That all sounds reasonable and also extremely doable for this particular route. In my opinion, the hardest would be the federal funding and man just wait a few years and that probably becomes doable as well.
Iâd much prefer BRT lanes be converted into LRT lanes or dual service lanes over time than support/suggest using heavy rail infrastructure for somewhat incompatible trains, that would prevent future CRT.
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Hereâs my hot take.
If we built a light rail, or any rail, system, all of the land around it within a 5 (even 10) minute walk needs to be automatically upzoned for density. I donât want ANY station located next to a âprotectedâ single family neighborhood.
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The North Carolina Railroad owns this corridor, which is owned by the state. NS Leases it from NCRR. Thereâs some portions owned by Conrail and CSX but the rail to Durham is all NCRR.
This corridor is not that high of ridership right now. Thereâs already proven high ridership on the 1 and the 15. Why should we invest in a corridor that isnât already showing promise before the ones that are? These are buses that are at capacity in many situations and we could add articulated buses, frequency or bus lanes or signal priority to these already well performing corridors.
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Amen. And while that should go without saying, it should absolutely be built-in to any potential project for mass transportation.
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FWIW, light rail would be all new rail lines. Just using the excess ROW. I think BRT is also a great idea for other corridors. Like could go along Blue Ridge to connect from LRT Fairgrounds Station to NCMA, Rex, Crabtree, on to North Hills, complete the loop to Iron Works?
LRT, BRT, Gondolas, Bike Arteries. Pick a mode that works best for each situation⌠just giving choices to move around without cars.
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Yeah I just meant that we donât want to copy Charlotteâs LRT as a model given their tracks are not compatible enough to warrant the right speeds (apparently).
Agreed - Arlington, VA did this around their metro stops.
The NCRR owns the right of way parallel to Hillsborough St, through Union Station, and then southeastward past the Red Hat Amphitheater. However, CSX owns the right of way from Union Station northward to Jones St. At that point, the tracks split. Norfolk Southern owns the right of way along the trestles over Tucker St, Peace St, etc into the freight yard north of Capital Blvd. CSX owns the right of way across Harrington St and Capital Blvd, then northward through the former Seaboard Air Line station site and past Pilot Mill.
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So, Iâve been thinking a lot about this topic over the past few days and Iâve come to a couple conclusions. I think that ultimately BRT was the right choice for Raleigh, and I donât think that the rail line being floated here would ultimately be useful, seeing as it is essentially a watered-down version of the 2011 LRT proposal that was never brought to a vote by Wake County, and I question whether even a full build-out of that proposal would have been useful for all the reasons people in this thread have already pointed out: Raleigh is an extremely polycentric city and the destinations that people want to go donât follow any single linear corridor that can be easily penciled out on a map. I fear that had that proposal come to fruition, it wouldâve ended up as a useless boondoggle along the lines of the Tide LRT in Norfolk. For LRT to work in Raleigh, we would either need an extensive network of multiple lines (which has never been politically within reach at any level of government) or to serve as the central spine of a reimagined bus system that people will actually use, in which case the big lift isnât really even LRT anymore, but redesigning and marketing the bus system. The best rail proposal the Triangle has ever had was the TTA light regional rail project in the mid-2000s, but even that was questionable.
So if buses and BRT, (and maybe down the line a revived commuter rail project along the NCRR and S-lines), are the solution for Raleighâs transit needs for the foreseeable future the question is how do we make them good? Wake Transit is slowly but surely increasing service, and so far it seems that BRT has escaped being watered-down all too much by BRT-creep; and while BRT may help with this problem to some degree, there still remains the problem of perception (and the degree to which this perception may actually be rooted in reality.) Historically Raleighâs bus system has been little more than a welfare program providing minimal service to allow our poorest and most indigent citizens access to low-paying jobs, medical care, and social services. It has never been seen or treated as a serious alternative to driving for any other members of the public. To change that perception, the city needs to do more than construct brightly colored bus shelters and run more services, it needs to address issues like loitering by people who are not intending to board at bus shelters, littering, and overflowing trash bins; they need to enforce rules of conduct onboard buses; and most of all they need to address the absolutely horrible reputation of GoRaleigh Station.
