Yeah but if it’s this low I mean that could go to other thing I told you my experience it hasn’t been packed it quiet!!! I not packed and I doubt any of y’all rely on it for transit downtown!!! They could reuse those hybrid buses for number 1 and 2 routes and others that’ll be a free uh add on to the revamping bus fleet.
Well, we finally have 2 downtown grocers that can be accessed by the RLine, with more retail is coming to SH2. This would be the wrong time to give up on it.
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This past Tuesday, there was a GoRaleigh board presentation talking about setting data-driven rules for when to bring back the R-Line. They talked to other city staffers as well as the downtown alliance and agreed on using 3 benchmarks back in January, and the R-Line has been suspended since Valentine’s Day. The thresholds are:
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60% of parking decks are occupied (currently 15%)
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65% of average number of pedestrians per day in 2019 (currently 40%)
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65% of total food and drink sales in DTR in 2019 (currently 47%)
…so none of the thresholds have been met yet. Recent headlines like the J&J vaccine being shown to be safe and effective and coming to North Carolina or the curfew going away could help, though.
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Any idea how often they take those measurements? Monthly? Quarterly?
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It’s monthly. In case you didn’t see it in the slide deck I linked to, here’s the percent-utilization of parking deck capacity used in DTR:
…and likewise for the average daily pedestrian count per month…
…and prepared food/beverage sales per month.
The county’s numbers for gross receipts tax collection is also reported for each month, so I assume the county tax office has the numbers to do this math. I’m having a hard time finding the raw data to check their math and dig deeper into those numbers, though.
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Turns out, the GoRaleigh board met last week and voted to bring back the R-Line -with a catch.
As I said back in March, the city decided to look at bringing back the bus service if parking deck utilization, average number of pedestrians per day, and total food/drink sales recover up to certain percentages of pre-pandemic values. In May (the most recent month with data), we met the latter two out of 3 objectives!
What does that mean? The GoRaleigh board voted to bring back the R-line early, but ONLY during GalaxyCon and the IBMA World of Bluegrass festival since we haven’t met all 3 benchmarks yet. After some discussion, all but one present members voted to approve this (Lawrence Carter abstained).
Important context: the R-Line is already allocated funding; it’s just not being used right now due to the benchmarks not being met yet. The presenting staffer mentioned that they could look into returning the R-Line with a reduced level of service if all three self-imposed conditions are met by August. It seems like they have to do this because of the shortage of drivers with CDLs, though, and the slide blames the DMV for being slow with processing applications for new drivers.
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Maybe this Rocky Mount move isn’t working out for them?
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Hurray! Didn’t realize they were bringing it back!
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I wish they would use the shorter buses, they seem to maneuver better in the tighter downtown streets.
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I hope we don’t loose all of low-rise downtown.
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With you big time. Keep the old/often historic shorter buildings and building UP UP UP in all the endless surface parking lots, or on top of/in place of the endless supply of freestanding parking decks.
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No one , especially out of town guests have any idea what the r line is
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I do and before COVID-19 I rode it a lot! 
I can not speak to out of town guest. I hope that the city does a better job of marketing this as it really is an asset IMO!
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IMO this bus should look different than a typical bus so people think “hey what’s that” I think having a trolley look could go a long way.
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It actually used to! Had its own signs and everything. I think they opted to integrate it into the GoRaleigh brand to encourage ridership on the system as a whole.
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The R Line should be made into a streetcar system.
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Interesting. I just feel like 95% of people will see the bus and not have time / think to look at the banner unless they’re actively looking to board their regular bus. Would make for an interesting field study.
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Absolutely Yes! I think I’ve said that before. Unfortunately it’ll probably be far down our list and is more of an amenity than anything. We need to get our commuter transit in place first
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