Capital Area Transit (CAT) Bus System

[dombalis]

The buses look filthy on the exterior, so my assumption is that it is gross on the inside, too. I don't think the ad-wrapped buses look good at all, in fact they are so jumbled up looking, that it makes them look graffiti-ized and dirty, again.

This kind of ties in to the shelter thing, and the overly complex service design...the system is just not user friendly. Without the website, i wouldn't even bother with the bus, because it's just too complicated without the trip planner.

http://www.gotriangle.org/trip/en/

The trip planner, however, is a wonderful tool. If you live in downtown Raleigh, there are many, many routes that serve you. People just have to get over how the buses look. I have to admit, I felt the same way for a while about the appearance of those buses. The newer buses, though, are actually kind of nice on the inside. Anyway, I'll get back on later today after i've read the Executive Summary of the Transit Plan...i'm interested to see the city's plan in its entirety, so that we UP experts, in our infinite wisdom, can complain about all of it's flaws

[dombalis]

Okay, it looks like I've got the gist of what the city is doing (or supposed to be doing) over the next few years:

1. Install a total of 80 benches and 80 shelters, as needed. Again, the rule they're going by is, if a stop generates between 10-25 riders a day, it gets a bench. If it generates more than 25, it gets a shelter.

2. Purchase 31 new buses

3. Purchase 4 new connector buses

4. Purchase 13 coach buses

Also, as opposed to having a system of mostly radial routes, with a few connectors, one hub (MSTS), and one secondary hub (Crabtree Mall), they plan creating four more secondary hubs. Wake Med/Human Services (Sunnybrook/New Bern), NC State, Triangle Town Center, and Six Forks/Lassiter Mill.

I think that the multi-hub part is a no-brainer; i'm i'm going from Crabtree to North Hills, I don't need to go through Moore Square to get there. I also think that Crabtree/North Hills, with the density they're (hopefully) going to have down the line, provide wonderful opportunities to make transit an everyday part of alot of people's commutes. At the NC State station, they can coordinate and share a hub with the WolfLine. Students are, of course, much more frugal, and, thus, more likely to take a bus. This can pump still more riders into the system. All in all, the city expects the annual ridership to go from 3.2 million to 5.2 million in five years. Not sure about that, but if it happens, great. In a way, not getting the TTA rail may be a short-term blessing for the CAT system. If they can take advantage of this oppurtunity, they can really make a move, in my opinion. Then, with increase ridership, we'll have a much better chance to obtain federal funding for rail, and also to develop a plan that actually hits some key spots, like, of course, the airport.

Again, though, i don't see why they can't put a schedule at every stop. Idon't see why they can't put a shelter and bench at more stops than 80. I mean, at least do it at major transfer points, like Hillsborough/Glenwood. Also, even thought it's great that they're going to institute a GPS system, like the Wolfline does, where you can view real-time bus locations online, they're only going to make this information publiclyvisible at Moore Square. Why not put it at the 5 sub-hubs, too? The fact of the matter is, Raleigh needs to work to fix the transit that we have, and use it on a regular basis. So many of the benefits that would come with rail are still benefits through the CAT system. I guess that we kind of hunger for municipal prestige, which is great, but, if we can become more transit oriented, we can improve our city RIGHT NOW, and exponentially improve our chances for getting rail.

[ncwebguy]

I hope Tuesday's election helps increase the chances of getting rail in the Triangle.

CAT has been talking about decentralized hubs for a while, so I'll belive them when they come about. If they do become reality, they should all have a GPS/time schedule display. Moore Square has had a display for months, but isn't using it for anything until the system comes online.

There are no direct routes with any kind of density from North Hills and Crabtree, but that area does deserve bus service. The neighborhoods with low-density houses and mostly non-commercial arteries -- only Creedmoor and Six Forks have 90+% of retail in that area. Maybe a loop that goes from Crabtree to ITB to St Mary's to North Hills to the Millbrook/Duraleigh/Glenwood and back to Crabtree? Connecting the Crabtree and Lassiter/Six Forks hubs.

[RaleighRob]

This is the kind of story that's just infuriating. As much as we (rightfully) talk about government not getting the ball rolling on mass transit, it's worth remembering the private sector can often be worse...

"Upscale Shopping Centers Ban City Buses" : http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/611691.html

[vitaviatic]

Ol' Cranky here...

