Category / Transit/Transportation

by Leo Suarez

Weekend Listen, Jarrett Walker

Jarrett Walker and his transit consulting company were recently hired to be a part of the update to the Wake County Transit Plan. Below is a radio interview with Walker at a Kansas City station that gives you a taste of his thoughts on transit including street cars, light-rail, and a frequent bus network. Download the MP3 directly if the embed player doesn’t work for you.

by Leo Suarez

Campaign for Bicycle Repair Stations in Downtown Raleigh

O&S Fundraising Campaign – Bike Repair Stations from Oaks and Spokes on Vimeo.

Watch the video for Bicycle Repair Stations in Raleigh on Neighborly.

A group of Raleigh bicycle fans want to raise money to install bike repair stations on the greenway and in downtown Raleigh. These are quite common in more bike-friendly cities around the world so why not have them here at home. The team is raising money and you can help through their Neighborly Campaign.

by Leo Suarez

Color Codes Coming to Downtown Parking Decks

Parking is one of those services where having no complaints are a good thing and no real praise happens. I’m not sure enough people rave about how great a parking experience at a place is. So in hopes of less complaints, the city is color coding the downtown decks.

How will they do this? By placing colored signs at the entrances of course. The tweet above shows the signs that will go out. Our parking administrator sums it up:

“We hope the new signs make it easier for Downtown visitors to find their way back to their vehicles,” said Gordon Dash, City of Raleigh parking administrator. “Some visitors have experienced an hour or longer delay before they could find their vehicle, because they didn’t remember the name of the parking deck in which they parked. Color-coding also will make it easier for City of Raleigh Police and the Downtown Raleigh Ambassadors provided by the Downtown Raleigh Alliance to help visitors find their vehicles.”

It seems we’ve done such a good job at making the decks hidden with facades that look like buildings that enough people are forgetting where they park.

You could look at this two ways. It’s simply a “problem we want to have” or parking management needs to be rethought.

by Leo Suarez

Groundbreaking For Raleigh Union Station March 21, 2015

Public Meeting for Raleigh Union Station, September 2014

I’m at the Raleigh Union Station meeting and wanted to get this out. The mayor announced a groundbreaking for March 21, 2015.

More to add later.

The meeting tonight was more open house than new information. The groundbreaking announcement was the biggest piece of news and the March 21 date is not an accident. March 21, 2015 is the 175th anniversary of the first train to arrive in Raleigh.

In addition to the already posted renderings, a fantastic model of the Union Station site was on display.

Public Meeting for Raleigh Union Station, September 2014

They estimate about two years for construction so look forward to the new station opening sometime in 2017.

[UPDATE: 9-11-14]
For posterity I’m copying the city’s press release on the topic that came out after this event.

On March 21, 1840, the people of Raleigh were witnesses to history. On that Saturday in the spring, a train rumbled into Raleigh for the first time. Over the next century, the era of the locomotive would dominate transportation in the modern world. Eventually, cars and planes would supplant the locomotive. But few inventions shaped the physical destiny on nations like the train.

On March 21, 2015, the people of Raleigh will once again have the opportunity to witness history. On that Saturday, officials will break ground on the first phase of Raleigh’s Union Station, a joint initiative of the North Carolina Department of Transportation Rail Division and the City of Raleigh. The estimated cost of the first phase of the project is $73 million. Current funding for the project totals $66.25 million through a series of federal grants, and state and local matches. The City’s contribution to the construction is $5.75 million. The first phase will include the renovation of the Dillon Supply Company Warehouse at 510 West Martin Street into a passenger rail facility.

Once completed (estimated date of 2017), the station will transform the transportation infrastructure of Raleigh. Not only will the station serve Amtrak passengers, the station will add new retail and commercial office space to its warehouse district location. The station will feature three levels of restaurants, shops and offices, and offer visitors a rooftop view of the Downtown Raleigh skyline.

Throughout the design process, architects from Clearscapes sought public feedback on the aesthetics and amenities. The firm strove to honor the City’s railroad heritage while looking at how other cities have reused warehouses. Planners envision a vibrant, active and economically viable space that benefits rail passengers and creates a new Downtown destination. Upon full-build-out, Raleigh Union Station will serve as a transportation hub for local and regional commuter and passenger rail, buses, taxis, bicyclists and pedestrians.

On September 9, the final public information session at the Contemporary Art Museum gave people a last chance to look at the designs and scope of the project and ask questions of the designers.

