Today is Transit Equity Day

Today, February 4th is Transit Equity Day in the U.S., named in memory of Rosa Parks on her birthday.  When Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat in the Whites Only section of a Montgomery bus in 1958, she sparked a 381-day boycott of the bus system, demanding equal treatment.  Today, public transit is an essential service in a transportation system that is still inequitable.  Access to reliable transportation is closely linked to educational and economic opportunity, and in regions like the Triangle, that means access to a private automobile.

In order to achieve a transportation system that provides equitable access for everyone, while also eliminating carbon emissions and traffic deaths or serious injuries, we are going to have to make the public transit system work better for today’s customers.  We have been advocating for this through the Durham County Transit Plan since 2020.  This is the plan that establishes how $1.1 billion will be spent on public transit in Durham over the next 17 years (until 2040).  The final draft plan was released in December and the County, the regional planning organization (DCHC MPO), and GoTriangle are soliciting comments on the plan now.  This will be the topic of our next Community Meeting on February 27.

Through the Transit Equity Campaign, we have been successful at getting the public agencies to invest in authentic community engagement, and to put the needs of current transit riders at the front of the plan.  More than $800 million (74%) of the recommended investments accomplish those goals. These investments include increasing bus service frequency, running service later on weekends, and new crosstown routes that will shorten travel times.  It will speed up the construction of bus stop shelters and safe access to those stops, invest in improvements to the speed and reliability of bus services, and study the possibility of bringing Bus Rapid Transit to Durham.  The Plan also funds a study of the needs of the paratransit service for those whose disability keeps them from using the bus; the costs of paying increased wages to operate and maintain a growing transit system; and provides staff resources to increase the accountability for whether these dollars are being spent effectively.

This is Not Enough

This is an important start on transforming our public transit system to one that creates more opportunities for riders as we make a transition to a clean, safe transportation system for everyone.  However, it is not enough.  For all the investments recommended in improving our bus systems, other improvements are left out:

• The plan leaves many critical bus routes unfunded (listed on page 107 of recommended plan), meaning that travel times will remain too long and services will remain too infrequent for too many people.  

• The plan doesn’t show a commitment to electrifying the entire bus fleet.  

• The plan does not make a commitment to keep zero fares.  

• The plan does not show how sidewalk connections, or the Better Bus Project recommendations on Holloway and Fayetteville Streets and other locations throughout the city, will be fully funded.  

• Finally, the plan does not show a viable option for how riders will experience fast, reliable, and frequent regional transit service between Durham and opportunities in RTP, Cary, and Raleigh, or Chapel Hill.

The Commuter Rail is Not Viable in Durham Today

Bike Durham is strongly supportive of fast, reliable, and frequent regional transit services between Durham and opportunities in RTP, Cary, and Raleigh.  And we understand the desire to bring rail service to the Triangle.  However, the Commuter Rail project that has been studied would not be reliable or frequent because it would only offer two trips in the middle of the day, two trips at night, and no service on weekends.  This would not be useful for people who work jobs other than 9-to-5'ers, nor for getting to cultural or entertainment opportunities.  We are disappointed that options for frequent all-day, all-week service have not been studied to this point in tim

GoTriangle has only been studying rail service in the existing rail corridor, and that is limited to what the North Carolina Railroad and Norfolk-Southern Railway will allow.  At this point in time, these entities have not even agreed to participate in an evaluation of the feasibility of frequent, all-day service in the corridor.  This is why GoTriangle has only been evaluating Commuter Rail service levels (eight trips in the morning, two in the middle of the day, eight in the afternoon, and two at night - weekdays only).  They have recently presented the results of their Commuter Rail Feasibility Study and are also soliciting public comments right now.

The project is estimated to cost $3.2 billion and carry about 12,000 daily person trips by 2040.  At this cost and this level of ridership, GoTriangle has determined that the project is unlikely to be eligible for the Federal funding source that often pays about 50% of major project costs.  The Durham segment of the corridor between RTP and West Durham is estimated to cost about $1.6 billion due to the need for an additional set of tracks and complicated designs for the east Durham railyard and several street crossings.  The draft final Durham County Transit Plan recommends reserving 26% of the revenues through 2040 for a regional connection, or about $290 million.  That leaves a BIG gap - upwards of $1.3 billion - to build a project that doesn’t even have the service levels that we need.  Until Durham and Wake have new robust local transit tax options available to build the full project and operate frequent service, this rail project in Durham is not viable.