Guys, this is emblematic of a failed transit system:

N&O -- 06/21/2007

If the CAT system is this dysfunctional, then no rail, BRT, or any other conveyance paired to it is going to be successful beyond its own immediate corridor. Maybe it's time that someone should approach the Legislature to end this nonsense. If the city of Raleigh is going to treat transit like the proverbial "red-headed stepchild", using it only to score fed funding for some patronage jobs, then the perhaps the city should be stripped of the transit responsibility and authority to provide it, with Durham's liquidated as well, and TTA reoganized as a unified, six-county jurisdiction (Wake, Durham, Orange, Franklin, Chatham, Johnston -- but certainly no less than three). Have the Legislature remand that share of city funding applied to transit, or withheld from sales tax collections from the city, and apply it to a state-chartered transit agency, whether it be TTA as is, or reorganized (that would be my suggestion).

You certainly hear stories about service disruptions and the like everywhere. But you just don't hear these kinds of stories about chronic neglect, and classist denial of access to transit by upscale retail. In fact, before the retail development ever got approved here, you would see boilerplate language guaranteeing transit access, and sufficient planning to accomodate it without all of those safety complaints. I will recount a local story of a similar situation here, only to illustrate the difference in mindset.

Park Meadows Mall (a Lexus lane mall) was constructed in Douglas County, Colorado as the southern suburbs answer to Denver's Cherry Creek, which with its Saks, Neiman-Marcus, Lord & Taylor, etc., it was felt was drawing shoppers (gasp!) into the city and away from the suburban coffers. So at the pleading of suburban politicos, some developers rented a jet, flew to Seattle, and scored a deal with Nordstrom to anchor a new mall on the southern perimeter of metro Denver, in Douglas County, where tumbleweeds were still relatively cheap to buy. The mall was installed before Douglas County was literally roped and hogtied into the Regional Transportation District. Of course, McMansions started popping up around this mall like mushrooms after a spring rain, most of them in Douglas County. Today the towns (town, as in Cary -- ha, ha) of Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, and Parker sport between them over 200,000 citizens.

Fast forward to 2000. Several initiatives to get DC included in the RTD had failed. Many of the well-heeled inhabitants of those burgs screamed "We don't use transit! We don't use transit!", and lead by Park Meadows Mall, which didn't have to collect and pay the then 1/4 cent transit tax, refused to join. Meanwhile, the light rail stations in Littleton (just over the county line in Arapahoe County) were getting overwhelmed by Douglas County residents. The state then stepped in and said "you will join, and you will pay the tax, and you will get rail service yourselves". Certain areas of DougCo were folded into RTD, and as a result, LRT now serves two stations there, with another one planned as an extension on the old Southwest Corridor.

Fast forward to 2006. Park Meadows Mall had refused to allow access to RTD (one would imagine to keep the riff-raff teenagers out). So, even though the platform at County Line Station offers a birdseye view of the mall from across the mall service road, no pedestrian connection was installed, and the only way to the mall from the train was by shuttle bus -- itself a very circuitous fifteen minute drive around the freeway and through several annoying intersections. Apparently nobody in the public had paid attention. On opening day of the LRT in November 2006, hundreds of would-be shoppers boarded trains in Arapahoe and Denver to go shopping at Park Meadows, only to find the station only dumping people out on the other side of the freeway. Mall management heard it fast, and heard it loud. Within a week they had started a good sized campaign to reassure the transit riders that, oh yes, we have been working on plans to extend the bridge to the mall, but...blah, blah, blah. You see the people calling in owned Lexi. And Beamers. And Volvos. And the Mercedes-Benzes. They just didn't care to drive them there. (Presumably the obnoxious morons in the Hummers kept driving, imaging themselves gloriously surviving imaginary tours of combat.)

It's truly sad to see how little has changed in Raleigh over the years. The "welfare wagon" mentality about buses apparently still persists, even though one solid day of observing them would probably refute that image. I am beginning to think that nothing less will do other than a wholesale gutting and overhaul of the present Balkanized transit scheme. At one point the Durham system was so badly run by Duke Power that Durham had to take it over. I think the same can be said of all of them now, save for Chapel Hill. I know TTA has performance issues related to tight budgets, rundown equipment, etc. But if that agency were financially restructured, that could be mitigated. No one however can convince me that the city of Raleigh, with it's vaunted Aaa bond rating, can't afford to put air-conditioned buses online in the Carolina heat. It can -- it just doesn't care to. Disgraceful.

To wit, I was trying to get a map of CAT routes in order to play around with them and fit them into the TTA Fairgrounds and DTR stations. I Googled "transit Raleigh", figuring that would be generic enough to get me to the CAT portal. Oh, no. I got sent to the city's main web portal. From there I had to enter yet another search window with "transit" to even find CAT mentioned. At the "Welcome to Transit" page I finally found an obscure link to a "Schedules & Bus Routes" page, then there a "cat System Wide Map". To me it seemed to indicate the priority level for "cat" -- interestingly reduced on the city's page to miniscule letters. That I would have to seek through three search levels (when I knew what I was looking for at that) to even get transit information, shows me that the city doesn't really care if anybody rides the thing at all. As long as it gets money out of those d@mn Feds.

