Road Worrier: Suddenly, express bus options are all over the Triangle map

Triangle workers and students might have a chance, one day, to scoot between cities on local trains. But we have plenty of options now for rush-hour express buses – almost the next best thing.

With the launch Monday of four new routes, the region’s transit agencies now operate 13 express bus lines for people who live in one town and work or go to school in another. They’re all over the map.

Express buses run on workdays during morning and afternoon rush hour. They make only one or two stops and have park-and-ride lots.

It doesn’t hurt that these buses have WiFi, so we can waste time or get a little work done while somebody else drives. It also helps that the bus driver is allowed to slip around traffic jams by driving on the Interstate 40 shoulder – a maneuver illegal for the sad sacks stuck in their cars.

Triangle Transit’s busiest routes are two workday expresses that haul commuters both ways between Durham and Raleigh (the DRX route) and between Chapel Hill and Raleigh (CRX) – sometimes with standing room only.

Tickets and passes cost one-third more for inter-city express service than for regular local runs and buses that make more stops along the way. Of the 1.8 million riders who took Triangle Transit trips last year, about one-quarter paid the premium to ride the express.

The four express routes that started rolling Monday – for commuters in Clayton, Fuquay-Varina and Cary – are linked to the state Department of Transportation’s three-year project to rebuild 11 miles of Raleigh’s southern Beltline.

DOT pays for a similar bus (JCX) that started running last year to Raleigh from N.C. 42 in southern Johnston County. The JCX bus hasn’t been very busy, partly because the first phase of DOT’s Beltline repair usually slowed traffic only a few minutes each day.

DOT is warning of worse delays over the next two years. The Beltline work will shift to a heavily traveled eight miles of I-40 between Cary and the I-440 split. The first daytime lane closings could start before the end of January.

The new routes are:

DOT money will pay for JCX and the four new routes until August 2016. They will join existing express routes that, in some cases, provide the only public transit service for outlying Triangle towns.

The list includes an inter-campus bus for UNC and Duke (RSX). There are express buses also for Mebane and Hillsborough residents who commute to Durham (ODX), for Pittsboro folks who commute to Chapel Hill (PX), and for Raleigh workers and students who come from Zebulon and Wendell (ZWX), Knightdale (KWX) and Wake Forest (WRX). Find details at gotriangle.org.

This story was originally published January 12, 2015 at 6:16 PM with the headline "Road Worrier: Suddenly, express bus options are all over the Triangle map."