On a different note (and I know this isn’t technically in Raleigh, but it impacts most GoTriangle routes), it looks like GoTriangle has narrowed down the location of their new Regional Transit Center to two sites, according to the agenda for their October 28th Planning & Legislative Committee meeting. The final two sites are HUB RTP and the old Nortel site.
Both sites appear to have scored a 4.02 out of 5.00 based on the following five factors:
Reduced travel time to and from I-40.
Improved access to goods, services, and potential development.
Ease of acquisition and constructability.
Access to employment.
Connections to future BRT and commuter rail.
Personal opinion: anything that’s not adjacent to the NCRR corridor is a mistake. Even if the commuter rail project falls through, a regional Piedmont/Carolinian stop could be placed there to improve access to the whole Triangle region. I get the appeal of having it on the HUB property (and I wouldn’t be too surprised if RTP tries to throw in an incentive to get them to do that), but that’s like a three-minute bus ride away on a route that already exists. Plus, I know there are plans in place for the Nortel site. They may not be quite as transformative as the plans at the HUB site, but I still think this is a no-brainer.
No one is going to want to hop off a commuter train and take a three-minute shuttle bus to the transit center so they can transfer to yet another bus. Folks will just Uber instead. Do it right and eliminate the unnecessary second transfer.
The regional transit center absolutely needs to be along the commuter rail line. Anywhere else is just a waste. Public transit needs to be well connected between different modes to make it work.
The initial TTA Regional Rail studies put stations at I-40/Corporate Center Drive and at Morrisville Parkway with the idea that those would intercept P&R customers. That said, Cary is a very popular P&R location for long-distance Amtrak passengers; I’ve even seen cars wrapped in waterproof covers sitting in the parking lot for days on end. There should be somewhere to accommodate them, rather than just saying they should road-trip it.
Cary definitely has RUS envy, and it’s worth reminding them that a truly great station is efficient for riders first and foremost. If it works for riders, it will attract riders, which attract things like retail. Apple is not at Grand Central Terminal because of the terrific architecture (there are plenty of other locations for that), they’re there to reach the commuters who efficiently flow through there.
Yet here we are, with duplicative RUSbus + Moore Square bus terminals at the DTR end, and now in RTP, too.
Don’t have the patience to map it now, but from the aerials it looks like 54/Miami/Page is the densest concentration of RTP-adjacent stuff. Sure, most of it’s motels, low-rise office, single-story “flex,” and fast food, but there’s a lot of new medium-density residential, and the stuff is now just old enough that it could be an interesting suburban retrofit node. But unlike Park Center, it’s not RTF-controlled, so they never considered doing Hub RTP anywhere else.
I wouldn’t go as hard on criticizing Hub RTP’s existence as @orulz did (since, like @paytonc said, it’s Foundation-owned property). But I agree with the main point y’all are making: if we’re about to get a better bus terminal and it has a chance of being right next to a possible train station, it’s an absolute waste to NOT do that. Judging from the last few slides, it looks like the surveyed stakeholders -the people GoTriangle is probably listening to the most closely- thankfully have the same idea.
But let me play devil’s advocate for a sec; what are the weaknesses of the ex-Nortel site? What are the pros of using the Hub RTP site? And do you believe their analysis makes sense? In case you didn’t read the slides closely, it implies the two locations are equally good because:
The Hub site is closer to I-40 and/or potential bus-only paths to I-40/NC-147
The Nortel site has slightly more potential for TODs and/or more numbers of nearby businesses
Both places cost roughly the same to buy from landowners, and are similarly challenging to build
The Nortel site is slightly closer to where more employees work
I think we can all agree on the 1st point (the Hub RTP site lets buses run straight into 40), and we have no way to dispute the 3rd in detail. But even if the 2nd and 4th points are true now, is it realistic to say things will stay that way once the first phases of Park Point RTP and Hub RTP are both completed?
I think the FAST network is supposed to be a separate project. The proposed FAST routes running through RTP sound more like souped-up versions of the GoTriangle CRX and DRX buses; those currently don’t stop at the Regional Transit Center to begin with.
Does it make sense to separate the FAST network from this new transit center? If you agree with what Owen wrote in the malls/RTP thread, that would be a hard no
I personally agree that quick, easy access to 40 is the best way to make this work -or using bus-only lanes + bus-priority stoplights if that’s truly impossible. This study does look at that as a parcel-choosing criteria (see slide 19), but it looks like their meaning of “direct access” (direct route connection) is less strict than what some of us are thinking (direct entry/exit).
It looks like they rejected parcels where you could truly do that in their 5-step process of narrowing down location options. The left figure seems to be parcels kept from Round 2 (is a site < 1.5mi driving distance from I-40?) that were examined for Round 3 (ditto, < 1.0mi?). The right figure is overlaying Round 4 candidates (yellow places, which are supposed to have “direct” access) on top of what made it past Round 3 (purple). I wonder if the consultants’ weird definition of “direct” is why their results are like this?
the Nortel site’s redevelopment being a transit-oriented success. They would be the transit center’s only significant neighbor; any chance at TODs would be entirely on Park Point’s developers, where GoTriangle may have more of a say in partnerships elsewhere
a cell phone tower and the northern parking lot of Holiday Inn no longer being in the way
NCRR allowing GoTriangle build another bridge under their tracks (and possibly disrupting their operations along the way)
NCDOT being okay with possible traffic flow changes from having a busway attached to a major interchange
Kimley-Horn’s analysis seems to be kind of fixated on just using single parcels and trying to build as little surrounding infrastructure as possible. That approach does seem kind of narrow-minded; I wish I had a way to point that out in the GoTriangle planning committee’s meeting, but they don’t have a public comment session in their agenda…
Why is there no regional plan for this? BRT, commuter rail, FAST and other options all need to part of an integrated plan. Having a rail station 1 mile from the main bus hub is just nuts. About as nuts as RUSbus not being integrated with the GoRaleigh station. To make public transit work, all these items need ot be coordinated, not jus with routes and stops, but also schedules.