“Creating great public spaces, both interior and exterior, are significant goals for this project,” said Steve Schuster, the designer of the project for Clearscapes, PA. “That is very much in line with having this facility be authentic, memorable, and unique. We were very pleased when the national Amtrak architect spent the day with us reviewing the project and remarked at the end of the day that the Raleigh Union Station is, in his view, the most exciting rail station project happening in the nation.”

In 2012, Raleigh’s Amtrak Station served 164,000 passengers, making it one of the busiest Amtrak stations in the southeast. But the location and size of the current train station cannot accommodate the expected increases in ridership. Additionally, the current station only has 1,800 square feet of passenger waiting space and only 54 parking spaces.

“This design solves a lot of longstanding problems associated with this large railroad junction, and does so in a way that creates new opportunities,” said City of Raleigh Planning Director Ken Bowers. “The design respects and builds on what’s special about the warehouse district. The reuse of existing industrial building will result in a unique and dramatic space. The echoes of the area’s rail and industrial heritage are reflected throughout the design. The new plaza creates a signature open space at the terminus of Martin Street that will serve as a focal point for a growing arts and innovation district, and connect pedestrians into the Downtown core. The result will be a gathering place that will be a magnet for not just travelers but also area residents, workers and visitors.”

by Leo Suarez

Final Union Station Public Session on Sept 9

Raleigh Union Station Rendering

The Raleigh Union Station project has been one of the most publicly accessible projects that has come through the city in the last few years. The final public session is next week so make sure to catch up with the previous blog coverage and come out to CAM on September 9.

Raleigh Union Station Public Workshop

Date/Time: Tues., Sept 9 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Contemporary Art Museum
409 West Martin Street
Raleigh, NC 27603
919.513.0946

I’m going to recommend that a Raleigh flag be put up with the USA and NC flag like in the rendering above.

by Leo Suarez

My Thoughts on the R-Line

An R-Line bus in front of the Raleigh Convention Center

One of downtown Raleigh’s hot topics this year has apparently been the R-Line. If you’ve been following, there are a slew of stories about the perceived unfairness of the fare-free bus circulator that operates seven days a week. With upcoming fare increases on other routes of the Capital Area Transit (CAT) system, the R-Line is being looked down upon by certain Raleigh individuals.

My take on this is that the R-Line is being politically micro-managed and we should let the transit planners have a say.

Background articles to read:

The route was first introduced in February of 2009 with a dedication ceremony in front of the Raleigh Convention Center. It’s important to note that the R-Line was one piece of a much larger puzzle. The Convention Center had just opened around that time. The Fayetteville Street makeover was still pretty fresh. City Plaza was less than a year old.

These were downtown improvements made to attract more visitors, create more spending, and create more businesses. From a city point of view, that means paying back the investment in downtown and generating more tax revenue. Cities do this to sustain a high-quality of life, which Raleigh has, with a fair or low cost of living.

A lot has happened over the last five years though.

Events have been one of the largest driving forces behind downtown Raleigh’s growth. Fayetteville Street events used to close off one or two blocks. Moore Square events could be contained within the park itself.

Today, downtown is bursting with events.

An interesting statistic would be the growth of attendance and size over the years. I would put money down that that number has increased year after year.

You have a pretty good chance of catching an event on Fayetteville Street on any given weekend these days. From mid-August to mid-October, downtown is crawling with events and people. Spring has another spike in events that seem to take over. Parking decks are as or more full on weekend nights as they are during the workweek hours any weekend of the year.

It also seems that every marathon that comes to town wants to run their route through downtown Raleigh. We’re not talking just a few, but several dozen closing streets on random weekends.

So what does the R-Line have to do with downtown being the host with most?

A strategy (the R-Line) to make our public investments (Convention Center) more attractive became hugely successful and everyone wants to get a piece of it.

And why was it successful? In my opinion, the R-Line is run like most bus routes should be run. No timetables and a higher frequency of buses passing by.

It was also the first city bus route, to my knowledge, in Raleigh to have GPS tracking. Those with smartphones could see the bus location before heading out to the bus stop. With all the amenities and ease of use, it was implemented very well and has become successful.

Over the years, Raleighites have adopted it. The original purpose is still intact, with the buses moving conventioneers around downtown. The event-driven downtown has used it for moving people between venues. The growing resident population has used it to travel between districts. With a stop near the Moore Square Transit Center, CAT riders have also used it as either the first or last leg of their trip when getting around.

