the New Bern BRT line) seems like the next step in that effort. Technically, Crabtree’s transit center also fits this model, but it really only serves the mall due to its location and the surrounding land use. The rezonings and code changes for the New Bern corridor are the first step toward Raleigh having more than one walkable hub (I know North Hills exists, but it’s still “drive-to urbanism” until it gets fast, frequent transit connections).
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honestly i used to live within one block of the station for almost 3 yrs pre covid and felt like this was the funnest area of downtown to be.
a couple weeks ago my gf and i went to st roch and had someone yell at us from across the street, cross thru traffic to come harass and intimidate… and started yelling obscenities at us when I didn’t just stop and give him money. I don’t understand how the police can’t stop things like this from happening on a regular basis. it was about 6pm in broad daylight.
i say the city should move the bus station if it continues to prove it can’t support it
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It’s probably an unpopular opinion, but I actually agree here. And, it’s not just what you mentioned about the people loitering/making the area around the bus station undesirable. The constant ingress and egress of the buses make the sidewalks around the bus station a giant pain in the ass to walk down. Buses are constantly parked in the bike lane on Blount Street.
The bus station itself is not clean and the trash from people at the bus station goes from the station all the way to DGX. This is a picture I took of the bus station a while back. You can look at the ground and see all the trash there.
We are making strides to make it better. The police station above the bus stop and adding fares are two steps taken to address this area. Going forward, I’d like to see a couple of things. The other items like aggressive panhandling/crime I think are being addressed.:
- Littering shouldn’t be tolerated or we need to clean the area better. Ideally, I’d like to see police enforce and address the laws around it so we can solve the root of the problem instead of needing to hire people to clean up after them
- Additional lighting. Even in the daytime, it is really dark. There needs to be overhead lights and there needs to be color.
If we continue to invest in fixing the issues and we continue to see problems, Then I agree that the bus station cannot be downtown. Downtown is meant to be the core tax revenue generator of the city. If it’s a major net negative on that, then it is, unfortunately, hurting our city by being there.
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I can’t help but push back. I’m sure this is a case of a small group of people making things suck for a lot (and I mean A LOT) of well meaning riders. Calls for moving the bus station out of downtown, and making it more inconvenient for a lot of riders, because of your feelings is a bit classist, no? Or some other ‘-ist’/‘ism’ that I’m not aware of.
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Downtown is “meant” to be lived in and worked in, to the extent it is “meant” to be anything. Pearl-clutching shit like this has made this forum a lot worse. Go live in Cary (if you don’t already) if you think everything needs to be a prim, proper, beige little model.
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Cheers. I agree!!!
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Honestly, same. Don’t get me wrong, GoRaleigh Station has problems. As somebody who has ridden GoRaleigh for 10 years now (back when it was still called CAT), I remember the bus station before the renovations, and it was worse than what it is today. The current problems with harassment and crime started when GoRaleigh made the buses free, and I was one of the few who insisted fares need to be brought back. I genuinely think the return to fares will go a long way to reducing the bus station’s problems.
Now, this is coming from a white male, I don’t want other people’s experiences to be invalid. That being said, I’ve only seen problems at the station late in the evenings once bus frequencies go down (another reason we need more buses after 7 PM). During the day, and especially during rush hour, the bus station is fine and busy with plenty of people changing buses. I don’t usually go into GoRaleigh Station since it’s easier for me to change buses on Hillsborough Street, but of all the times I’ve gone there, problems generally started after 7 PM once the evening rush hour ended.
I’m getting the feeling too many people don’t use the bus, just read all about it from news, and go “Hurr durr! The bus station brought crime to downtown! Let’s move it out of downtown, screw the riders, they’re all homeless and drug addicts anyway! And let’s willfully ignore that the homeless are coming from, um, the homeless shelter, not the buses themselves.” That is a whole other conversation.
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Alright, I’m going to push back as well, because there are a lot of assumptions being made here
The core of my statement is meant to say that if we cannot fix the problems emanating from the bus station downtown, then the bus station should not be downtown. Key word being emphasized as to whether or not we can fix it. Lots of trash, and lots of crime from the bus station. I’ve said plenty of times that the vast majority of the people using the bus are good people and mean well. I walk through and by the bus station every single day and it has generally come without issues.
If we can solve the problems, then I have no problems with it being downtown. I don’t think it’s classist to not want trash everywhere. Additionally, nobody in here is suggesting that there shouldn’t be bus stops downtown or that downtown should be inaccessible by the bus.
A place that is meant to be lived in a worked in should not have crime or trash strewn everywhere. That being the focal point of my post. Healthy cities are only healthy if downtown is a core revenue generator whether you like it or not. But please, pretend to act like I’m a pearl-clutching Cary resident when I live a couple blocks from the bus station and walk through and by it every day (mostly without incident)
And at the risk of doxxing myself, I constantly make posts on reddit defending the area and defending Moore Square/the bus station. I just did it a few hours ago. I want solutions, and I’m optimistic the new police station and the fares will be that. But, if they’re not, then we need to figure out what that is.
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It’s not so much that some people are not welcome downtown. But how about if we all agree on a set of rules and follow them. Don’t harass people. Don’t pee on the sidewalk. Don’t do/sell drugs on the sidewalk. Don’t sleep on the sidewalk or in the park. Don’t litter. Don’t stab or shoot people. Don’t vandalize. The vast vast majority of people follow these rules. It’s not classist to expect people to behave reasonably in public.
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How dare you make this classist comment about general human decency, expectations, and promoting communal standards? Clearly, those things are reserved for Cary. 
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I’m glad many of you are not working for the city and making these decisions that would negatively affect everyone who chooses to use the bus service. I’m a believer that if you are not using said service, you don’t have the right to make blanket statements about thousands of people that do, most of whom don’t commit crimes.
Last time I checked, law and order and “human decency”, includes the protection of people’s livelihoods (right to transportation included). Let’s not forget our lack of sidewalks that would prevent people with accessibility needs to get to a station further out.
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