Maybe GoTriangle is too paranoid about one (or more?) of those parts failing. The bigger the plan, the more things you have to assume will come true.
Poorly-designed bureaucracies can make it hard for bigwigs to appreciate the big impacts of little details like “where should we put a bus terminal?”, too; Durham’s in one census region, while Raleigh’s in a different MSA -and each have their own planning organizations. The fact that RTP is a no man’s land for local governments can’t make it easy for the whole region to follow a single transit plan.
GoTriangle will be replacing the NCRR bridge over I-40 as a part of commuter rail (the current one is single track) and also straighten some zig zaggy turns in the vicinity, so that affords an opportunity to do some work to make something fit.
Here is my concept for this important hub:
-Reuse the old RR bridge as a bus bridge (this is optional but helps speed buses up)
-Cross platform transfers between westbound commuter rail and RTP/RDU shuttle buses
-FAST bus platforms built into the I-40/Miami interchange would allow express buses to stop here without losing more than a minute or two
Yeah I thought this layout is what you meant. …and I’m worried that GoTriangle decision-makers would frown upon this idea specifically if it ever gets to their hands.
Click me to see why.
To be clear, I’m not saying this is a bad idea. But if we want to be like “hey GoTriangle, your ideas all suck; here’s a better one”, I feel like we need to weigh out ideas by their rules. And after the Durham light rail disaster, they have to listen to their stakeholders and reflect their priorities in their designs -including NCDOT’s turf wars or developers’ laziness. In that context:
Is a direct-to-40-and-rail bus terminal worth making it super complicated + having to appease many more stakeholders?
I think that question is important if you want to make the most out of @orulz’s idea.
PS: It looks like we can email mdawson {at} gotriangle {dot} org by 11am next Wednesday to send public comments to the Board of Trustees meeting. This is NOT the place where these plans will be discussed, but it seems like the closest thing to a public comments section we got. I wonder if our debate here is something we should bring up to them there?
Sorry for the double-post, but I tried to see if I could take Owen’s idea and avoid building inside the interchange. I can’t tell if I made the problems I pointed out better or worse…
I like your notion of reducing the complexity. Avoiding the cell tower and hotel parking lot, and avoiding asking DOT to allow anything unconventional (horror of horrors!) In their interchange does reduce the complexity/risk and probably make it more likely to happen.
If they’re game to take it all on, then go ahead. If not, identify the essential elements that must be retained, the constraints to avoid, and find a way to make it work. Good job.
CAMPO is in charge of keeping individual agencies like GoRaleigh and GoTriangle on-target with regional transit plans. In this vein, they announced an amended list for projects that’ll be built/planned for the rest of this fiscal year.
Wake Co. agencies put lots of transit projects on the regional to-do list on ice because of COVID. This amendment brings some of them out of the “unbudgeted reserve list”, while pushing back some others.
Here are some projects that CAMPO wants to bring back:
Study to extend BRT to Research Triangle Park and/or Clayton
Upgrading RDU’s bus stop with better signage, real-time bus trackers etc.
Building upgrades like more seating, lights, and bus trackers for 4 more major bus stops
Designing upgrades for 3 more major bus stops
Here are some projects that CAMPO wants to put on hold for longer:
Design + buy land for park 'n ride at I-440 (to be funded FY22, maybe) and I-540 (FY29)
Design + buy land for Midtown Transit Center (FY24)
Wake County’s share of designing the new Regional Transit Center (FY22)
Build East Raleigh Transit Center (FY22)
The decision to delay the transit upgrade in North Hills is disappointing but at least the BRT extension study and RDU upgrades will be cool!
Click me to see what exactly they'll do to RDU's bus stops!
Click me if you want to praise or complain to the powers that be!
I’m happy that they are looking to put in the Glenwood high frequency routes. This would have saved me a 20 minute wait for a Lyft (and high cost Lyft; Uber was more) the other day from Glenwood South back home.
I’m curious what the expectation is for the North Hills transit center. Are they looking for something similar to RTC where there’s a few small shelters, Gorman St. where the shelters are a little bit larger, or the GoRaleigh station? I’m simple and would prefer to have a route connecting Crabtree to North Hills rather than a “nice” shelter/facility. I don’t plan on hanging out at a stop longer than necessary.
RTC’s smaller shelters are decent enough. I think the biggest part of the transit center is looking for stopping spaces for additional busses. I think it would be better if they had stops at the center of Six Forks Rd for quick stop/go (similar to a BRT system). I’m sure that would increase the cost though.
The later pages on the PDF have more details about each project.
Click here for the entry for Midtown Transit Center:
…so it sounds like the idea is to have something in between the current RTC and downtown’s GoRaleigh station.
I guess the idea is to make buses as attractive as possible for people living in/going to North Hills. I personally think it’s overkill. At the same time though, if this is what it takes for rich, privileged yuppies to take Raleigh’s buses (and maybe BRT; remember this?) seriously and make lasting changes to America’s car fetish, then I guess it’s a necessary evil…