With a diversity of riders, sounds like a success story to me.

Today, the R-Line’s fareless system is being picked on. With an upcoming 50-cent increase in fares over the next 2 years on every other CAT route, there are some vocal citizen advocates that think this unfair, with one individual quoted in an N&O article calling the R-Line racist.

Opinions and proposals on the R-Line aren’t hard to find either.

The articles linked above mention issues such as fairness, equity, and cost. Expanding the route would cost more. How can you make the R-Line more fair? Should all riders have equal access and the demographics of riders be diverse?

We’ve definitely lost sight of the original purpose of the service, which is to move visitors (from hotels and the convention center) around downtown.

An R-Line bus passing through Glenwood South

What we have today though is a situation where the R-Line is so successful that groups want to either copy the R-Line model or modify the current route to include their neighborhood or business, with complete disregard to the overall system that the R-Line is a part of.

In 2013, the Midtown Raleigh Alliance teased an idea of an M-Line between North Hills and Downtown Raleigh. I wrote about the idea and how it compared to the currently in place Route 8 – Northclift CAT route. They seem similar.

In 2011 and back again this year, Cameron Village and nearby residents are petitioning to change the R-Line route to serve the shopping center and the neighborhoods around it. I wrote about it back in 2011, and it’s pretty applicable this year too, that Route 12 – Method and Route 16 – Oberlin both have been providing a link to and from Cameron Village for years.

You also have residents in Oakwood and Mordecai that think the R-Line should swing more north to serve the growing Person Street District. In the linked articles, there are opinions that the R-Line should go more east instead of turning around Moore Square only. CAT routes serve those communities today.

Finally, I’ve heard that the upcoming 10-year Downtown Plan has a pretty healthy section on the R-Line. The draft release of that is scheduled for September 11, blog post on that soon.

It seems the R-Line has now become politically infested. It works so well that others are upset that it isn’t serving their communities. I predict any outright support for the R-Line would be seen as a politically bad move at this point.

I wrote this in the 2011 post about the R-Line going to Cameron Village:

“In my opinion, the petition just shows this area’s readiness for an upgrade in transit “

Raleigh, you are ready to level up. It is time to put on your big girl pants and commit to moving CAT to the next level.

Raleighites should stop picking on the R-Line and start getting behind seeing more money in the budget for the CAT system. Raleigh should hire some top transit talent to guide us in moving to the next level.

With a cohesive and easy to use transit system, funded by all Raleighites, priced fairly for the service it provides, we will stay on the top 10 lists for decades to come.

by Leo Suarez

Municipography, Moore Square Transit Station, Smartphone Apps, and Smart Cards

Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.

There was a lot of transit talk at this week’s city council meeting. Presented to council were some 3D renderings of what the future Moore Square Bus Station could look like after its upcoming upgrade. Technology upgrades in downtown transit are also coming as money has shown up towards setting up a downtown Raleigh smartphone application and a smart card fare system for the CAT buses.

Moore Square Transit Station


Watch the video snippet above. If it doesn’t work for you, go here.

As part of the ongoing Downtown Bus Facilities Master Plan, Moore Square Transit Station is getting an upgrade. Jason Horne of the Raleigh Transit Authority and
the design team presented some new renderings of the station’s future. Construction could start as early as Spring 2015 on the now 26-year-old facility. Plans call for a new bathroom, security and ticketing office, more open, friendlier spaces, and and an additional lane for buses to handle more capacity.

Construction is estimated to take 14-18 months with the station being open throughout that time period. Here are a few slides from the presentation. Make sure to read the Raleigh Public Record’s article about the presentation and to see the rest of the slides and renderings.

Plans for the future Moore Square Transit Station

Plans for the future Moore Square Transit Station

Plans for the future Moore Square Transit Station

Downtown Smartphone App


Watch the video snippet above. If it doesn’t work for you, go here.

We definitely talk about parking a lot here. However, an initiative that I’m involved with to bring a smartphone app to downtown in order to help with any parking struggles has moved one step further. During the meeting, council approved $5,000 from a contingency fund to go towards the development of that app. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance will raise the rest of the money and see the app to completion.

Read more about our efforts here:

It’s never a bad time to talk about everyone’s favorite topic: Parking. I typically don’t fly the blog outside of downtown Raleigh but North Hills has something that’s very unique. I’m excited to announce that the Parking App Team that won last year’s DataPalooza, with roots in downtown Raleigh, has launched in North Hills.

