Federal government agrees to help build GoRaleigh’s first bus rapid transit project
In decades of ideas and proposals for mass transit in the Triangle, none have made it far enough to get federal money for construction. Until now.
The federal government has pledged to put up $35 million to help build a bus rapid transit line on the east side of Raleigh. The money represents roughly half the cost of building the planned 5.1-mile BRT line along New Bern Avenue, between downtown and New Hope Road.
Nearly all of the rest of the $71.5 million cost would come from the Wake County transit tax, a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2016.
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced its share this week, through the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grants program. David Eatman, Raleigh’s transit administrator, says while Charlotte’s transit agency has received CIG grants to help build its light-rail line, the New Bern Avenue BRT line will get the first in the Triangle.
Eatman said while the Federal Transit Administration has pledged the money, it is contingent on the city finishing the planning and design work to federal standards.
“It’s not a done deal,” he said. “Basically, though, it’s FTA’s way of saying if you meet all requirements the funds are on the other side waiting for you.”
BRT systems combine the flexibility and relatively low cost of a bus system with some of the features of light rail. Passengers will wait in elevated, covered stations and buy their tickets in advance, to speed boarding. And the buses will travel in their own lanes for much of their routes and be given priority at intersections, helping them move better in traffic.
The New Bern Avenue line is the first of four that GoRaleigh is planning, radiating out from downtown in each direction. The next in the works is the Western Boulevard BRT from downtown Raleigh to downtown Cary. GoRaleigh has begun to seek federal money to help build that project as well, said Mila Vega, the city’s senior transportation planner.
Vega said the New Bern Avenue line will be fully designed by next summer, after another round of feedback from the public and the City Council this spring. She said GoRaleigh plans to begin construction in late 2021 or early 2022 and start operating buses on the line in late 2023 or early 2024.
Chapel Hill is also seeking federal money to help build a planned BRT system between Eubanks Road, UNC Hospitals and Southern Village. The 8.2-mile North-South BRT line in Chapel Hill is expected to cost $141 million, and the town is hoping the federal government provides $100 million of that.
Mass transit planning in the Triangle has included some big-ticket projects that never came to fruition, including the Triangle Transit Authority’s proposed commuter rail starting in the 1990s and GoTriangle’s Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project that was abandoned last year.
GoTriangle is pursuing another commuter rail project that would connect the Triangle’s biggest cities of Raleigh, Cary and Durham as well as Research Triangle Park by following the existing rail corridor owned by the N.C. Railroad. A preliminary estimate put the cost of that project at between $1.4 billion and $1.8 billion.