Wake County has a stronger tax base and could afford to build either the leg from Garner to downtown Raleigh, or from downtown Raleigh to RTP without Federal funding.  If Wake County is inclined to commit money to the central segment, Durham leaders should not be seduced into spending any transit tax revenues to extend the service beyond RTP until we can fully fund a frequent connection all the way to West Durham.

Here’s why:

• It would not provide any new access benefits for current riders or those using transit to access the opportunities east of RTP.  For the foreseeable future, an Ellis Road station would be predominantly a park-and-ride location, not a walk-to-transit location. Current riders going to opportunities east of RTP would still make bus connections at an RTP station since GoTriangle would not relocate their regional transit center to Ellis Road.

• It would consume most, if not all, of the $290 million recommended to be reserved for regional transit connections in the draft final Durham County Transit Plan.  We still would need to raise more than $1.3 billion in order to build out a fast, frequent, and reliable regional transit connection from east Durham, downtown Durham, and west Durham.

• GoTriangle’s evaluation is that there is a significant level of risk that the project might ever get completed.  In order to build and operate the studied service, GoTriangle would need agreement from North Carolina Railroad, Norfolk Southern Railway, CSX Railway, and Amtrak.  These negotiations usually take years, are unpredictable, and sometimes fail.  Charlotte thought they had an agreement with Norfolk Southern to purchase a corridor for the proposed Red Line project, when Norfolk Southern changed their mind.  That was in 2013.

• There are other, feasible opportunities to provide fast, frequent, and reliable transit service to key regional destinations that can be accessed from more parts of Durham.

Graphic rendering of a Bus Rapid Transit station.

Another Path to Regional Transit Connections

Though a rail connection is not viable for Durham at this point in time, we must still find solutions to improve regional transit connections between Durham, RTP, Cary, and Raleigh, or Chapel Hill.  As housing prices rise in Durham, demand is growing for connections to other communities like Butner, or Graham, or even Oxford.  Bus connections should be pursued now that increase the frequency of express service to downtown Raleigh and to Chapel Hill.  We should be studying investments that make it possible for these buses to bypass traffic with wider freeway shoulders, priority at traffic signals, and bus only ramps for easy on-off at key stops.  We should also be studying high quality bus rapid transit services where buses have dedicated lanes and stops that are similar to rail stations.  This can be a progression of steps over time that starts now and improves as our communities are ready and can afford them. 

Our local leaders throughout the region should also begin working with their counterparts throughout the state on building support for greater funding options for transit.  We can only achieve our vision for excellent transit with more local and state revenues.

Our recommendations

For Durham’s elected leadership:

• Durham leaders should support Wake County in their decision about whether to pursue one of the two eastern segments with Wake County funds, but they should not support spending Durham transit tax revenues on this project.

• Durham staff should pursue state and federal funding for projects that would make at-grade crossings and rail bridges safer for everyone in Durham and make it less expensive to pursue a regional rail project in the future. 

• Durham, and the region, should evaluate transit service and infrastructure improvements that can be made in the next few years with bus service to provide more frequent access between Durham, RTP, Cary, and Raleigh, or Chapel Hill.  This includes evaluating bus rapid transit as an alternative to rail service.

• Our local elected officials need to begin working with colleagues across the state to educate NC legislators about the need for additional investment in transit infrastructure and operations.

For you.

You can support transit equity in the Triangle by taking these three steps:

• Submit comments on the Commuter Rail Feasibility Study by February 19 urging that the project not be pursued west of RTP at this time.

• Send an email to Durham elected officials on the final draft of the Durham County Transit Plan supporting the investments in improvements to our local and regional bus networks and urging study of alternative regional connections that would be fast, frequent, and reliable.

• Sign up for Bike Durham’s email list to get updates on transit and safe, affordable, and sustainable transportation in Durham.

Will the Durham Transit Plan Prioritize Improvements for Current Riders?

Durham County, the regional transportation planning organization (DCHC MPO), and GoTriangle released three options for how to invest one billion dollars in transit tax revenues over the next twenty years. All options contained some common projects and service improvements using half the money. They differed in how to spend the remaining one-half billion dollars. One option prioritized improvements in local service and sidewalks, while including additional regional bus service. A second option prioritized investments in regional Bus Rapid Transit to Raleigh and to Chapel Hill. The third option prioritized investment in commuter rail to Raleigh. Both the Bus Rapid Transit option and the Commuter Rail option included local bus service and sidewalk improvements but there are fewer of them and they occur up to 7 to 10 years later. During the period when the Durham Transit Team was collecting public input, the Transit Equity Campaign was talking to riders about their priorities.