*North Hills Smartphone App Will Include Parking Directions, Rumored World Peace

My team’s idea? To help people navigate urban areas, showing them the best possible parking locations and offering wayfinding to their end destination. Our smartphone application, still in the prototype phase, is the first step in implementing this process. We also have a nice list of features that will make the application very helpful.

*Parking In Downtown Raleigh May Get Easier Thanks To Open Data

Smart Cards for CAT Buses
As a final blurb that I think is worth mentioning, the city has received grant money from NCDOT to go towards a smart card fare system for CAT buses. Mentioned at the meeting, here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The Raleigh Transit Authority has adopted a priority of offering smartcard technology on CAT buses. The grant will allow a contactless, smartcard payment option to be installed on the fare boxes of the CAT bus fleet. Bus purchases will have fare boxes that will accommodate contactless smartcard and mobile ticketing applications. The total funding for the project is $378,440 90, which is 90 percent NCDOT grant funds and 10 percent City of Raleigh funds.

*City Receives Grant to Allow Smartcard Payment on Capital Area Transit Buses

Yay! Technology!

by Leo Suarez

Sharing Bikes, It’s What Raleighites Do

San Antonio B Cycle Station

San Antonio B Cycle Station

Or will do anyway according to a recent report. I just went through most of the recently released 2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study. The conclusion of the study finds that a bike share system in Raleigh is feasible. You can get the study here (pdf) or see it and a lot of other Bike Raleigh information at BikeRaleigh.org.

I decided to go through the study and take some notes.

Executive Summary
If anything, the Executive Summary is worth reading through. At a high level, the study identifies the following benefits of a bike share system for Raleigh:

  • “Augmenting the City’s existing transportation options while encouraging active transportation by lowering barriers to entry for minority and low income residents.”
  • “Providing an impetus for further investment in bicycle-friendly facilities.”
  • “Building on the City’s reputation as a forward-thinking, bicycle-friendly community.”
  • “Using bike share to promote the City to potential employers, residents, and visitors.”

These findings were based on certain qualities that our city has. This includes a comparatively “high resident density” and “high concentration of employers” near downtown, a “significant tourist market,” and “plans and policies in place focusing on the promotion of livable, walkable, and bicycle friendly places.”

A bike share system in Raleigh is not without its challenges however. Two major obstacles identified are:

  1. “A high dependency on single-occupancy vehicles (SOV’s)”
  2. “an emerging but not yet complete network of bicycle-friendly facilities”

Also mentioned as obstacles are a “difficult topography” and “existing development patterns” that promote low population and employment densities outside of downtown.

The first round of cost estimates are mentioned as well. From the report, here’s a table showing approximate startup and operating costs based on national averages.

2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study - Projected Implementation Costs

Diving Into The Study
The study is divided into nine sections that start by introducing bike share, what it is and how it has been implemented in other cities, all the way to demand analysis in Raleigh and a final recommendation.

If you are asking yourself, “What is Bike Share?” then I recommend reading pages 4-11 for some background history and fun facts about the service. For example, did you know:

A bike share system can help a community attract and retain residents. Many communities have used bike share systems as an added effort to help (re)vitalize and reactivate their downtown area(s). In addition, it provides a new and different way for tourists to see a city, helping attract more tourists and their spending power to communities.

*2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study – Community Economic Benefits page 8

I won’t go over the basics and benefits of a bike share system in this post. Instead, I’ll recommend checking out the study or reading a June 2013 blog post about my visit to San Antonio and using their bike share system.

Community Analysis
The study starts by taking a look at Raleigh and some of the community features like demographics, physical makeup, and current infrastructure.

Our temperate weather is always listed as a plus. Another plus are some generally flat areas around the core downtown. That’s not to say there aren’t some hills out there. I know Glenwood South is on quite a slant when cycling up and down it.

Our population:

The City of Raleigh is the second most populous city in the state with approximately 423,000 people living in the city – a density of around 2,800 people per square mile, which is higher than all of the other southeastern bike share cities.

*2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study – Demographics page 26

That’s a pretty powerful statistic right there. Here is the comparison between us and other southeastern bike share cities.
2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study - Size, Population, and Density Comparison

The study shows that the population and employment density is most clustered in and around downtown. There are a few pockets of higher density residential in southwest and north Raleigh but downtown really commands the most attention. See the figure below for a heat map of population density in Raleigh.