The reputation of the station and the surrounding area are so bad that I think that the single best thing that can be done for transit in Raleigh is to start from scratch and build a new station elsewhere. The station and surrounding area have suffered from a negative feedback loop where the bus systemâs status as essentially a welfare system have attracted social and charity services for the indigent and mentally ill to colocate around the station and push everyone else away. The reality is that people who can conceive of other options are not going to ride the bus if they think theyâre going to be harassed, panhandled, or even assaulted every time they have to transfer. While the station was renovated fairly recently, the renovations could not fix the fundamental problems with the station: the aforementioned location, too many access points which make control of access to ticketed passengers only difficult, and the fact that itâs located under a 40-year-old, dark, dingy, parking garage. We need a new GoRaleigh station, one located in a part of downtown that will draw in a greater diversity of riders.
I absolutely love the idea of locating the new station on the Municipal Campus block. That area has seen a wave of new development which will see a much greater diversity of foot traffic and more eyes on the street than the Moore Square area, and colocation with a police headquarters would contribute greatly to a sense of safety and security for riders, not to mention that road access is better, which is important for a bus station. A new station should feel grand and bright, rather than dingy, and serve as the centerpiece of Raleighâs transit network, rather than an embarrassment. It could have control of access, passengers could have to pass through fare gates to access the platforms, which would greatly decrease loitering in the station, and contribute further to social control. Access to social services via the bus system should obviously be maintained, and fare discount programs continued to be offered to our poorest residents, but the center of the system cannot be focused solely on one type of rider if we want a viable transit system.
To make this more realistic, the bus system should be redesigned to focus on feeding the radial BRT (and future rail) routes rather than having all routes terminate downtown, which should cut down on the number of platforms needed for a new station.
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This post is absolutely on the money.
I will raise only item for further discussion:
This is a common notion, and therefore commonly given advice: donât make every bus route go downtown; reconfigure the network into a grid, or perhaps rebuild it around a few frequent radial spines with connections to circumferential routes to cover the areas in between.
However, when we look at the actual geography of Raleigh, we find that the street network is so completely radial that it becomes difficult to think of a sensible transit network following these principles.
There are few circumferential roads in Raleigh to begin with, and even fewer important destinations along these circumferential roads that would not be better served by a radial route. This is not a gridded city like New York, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Dallas. Our street grid is noticeably less defined even than places like Atlanta. Charlotte is often cited as the least-gridded âmajorâ city in the US, and a quick glance at a map will tell you that Raleighâs street network is significantly less gridded even than that.
I have eventually reached the conclusion that every major radial road in the city should be served by a radial bus route that terminates downtown. As such, we will forever need a major downtown transfer facility.
Therefore I completely agree with everything else you have said: It needs to be modern, clean, safe, and have some means of restricting access.
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Iâm not a fan of moving GoRaleigh Station given its good geographical location and distance from RUSBUS. Also, the areas around Moore Square are expected to be redeveloped soon, bringing diverse populations (tourists, new residents of differing incomes, and additional shoppers).
There are multiple improvements that can be made to retrofit the existing station. There is already a new police substation above the station (unless that never paned out). Plus additional emergency standing boxes could be added within the station area, along with brighter lighting, to scare off criminals. There will definitely be more eyes on the streets very soon.
I just donât think the location is good at all. Far more development is occurring on the west side of downtown, and the Moore Square redevelopments are on ice apart from the affordable housing component, which doesnât really contribute to the goal of diversifying (in the true sense of the word) transit ridership; and the distance from RUSBUS is a problem, not a benefit.
Iâm sure stopgap improvements could be made, but transforming it to the degree that is required to make transit actually attractive to choice riders would likely require that a temporary bus station be constructed elsewhere while the station is redeveloped, in which case why not simply move it to a location that doesnât carry so much baggage?
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All thatâs required to clean up the GoRaleigh station is the will to do so and the resources to do it. Consider what a den of vipers the 42nd St Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan was during the 1970s and 1980s. Iâm not saying it is the Garden of Eden now, but itâs way better than it used to be.
But the best line in Anti-car Actionâs post is: âHistorically Raleighâs bus system has been little more than a welfare program providing minimal service to allow our poorest and most indigent citizens access to low-paying jobs, medical care, and social services. It has never been seen or treated as a serious alternative to driving for any other members of the public.â When it comes to crime reduction at the GoRaleigh station, things havenât changed all that much.
