I haven’t seen that done with Umo but I have seen that in other places, where student ids double as a fare card. I do think that we should be moving away from fare media that requires a human to read it to see if it’s valid. I believe our plan is to have BRT as Proof of Payment (ergo why the New Flyer’s didn’t have fareboxes) and so all fares need to be clearly validated to the rider before they board.
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For the NC State GoPass, you have to sign into a portal to get a benefit code you redeem in the Umo app. A little more involved than UNCC & CATS, but once you set it up, it’s set up for the remainder of the year. And it still only takes a couple of minutes, not something you have to “request” and wait a response for.
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I don’t go to NC State, so I was just basing it off what I was able to see here. Either way, a lot of students either don’t know they have the ability to access the GoPass or just don’t trust the public system (as they should). UNCC Students just use it for the light rail.
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Here’s what that form looks like to someone who is signed in:
It looks like they’ve changed the form since I last used it in the fall (specifically with the addition of that last question), but once you fill it out it immediately sends you an automated email with the benefit code that’s associated with your affiliation. That email looks like this, with additional instructions on how to activate the GoPass:
I don’t know of any differences between the different affiliations, but I do know they do categorize those numbers separately in the performance metrics that GoRaleigh publishes.
Since they ask you to sign up with your email anyways, it would be nice that was the only thing you had to do, but at least you only have to do it once a year.
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A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to ride most of the 14 and while the route is well overdue and would’ve been great to have they missed the boat on two big things.
1: The setup of the stops at Atlantic & Six Forks isn’t good. Northbound isn’t too bad being near the Exxon/Bojangles but the southbound stop is on the side of Atlantic currently without a sidewalk. That doesn’t inspire any safety for one.
2: A diversion up Six Forks, Mellow Field, and Meadow Wood would be much better for generating ridership with five different apartment complexes and a condo complex along that route versus nothing on Atlantic. Convince me otherwise.
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The fact that this is the weekday level of service to the densest node of development outside of downtown is really dropping the ball IMO.
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Raleigh City Council had a work session this week and it was all about GoRaleigh. I really liked to hear that the council is all over trying to improve the situation at GoRaleigh Station, pushing back even on “need to study that in 12-18 to figure out what to do” comments from staff. This is a good watch.
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The City of Raleigh has just posted a RFP for new buses. 8 35-foot buses, 30 40-foot buses, and 15 60-foot buses. Arrival by year:
Year 1 - 20
Year 2 - 5
Year 3 - 14
Year 4 - 2
Year 5 - 12
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I will not be participating in this RFP. Find one that deals with their IT infrastructure and I’m in.
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I realize this is might be a bizarre ask, but is anyone here familiar enough with GoRaleigh practices & policies to tell me if I’m completely wrong & crazy or if my observations have some truth to them?
After I had yet another awful experience of trying to catch the #1 last Friday from TTC (My fault for finding myself up there honestly), I suspect that drivers who are running late to make a shift change at GRS will instead go out of service at TTC and drive directly to GRS to minimize overtime? At least the driver told us she was going out of service this time, even though the route sign on the bus has always shown otherwise every time this happens to me. The bus was parked at GRS by the time I got there, and it didn’t seem like a driver was present (though I ended up on #14 and didn’t get a good view when I arrived).
Admittedly I don’t know if drivers are paid by revenue hours only or if non-revenue hours count, I’m just trying to make sense of my experiences. And obviously there is a lot more that goes into delays and stuff, but this would help explain some of the shenanigans I’ve experienced waiting at that “P&R”… (I actually think the first bus I was waiting for actually broke down or had some sort of incident, because my app was showing it stopped for 10+ minutes before turning around mid-route, but this wasn’t ever communicated to us because why would we ever need to know about a service disruption 
)
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Any chance you can remember a timeframe and date of these incidents? You can DM directly and I may have a way to ask about this.
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Of course! The two times I can recall timeframes for are:
- November 28th, 2025 at about 6:30pm (when two buses skipped the stop without telling us anything after deviating to the loop that serves the Barnes & Noble)
- May 1st at about 3:45pm (the incident last Friday, would’ve been during the landfill fire to the north)
Both of these would’ve been at the Park & Ride stop by the old Orvis. Thanks!
Bus operators in general are paid for ‘platform time’ - the amount of time they are actually operating the bus, whether in revenue service or not (out of service mileage is typically known as ‘deadhead’). It is possible that the operator’s run on these dates included a route 1 trip that ended at TTC and then the operator ran out of service to GoRaleigh station. In any event, even if that bus was supposed to continue on and operate an inbound trip and didn’t, that would be at the direction of the dispatcher and not something that the operator did on their own. I’d be surprised if this was any attempt to limit overtime, since that operator was being paid to drive the bus back downtown if you later spotted it parked there.
