No surprise there. With NCDOT reconfiguring the I-440 interchange as a DDI, there’s no way they’re going to be willing to give up any of those lanes. Which is super annoying considering that this is one of the most congested segments on Western.
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Seriously, like what is the point of dedicated BRT lanes? Just to have something cool/flashy for the heck of it? No, the point is to improve speed/travel time reliability in congested areas…
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With an extra infusion of money, they could just widen Western between 440 and Gorman to make room for bus lanes.
It’s a 125’ right-of-way. An absolute barebones configuration for 6 car lanes, 2 bus lanes, and 2 turn lanes would be 100’ for motor vehicles. Add 10’ total for curbs and medians, and 20’ on each side for minimum bike/ped facilities and you’re up to a 150’ right-of-way. Which is about 12.5’ of extra right-of-way on either side. Which is about the max that could be done without literally having to tear something down.
But on the other hand, would we really want to shy away from tearing down the auto-oriented sprawl along this road, or would it actually be a good opportunity to kick off transit-oriented redevelopment?
It’d be a pretty involved project, but at the same time the actual pinch point between Kent and Gorman is only about half a mile long. Comparable scope of work to any single phase of work along Hillsborough Street, all of which required some new right-of-way as well. $25m should be an absolute upper bound.
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I think so! And, if you believe their corridor study report for Western Blvd. with its suggested infrastructure upgrades around the Kent Rd. area, so does the City. That list includes a TOD overlay for where Food Lion and fast food chains currently stand.
From the corridor planning study:
If commercial TODs end up having rules like those for residential TODs being discussed now, maybe we could even build those without traffic simulation studies, or otherwise use upzoning bonuses to convince landowners to allow right-of-way encroachments in the name of transit?
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15 minute frequency is coming this month on Sept 12th to Glenwood (it’s finally here!).
https://goraleigh.org/news/additional-service-route-6-and-70x-beginning-september-12
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Oh! And to take that to a more meta and “big picture” level, If you ever wanted to look at the progress and cost of each transit project (at least partially) funded by Wake Co., but you don’t want to dig through hundreds of pages of public records, you can do that now!
Wake County will soon announce the “Wake Transit Performance Tracker”, and that web tool lets you see transit upgrades including those service increases. CAMPO’s agenda says their board will talk about a press release for this tomorrow, but the website is already live.
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still dislike the fact that you have to transfer buses to go from Crabtree to Brier Creek
Look past mass transit in its current boring form and what would be better in the future, it’s not a bunch of fools with their face in a phone on a bus or a train. Those days are gone. Don’t waste the cabbage on that BS.
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it’s too late for that crap
I don’t blame people for wanting it, but there are positives that it will be getting hourly service all day. I probably wouldn’t be taking it to my office downtown if I lived in Brier Creek because it is a very long travel time as it is now (1:10 to GoRaleigh station). It was one of the reasons I moved near RTC (I don’t live at RTC anymore) as it was significantly quicker (due to less stops and being on 40).
Maybe in the future they’ll have an express route. As it is now, I don’t understand the point of the WRX route. It had poor ridership in 2019 and only saves about 5 minutes compared to taking #1 Capital Blvd.
Performance report 2019:
So what is better for the future then?
- A bunch of fools on phones in elevated vaporware PRT podcars?
- A bunch of fools on phones in similarly vaporware Teslas in Tunnels?
- A bunch of fools on phones in still-vaporware self driving cars on still-congested surface streets? (And will they be owned by Uber or by the people riding in the ?)
- A bunch of fools on phones in eternally-vaporware flying drone cars?
And what should we do between now and whenever these vaporware things are no longer vaporware, whether that’s year 2040, year 2400, or year 24000? Just cancel transit?
One thing’s for sure though: fools on their phones are DEFINITELY part of the future. Except they’re only fools if they’re on a bus or train; they’re futuristic vapor-fools if they’re on one of those vaporware transportation modes. But definitely still on phones.
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I’d love to just extend the 6 all the way out to Brier Creek every 15 minutes. That’s a long way though, it’s about 15 miles (compared with 10 miles out to Triangle Town Center.) Long term, yes! But that’s a lot of service hours to spend on a route with a 3-mile gap (Ebenezer Church-Brier Creek) with almost zero ridership potential.
As it is though, having a transfer wherever there is a frequency break makes sense.
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You don’t need mass transit to move a lot of people, you don’t need a 60 person bus to move two people either, it won’t be any of what you said but you will have to think about it more and it may come to you when you are walking back from the mass transit meeting. Existing assets can do all this.
Not following. Do you mean personal automobiles driven by people are the future? Walkable/bikeable cities where we don’t need motorized transportation? Work from home? Just basically smaller buses?
If you’re telling us that conventional transit is stupid and we should stop spending on it, then tell us your alternative and be specific, not cryptic, and it had better be something that’s a proven technology, ready to roll today - or at least in the next couple of years.
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We’re all gonna be riding Segways. 
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and the fact that Uber/Lyft hasn’t yet proven themselves to be profitable…
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You are starting to head in the right direction but have to think harder. It’s here.
Raleigh’s transit planners fell in love with a consultant’s recommendation as far back as 2012 (long before the mass transit referendum) that there should be a mini-hub at Crabtree. That’s why the Creedmoor Road bus, which used to be #4 running all the way into downtown, was truncated to #36 ending at Crabtree. The irony is, 20 years ago the original Creedmoor Road route ended at Crabtree. It ran as #6c and #33c. When it was replaced by the #4 in 2007, the City made a grand announcement of how much better a through-route was than a connection.
Regardless, the City created the mini-hub with 6, 23L, 26, 27 and 36… although the plan calls for 23L to be replaced by a new 32 taking a somewhat different route east-west across north Raleigh. There used to be another east-west route, 8c, but the City killed that years ago. Triangle Transit killed their east-west route across north Raleigh as well. If you want to go from somewhere on Creedmoor to somewhere on Six Forks or Falls, the City’s answer is… go to Crabtree. Kinda like Delta Air Lines and Atlanta.
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The thing that Raleigh can do right now is rely more on the “transit” of our feet by pushing for more walkable places that take car miles/trips off the roads by prioritizing more walkable communities.
Is the end game goal to provide transit or to reduce car-miles/dependency? It would seem to me that the actual goal is the latter, and there are things that we can do locally now without being held captive by shifting political winds that may or may not make the former goal come true.
The good news is that walkable communities also lend themselves to a transit solution in the future that would connect one to the others.
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WTF? It sounds like the route 6 is not going to be 15 minutes starting next week. I’m dropping the money and getting a bike.
