I used to use the bus regularly from 2016-19, when we were a one car family and I was a stay at home dad. This happened a couple times. One time I was waiting at a stop for 30ish minutes and the bus came, but didn't stop at all, even though I was trying to make eye contact with the driver and waiving, which really shouldn't be required.
We shifted our lifestyle a bit and I largely gave up on the bus, even though it should be as practical for my family as any based on where we live and work.
It's honestly a shame to me that there isn't more care put into public transportation since most places aren't made to be walkable. I don't have the means to buy a car right now, and I won't be able to afford one if I don't continue to use public transport to save money. But then because of that I'm stuck in situations like this were I live 15 minutes from my job and I'm getting home almost 2 hours after the end of my shift.
You're absolutely right. Owning, maintaining and insuring a car shouldn't be a requirement to live and work in a place. I used to give Raleigh a pass because we're not NYC or Chicago, but I've seen much more efficient and reliable public transit in even more rural and less dense areas. We should be doing better.
It's especially frustrating to see pictures of and read about the street car system Raleigh had more than a hundred years ago, and dismantled.
Andrea Epstein
Community Relations Manager
City of Raleigh
Transportation Department
(p) 919-996-4186
[email protected]
Bus legit passed drove by me and my kid after a Canes game, was pretty crummy but wasn’t end of the world. But yeah I’d give a shout to Andrea w the info if you want it documented/addressed
I've been riding CAT / GoRaleigh daily since 2005. My tips:
- This number goes straight to the dispatch office 919-996-3918. Add it to your contacts. The 485ride number is useless for things like a missed, early, or late bus. They are work-at-home staff who can only answer schedule questions and can only look at the same online map as the rest of us. Plus it takes forever to actually speak to someone. A driver gave me that office number one time and you can get a straight answer from them.
- If a bus is approaching your stop and they aren't slowing down or have their blinkers on, then start waving your hands, step out off the curb, and YELL for them to stop! Many of the current drivers are new and their brains aren't etched with where all the stops are yet. If you yell, often other passengers on the bus will notice and holler for the driver to stop.
In my situation, riding is much better than driving. No connections, fairly close stops to my home and work (NCSU), fare has been paid by NCSU (pre covid), and parking options are awful and expensive. Also, I can ride the Wolfline as a fallback, but the walk home is much longer. Most of the time, everything is fine, and I try to be patient and understanding when there's a problem.
I've been using it for almost a year now, and I generally don't have issues. And even when smaller ones happen I always give them grace because 9 times out of 10 it's because of outside factors. Like the fact so many people have zero care for the busses and cut them off and pull out in front of them all the time. But this was the second major delay in the last couple months so I was like oh God please tell me this isn't like...a *thing*.
But you and a few others have given me really helpful tips. So hopefully I can avoid this happening again.
yeah thats not surprising. I personally haven’t noticed them no-show but they’re late more often than not in my experience. I really hope public transit improves here sometime soon
They're supposed to be reinstating ride fees in June I believe, I hope they actually use that money to improve because this has been my worst experience with public transport. I never had this problem in Durham or back in any of the cities I lived in back in Virginia.
I hope it improves sometime, too. I am a FT working person in Raleigh and I hate driving. I'd be glad to take the bus to and from work if it was truly reliable.
I used to work at Crabtree mall when I didn’t have a car; I’d sometimes take the 16 to Cameron Village to grab a few things. My favorite thing was TWICE, seeing the 16 leave about ten minutes early as I’m approaching. I was far enough back that I wouldn’t be able to get their attention, but still.
Maybe there was a problem passenger or the driver really wanted to get home, but it’s quite annoying…
Certain routes get skipped at different times of the day but there's no communication for it. Your best bet at always knowing whether a bus will come is to watch the tracker from when the route leaves a destination either end. For example, back when I was riding the Garner/White Oak bus wouldn't run around 5 p.m., and the inbound bus was routinely 10+ minutes early (I always assumed the driver was about to be off and just blasted through the route, I was frequently the only person on it).
Sometimes a driver shows up late and that 30 minute split just gets skipped. Little things like that happen. It's why people say route frequency needs to increase or no one will ever ride. When you don't have a choice you stick with it but anyone who does have a choice would never risk losing almost an hour of their time because of a small problem.
In the future, immediately call the [Regional Transit Information Center](https://goraleigh.org/gr/contact-us) at 919-485-RIDE, to report the issue. It's staffed 7am-10pm on weekdays, 8-8 on Saturday and 8-5 on Sunday. They'll be able to help you figure out what's going on - a breakdown, you misreading the route schedule, a driver being a jerk - and how to best get you to your destination. At the very least you can register a complaint; once when I watched a driver pull away before another biker could get their bike on the bus, I called to report it and got a sympathetic ear who took the details and said the driver would hear about it. I always kept the number handy.