Erik Landfried, Bike Durham board member and manager of the Transit Equity Campaign, wrote a letter on September 9 to the staff and elected officials working on the plan to share what we heard from riders and to make recommendations for evaluating the options and developing a better final plan. The content of the letter is below:

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The Transit Equity Campaign is a partnership between Bike Durham, the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit, Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, Durham Congregations in Action, and People’s Alliance. The goal of the Transit Equity Campaign is to hold the public agencies in charge of updating the Durham Transit Plan accountable to make sure the needs of current transit riders, transit workers and low-wealth BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities are the first priorities in the Transit Plan.

The Campaign appreciates the opportunity to provide comments on the Durham Transit Plan update. We are encouraged to hear that over half of the comments received on the latest round of engagement came through the Engagement Ambassadors and in-person events at Durham Station and other locations. However, engagement is only the starting point. The Campaign will be watching closely to see how the final plan addresses the needs brought up by riders, transit workers, and communities of color.

When asking people to sign onto the Transit Equity Campaign, volunteers asked a single question in addition to contact information: “What’s the most important improvement to make to the transit system?” We have summarized the responses below:

Infographic summarizing priorities from riders

Many of the service and infrastructure needs should be familiar at this point - frequent, reliable service to more destinations supported by safe access to comfortable and accessible stops. These needs are addressed to varying degrees and timeframes by the three transit options that were presented to the public.

However, one-third of the responses to the question we asked were largely unrelated to service or infrastructure. Instead, they focused on driver courtesy and training, safety, cleanliness and comfort of the buses, and maintaining fare-free service. When asked how the Transit Plan would address these types of needs, the response we received from staff was:

We have communicated to GoDurham and GoTriangle the results of our stakeholder interviews and responses like this from both the Youth and Senior listening sessions.

Simply communicating these needs to the transit agencies without providing funds to address them is insufficient. If these needs supersede the need for better service or bus stops for many people in Durham, they need to be addressed with investments from the Durham Transit Plan.

The Transit Equity Campaign also has the following recommendations to better communicate the vision and projects in the final plan that is being developed:

• Be explicit about when people can expect improvements and show these improvements at a community level. The difference in implementation timelines was one of the most important tradeoffs between each of the three transit scenarios shown to the public, but this was not clearly communicated. Showing this information system-wide is important, but individual communities need to understand what improvements will directly impact their own community and when those improvements will occur. This will require more granularity to break the improvements down by geographical area, but will lead to better engagement with riders and low-wealth communities of color.

• Improve transparency by including ALL of the projects in the Durham Transit Plan public materials and the rationale for how those projects were chosen. There were assumed projects in each of the three transit options that were not shown to the public. This is unacceptable. These projects included service improvements such as increased frequency on crowded 15-minute bus routes and infrastructure improvements such as a new Bus Maintenance Facility. One of the core tenets of the Plan is transparency. Not including certain projects in the public materials does not meet that goal, especially ones that warrant public feedback. It is also important to communicate the rationale for why certain projects were or were not chosen. For example, the Braggtown Community Association is advocating for improved frequency on Route 9, which serves the heart of their neighborhood. No frequency improvements were shown for Route 9 in any of the three transit options and no rationale was provided for why other frequency improvements were prioritized above Route 9.

• Include a prioritization of projects that may require additional revenue. There are clearly more transit needs in Durham than what can be funded given the current revenue assumptions in the Durham Transit Plan. It is important to present a realistic set of projects and the Campaign supports conservative revenue forecasts. However, it is also important to continue to pursue additional funding and have a prioritized list of the projects that would be next in line so that there is not a delay between receipt of these funds and implementation.

