Public loitering in front of the Wilmoore Cafe and other businesses adjacent to the Moore Square transit mall have prompted the Raleigh Transit Authority to propose a change to the current R-Line route.
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The proposed change will move the current R-Line stop #16 from its current location to south of Martin Street. Unfortunately, the daytime route will also be extended to include three additional stops (R17-19) – see map.
While transit riders have experienced the congestion around this R-Line transit stop for some time, it was this report through the SeeClickFix app that got the city’s attention.
People loitering in front of the businesses surrounding Moore square transit station has become a huge problem and is of great concern to customers and business owners. Panhandling, begging, profanity, open containers/alcohol consumption, public urination, littering, sleeping, etc. has made Wilmington Street an unpleasant place to be for everybody. Please help to solve these problems so downtown Raleigh can be enjoyable for everyone.
The city says that the proposed move is also being done to relieve traffic and pedestrian congestion at this location where both TTA and R-Line buses must stop directly in front of a mid-block crosswalk on Wilmington Street.
So why extend the R-Line route?
Moving the R-Line route to the evening schedule will add three more stops to the daytime route, resulting in additional wait times for passengers at all other 16 stops.
Upon our inquiry we received these comments from the city as to the reasons for the route extension:
- Promote convenient access to the R-Line (from Moore Square) without it being on Wilmington Street.
- Allow the R-Line to by-pass by this section of Wilmington Street.
The proposed changes have not yet been approved, as they are conditional upon the Raleigh City Council adopting parking changes being proposed on the section of Wilmington Street between Hargett and Martin Streets.
Want to weigh-in on this issue? Go to the SeeClickFix Report link.
They should use the evening route on the Warehouse district side as well and extend it to Cameron Village and, importantly, add two buses going in the opposite direction.
Great comments Greg. How about this idea: What if the daytime route included CV and the night route included the warehouse district instead? This way the route can be managed to a similar total loop time both day and night? From the current counterclockwise route, the bus could continue west on Peace to Smallwood and turn right. From there it could circle the southeastern CV block bounded by Cameron, Woodburn and Clark before returning to Peace Street. From there, the route could turn right on Bolyan, left on Johnson or Tucker and then right on Glenwood to rejoin its former route. This path would better serve all the current and future residents that live on the west side of the Glenwood South neighborhood (where more do/will live) and the southern side of Glenwood/Brooklyn without ignoring the new hotel or changing the access to the RLine for the residents on or east of Glenwood Ave. itself.
To make the CV inclusion work for access to shopping for DT residents, I agree with you that a clockwise route would have to be added. The model for this could be the SouthBeach local bus in Miami Beach. It runs both clockwise and counterclockwise routes for a quarter a ride.
Adding CV to the R-Line route is often talked about among residents, but the free R-Line would then compete which an existing CAT route (#39) that departs and returns to Moore Square Station. We did a post about it in this blog here. http://bit.ly/OnkJLo.