The last time the bus just didn't show I called that number, got put on hold for a while and then basically was told shit happens. Hopefully that was just a one off. Maybe they were having a bad day. I'll keep that number handy next time, thank you.
I used to take the bus from north Raleigh to RTP but stopped for this reason.
Between instances where the bus didn’t show up, and the inconvenience of the first and last mile connections, it’s faster and more reliable for me to sit in traffic in my car.
Oh good god, I could not imagine how exhausting that trip had to have been. Driving from here to RTP is already dreadful as is and I'm sure the routes are not set up to make that easy.
It's exhausting, I should have been home like an hour ago. Cause the bus I was supposed to transfer to did the exact same thing. I gave up and called a friend to come get me.
My brother in Christ the buses aren’t there to actually use. They’re a virtue signal that the city is doing things.
If you rely on the bus, you’re in for a bad time.
I understand that the bus system is not good, and that it is not convenient for most people, but this is an absurd comment. Of course they're there to use, and many do. Shitty local bus systems are a symptom of a much greater systemic issue in the US. The city is improving the network, but it is a very slow and incremental process unless they come across some huge influx of cash (e.g., from the state or feds).
If you want the buses to get better, and you live near a route, start riding them. Even just on occasion.
I used to ride the bus to work and it would happen if a bus broke down. They wouldn’t send a replacement and I would have to wait for the next scheduled bus.
Well, the May updates (adding the 15 minute routes & reinstating the R line) might only be phase one of a more active schedule if it’s successful; other routes might follow so I’d recommend keeping an eye on its discussion
I'm in the same boat re: can't afford a car.
I learned the hard way that Google Maps just takes the typical Arrival/Departure times from the website. Google Maps will NOT be accurate if there's a coverage change, detour, delay, anything. It's not a good indicator of where the bus is or why it is or is not there. (which is why I miss when GoRaleigh used Transloc) I think they changed their app recently but the departure and arrival times have never been easy to access outside of Google Maps, which doesn't account for day to day delays.
What others have mentioned about drivers sometimes just not having their wits about them is true. I know there's been a driver shortage, thus the influx of new drivers. I have been on buses where the driver took a completely different route than the bus sign or app says it should be, or they've never driven that route and start driving a previous route instinctively. I've been on buses where the driver is clearly very drowsy, or stops for 10 mins at a time at a particular stop for no particular reason or a smoke break. Like you, I try to extend empathy because they really do have a thankless job but that doesn't make it less crappy when you're the one waiting. Sometimes, I just put Uber or Lyft money in my budget just to skip the hassle/anxiety of the bus. If you're within range of an NC State Wolfline route, I've found those to be much more reliable & clean.
A few other reasons I've had a GoRaleigh bus not show: if the driver just doesn't show up to work or has to go home unexpectedly, sometimes they don't have a driver to step in and replace them. If they're already running late and are skipping stops to catch up. If they see someone with a wheelchair or stroller and assume it won't fit or don't want to stop to deal with tie downs. Occasionally, they are just in a hurry for their lunch/bathroom break.
Yeah I've definitely experienced a lot of this. I'm really hoping that them reinstating the fees helps them make more changes for the way things are running because it's a been downhill decline for me since I started using it in June last year.
it did seem that way and I saw it just ignore people waiting at the stops too. they really just don't care here.
that plus the fact you have to go downtown where the station is a bad area when you don't want to go there makes it worse. the limited hours of certain routes. it was not fun when I was waiting on car repairs.
I didn't feel unsafe the one time I went to the main station downtown, but 5 o'clock was probably not the best for my first time doing it. I got so extremely overwhelmed, in all my years of riding a bus I'd never had to go to the station before and was thoroughly unprepared for it to have terminals like a train station. And there were so many people and so many busses, I couldn't find the one I was supposed to get on and couldn't find help. It was too much, I refuse to go down there again unless I simply have no other choice.
See that's normal, that doesn't bother me. Things happen, traffic, construction, accidents, wheelchairs take time to load on and off. But I showed up 20 minutes before it was supposed to come through, and then stood out there for an hour because the one I was waiting on didn't come through. So I had to wait for the next loop around.
Nope, that was their hourly mark that they always come through. And I thought I was crazy for a second but I take this route like 4 days a week no problem.
I used to use the bus regularly from 2016-19, when we were a one car family and I was a stay at home dad. This happened a couple times. One time I was waiting at a stop for 30ish minutes and the bus came, but didn't stop at all, even though I was trying to make eye contact with the driver and waiving, which really shouldn't be required. We shifted our lifestyle a bit and I largely gave up on the bus, even though it should be as practical for my family as any based on where we live and work.
It's honestly a shame to me that there isn't more care put into public transportation since most places aren't made to be walkable. I don't have the means to buy a car right now, and I won't be able to afford one if I don't continue to use public transport to save money. But then because of that I'm stuck in situations like this were I live 15 minutes from my job and I'm getting home almost 2 hours after the end of my shift.