I see, thanks for the insight! Yeah that would make more sense for paying the drivers, but I really wish we we’re told what was going on. As you said I doubt it’s a decision the driver made themselves, so it’s most likely a decision by dispatch. Bizarre. I really hope GoRaleigh significantly improves communication for things like this, even GoTriangle (although a smaller operation) can manage to send an alert for missed trips when something happens.
re: discussions of open payments / tap to pay.
reading the replies to the fare payment system question on this survey, it’d be a travesty if goraleigh didn’t instantly begin pursuing this tech
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Yesterday I travelled from Raleigh to South Florida, and I decided to use public transport on both ends. While that’s not unusual when I fly to MIA, this time I flew into FLL.
While MIA is only about 10 miles from Miami Beach, FLL is over 30, and it’s one county north. I don’t usually choose to fly into FLL but I was able to travel on a buddy ticket for very little money, and my friend who’s a flight attendant was begging me to try it out since it’s a perk she gets as an employee of her airline. So, I was like “what the hell”, let’s try it.
The trip required me to navigate a 3rd bus system in Broward County and here are my thoughts.
- I took the 100 from Hillsbrough Street to the Transit Center. That bus stop is a 15 minute walk from my condo in Glenwood South. The bus was a tad bit late, but I had built in a lot of extra time in case that happened. I left home at 7:00 and arrived at the bus stop across from the YMCA at 7:15. The bus picked me up around 7:35 or so. The wait allowed me to stop sweating, so no biggie. Note to self: next time take a wad of paper towel to dry my face and head before boarding. The bus was pretty well utilized and there were probably 15-20 folks using it for various trips along the route, but only 2 of us were heading to RDU. The other one was an employee of a private flight service. Traffic moved along fine on the ride, so we got to the transit center without delay. We had to wait longer than I had expected for the RDU shuttle from the transit center near but (again) I had built in time for that. As a side note, I’ve never waited for the shuttle bus to RDU in the past. I got to the airport around 8:25AM for a 9:50 boarding time. Bonus is that I had time to grab a breakfast biscuit meal from Popeyes right by my gate. (cost: $2.00)
- In FLL, my arrival gate was in terminal 3 and the Broward County bus terminal was at the car rental center across from terminal 1. The website told me to take the rental car shuttle to there, but you know that I chose to walk. When I got there, I couldn’t find the bus stop initially because it was pathetic and not well signed. I expected it to be something more substantial but it was literally at an unprotected concrete island with no shade, no bench, and nearly no signage. Only 1 bus route runs from there and it’s the county #1 bus that runs due south on US1 to Aventura on the northern edge of MIamiDade County. Like GoRaleigh, Broward uses an App or takes cash ($2). As you might expect, I paid cash. That bus was a bit off schedule, but it actually arrived earlier than what GoogleMaps was telling me. In fact, it was about 15 minutes early (or maybe it was actually late from the previously scheduled bus?). In any case, that trip was fairly uneventful until the end of the trip where it was unclear to me how this bus trip ended and the next one began. I got off the bus in Aventura where GoogleMaps told me to, but that was just shy of Aventura Mall where there is a bus terminal in one of their parking decks. In any case, I figured it out and made my way there. (cost: $2.00)
- At the Aventura Station, I took the MiamiDade 100 bus southward along AIA all the way to South Beach. Like I’ve mentioned previously, the MiamiDade system has tap to pay and doesn’t require exact cash or use of an App. I much prefer that option. From that stop, I walked home. (cost: $2.25)
After landing at 12:15PM, it was about 3 hours time between then and walking in my condo door. That’s twice as long as the actual flight, but it was also a total of only $4.25 fare vs $100 in an uber. In total among all 3 bus systems on either end, I only paid $6.25 vs probably $130-$140 using Ubers + tips.
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Tough Love post incoming: This is the transit survey worth your 15 minutes
I know, I know. Another survey. I have survey fatigue if I’m being honest but this one’s different, and I say that as someone who sits on the RTA and watches how these processes actually play out: this is Phase 1 of the Wake Bus Plan, which means planners are literally deciding what gets prioritized first for funding between FY2028 and 2035. Not vague vibes-gathering. Actual “what routes and infrastructure make the cut” decisions. This is the one where input doesn’t just get 
, it gets weighed against demand and need to build the real funding schedule.
And skip the “I don’t ride the bus so this isn’t my problem” excuse, that logic is exactly how we end up with a transit system nobody wants to ride. If the only people weighing in are current riders, planners are optimizing for the status quo. This is the fork-in-the-road survey: it takes 15-20 minutes, grab a laptop or tablet since a few questions have maps, and it walks through your priorities down to specific route concepts. Your indifference is a data point too, and right now it’s telling planners nobody outside the current ridership cares.
Take the survey here, and if you want the full background on what the Bus Plan is actually deciding, there’s more info here. Bookmark ten other surveys and ignore them guilt-free. Just don’t skip this one.
Now @ me with your questions. 
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I completed it! Guilt be gone! 
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It’s official, they’re closing the Wilmington Street Entrance to GoRaleigh Station on the 26: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3TFw20qPwk
It sounds like they’re planning on putting up fences, and seeing what that does. It’s good to see they aren’t planning it as a long term capital investment but instead a pragmatic change.
I also liked how the piece interviewed transit riders about their safety concerns.
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