Typically don’t transit agencies have to give some notice if a proposed service change gets walked back? I know it’s one month for service changes but to nuke new service less than a week before its launch without even a press release?
Also let’s consider the 12 new buses on site that haven’t yet entered service. Might they be masking a driver shortage?
According to what they were saying, there was no official release that it was happening this month. I posted an article from GoRaleigh where they showed it was starting the 15th. I’m guessing someone let that out early. The article was removed about 5 days ago so I had a feeling something was up.
The R Line coming back is also being delayed.
There was a mention about a driver shortage.
Get and E-bike if you are commuting.
GoTriangle wants to continue diverting their 100 buses away from RDU on weekdays during the day “until further notice”. Because this change will have been place for more than a year, federal law requires them to ask for public feedback before they decide to stick to this Covid-induced change.
GoTriangle will probably approve of this anyways, but you can complain to them here until Oct. 20 if you want to put up a fight.
Not out the ordinary but weird that the city would drag this on just about an easement.
Well, thinking about it more: DOT probably said “hey, here’s $5” and the city probably said “y’all can go to ….” 
Sounds like that’s what happened. From the TBJ article on the same subject:
I’m Surprised Raleigh has land anywhere near the Complete 540 project.
Looks like the city limits doesn’t come close but they own the land as a waste water plant
Southeast Raleigh plus Raleigh will have rights to incorporate all the way to the county border near Clayton.
Just got an email that GoTriangle is cancelling a bunch of their routes today due to the bus driver shortage:
Affected Routes:
100: Raleigh-RDU Airport-Regional Transit Center
305: Holly Springs - Apex - Raleigh
400: Durham-Chapel Hill
405: Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro
700: Durham-Regional Transit Center
CRX: Chapel Hill-Raleigh Express
DRX: Durham-Raleigh Express
Know Before You Go:
Due to operator shortage, the following GoTriangle routes will NOT run service. GoTriangle is looking to resolve this issue and apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. EXPECT DELAYS.
Route #RDU Shuttle leaving RTC to RDU at 3:30pm will NOT run service.
Route #RDU Shuttle leaving RTC to RDU at 4:00pm will NOT run service.
Route #100 leaving RTC to GoRaleigh Station at 2:00pm will NOT run service.
Route #100 leaving GoRaleigh Station to RTC at 2:50pm will NOT run service.
Route #100 leaving RTC to GoRaleigh Station at 4:00pm will NOT run service.
Route #100 leaving RTC to GoRaleigh Station at 4:30pm will NOT run service.
Route #100 leaving GoRaleigh Station to RTC at 7:40pm will NOT run service.
Route #100 leaving RTC to GoRaleigh Station at 8:30am will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Raleigh to Cary Depot at 4:50pm will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Raleigh to Cary Depot at 5:20pm will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Cary Depot to Raleigh at 5:30pm will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Cary Depot to Raleigh at 6:00pm will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Raleigh to Cary Depot at 6:30pm will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Cary Depot to Raleigh at 7:00pm will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Raleigh to Cary Depot at 9:30pm will NOT run service.
Route #300 leaving Cary Depot to Raleigh at 10:00pm will NOT run service.
Route #305 leaving GoRaleigh Station to Holly Springs at 3:50pm will NOT run service.
Route #305 leaving Holly Springs to GoRaleigh Station at 4:57pm will NOT run service.
Route #400 leaving Durham Station to UNC Hospital at 3:45pm will NOT run service.
Route #400 leaving UNC Hospital to Durham Station at 5:05pm will NOT run service.
Route #400 leaving Durham Station to UNC Hospital at 6:15pm will NOT run service.
Route #405 leaving Durham Station to Chapel Hill at 4:30pm will NOT run service.
Route #405 leaving Chapel Hill to Durham Station at 5:35pm will NOT run service.
Route #700 leaving RTC to Durham Station at 4:00pm will NOT run service.
Route #700 leaving Durham Station to RTC at 6:30pm will NOT run service.