• Measure equitable access to jobs in a more meaningful way. The Transit Equity Campaign was excited that staff followed through on our request to include measures for how job access would improve under the three transit options presented to the public. However, staff ran these measures without including any wait time and ran the analysis at 5pm on a weekday. This represents an unrealistic, best-case scenario and renders the frequency of each service moot. The results were also difficult to interpret:

The Transit Equity Campaign requests that transit staff measure access to jobs from multiple communities of color (not just Durham Housing Authority locations) using average wait time, which better reflects most riders’ experience using public transit. In addition, we recommend using the “Jane” tool to better display the access to employment improvements. Here is a before/after example using Jane:

Map of Transit Access from Oxford Manor with Existing Bus System

Transit Access from Oxford Manor with Existing Bus System

Map of Transit Access from Oxford Manor After Service Improvements

These maps are easier to understand and not only show the increase in job access, but also where people in select communities can get to by walking and using transit in increments of 15 minutes. In this example (which is not from any of the transit plan options), people living at Oxford Manor can see that not only has job access within a 30 minute commute - the medium blue color - increased significantly (from ~4,000 to ~19,000 jobs), but that these increases happen mostly along Roxboro Road, Horton Road, and downtown Durham.

Transit Is Essential Connection to Healthcare Jobs

Standing away from the others at the bus shelter in front of the Duke Medical Center, Jani Hale waits for her GoDurham bus.  Wearing her light blue surgical gloves, she’s ready to take the bus home at the end of day working for Duke University Medical Center’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health.  She rides every day and has noticed that it is a lot emptier on the buses since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Durham.  She has continued to ride because it’s her only way to work, and she appreciates that there is hand sanitizer on-board and that the city of Durham has recently made the buses free of charge. “It kinda lessens the heavy weight that we’re all carrying right now.”

Jani Hale, Duke University Medical Center Employee, waits on GoDurham Route 20

Photo Credit: John Tallmadge

On Sunday night, the City of Durham, followed by GoTriangle, the City of Raleigh, and the Town of Cary, suspended fares and required boarding through the rear doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  As reported Monday in the Raleigh News & Observer, Sean Egan, transportation director for the City of Durham said these measures are intended to keep customers and employees safe. “GoDurham operators and all of our front-line colleagues face the same pressures as everyone else right now,” Egan said in a written statement. 

“They have families, kids out of school, loved ones with health concerns, and others may know someone already impacted by COVID-19. Despite these pressures, and despite understandable concerns, our workforce is showing up out of a sense of duty to the community.”

Egan said GoDurham will continue to operates as long as it is “safe and appropriate to do so.”  Durham Mayor Steve Schewel shared in an email that he’s “worried about the social distancing on buses.”  He is discussing with partners whether to run extra buses on busy routes “so we can cut down on the number of people on each bus. I’m not sure this is going to be able to happen, but I think it would be good if we could do it.”  

Jen an Occupational Therapist at Duke Hospital who lives about two miles from the hospital on Route 11B, remarked that “everybody seems to be adhering to the precautions about being six feet apart.  I just try to be careful and carry hand sanitizer with me and not touch anything.”

If the local bus systems or GoTriangle stopped running their services, or significantly cut back on their frequency, most remaining passengers would have few, if any, remaining options.   While Jen has a car, she does not pay for a parking space at Duke Medical Center, so if the buses stopped running, she believes that “she would be in a bit of trouble.”  Jen thinks she “might have to ask friends for a ride, which would be very inconvenient and scary for them.  They don’t want to be close to others right now when we’re supposed to be socially distancing.  I think that the bus is probably a better way to socially distance oneself than carpooling.”

Masti, a young woman who works in a lab at Duke University Medical Center, rides GoTriangle route 405 and connects to Chapel Hill Transit routes.  She has already had to adjust to last week’s cutback in Chapel Hill service to less frequent Saturday levels.  Monday morning, she missed her connection to work and ended up calling Uber to get to her job.  If GoTriangle were to discontinue or reduce service levels she is afraid she couldn’t come to work or would have to pay for an Uber most days.  Doug M., who works at the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, and uses the same route as Masti, expects he would reluctantly switch to driving or taking Uber to work. 

Ms. Hale has considered biking, but like in most cities, few of the streets in Durham have been designed to be safe for all users.  She mapped out a bike route, but found “they don’t have the bike lane throughout the whole path coming here, so that would be kinda dangerous.”  She called out Duke University Road, Academy Road and University Drive as the three main roads along her route where she wouldn’t feel safe on a bike.  Jen also considered biking but noted that on day’s like Monday when it was raining, “it wouldn’t really be convenient to have to change once I got to work.”

For Hale, keeping the buses running is essential.  “Yeah, I don’t know what I would do if the bus system was to stop running.  I wouldn’t be able to get to work.  Where I live and where I work was based on the bus route.”  

NOTE: This post is the first in a series about how people are using transit and bicycles during the emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Durham.