I dream of this couplet going underground from one side of DTR to the other . . .
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Take away the cars and it would be called a subway, and I’m here for that!
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Be a heck of a short-line subway, but I guess it could run from South Park to Smoky Hollow. The Kane Train.
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Ok… someone email Kane Realty about the possibility of them funding a small-scale subway or even above ground monorail or SOMETHING with the exclusive naming rights. He won’t hesitate to put his name on it.
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Ever since DTS was a rumbling I thought a monorail down the Kane Line (North Hills, Smoky Hollow, Wild West End, South Park, DTS) would be cool (and VERY functional).
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Sounds like the illusive Prime District to me lol
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The underground subway is just a part of a transit line in my fantasy.
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This is the company we are supposed to depend on for regional rail.
https://twitter.com/phil_lewis_/status/1624749208174567424?s=46&t=TWqwat8BrY0yr8HoP2RknA
Keep in mind the company made a record of $12.7 billion last year. So far animal rescue efforts have not been successful.
Here are two videos:
https://twitter.com/moreperfectus/status/1623854130375847936?s=46&t=TWqwat8BrY0yr8HoP2RknA
https://twitter.com/lpmisescaucus/status/1624749331919011853?s=46&t=TWqwat8BrY0yr8HoP2RknA
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Thanks for sharing. Unbelievable
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Hopefully, the city overlooks it I don’t care, if you hate or love my opinion but do y’all want this project to get slower and expensive.
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We need to nationalize the rail industry.
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There are some reports this might be human error. The previous station(20 miles before the derailment) sent the conductor a warning notification saying a fire was report on one of the cars. Apparently a wheel bearing failed causing the axle to seize. They are also reviewing the inspection and maintenance history for this particular car, but of course that hasn’t been made public yet.
The decision to control burn the remaining cars to expedite the clean up was, shot from the hip to say the least. Then telling the residents they can return home, while livestock is dying, small towns always get the short end of the stick with these things.
Where are all those level headed young kids who glue themselves to the middle of the road or throw soup cans on paintings? or that Swedish teenager? we could use their help right about now.
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Indeed, well said. This disaster seems to be worsening. Of course the media has been totally preoccupied by balloons. These super-long trains (this one was 100 cars) cause so many issues and dangers.
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Alright, y’all ready?
GoTriangle has released two draft plans for public input: the Draft FY 2024 Wake Transit Work Plan and the Recommended FY2025-2030 Wake Bus Plan. It looks like they’re still putting the final touches on these webpages (hence the lack of an announcement), but I’ve already poked around in the plans and am here to bring you the highlights (not that you asked). Let’s do this!
Draft FY 2024 Wake Transit Work Plan
This is a detailed plan for FY2024 (July 2023 to June 2024). Major highlights include:
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Frequent service to Biltmore Hills. GoRaleigh Routes 5, 13, and 22 will be consolidated into a single route that runs every fifteen minutes on weekdays and every thirty minutes on evenings and weekends. Planned start is August 2023.
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Weekend service to Garner. GoRaleigh Routes 20A and 20B will begin running on weekends. Planned start is August 2023.
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All-day service to Apex (maybe). I’m having trouble finding this in the FY24 Work Plan, so take this with a grain of salt, but the FY25-30 Bus Plan indicates that GoTriangle Route 305 should start running hourly midday service to Apex. It will continue to only serve Holly Springs during peak hours.
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Infrastructure upgrades. Think bus stops, park-and-ride facilities, and the like. They’ll also be doing work on a couple bus operations facilities, and it looks like we might see site plans and land acquisition for the new GoTriangle Regional Transit Center. Also a few new buses, per usual.
Recommended FY2025-2030 Wake Bus Plan
Here’s the fun part. This plan lays out some pretty ambitious goals for our bus system. It’s essentially grouped into three target years: FY2025, FY2027, and FY2030. It’s a pretty aggressive timeline, and it has some surprising changes in it. I’ll provide you with a few highlights for each year and the three network maps. Note that the Wake Bus Plan focuses strictly on standard bus service and treats commuter rail and bus rapid transit as separate efforts (though the maps do include planned BRT routes).
Wake Bus Plan: FY2025 Network
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A one-seat ride to Durham. GoTriangle Route 100 will be renamed GoTriangle Route 100X, extended to Durham Station, and run every fifteen minutes during peak hours. This will replace GoTriangle Route 700. It appears to also service PNC Arena and Wade Park before getting on I-40, and it deviates off the Durham Freeway to service Durham Tech and possibly NC Central (they don’t mention NCCU in the doc, but the routing looks right). The route will no longer service the airport at any time; instead, the RDU Shuttle will expand its hours and run every half-hour until midnight on every day except Sunday (where service will end at 10:00p instead).
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An odd replacement for the DRX. GoTriangle Route DRX is becoming the DVX and will only go as far east as the Carter-Finley Park & Ride. It will skip downtown Durham altogether and head straight to Duke. I guess most DRX riders go to Duke? I don’t know.
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Improvements to the CRX. GoTriangle Route CRX will run a more direct route at more consistent headways, servicing a new park-and-ride at NC-54 and I-40 and skipping Eubanks.