Route #CRX leaving GoRaleigh Station to Chapel Hill at 3:55pm will NOT run service.
Route #CRX leaving Chapel Hill to GoRaleigh Station at 5:10pm will NOT run service.
Route #CRX leaving GoRaleigh Station to Chapel Hill at 6:40pm will NOT run service.
Route #DRX leaving Chapel Dr at Duke University to GoRaleigh Station at 3:50pm will NOT run service.
Route #DRX leaving Chapel Dr at Duke University to GoRaleigh Station at 4:45pm will NOT run service.
Route #DRX leaving GoRaleigh Station to Durham Station at 5:25pm will NOT run service.
Triangle planners met last week to talk about better ways to fund and plan projects to add to the 2050 Metro Transportation Plan.
We know from before that there’s ideas to add pie-in-the-sky projects like a Sanford-Norlina rail service or BRT extensions between RTP and Johnston County. This is on top of planning and realizing more mature projects like BRT, frequent local buses, and Garner-Durham commuter rail. To make the case for adding those projects to our regional plans, though, we need to know how much development and money are needed on top of what’s already planned.
Lucky for us, we now have an idea of what we need in the Triangle! Click for a map of each need:
Put all of that together, and you get a map of where we need denser developments and more intentional investments. In other words, these are where future investments could go -both for where things could get built, as well as for ways to move around:
Of course, having additional dreams mean a need for additional resources to make 'em into reality. The MPOs think the NC FIRST commission’s recommendations plus additional sales tax from the new jobs and homes above would help make this happen.
Some of its recommendations include:
Earlier this year, the Triangle J Council of Governments also released a set of policy recommendations to help fund and develop better ways to move around the Triangle. Their findings are pretty consistent with the state commission’s, as well. This means there’s more and more pressure piling up onto the governor and General Assembly to fund transportation projects in better ways than what we’re doing now.
Learn more from the NC Chamber of Commerce, this analysis by the Carolina Public Press, or this surprisingly-good deep dive from WRAL.
CAMPO hasn’t released their estimated cost yet, but if we estimate it to be double of DCHC-MPO’s Sept. 22 estimates, we should hope to get about $6 billion in additional revenue over 30 years.
This means our state needs to enable new ways to fund transportation projects and walkable developments within the next decade. If we can do that, our region may be able to rely on existing funding methods for now and still have a fighting chance at making our dreams come true.
And speaking of the BRT extensions, it looks like CAMPO has initiated the first public engagement phase of that study. Initial findings (complete with a rather unique virtual open house and surveys for both routes) can be found at wakebrtextensionsstudy.com. Some initial observations:
Routing for both the Western and Southern extensions are not yet finalized. Both have fairly large study areas, which I’ve included at the bottom of this post. One of the goals of this study is to nail down routing. As such, I would not be surprised to find the route deviating from NC-54 as it approaches RTP in an effort to accommodate the new Apple campus, but we shall see. Also, I expect @orulz will get his Park West station as a part of this effort, even though it won’t be what he was hoping for (rail).
The introductory video for the open house makes a point early on to distinguish between Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and what it refers to as “Rapid Bus.” It seems to me that CAMPO’s definition of Rapid Bus is service that incorporates only some elements of BRT (for example, service might include queue jumps or enhanced stations, but not dedicated bus lanes). Yonah Freemark refers to this as Arterial Rapid Transit (ART). It appears that, for these two extensions, CAMPO is considering a Rapid Bus service instead of BRT, but with opportunities for future upgrades as traffic worsens. I’m not particularly stoked on this idea, but I suppose that the idea behind it is faster implementation in areas that tend to have less congestion.
With the above point in mind, I’m not sure if the goal is to have both BRT routes extend into said Rapid Bus service, or if the two services will simply connect at their planned termini. I assume the former, but I guess we’ll find out when…
The study concludes next June, complete with LPAs for both routes.
The aforementioned screenshots are below. The surveys close on November 1st, so please consider reviewing the initial findings and filling out both. Curious to see how this plays out.