To my shock and horror, trhe system I saw after my third attempt to download the PDF map, was that the system was basically the same one that existed when I was a kid riding the thing (and that was a long bleeping time ago, folks!). The old routes were basically extended out, and absolutely no overhaul has been done to streamline any time, connections, anything. That route structure might have been OK for a city of 93,000 souls, but it is nothing short of pathetic for a city now four times that size. The citizens of Raleigh, and what's more, all of Wake County, be they poor or wealthy, deserve way better than this. I imagine Durham's isn't that much different (although I hope it is). So, if changes are to be made, then one big, powerful transit district would work much better than these hillbilly cousins.

In this case gang, I'd say get the State involved. They seem to have a much better grasp on transportation issues than Triangle muni governments.

[orulz]

In my opinion, I think buses shouldn't be pulling into these shopping centers and strip malls of minimal importance anyway. These sorts of detours into strip mall parking lots are the reason that it can take twice as long as it should to get from point A to point B on the bus. I'll gladly make an exception for a major destination that ALSO serves as a secondary transfer hub like Crabtree Valley. If I need to walk 1/4 mile walk then so be it.

I'll allow that I am neither elderly nor disabled so folks who are will probably have significantly different opinions than myself.

But the solution I would argue for not to have buses pull into parking lots, but instead to force commercial developers to build closer to the street, with parking in back (or on top.)

[DPK]

This is the kind of story that's just infuriating. As much as we (rightfully) talk about government not getting the ball rolling on mass transit, it's worth remembering the private sector can often be worse...

"Upscale Shopping Centers Ban City Buses" : http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/611691.html

I agree that it's tragic that the shopping centers will not allow buses on their property, however the city should place stops outside the center boundary. The centers do own their land and I can understand them not wanting buses "cutting through" it, but the city has easement rights. Stick a bus stop on the corner and be done with it.

[cityboi]

here is an article about upscale shopping centers in Raleigh not allowing city buses on the premises. Since many lower income people ride the buses, some say its to deter those kind of people people away from some shopping centers. The excuse the shopping centers are using is safety but its interesting that lower to medium income shopping centers are still allowing buses. its almost like they really don't want certain kind of people or a certain kind of image in their shopping centers.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/611691.html

[suburban george3]

This is just 'sad' on the part of the management of the centers. Most of the people using these bus lines are more than likely lower income who work at these centers. It doesn't sound like the one center tried to work with the Transit Authority at all outside of writing complaint letters. If the busses were about to hit people leaving the center, a supervisor from the Transit Authority should have come to observe and reprimand the driver.

The city of Raleigh should require Transit Access to all commercial areas as a part of permitting, zoning, new construction. They may not have much legal ground to force existing centers, but they can with new development.

[cityboi]

This is just 'sad' on the part of the management of the centers. Most of the people using these bus lines are more than likely lower income who work at these centers. It doesn't sound like the one center tried to work with the Transit Authority at all outside of writing complaint letters. If the busses were about to hit people leaving the center, a supervisor from the Transit Authority should have come to observe and reprimand the driver.

The city of Raleigh should require Transit Access to all commercial areas as a part of permitting, zoning, new construction. They may not have much legal ground to force existing centers, but they can with new development.

I agree, Also you are right...lower class people arent the only ones that use the buses. actually a commuter trend is beginning in the Triangle where people from all walks of life are using public transportation. Its really is no longer just a way for poor people to get around. By not allowing buses you kill the opportunity for customers in yor shopping center. It wrong for these shopping centers to do this though. They are beginning to act like snobs like those stores in Beverly Hills.

[DanRNC]

There is already a post about this in Triangle Regional Transit

[JeffC]

Funny thing is, none of those shopping centers other than Brier Creek are even remotely "upscale"...Geeze, I think two of them house Krogers... . This will just give me a principled reason to avoid these particular strip malls (which is all they are) like the plague

[ncwebguy]

North Hills' bus stop is similar to Crabtree Valley Mall's stop -- technically on the property, but riders get dumped off away from a wide sidewalk or entrance. Is that any better than leaving bus stops on city streets? A little, but barely. The CVM stop is better than the one that used to be on the other side of the creek, but there is still a "moat" to get from the bus stop to the Belk's entrance. The north hills stop is convenient to Total Wine, but there is no pedestrian connection to the movie theater, and the sidewalk between the stop and REI is narrow.

