The free Eco-friendly (hybrid electric) R-Line bus service started in February 2009, as a way to help to connect employees, residents and visitors to retail, restaurants and entertainment venues in different parts of the Downtown loop.
The city’s YouRHere branding is hard to miss as the big green and blue colored buses navigate their 20 stops throughout the Downtown rea. You never have to walk too far to an R-Line bus stop, and with 2 buses running along the 25 minute circular route, the longest wait is only around 12 minutes.
Source: Ridership numbers provided by City of Raleigh – Transit.
The ridership numbers show that about 570 people ride the R-Line each weekday, indicating that Downtown daytime workers are enjoying the convenience of taking the bus to reach their favorite lunch spot. However, weekends are even more popular, with an average of 800 riders on Saturdays. A closer look shows that the heaviest times are weekend evenings (3-11pm), when both residents and visitors take the R-Line to reach their destination restaurant or entertainment venue.
Source: Ridership numbers provided by City of Raleigh – Transit.
The R-Line can also serve as a great way to safely get back to your car after a night out on the town, though weekend late night (11pm-2am) ridership has remained relatively low.
One of the goals of the service is to encourage more people from the “burbs” to take advantage of the city’s underused parking desks on evenings and weekends, using the service to easily reach other parts of the city. (See our related blog posts “Cars Are Here, but Parking is Not on Glenwood South”, and “Are you a Raleigh First Friday Newbie?”.)
It’s not possible to tell from the numbers if indeed Downtown visitors have begun to park and ride, so please take a moment and fill out our Survey.
New changes coming to the R-LIne in 2010
There are two significant changes coming that will be welcomed by R-Line riders. First, sometime next spring a passenger information website will be available allowing riders to see online where the R-Line buses are located “real time”. Additionally, the city is working on installing three bus shelters along the route early next year. One will be at the Convention Center, with the other locations still to be confirmed.
I live, work and play downtown and using the R-line to get around really helps. I find it very entertaining while sitting on the bus waiting for the next stop. I really enjoy inviting friends from North Raleigh down for dinner and they park at our condo and we pick up the R-line. The ride makes great dinner conversation.
The City has a few things to fix, but overall a great asset for Downtown.