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Iâm not calling for GoRaleigh Station to be âcleaned upâ; Iâm calling for Raleigh to make its bus service a good experience. (and to make use of the hundreds of millions of dollars which were set aside for CRT, that are now unprogrammed and according to Wake Transit administrative staff cannot simply be used to expand operations due to some financing quirk and must be used on capital costs.)
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Intercity/Commuter rail is the best path for mass transit in Raleigh and the Triangle as a whole, due to the existing suburban sprawl. A dense, urban node can be built around stations for those desiring walkability to work, transit, shops, grocery, etc. along with large (tall) parking decks for those who drive in from existing suburbs. There are currently plans for urban nodes along the S-Line, albeit with the implementation of a separate commuter rail service. Hopefully it can be implemented once the funded S-Line segment is complete, and can be replicated throughout the Triangle.
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Police have been positioned at the Wilmington Street entrance to the bus station for the past month or so. Iâm there about twice a day and there are always police cars there and police walking around. I think they may have opened a substation there? As far as I can tell there is no more loitering at that spot!!
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You could maybe make an argument that the 1/4 mile circle for Moore Square is a little better than the Municipal Campus, covering a little bit more of the densest Fayetteville Street core - but mostly the circles overlap in their coverage of Fayetteville Street.
The convention center and the future Redhat Amphitheater are similarly situated compared to both locations. Memorial Auditorium is a bit closer to Moore Square.
Notably, even the 1/2 mile circle from Moore Square does not including Union Station, while itâs on the edge of the 1/4 mile circle from Municipal Campus.
Furthermore, the 1/2 and 3/4 mile circles from Moore Square include large sections of neighborhoods like Oakwood and South Park, while the larger circles from Municipal Campus grow into other downtown areas like Glenwood South and Seaboard Station.
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The idea for using the rail ROWs was more of the simplicity of using âopenâ land that was mostly straight and un-interrupted and connected a few of the central nodes. Just assumed to put rail there as well, but I donât hate the idea of doing BRT into those corridors and just having a full BRT system.
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Personally, and maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think GoRaleigh Station is fine where it is. That being said, itâs not a hill Iâm willing to die on, and Iâm not against relocating it to, say, the Municipal Campus. Honestly, if weâre going to relocate the bus station, we might as well move it to Union Station, perhaps take up that empty space at the Boylan Wye between the CSX and the old NS track (or somewhere close to that).
I do whole-heartedly agree that BRT and frequent buses are the way to go for Raleigh as of 2025. And itâs not just cost. As somebody whoâs been to European cities of various sizes, I chuckle a bit when people say âthey have trams and light rail EVERYWHERE!â Actually⌠not everywhere. The tram/light rail network is much more developed there than in America, but itâs not like every single city over 100K has it. I spent a semester studying abroad in southern Sweden, and saw Malmo and the college town of Lund. In Lund, a town with a population size about halfway between Chapel Hill and Cary (but much more compact and dense), they only began building their single light-rail line when the corridor it ran on had jam-packed buses coming every 5 minutes during rush hour. Pretty sure there is nowhere in Raleigh, even around NC State, where buses run that frequently. And neither did Malmo, which is much larger than Lund (population about halfway between Durham and Raleigh). They do have an idea for a light-rail, but they clearly saw that they were not ready for that yet, as even the busiest bus line was not that heavily trafficked, and pursued BRT instead for 2 of the busiest bus lines. And theyâre fine.
The top priority for buses around here is frequency, frequency, and frequency. Glad to see GoRaleigh has beefed up frequencies on their busier lines, to the point the bus system is much easier to use than in years past, and thereâs more to come along. And, of course, cleanliness and safety. At GoRaleigh Station, there needs to be some kind of security that doesnât let people loiter around. People need to understand that itâs a transit station, not a shelter. Keep the buses clean, transit stations safe, and build up a network of fairly frequent buses. A grid system wonât work here, but a radial hub-spoke system along main roads and crosstown connector routes will get the job done. And market the system (which GoRaleigh is slowly starting to do); buses already look good enough on the outside compared to other buses around the country. Once we have a robust bus system, then Raleigh can talk about light rail (though Iâd say build a subway at that point).
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