2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study - Population Density
Click for larger

Analysis was also done on low-income and minority communities. There is a significant overlap between feasible areas for bike share and locations of these communities. This presents an opportunity to provide a low-cost transit option to these residents.

Compliment to Transit?
Here’s probably the biggest challenge and detractor to the feasibility of a bike share system in Raleigh.

Raleigh is still a predominately auto-oriented city – single occupancy vehicle use represents 79-percent of all commuting trips (See Figure 21).98 Parking costs have traditionally also encouraged vehicle travel, even for short trips.

*2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study – Transportation Mode Share page 32

2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study - Transportation Mode Share

The quote says 79% while the pie chart shows 84%. Unless I’m missing something that might be a typo in the study. Either way, both numbers are pretty high and significantly show Raleigh’s dependency on SOVs.

The only area in the city with a significant amount of proximity to transit, mass transit specifically like Capital Area Transit (CAT), is in downtown. The study points this out as a challenge but lists an opportunity to use bike share to bridge gaps between activity centers that are poorly served by buses.

I think this is the biggest challenge by far for a successful implementation of bike share in Raleigh.

In addition to bus transit, our current bicycle facilities are mentioned. The study recognizes the increase in facilities over the last four years and the city’s commitment to be a “bicycle friendly community.”

However, if you look at the overlap between the areas where bike share is feasible, mainly downtown, and the fact that bike facilities are spread across the city, this leaves much fewer miles to be used within a possible system.

Here’s a point for more discussion. Most bike facilities are actually outside of downtown so to say that bike share can only happen near bike facilities doesn’t quite tell the whole story in my opinion. Downtown streets are naturally friendlier to bicycles so therefore are more fit for bike share. The study points out that there are much less bicycle facilities in downtown as a detriment to a bike share system and I think that could be argued against.

Policy
I’m not going to get into the details of this section but wanted to mention it as I thought it interesting. An identified challenge was that “The permitting process may be complicated due to restrictions on outdoor advertising, historic district designation, right-of-way ownership by multiple government agencies, and specific streetscape plans.”

Complicated indeed. An included flow-chart shows some situations having to go through seven layers of permitting.

Public Engagement
The feasibility study was not without its opportunity for you and I to participate. “Public feedback was gathered using a number of tools including a community workshop, a project website, an online survey, a crowdsourcing map, and interviews with local stakeholders and agencies.”

Surveys showed that 84% of respondents support a bike share program in Raleigh. Opinions, both supportive and of concern, were around the themes of:

  • “Promoting bicycling as a viable transportation option in Raleigh.”
  • “Helping to reduce traffic congestion.”
  • “Helping to make Raleigh an “attractive” city for new residents.”
  • “Concern for the cost of the system.”
  • “Needing a more extensive bicycle network prior to implementation.”

To gather more information, an online crowdsourcing map was built so that people could suggest station locations and provide comments. Here’s a map of the 151 stations that were received including a table of the top 10.

2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study - Publicly Suggested Station Locations
Click for larger

Big Picture Conclusion
The study goes on to explain its methodology behind the recommendations and results as well differences between the types of bike share systems that are out there. Below is a potential bike share heat map as well as a list with final conclusions and recommendations.

2014 Raleigh Bike Share Feasibility Study - Potential Bikeshare Demand Heat map
Click for larger

  • Geography, Climate and Land Use – “Challenges do not outweigh the opportunities.”
  • Demographics and Employment – “Although there are large areas of the City with low population and employment densities, the constant influx of large employers and residents to downtown provide a strong opportunity for successful implementation of a bike share program in the area.”
  • Transportation Mode Share – “Coordination of deployment of stations with existing and planned public transportation services will be important to help extend the reach of service and connectivity to and from activity centers.”
  • Bicycle Infrastructure – “City should continue to develop its planned network of bicycle facilities and a complete way-finding program in parallel with a potential implementation of a bike share program.”
  • Tourism – “City should consider allocating some funding for specialized outreach for tourist oriented promotion of the bike share program.”
  • Local and Regional Plans and Policies – “It is recommended that the City review and consider amending local regulations related to signage to allow for the placement of sponsorship and/or advertising on bike share stations to potentially help cover costs for program.”
  • Public Input and Stakeholder Engagement – “There is general support for implementing a bike share program in the City of Raleigh. Station based system is preferred.”