I saw a version of these maps in the CAMPO/DCHC-MPO slide deck, too! It’s nice to finally see this study starting -and to know that they’re keeping their minds open about not running entirely parallel to commuter rail.
I don’t think it’s very practical to have BRT routes extend so much. Even if an RTP extension is a full BRT service, for example, the longer route means more opportunities for buses to fall behind schedule and run unpredictably -defeating the whole point of BRTs. This only gets worse if they become ARTs and don’t have all the bells and whistles that let them run consistently.
With that said, I could see two operations working:
Doing it the other way around, and having ART lines interline with BRT. For example, a bus from RTP could briefly run on BRT lanes between downtown Cary the old Cary Towne Center, and deviate again until it ends in Crossroads Plaza. This style is proposed in the RTA’s concept for FAST buses.
Having express services. For example, a resident in the White Oak Crossing shopping area could take a local service ART to Garner Station or a regional express bus with limited stops straight to downtown Raleigh.
I feel like you could have creative operation patterns like that, and still get convenient bus service with just ART-level infrastructure. In that respect, maybe it’s not bad that CAMPO is trying to keep its mind open?
Speaking of connecting services, Morrisville’s free, on-demand shuttle service started running this past weekend! A similar service between Rolesville, Wendell, and Zebulon will launch later this fall, too.
Transit Overlay Districts have been approved by the City Council.
https://raleighnc.gov/SupportPages/what-transit-overlay-district
Saw this today and this was the first time I’d heard this being moved forward. I’ve always wondered when they were going to start working on all the nasty potholes on that section of the Beltline going towards North Hills.
A resurfacing project for Raleigh’s Beltline scheduled for 2025 is now being moved up to 2022 due to the condition of the pavement. The North Carolina Department of Transportation plans to resurface all lanes of Interstate-440 from Wade Avenue to Wake Forest Road in the coming months.
“It was originally scheduled for 2025, but we obliviously saw the problems that are occurring with the pavement and condition, so it’s being accelerated,” said NCDOT spokesman Marty Homan.
"We obliviously saw the problems that are occurring with the pavement and condition, so it’s being accelerated,” said NCDOT spokesman Marty Homan.
HaHa…NCDOT. Oblivious.Indeed.
Phew! That section is horrible! And I have to drive in the worst lane (right lane) all the time.
I mentioned it here, but Wake County’s MPO published their draft for a new metro transportation plan! Think of this as a fiscally-informed wish list for all the bridges, rail/BRT lines etc. that we could have in this side of the Triangle. Transit projects that require federal funding also need to be on this plan, so this regular plan update is pretty important.
For roads in DTR, it just confirms that the Blount/Person two-way conversion and West St. underpass are high regional priorities for funding in the near future. Elsewhere, some big-name projects like converting Glenwood west of 540 (complete by 2030?) and the Capital Blvd. North corridor (by '40?) are mixed in with tons of road improvement projects. This shows you how we’ve built out as a region, and it’s time that we shift gears to building denser.
Speaking of denser developments: transit! We’ve talked about most of the projects proposed on this site already (frequent ITB buses, BRT and commuter rail etc.), with one curious exception. See if you can find it:
If you couldn’t tell, in the very long term (i.e. beyond their 2050 assumption), they threw in an idea to use the short line to Knightdale and Zebulon for passenger service. This obviously can’t happen without the Durham-Garner line being a success, but it’s interesting to see that this made it onto this list.
Sooooo… this is cool and all, but what’s the catch? As usual, politics and money is what limits the good things we can have:
Do you like this idea? Hate it? Either way, regional planners want you to write them your thoughts by Dec. 8, or tell it to their faces (or leave a voicemail) for their Nov. 17 meeting.
I’m sure I had absolutely nothing to do with it but I’ve been pushing for the inclusion of the East Line haha
I am disappointed though that the Apex-RTP-Durham line can’t even get to this planning level yet. I think that line would have serious potential to do well.
