Empty buses: R-Line, Raleigh’s downtown shuttle, suspended for lack of riders
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The R-Line is paused while transit authority evaluates downtown mobility needs.
- The R-Line cost the city about $1.2 million to operate last year.
- The R-Line will pause service up to 18 months starting in August.
The R-Line, the shuttle bus that circulates through downtown Raleigh, is being suspended again because of low ridership.
City officials say they’ll re-evaluate the R-Line and determine whether downtown shuttle buses are needed now that people have options such as Lyft and Uber and scooter and bicycle rentals.
The R-Line cost the city about $1.2 million last year.
The city launched the R-Line in February 2009, about six months after the new convention center opened. It was meant to help visitors explore the city center as well as make it easier for people who live or work downtown to get around.
Ridership peaked in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, at 296,652 passengers, but it declined to less than half that much by 2019. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and both workers and visitors stopped coming downtown, the R-Line was suspended in February 2021.
The city brought it back as a GoRaleigh route in May 2024. People were returning downtown, and the Raleigh Transit Authority used various metrics, including downtown food and beverage sales and use of parking decks, to determine if the shuttles were needed again.
But R-Line buses were no longer free as they once were and often looped through downtown streets empty or nearly so. Except for last August, ridership remained below 5,000 per month, averaging just five passengers per hour.
It’s not that people aren’t riding buses in Raleigh. In the fiscal year ending last June 30, overall GoRaleigh ridership was 73% higher than a year earlier and more than 40% over pre-pandemic levels, according to the city. In contrast, R-Line ridership had declined 50% compared to pre-pandemic days.
This winter, the City Council asked the Transit Authority to evaluate the R-Line. Earlier this month, the authority voted to pause the service for up to 18 months while it puts together “a stakeholder group to evaluate the mobility needs of downtown residents, employees and visitors,” according to a memo from David Walker, the city’s transportation manager.
About 6,000 people lived in downtown Raleigh when R-Line ridership peaked in 2012. Now there are nearly 16,000 downtown residents, but they have more options for getting around, Walker wrote.
“Recent data shows that scooter and bikeshare trips now total approximately 30,000 trips per month — closely mirroring the ridership loss observed on the R-Line,” he wrote.
The last day for R-Line buses will be Aug. 8, which coincides with new quarterly schedules for GoRaleigh drivers. GoRaleigh will use the R-Line buses and drivers on other routes.
