Reminder that we’ll have R-Line updates this evening at Weaver Street from 5:30-7:30pm as part of the Downtown CAC social. If you can come out and hang, would love to meet some more folks. Appetizers provided, we’ll be upstairs I’m the mezzanine.
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Updates on your thoughts?
I was just reading an interesting article in today’s N&O about the most revised route for this including stop/s near the new grocery store on Peace street. 
The authority will present the new route and take feedback at two public meetings Wednesday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 6:30 p.m., in Room 303 of the Raleigh Municipal Building on Hargett Street. There’s also an online survey at bit.ly/2r76fJB, and the authority will hold a public hearing before it approves the route.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article237531174.html
Thanks for reminding me.
If you’ve been following this thread, I shared this route from our stakeholder meetings from earlier this year. This “candy cane” route is similar to the one created from earlier this year.
New is the turnaround piece in the warehouse district. It has been moved more to the south which better serves RUS and the future RUSbus. It also hits both grocery stores (Weaver and Publix) and continues to serve the highest ridership spots from the current route which are:
- Glenwood and Tucker
- Convention Center
- GoRaleigh Station
The Peace Street stop also had some good ridership and that is currently being served.
The biggest change is that the proposed route is not a loop anymore. (sort of) With the buses running up and down Wilmington and Salisbury, the buses are actually moving somewhat bidirectionally. They will move faster and it should result in more frequent service.
They also moved it off Glenwood Ave which can get caught up in evening and nightlife traffic. This will also help speed at those times.
I think it’s important, as mentioned in the article, that as BRT gets put into place, the R-Line should always be tweaked as needed. I consider this a good change and hope to see the R-Line provide some mobility as we get the BRT lines online over the next 5-8 years.
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This route looks awful, TBH. The polar opposite of the “linearity” principle when it comes to transit.
If that’s the only option on the table, maybe we should just cancel it. It is a lot of service hours and the proposed route looks like it would be much slower than walking for most trips. They could reallocate those service hours toward some other aspect of the Wake Transit Plan instead.
If we must have an R line, how about a zigzag route: Glenwood-Hargett-Fayetteville? Since Glenwood doesn’t intersect Hargett directly, maybe a jog on Morgan and West to get there. Or, alternatively, just Glenwood-Morgan-Fayetteville?
Edit: Or I guess if moving it entirely off of Glenwood and onto West is a good thing (in spite of the RR crossing and in spite of being further from the heart of the district) then just straight West-Hargett-Fayetteville might make sense.
At any rate, viewing the R-line as an easier substitute for walking is the wrong way to think of it. It should make people feel like they can make the Glenwood-Fayetteville trips that are simply too long to walk during a lunch break or before/after a show in the evening. If walking would be faster, then forget it: complete waste of time. Riding the proposed route from the Warehouse District over to Memorial Auditorium would be way slower than walking. And that leads me to ask, what’s the point, even?
Here is my proposal, with a few alternatives:
I like the idea of it moving more bi-directional on both the east and west sides of downtown. This means that I can take it from the north end of Glenwood South to the south end of The Warehouse District and back without having to make the entire loop through downtown. If I want to go through all of DT, that’s still available to me as well, or I can jump on it at west near Publix and go directly to the east side.
For riders from the east side of DT, they can take the RLine to Publix and then back to the east side without having to loop through the Warehouse District.
IMO, this is a win/win sort of mapping.
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Anyone else noticed the new, shorter bus they are using for the R-Line? I wasn’t aware of a change yet but this one’s seems to be in use frequently. I’m never in a good position for a pic so maybe someone else can snap it and post.
They’ve been using a shorter bus on other routes as well. I hadn’t noticed until the last week or two.
Those huge buses are so cumbersome as they lumber about the tight corners and narrower roads that they sometimes travel. I’m all for smaller RLine buses that are more scale appropriate to the DT neighborhoods.
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Agreed. And honestly, except for buses that go to the fair grounds or NCSU, I wish they would only use the smaller variety. I can honestly say that in most of my life I have not seen many of the largest buses even close to being full. Sad to say…
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You’ve gotta look during the 7-9 AM and 4-6 PM hours during the weekday. I ride the GoRaleigh #2 route and it’s always close to full during those hours.
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Route 15 (will be replaced with New Bern BRT) is pretty full all day too. I take it 2 to 3 times a week to the Alamo Drafthouse.
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The Capital blvd bus is always slammed. I’m glad I don’t have to take it.
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From September 2019 - https://cityofraleigh0drupal.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/drupal-prod/COR28/Performance%20Reports%20September%202019.pdf
Route 21 (Caraleigh) - 47.9 riders/revenue hour
Route 15 (WakeMed) - 35.6
Route 1 (Capital) - 33.4
Route 11 (Avent Ferry) - 30.2
Route 7 (South Saunders) - 28.8
Route 22 (State Street) - 27.3
Route 2 (Falls of Neuse) - 22.6
Route 6 (Crabtree) - 21.7
Route 12 (Method) - 20.5
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Just saw a short GoCary bus as well.
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GoCary uses the short bus on the 300 route on the weekends. Just saw it at GoRaleigh station
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Finally, got some pics of the shorter buses.
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That’s actually not as short as I thought they’d go. Nonetheless, it does look like an improvement for the scale of downtown.
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