Also, Vitaviatic's point that the current CAT system is mostly the same as the one that served less than 100,000 citizens but has longer routes/tentacles. When i worked at the Glenwood/Lynn Target and my car was in the shop, I had to walk from either the Wal-mart/burger king stop to stay on the north side of Glenwood or get off at the Duraleigh/Glenwood stop on the south side, across from Merchant's tire. It was about 45 minutes by bus for a trip that would take 20-25 by car. And it only ran once an hour, twice during higher volume hours. Going out to Brier Creek is extending the line too far, which was partly dealt with via the Crabtree mini-hub, but it is still a long, hot ride. As much as I don't like Wal-mart, the two on glenwood are bus-friendly, which is probably due to that being their customer/work base.

Watching the crowds at Moore Square, there are some "transit by choice" riders, but the vast majority of riders are "transit by necessity", and the city treats it that way. Unfortunately, any talk of combining services to streamline operations and add efficieincies is always met by protesters worried about losing their part of a line that averages three riders a day. Those people are very passionate about the bus system as a social service, but they are crippling the ability of the entire triangle sytem's ability to be reengineered for the 21st century.

CAT has made some strides, like Sunday service and routes instead of connectors for evening service, but it still has a way to go. It should concentrate on better serving shopping already on its routes, and working with "outlier/end of route" shopping centers to promote them as park and ride lots. CAT should sell shopping centers on the idea that park and ride commuters would become shoppers when the bus dropped them off at/near the front door. Maybe then they wouldn't worry about non-existent "safety issues" and have let the buses in the parking lots. The next step would be convincing people to not drive all the way into downtow, but that is another issue.

Planning and city council should also approve new shopping centers that addressed the street better, since this would make the "buses cutting through" a moot point. Maybe it can be part of the new master plan?

[Jones_]

If the City would force the development of a real urban street pattern, and not allow huge ultra megasized shopping centers all over the place this would not be an issue. This whole issue is a symptom of the failed defacto suburban model we endure at every turn (literally)

[Gard]

The city needs to require bus access to shopping centers as a condition to approval of it being constructed. No bus access and no bus stop, then no shopping center. I would think that the city could pass an ordinance that would require bus access.

[Transplant]

Why should private property owner be required to allow access to the city's busses? I don't think they should.

The shopping centers aren't built to handle the weight of busses. Will the city be required to help pay for upgraded surfaces? probably not.

[ChiefJoJo]

Well, the city is looking into it. I think the most logical centers would be on the furthest reaches of each bus route where a lot might be leased for park and ride customers (something else we need to be doing). I agree with orulz, that you can't realistically go into every S/C along a route, or even more than one unless you have minimal bus headways, which we don't. With only 2-3 buses on a route at any time, there's just not time to go trough each one. Now it happens that Brennan Station and Briar Creek are those type of end of the line centers that we should serve this way.

I think Jones point is important... until we have real urban corridors with more density and walkability (sort of like Hillsborough), all of this is talk of forcing buses in strip mall parking lots is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.

[orulz]

Why should private property owner be required to allow access to the city's busses? I don't think they should.

The shopping centers aren't built to handle the weight of busses. Will the city be required to help pay for upgraded surfaces? probably not.

That's not the point that the shopping center owners seem to be arguing. Their parking lots support the numerous delivery trucks that drop off groceries and they are required to allow city inspectors, police, fire trucks, etc etc on their property anyway.

What they're doing is arguing about the safety of having a bus run through their parking lot once an hour (Think of the CHILDREN!!!).

But this argument is completely nonsensical. I fail to understand how it's any less safe to have a bus roll through their parking lot once an hour, than it is to have 15 cars roll through their parking lot every minute. If the bus drivers come plowing through the parking lot as if to bowl over some poor hapless pedestrians, then call CAT and complain, and get the driver on those routes reprimanded. I find that EXTREMELY unlikely, though. In my experience on CAT, I find the drivers to be almost universally professional, safe, courteous; the regular class C motorists are far, far worse.

I suspect that the "safety" argument is is a smoke screen. More probably, they don't like the way it looks to have people "loitering" (aka waiting for a bus) at their shopping center. It makes some people uncomfortable to see folks doing what looks like loitering, and they've probably recieved complaints from customers.

[Transplant]

I'm always surprised that there is no benches or weather protection at almost all bus stops. People waiting for the bus are sitting on the sidewalk.

Anyway, driving busses through parking lots slows service. I'd like to see special exits/entrances for busses if they are to drive through these lots.

