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The long-awaited rush-hour express bus between Raleigh and the eastern Wake towns of Wendell and Zebulon will start rolling Monday, Oct. 26.

Using Capital Area Transit buses, the Zebulon/Wendell-Raleigh Express primarily will serve commuters who work in downtown Raleigh and East Raleigh, running weekdays 6-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m.

Morning buses leave a Zebulon park-and-ride lot at 5:55, 6:55 and 7:55 a.m., to arrive an hour later at Moore Square in downtown Raleigh.

Along the way they stop at a Wendell park-and-ride lot, in East Raleigh near WakeMed and Wake County Human Services, and at four state government complex stops. There are three afternoon buses making the reverse trip, leaving Moore Square at 4:10, 5:10 and 6:10 p.m.

The eastern Wake park-and-ride locations are ... [MORE]

Ray LaHood, the US transportation secretary, announced  approval today of more federal stimulus funds for transit improvements in the Triangle:

$4 million for Raleigh to help start building a bus operations and maintenance center for Capital Area Transit, and

$900,000 for Triangle Transit to buy a van and three 40-foot buses.

Raleigh and Triangle Transit were among the recipients of additional stimulus grants announced in July. 

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.

Triangle Transit says it cut costs as it carried more than 1 million riders for the fiscal year that ended June 30, breaking that mark for the first time.

The rider count of 1.14 million was 19.4 percent higher than the previous year's, increasing even as gas prices declined during most of the year. While operating hours increased by 8 percent, operating costs fell 5 percent.

The use of discounted passes for government employees, students and other frequent riders now accounts for more than 60 percent of boardings, but the portion of costs covered by farebox revenues increased from 11 percent to 13 percent.

Why was that bright green Triangle Transit bus traveling east on Interstate 40 -- through the middle of Tennessee?

N&O reporter Mandy Locke did a doubletake when she spotted the familiar-looking bus in an unfamiliar place last weekend on her way to the Nashville airport.

Brad Schulz of Triangle Transit says Locke saw one of TT's new 40-foot buses en route to the Triangle from their manufacturer, Gillig, in Hayward, California.

That's how new buses are delivered: somebody drives them across the country. It's about 2,800 miles from the Gillig factory to the Triangle Transit garage.

TT bought 23 30-foot Gillig buses last year to replace some of its antique Thomas buses (made not so far away in High Point). The agency is taking delivery this month on 12 40-footers, at around $330,000 apiece, that will go into operation in the next few weeks.

Besides being 10 feet longer and holding more riders, the new 40-footers also will have cushier seats.

Riders had complained that the seats on the 30-footers were "kind of rough on the rump," Schulz said. "We'll make sure we have more padding on all the new ones."

Durham lawyer Bo Glenn, who helped run a Triangle-wide study commission that developed the region's big plan for buses and trains, now is spearheading a western Triangle advocacy group to boost political prospects for regional transit.

Durham-Orange Friends of Transit has a cute nickname (DO-Transit) and a clunky web address (http://www.durhamorangefriendsoftransit.org), where Glenn is inviting felow travelers to sign up. Glenn was a vice chairman of the Special Transit Advisory Commission, which proposed more than 300 new buses and more than 50 miles of rail transit in a new long-range regional transit plan.

DO-Transit joins Karen Rindge's Wake-centered group, Capital Area Friends of Transit, in an effort to push for legislation -- already passed by the House and now before the Senate -- authorizing a local vote for a half-cent sales tax that would pay most of the cost of that transit plan.

David King, Triangle Transit's general manager, spoke to the editorial board this week, answering questions about why there's still no transit stop planned for RDU and about how transit paths can shape growth in a good way, among other things.

Click "read more" to listen to some snippets from the interview. In the RDU soundbite, King is talking about John Brantley of RDU. Also, there's a blog post on transit written by editorial board member Allen Torrey.

Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker is pushing a 10-year Wake County transit plan that dovetails with long-term proposals to spread bus and rail service across the Triangle over the next quarter century.

The Capital Area and Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro metropolitan planning organization boards (made up of Triangle-area mayors, town council members and county commissioners) are expected at their February meetings to endorse 2035 long-range transportation plans that include multi-billion-dollar investment in new transit networks. (Here are links to the complete CAMPO and DCHC draft 2035 plans.)

Here's a transit timetable spelled out in the three combined plans:

First, more buses. Starting with 75 new buses in Wake County by 2013 and 300 across the region by 2025.

By 2019, the first light-rail trains are running from northwest Cary through downtown Raleigh to Spring Forest in North Raleigh (17 miles).

Across the region, more light rail comes on line by ... [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%)

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DURHAM — Hundreds of daily commuter trips are changing today as Triangle Transit opens its new Regional Transit Center off Slater Road in the Imperial Center (map), just east of Research Triangle Park.

This is the new transfer point for eight regional bus routes and five shuttles. It replaces the station off Davis Drive in RTP where Triangle commuters have changed buses since the 1990s.

Triangle Transit’s regional center has a park-and-ride lot, waiting room, ticket and information counter, rest rooms and bike racks. It has three bikes available for loan to registered members of the Blue Urban Bikes program ($10 annual fee).

The new transfer point is closer to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, and it means a shorter bus route for RTP workers who live in Wake County. Commuters from Chapel Hill will have longer bus rides to RTP.

New routes and schedules are online, and information is available by phone at 485-RIDE.