Try Transit Week starts Monday, and local transit operators will do everything they can to lure passengers onto their buses.

Triangle Transit will have prize drawings all week in a Go Triangle Scavenger Hunt with prize clues distributed to GoTriangle followers on Twitter and Triangle Transit Facebook fans. Prizes include gift cards, mp3 players and Carolina Panthers tickets.

Durham Area Transit Authority, Triangle Transit, Capital Area Transit and Cary’s C-Tran are pitching in to pitch these offers:

Tuesday: Rack & Ride Day. Bike riders ride the bus, with their bikes on the rack, for free.

Wednesday: Stuff the Buses for the Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina. Bring canned food to donate when you ride the bus.

Thursday: Ride for free, all buses, Triangle-wide.

Friday: Operations Appreciation Day. Say thanks to your bus driver and fill out comment cards.

View Larger Map

Frequent, fare-free circulator buses will start rolling around downtown by mid-February in Raleigh and, probably, by late March in Durham.

These new buses will make it easier to move around the center city without worrying so much where your car is parked -- whether you work downtown or live downtown, or you're coming downtown to dine, shop or play.

Rob and Linda Stahl of Raleigh were glad to read about it. One of them said by e-mail: "I can see our family using the circulator when we go downtown to our favorite museum – the Natural Science Museum."

But the Stahls wanted to see route maps, which appeared in the print edition today but not online. ... [MORE]

When gas cost more than $3.50 during the six warm months of 2008, a lot of us parked our cars and tried the bus.

It’s interesting to see how many Triangle residents kept riding the bus this winter, even after gas prices returned to 2004 levels. The Road Worrier mentioned that fact this week, without all of the latest numbers to back it up.

The local average price for regular gas fell from $3.89 to $2.66 in October, then to $1.80 by the end of November, and $1.58 on the last day of December, according to fuelgaugereport.com.

Here are rider counts reported by three local transit lines for the last three months of 2008, compared to the same months in 2007:

Durham’s DATA
October 513,533 riders (up 17% from 2007)
November 423,139 (up 4%)
December 418,241 (up 11%)

Raleigh’s CAT
October 468,331 (up 32% from 2007)
November 383,159 (up 5%)
December 381,563 (up 26%)

Triangle Transit
October 123,431 (up 41% from 2007)
November 85,264 (up 13%)
December 59,323 (up 0.5%)

Wake Technical Community College will finally be on the bus line when Capital Area Transit launches express service from downtown Raleigh to the main campus in southern Wake County, starting Jan. 5.

“Our students will now have the opportunity to use CAT to connect to any Wake Tech campus,” said Dr. Larry Appleton, Wake Tech senior vice president.

The bus will run hourly from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on days when Wake Tech is in session, between the Moore Square transit center and Wake Tech at 9101 Fayetteville Road. The route will include a stop at a park-and-ride lot in Garner. [operating hours corrected on 11/19/8]

The college will pay the city of Raleigh $118,560 to operate the bus for the first six months, in a contract to be renewed in July.

The main campus serves more than 10,000 students, faculty and staff — and they’ll ride the new bus for free. Four smaller Wake Tech campuses already had CAT service.

Route and timetable details, including the location of the Garner stop, will be announced in coming weeks.

New bus service is on the horizon - an inter-city express from Pittsboro to Chapel Hill, and an inner-city loop in downtown Raleigh.

Raleigh's proposed Downtown Circulator would run every 10 minutes, starting most days at 7 a.m. and ending most nights at 11 p.m. or 2 a.m.

This map from Capital Area Transit shows a possible route bounded by Peace Street on the north, Wilmington on the east, South and Cabarrus on the south, and Dawson and Glenwood Avenue on the west. The downtown circulator is expected to start running in early 2009.

Learn more and voice your views at a public info session Thursday, 3:30-7:30 p.m., in Conference Room 303 at the Municipal Building, 222 W. Hargett St., Raleigh.

Meanwhile on the west side of the Triangle, Chapel Hill Transit also plans an info session Thursday on its planned weekday rush-hour express from Pittsboro to Chapel Hill. Likely stops are in downtown Pittsboro, at Lowe's north of town -- and maybe at points farther north on U.S. 15-501. Also starting in early 2009.

Learn details and share your ideas with Chapel Hill transit folks Thursday, 7-8:30 p.m., in the second floor District Courtroom of the Chatham County Courthouse Annex, 12 East St., Pittsboro.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole said today that Raleigh will receive a $2,805,600 federal grant to help buy land for a planned Capital Area Transit bus maintenance and operations center on Poole Road.

CAT has outgrown its 30-year-old maintenance garage on Blount Street, which was designed to handle 50 buses. Now with about 90 buses carrying more riders every month, the city transit agency is planning a new $20 million facility that can handle 150 to 250 buses.

“We’re hoping to move in the next two to three years,” said David Eatmon, city transit administrator. “We need to move now.” [Updated 4:50 pm]

The grant will cover about 80 percent of the purchase price for the planned 23-acre site. Raleigh will seek more federal money to help build the bus maintenance and operations center.

CAT buses carried 450,000 passengers in August, the agency’s busiest month on record.

Dole, who is up for re-election this fall, also said Greensboro will get $2 million to buy land for a new bus maintenance shop, and Fayetteville will get $1.6 million to buy buses and vans and to renovate its maintenance shop.

"Especially with high fuel prices, mass transit is playing an important role in supporting energy efficiency and providing people with transportation options,” said Dole.  “Strong transportation infrastructure also is vital to economic growth and job creation, and I applaud these cities for securing these funds.”

Looking for new bus routes and better regional transit service? Comment on Triangle Transit's Short-Range Transit plan Wednesday, and join a public forum on Wake County's transit future Thursday.

WakeUP Wake County, a nonprofit group that promotes discussion of growth and development issues, is sponsoring a free public forum Thursday evening on "Transit: Is Wake County Ready for It?" The event is from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the McKimmon Center on Western Boulevard, Raleigh.

The Triangle Transit trustees will hold a public hearing on their Short-Range Transit Plan, to set priorities for the next five years, at 1:10 p.m. Wednesday. The hearing is at Triangle Transit headquarters, 68 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park.