[sax184]

But this argument is completely nonsensical. I fail to understand how it's any less safe to have a bus roll through their parking lot once an hour, than it is to have 15 cars roll through their parking lot every minute. If the bus drivers come plowing through the parking lot as if to bowl over some poor hapless pedestrians, then call CAT and complain, and get the driver on those routes reprimanded. I find that EXTREMELY unlikely, though. In my experience on CAT, I find the drivers to be almost universally professional, safe, courteous; the regular class C motorists are far, far worse.

I suspect that the "safety" argument is is a smoke screen.

Excellent post, right on point. If you leafed through the N&O of the last year, how many "pedestrian struck by CAT bus" and "CAT bus nearly causes mayhem" stories would you see? Well, none.

If you, however, went back and looked for stories about inexperienced teenage drivers getting in horrific accidents, you'd find (sadly) far too many examples. If the shopping centers were really about safety, they would not be worried about the heavily monitored and regulated bus drivers with CDLs. They'd be worried about teens and others speeding through their lots.

[Gard]

It looks like the developers of Brier Creek has signed a promise to allow bus access in the future, on condition of the city approving their plans for Brier Creek. That being said, that could possibly provide legal grounds for the city to get CAT access to Brier Creek. City attorneys are apparently looking at it now to evaluate the legality of the document, but city manager Russel Allen adds that "I certainly consider it binding in that it was a condition."

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/625110.html

[orulz]

I'll say it's binding. If this was a condition for approval of the rezoning and site plan, I should hope the city has the legal authority to revoke the entire development's certificate of occupancy for non-compliance. That's not something that the property management wants to happen, so they'll cave.

[ChiefJoJo]

I was sure glad to have the bus this morning as hot as it is today.

I didn't see this article posted about lack of bus amenities in the area.

In Raleigh, transit officials struggle to meet a goal of a shelter for each spot that draws 25 riders daily and a bench for every stop that attracts 10 patrons. But they acknowledge Raleigh provides far too few on its limited budget of $13 million to operate the bus system, a sum that equals about what the city is spending to widen two roads.

We'll continue to see these kind of numbers until the city decides to make a serious commitment to locally fund transit.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

I was sure glad to have the bus this morning as hot as it is today.

I didn't see this article posted about lack of bus amenities in the area.

In Raleigh, transit officials struggle to meet a goal of a shelter for each spot that draws 25 riders daily and a bench for every stop that attracts 10 patrons. But they acknowledge Raleigh provides far too few on its limited budget of $13 million to operate the bus system, a sum that equals about what the city is spending to widen two roads.

We'll continue to see these kind of numbers until the city decides to make a serious commitment to locally fund transit.

I am truly amazed at how many stops, (Durham/94.9 sq miles), has compared to (Raleigh/134.34 sq miles), given the two different cities land areas. Also, I wonder if the transit monies that each area gets is broken down into what the monies goes for? I myself would love to at least have a bench to sit on during the hottes of weather. Much less for those with physical issues.

[rfburns]

Hey, long time lurker here... I don't know how I missed this thread, but I wanted to comment on the thread as a whole, so I hope I don't break the continuity too much.

I live in Johnston County and work at the Municipal Building. For a while, I parked in Garner (at K-Mart or Lowe's) and rode the bus in, mostly to save on parking costs, but the amount of time it took got frustrating. It takes the bus almost half an hour to go from the 4 miles from the K-Mart in Garner to McDowell St. I timed the same trip this morning in my car, and it took me just under 8 minutes, and that was during rush hour. And the half-hour time for riding the bus doesn't even consider time spent waiting for the bus.

I would rather spend the extra 50 cents (??) on gas to drive 4 miles, find free on-street parking, and walk 4-6 blocks to work. And I get to ride the bus for free!

The TTA Garner route would shave about 9 miles off my drive, and I do occasionally take that in (if I happen to pass Forest Hills near the time the bus is scheduled to stop), but with small children at home, I really don't like the 7-hour pause where no buses run that route. (8:30 til 3:30)

My biggest wish for Raleigh is to have express buses. The #7 route picks up most of the riders at 4 places: Wal-Mart, K-Mart, the 7c transfer, and Moore Square. Why not have an express bus that just hits those 4 stops, and nothing else? The route would take about 15 minutes max. Now imagine duplexing that route with an express route for #1. It would be possible to go from K-Mart in Garner to Triangle Town Center in 45 minutes.

I emailed that, and several other suggestions and ideas, to the "catinfo" email address, but never heard anything back. I concur with others, in that right now, CAT is for people that have no other alternative.