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Hourly service to Wendell and Zebulon. This one’s for @atl_transplant. Route ZWX will run all day to Wendell and Zebulon and add stops at Wendell Falls and Zebulon’s Eastern Regional Center. The route will no longer service downtown Raleigh and will instead connect with the New Bern BRT terminus. As such, this is not expected to be implemented until near the end of FY25.
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Weekend service to Apex. GoTriangle Route 305 will run hourly on weekends. Again, Holly Springs will continue to only be served at peak hours on weekdays.
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Late service to Cary. GoTriangle Route 300 will run until midnight on weekdays and Saturdays. Sunday service will still end at 9:00p.
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Frequent service on Avent Ferry. GoRaleigh Route 11 will run every fifteen minutes on weekdays and end an hour later than it does currently.
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Microtransit to Rolesville. There are very few details on this, but the short version is that GoRaleigh Route 401X is performing very poorly. They plan to eliminate this route and replace it with a microtransit service of some kind, likely a service expansion or reorientation of GoWake SmartRide NE. On that note, the most recent Raleigh Transit Authority meeting included a presentation regarding Via Transportation, which currently manages microtransit for Wilson, Morrisville, and numerous other cities across the globe. While I generally don’t like seeing microtransit replace fixed-route service, there are situations where that is appropriate, and, personally, I think Via does it better than most.
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Additional service changes in Raleigh. Several existing GoRaleigh routes are being reworked and/or consolidated to improve coverage, on-time performance, frequency, and so on. Hours of service will also be increased on most of these routes. Too much to put here, and I’m a little surprised that they plan to knock all this out in less than two years.
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Service changes in Cary. This includes a route restructuring in Crossroads, all-day service between Cary and Apex, and a new route from Cary to PNC Arena and the Fairgrounds.
Wake Bus Plan: FY2027 Network
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New services on Atlantic and Lynn. I’m assuming the route most of us are interested in is Atlantic, which should run at thirty-minute headways all week long (except evenings). Implementation is expected in FY26.
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Frequent service to Falls of Neuse, Caraleigh, and Longview. GoRaleigh Routes 2, 10, and 21 will run every fifteen minutes on weekdays. Caraleigh will also see fifteen-minute headways on weekends.
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Weekend service to Knightdale. Service on GoRaleigh Route 33 will begin running on weekends. They will also extend the service to Wake Tech’s new Eastern Wake campus where I-87 and Bus-64 meet.
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All-day service to Holly Springs. GoTriangle Route 305 will begin servicing Holly Springs on all runs, including weekends. Frequency will also be increased to thirty-minute intervals at peak periods on weekdays.
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Frequent all-day service to Durham. GoTriangle Route 100X will begin running on fifteen-minute headways all day on weekdays. It will remain on thirty-minute headways on weekends and hourly on evenings.
Wake Bus Plan: FY2030 Network
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Service improvements to North Hills or Midtown or whatever you call it. GoRaleigh Route 8 will get split into two segments, with the segment operating between Downtown and Midtown running every fifteen minutes. GoRaleigh Route 16 adjust service to run from NC State’s Centennial Campus to Midtown (instead of Downtown to Crabtree). Lastly, a new crosstown route will run frequent service from Midtown to New Hope and connect with New Bern BRT.
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All-day service to Wake Forest. GoRaleigh Route 2L will connect with two other routes in North Raleigh and run hourly (or possibly half-hour) service to downtown Wake Forest via Falls of Neuse and Main.
Of course, various infrastructure improvements and capital projects are included as well. New buses, transit centers, enhanced transfer points, park-and-rides, and the like are included in the mix. Wendell is even expected to get a “mobility hub,” which sounds interesting. I definitely included a lot more detail than I initially intended, but hopefully I made it easy to parse through. Highly recommend checking out the documentation if that’s your thing: you’ll find everything from route details to timelines to hiring strategies. And, of course, feedback is being requested, so head here regardless to fill out a couple surveys!
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Really ambitious given the staffing issues they’ve been having as of late
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Right. GoRaleigh has cut frequency on twelve routes, and GoTriangle has reduced or all-out suspended twelve or so as well. Plus GoRaleigh is overdue for implementation on two new/revised route packages (Hillsborough and Glenwood).
I know both agencies have made significant changes to their hiring strategies to address this (pay raises, CDL training, etc). Still, I struggle to see how they add this much service by FY25. Sure am rooting for them, though.
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Same - I absolutely would love to see these changes to be implemented and scrolling through it does look like they are working on consolidating some routes. I guess we’ll see.
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Consolidation is a big part of what maybe makes this doable. GoRaleigh is dropping several routes at a quick glance. I’m also noticing that GoTriangle is outright eliminating several routes that are currently suspended and were underperforming even pre-pandemic (301, 311, NRX).
Also, I skimmed the COVID-19 Impact Analysis document, and one strategy they highlighted was making more “straight-8” shifts available by spreading service more evenly throughout the day. In other words, if service is less peak-oriented and more consistent throughout the day, fewer drivers have to work split shifts, and that helps with retention.
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GoTriangle has announced on its Facebook and Twitter pages that the CRX (Chapel Hill -Raleigh) and DRX (Durham - Raleigh) express bus routes will be returning to service on Monday 3/27. More details to follow.
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Interesting read. characters.
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