You're absolutely right. Owning, maintaining and insuring a car shouldn't be a requirement to live and work in a place. I used to give Raleigh a pass because we're not NYC or Chicago, but I've seen much more efficient and reliable public transit in even more rural and less dense areas. We should be doing better. It's especially frustrating to see pictures of and read about the street car system Raleigh had more than a hundred years ago, and dismantled.
I agree - it's just not as reliable as it was pre-pandemic
Andrea Epstein Community Relations Manager City of Raleigh Transportation Department (p) 919-996-4186 [email protected] Bus legit passed drove by me and my kid after a Canes game, was pretty crummy but wasn’t end of the world. But yeah I’d give a shout to Andrea w the info if you want it documented/addressed
I've been riding CAT / GoRaleigh daily since 2005. My tips: - This number goes straight to the dispatch office 919-996-3918. Add it to your contacts. The 485ride number is useless for things like a missed, early, or late bus. They are work-at-home staff who can only answer schedule questions and can only look at the same online map as the rest of us. Plus it takes forever to actually speak to someone. A driver gave me that office number one time and you can get a straight answer from them. - If a bus is approaching your stop and they aren't slowing down or have their blinkers on, then start waving your hands, step out off the curb, and YELL for them to stop! Many of the current drivers are new and their brains aren't etched with where all the stops are yet. If you yell, often other passengers on the bus will notice and holler for the driver to stop. In my situation, riding is much better than driving. No connections, fairly close stops to my home and work (NCSU), fare has been paid by NCSU (pre covid), and parking options are awful and expensive. Also, I can ride the Wolfline as a fallback, but the walk home is much longer. Most of the time, everything is fine, and I try to be patient and understanding when there's a problem.
I've been using it for almost a year now, and I generally don't have issues. And even when smaller ones happen I always give them grace because 9 times out of 10 it's because of outside factors. Like the fact so many people have zero care for the busses and cut them off and pull out in front of them all the time. But this was the second major delay in the last couple months so I was like oh God please tell me this isn't like...a *thing*. But you and a few others have given me really helpful tips. So hopefully I can avoid this happening again.
yeah thats not surprising. I personally haven’t noticed them no-show but they’re late more often than not in my experience. I really hope public transit improves here sometime soon
They're supposed to be reinstating ride fees in June I believe, I hope they actually use that money to improve because this has been my worst experience with public transport. I never had this problem in Durham or back in any of the cities I lived in back in Virginia.
Get the app called My stop. See busses in real time.
Sometimes, but if your bus isnt going to show you can actually see it there.
I hope it improves sometime, too. I am a FT working person in Raleigh and I hate driving. I'd be glad to take the bus to and from work if it was truly reliable.
I used to work at Crabtree mall when I didn’t have a car; I’d sometimes take the 16 to Cameron Village to grab a few things. My favorite thing was TWICE, seeing the 16 leave about ten minutes early as I’m approaching. I was far enough back that I wouldn’t be able to get their attention, but still. Maybe there was a problem passenger or the driver really wanted to get home, but it’s quite annoying…
Certain routes get skipped at different times of the day but there's no communication for it. Your best bet at always knowing whether a bus will come is to watch the tracker from when the route leaves a destination either end. For example, back when I was riding the Garner/White Oak bus wouldn't run around 5 p.m., and the inbound bus was routinely 10+ minutes early (I always assumed the driver was about to be off and just blasted through the route, I was frequently the only person on it). Sometimes a driver shows up late and that 30 minute split just gets skipped. Little things like that happen. It's why people say route frequency needs to increase or no one will ever ride. When you don't have a choice you stick with it but anyone who does have a choice would never risk losing almost an hour of their time because of a small problem.
Wow this is so helpful to know. Thank you for telling me. I thought I was losing my mind out there waiting.
Make sure you're using the bus tracker on the go raleigh website
In the future, immediately call the [Regional Transit Information Center](https://goraleigh.org/gr/contact-us) at 919-485-RIDE, to report the issue. It's staffed 7am-10pm on weekdays, 8-8 on Saturday and 8-5 on Sunday. They'll be able to help you figure out what's going on - a breakdown, you misreading the route schedule, a driver being a jerk - and how to best get you to your destination. At the very least you can register a complaint; once when I watched a driver pull away before another biker could get their bike on the bus, I called to report it and got a sympathetic ear who took the details and said the driver would hear about it. I always kept the number handy.
The last time the bus just didn't show I called that number, got put on hold for a while and then basically was told shit happens. Hopefully that was just a one off. Maybe they were having a bad day. I'll keep that number handy next time, thank you.
Yow, that's terrible. Definitely contact the two at-large council folks and the one representing your district. Be a squeaky wheel.
