I’m not sure exactly what your asking. If there’s the opportunity for a private Raleigh-RDU bus or if there’s a good place for intercity bus operators to stop in Raleigh?
Raleigh has an intercity bus station, but the city kinda hassled Greyhound to move it out of downtown (and into a kinda shitty spot on capital boulevard) in the last 20 years. I was talking with one of the architects at the RUSBUS Ribbon cutting and he said that Greyhound or other Intercity Operators could be able to serve RUSBUS but Greyhound doesn’t want to navigate the streets nearby. Raleigh does and always will have the struggle where Durham is on I-85, which is where you’d want to be on the way to Atlanta, which has more demand than the triangle.
For a Private RDU Raleigh bus, there just isn’t enough demand for that.
The best solution is to make the shuttle as quick and convenient as possible for both people going to the airport as well as people traveling on I-40.
With something like this, you have a simple 4-mile airport loop that is so short that a single bus could cover it without even needing a schedule. In addition, nearly every bus driving along I-40 could stop with a delay of not more than a minute or so.
I think that’s what we’re likely to get based on current renderings and other discussions, but I still think it’s less than ideal.
RDU unlike most airports isn’t technically a cul-de-sac and it can be served on the way somewhere else. West International Drive cuts through the Airport. There’s also a growing district to the north that is lacking service but on a corridor that could be on the way between Raleigh and Durham on US 70.
So, I like the idea of creating a transit center with transfers to both GoRaleigh and GoDurham in Brier Creek and running a bus from Triangle Mobility Hub, through RDU and terminating in Brier Creek. I believe this would create the fastest journeys to RDU for the most people. I would have a single RDU station between the two terminals on West International Drive that would be served in both directions and create a high-quality pedestrian connection to the two terminals from there, as well as stop the parking lot shuttles at it.
This gives a 1 seat ride from RTP to RDU and Brier Creek, and a 2-seat ride to Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill each in at least two different ways. Even a 3-seat ride from RDU to Apex without doubling back.
This does require some small capital investments on RDU property, which might be tricky and disruptive, but it should be able to be done in a few months, since you’re basically pouring concrete and putting up a canopy.
I’d just hope they but a damn tracker on the bus. There isn’t a tracker on the current ones and there needs to be imo. GoRaleigh has a tracker on their website and WolfLine has passiogo… not sure why the airport can’t have a tracker for their shuttles too
Agreed - and this is almost exactly what NCDOT and collaborators suggested two months ago in the FAST 2.0 study (also see my summary). Aside for how their proposal also makes room for buses running on the median, this is exactly what they suggested RDU to build:
If there were more local transit users in that area (or if you could reasonably expect this in the next 5-10 years);
If enough locals or commuters travel in paths where it’s more convenient to cut through RDU, or;
If there was another reason that a bus between Brier Creek and Triangle Mobility Hub and central RTP makes sense but it’s worth a detour to RDU as opposed to making that a direct service.
But I don’t think those things are true, and I’m struggling to imagine that this will change drastically in the next five years. The residents of northern Morrisville and Brier Creek are relatively affluent and (based on how their homes and apartments are designed) heavily car-oriented. This is bad enough such that I’m not sure if these areas have existing customer bases for local bus services. I’d bet money that it’s a similar case regionally, too; otherwise, the GoTriangle NRX service would’ve come out of its covid suspension by now.
And as long as those truths hold, I don’t think a bus between Brier Creek and RTP via RDU makes sense. Given that, I think it just makes more sense to essentially bring RDU closer to I-40 - and what Owen and NCDOT are both saying would do exactly that.
I mean it’s a growing part of the region and the region is building denser buildings. Also we recently instituted off-peak and weekend service on the 70L, which would be great to have a way to get North/South from.
It’s not that’s it’s more convenient to cut through RDU. It’s that it’s convenient enough and tacking on Brier Creek can be done cheaply comparatively and is entirely unserved North/South right now. Plenty of people moving to the Triangle for work at RTP move into Brier Creek, right now their best transit option is take GoRaleigh to Downtown Raleigh and then back out on GoTriangle.
I was using RTP and the Triangle Mobility Hub interchangeably. While I would like to eventually get a better shuttle around RTP, I do not expect fixed route service at any point soon outside service to the Triangle Mobility Hub.
I don’t think a direct bus between the Triangle Mobility Hub and Brier Creek makes a whole lot of sense, I don’t think that there’s enough demand. I do think that going to RDU you already get at least 2/3rds there and so to extend the final 1/3 to Brier Creek does make sense.
The NRX didn’t serve this route. It connected Triangle Town Center with Regional Transit Center. I don’t expect my proposal to be especially high demand, but I do think it would be a noticeable improvement to our network and I don’t expect it to cost a lot.
I agree with this, I do also think there are pockets of people on Glenwood that are less well off and less car-oriented. A Triangle Mobility Hub → RDU → Brier Creek bus would connect all of Glenwood with RTP. Since there’s a transfer both east and west on Glenwood inside Brier Creek.
I will say, when I lived in Brier Creek, it was almost always quicker to go around the airport on 540, entering the airport from the south, than it was to enter from the north, even though it was a further distance.
To be fair though, the reason the north entrance was so slow was mostly because the turn onto John Brantley Blvd from International Dr would get very backed up.
I really believe that trying to serve Brier Creek and RDU in the same route is a bad idea. I firmly believe that due to its unfortunate geography, RDU does not make sense at all as an intermediate stop between anywhere and anywhere else. The only kind of service that makes sense is service that terminates there. Be it a shuttle, a local bus route from Raleigh or Durham, or an express route - all of those could work. But only if RDU is the endpoint.
I’ve never ridden the bus, but loves the idea of better transportation. Can someone explain the added benefit of BRT vs our current bus system? Is the idea that its more frequent and stops for less time? Are we jumping on the busses as they’re moving or what??
This only something i’ve just started paying attention to so please excuse the ignorance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4mCsBKzD-4&t=15s the ‘queue jump’. has this ever been proposed or does it operate anywhere now in GoRaleigh. perhaps combined with signal priority it could speed up some routes?
We have a few places that are effectively queue jumps on Hillsborough, on Wilmington and a few other places. None with signal priority but there’s a few short stretches of bus lane that allow the bus to bypass the queue. I don’t know if anyone has ever been ticketed for using them in a car though.
I ride the bus on hillsborough street often and have been on the bus when the bus operator has “jumped the queue.” i just thought the bus operator was in a rush and cutting off traffic.
AFAIK Durham is implementing signal priority at certain intersections for their regular bus routes, it’d be awesome if we could do the same here. Especially somewhere like Hillsborough St. where the buses constantly get bogged down in traffic.