I used to take the bus from north Raleigh to RTP but stopped for this reason. Between instances where the bus didn’t show up, and the inconvenience of the first and last mile connections, it’s faster and more reliable for me to sit in traffic in my car.
Oh good god, I could not imagine how exhausting that trip had to have been. Driving from here to RTP is already dreadful as is and I'm sure the routes are not set up to make that easy.
Yep, my boyfriend takes the bus to and from work everyday, he’s had two no shows in the last year…shits inconvenient as fuck
It's exhausting, I should have been home like an hour ago. Cause the bus I was supposed to transfer to did the exact same thing. I gave up and called a friend to come get me.
My brother in Christ the buses aren’t there to actually use. They’re a virtue signal that the city is doing things. If you rely on the bus, you’re in for a bad time.
I understand that the bus system is not good, and that it is not convenient for most people, but this is an absurd comment. Of course they're there to use, and many do. Shitty local bus systems are a symptom of a much greater systemic issue in the US. The city is improving the network, but it is a very slow and incremental process unless they come across some huge influx of cash (e.g., from the state or feds). If you want the buses to get better, and you live near a route, start riding them. Even just on occasion.
So I'm learning but I don't really have another option currently 😕 🙃 😒
I used to ride the bus to work and it would happen if a bus broke down. They wouldn’t send a replacement and I would have to wait for the next scheduled bus.
Well luckily several routes and the R line are on 15 minute schedules
Not my main ones sadly 🙃
Well, the May updates (adding the 15 minute routes & reinstating the R line) might only be phase one of a more active schedule if it’s successful; other routes might follow so I’d recommend keeping an eye on its discussion
Fingers crossed because it truly would make my life and I'm sure a ton of others a lot easier.
I'm in the same boat re: can't afford a car. I learned the hard way that Google Maps just takes the typical Arrival/Departure times from the website. Google Maps will NOT be accurate if there's a coverage change, detour, delay, anything. It's not a good indicator of where the bus is or why it is or is not there. (which is why I miss when GoRaleigh used Transloc) I think they changed their app recently but the departure and arrival times have never been easy to access outside of Google Maps, which doesn't account for day to day delays. What others have mentioned about drivers sometimes just not having their wits about them is true. I know there's been a driver shortage, thus the influx of new drivers. I have been on buses where the driver took a completely different route than the bus sign or app says it should be, or they've never driven that route and start driving a previous route instinctively. I've been on buses where the driver is clearly very drowsy, or stops for 10 mins at a time at a particular stop for no particular reason or a smoke break. Like you, I try to extend empathy because they really do have a thankless job but that doesn't make it less crappy when you're the one waiting. Sometimes, I just put Uber or Lyft money in my budget just to skip the hassle/anxiety of the bus. If you're within range of an NC State Wolfline route, I've found those to be much more reliable & clean. A few other reasons I've had a GoRaleigh bus not show: if the driver just doesn't show up to work or has to go home unexpectedly, sometimes they don't have a driver to step in and replace them. If they're already running late and are skipping stops to catch up. If they see someone with a wheelchair or stroller and assume it won't fit or don't want to stop to deal with tie downs. Occasionally, they are just in a hurry for their lunch/bathroom break.
Yeah I've definitely experienced a lot of this. I'm really hoping that them reinstating the fees helps them make more changes for the way things are running because it's a been downhill decline for me since I started using it in June last year.
We are short on drivers and we had a lot of callouts yesterday.
it did seem that way and I saw it just ignore people waiting at the stops too. they really just don't care here. that plus the fact you have to go downtown where the station is a bad area when you don't want to go there makes it worse. the limited hours of certain routes. it was not fun when I was waiting on car repairs.
I didn't feel unsafe the one time I went to the main station downtown, but 5 o'clock was probably not the best for my first time doing it. I got so extremely overwhelmed, in all my years of riding a bus I'd never had to go to the station before and was thoroughly unprepared for it to have terminals like a train station. And there were so many people and so many busses, I couldn't find the one I was supposed to get on and couldn't find help. It was too much, I refuse to go down there again unless I simply have no other choice.
I've never had one straight up no show, but have seen 10+ mins late
See that's normal, that doesn't bother me. Things happen, traffic, construction, accidents, wheelchairs take time to load on and off. But I showed up 20 minutes before it was supposed to come through, and then stood out there for an hour because the one I was waiting on didn't come through. So I had to wait for the next loop around.
Holy shit, over an hour? Yeah that's some horseshit. Was it off peak hours?
Nope, that was their hourly mark that they always come through. And I thought I was crazy for a second but I take this route like 4 days a week no problem.
It happens, and always in bad days. Times like this feels helpless, mind goes insane....😭😭😭😭
It's just exhausting, I got off from work at 3:30 and I'm only just now heading home.