Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Uh HEPATEL Transportation Transit.

I'll be providing an update on the Go Raleigh system.

At the April 7th council meeting, Council requested an update on the overall system, some of the misinformation that may be out there, our financial picture, as well as some of the services that we have implemented through the Wake Transit Plan.

And then ultimately the larger part of the conversation today is around safety and security and the Go Raleigh station, the Hub and Spoke model that the transit uh operates within for Go Raleigh, as well as uh the long-term considerations for for that system.

So we operate 34 routes uh within the municipality as well as some partnering jurisdictions within Wake County, uh a total of 120 buses with just over 1400 bus stops.

Last year, our annual ridership was at 7.5 million, and our ridership has increased as we've increased the frequency in the routes uh through the Wake Transit Plan.

Our annual budget for next year is 94.7 million.

That incorporates the fixed route services as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act Go Raleigh Access Program that we provide as well.

So that's our all-encompassing budget for next year.

Uh we do have contracted operations through RATP dev.

We have 2257 bus operators.

Uh we're operating 363 days of the year, so we take two holidays off, uh, as well as we have Sunday level service on five major holidays.

Could you just RAM RATP dev.

TP dev.

Is that does that stand for something RATP?

That is the contractor's uh name.

Okay.

I just wondered if it was an acronym or whether that is their name.

That is the name.

All right.

Um the City of Raleigh took over uh public transportation services in 1975 from a private provider under the Capital Area Transit brand.

Uh we operated as Capital Area Transit till 2015, and again, more recently last year we celebrated that 50th year anniversary of Capital Area Transit.

Uh in 2016, the regional partners went through a rebranding effort for transit.

Uh Capital Area Transit got rebranded to Go Raleigh, Go Triangle, Go Durham, GoCarry.

So the overall Go umbrella was implemented in 2016 for the region.

That is the uh brand that we operate under now.

Uh I do want to cover at the front end of the presentation sort of the origins of the Hub and Spoke model.

Really, as the City of Raleigh's transportation network built out in the 70s and 80s, the the radial transportation network, uh, your key corridors, Capitol, Glenwood, Newburn, South Saunders, you know, were the primary corridors that were bringing in traffic into downtown.

And that's where public transit services also went because of the services that were provided, as well as some of the topography challenges that related to how that network was built out.

So even now you see within our comprehensive transportation plan, we're trying to grid out the city's transportation system, but there are challenges with floodplains or environmental considerations where a direct connection can't always be made to make that direct uh uh gridded network.

We do operate uh again high uh 11 high frequency routes.

Those those are routes running at every 15 minutes or less, with Capital uh corridor being the highest frequency at every 10 minutes.

We have two express routes and two microtransit zones uh continue to evaluate additional microtransit zones as we do long-range planning exercises uh and working with partners like via via mobility provides our current uh microtransit services out in Rollsville and FICWARENA.

We have some resources for trip planning that are available to our riders.

Uh again, if you prefer hard paper maps, we have a system map, route maps available at various locations, uh digital apps.

We have three different providers that all have trip planning functions that can be used to plan a trip within the system.

And then Go Triangle being the regional provider has a regional call center that's also available for customer experience users uh trying to plan a trip or getting uh real-time arrival information about the bus system.

We went back to fairs in fall of 2024.

So, from a financial picture uh council made the decision to return to fairs post-pandemic.

Uh prior to the pandemic, uh, about 32 percent of our ridership rode free through existing programs.

So that would be uh seniors or children under 18 under the youth pass or GoPasses that were paid by through uh employment partners.

Uh in fiscal year 25 after we went back to fairs, that number has increased to 61% of our annual ridership riding free.

That is due to again those existing programs as well as the addition of the transit assistance program that we worked with Go Triangle to implement for considerations for a low-income fare program.

And certainly we are continuing to work with Go Triangle to look at uh the eligibility criteria for that program and how that is managed uh year in and year out.

So look shifting focus to the Wake Transit plan and really how that has uh increased the growth that the Go Raleigh system has observed.

Uh in 2016, Wake County voters approved that half sense dedicated sales tax, provided four big moves, connecting the region, connecting all Wake County communities, providing frequent reliable urban mobility, and enhancing access to transit.

Really, Go Raleigh as a system within this program has benefited probably the most with the most amount of money on the Wake Transit Plan side coming to the City of Raleigh.

Uh and that can be seen in the amount of those high frequent corridors that we have been able to implement in the recent years.

So we went from 40 miles to 80 miles of that 15-minute service in 2024, and as of March of 2026, we're now at a 13 37 miles.

So between 2025 and 2026, we've added an additional 40 miles more of that high-frequence corridor.

From a governance perspective, uh the Wake Transit Plan is guided by the Transit Planning Advisory Committee that lives within the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.

It has representation from the different transit providers as well as the Wake County municipalities that make up uh the committee.

And then the committee plans and implements the overall budget for Wake Transit Plan as well as the uh proposed annual work plan each year that identifies funding for the different project sponsors for operational projects, capital projects, uh, as well as some long-term, long-term considerations.

So uh the overall uh Wake Transit Plan umbrella also does vision plan updates to make sure that the long-range planning uh activities for transit from a regional perspective are captured.

They do a 10-year bus plan and a 10-year financial model just to make sure that there's a balance between operational funding and capital funding needs throughout the entire program and there are other funded programs that are also within the the Wake Transit Plan that have some needs.

I wanted to share uh overall picture of how much the Wake Transit Plan has contributed to the city's transit budget over the years.

Uh in fiscal year 23, right before we went back to Fairs, Wake Transit Plan was contributing about 30 percent of the city's transit budget, City of Raleigh's contribution was at about 60 percent.

Uh this fiscal year 2027, Wake Transit Plan contribution has jumped up to about 49 percent with the City of Raleigh contribution staying consistent with 50 percent.

Uh and then the Wake Transit plan contribution for the out years fiscal year 2030, again, given the number of frequency improvements, route improvements that are coming for our system under that plan, that projected budget is 60 percent wake transit plan and city of Raleigh contributions being 39 percent.

So the general fund contributions for transit have have remained consistent uh for for some time now.

Can I just clarify?

So you're talking about two Go Raleigh to the Go Raleigh system.

This is who is contributing.

So Wake Transit 49 percent for fiscal year 2027.

Correct.

And this is specific to our fixed route services, but it does match uh our overall budget as well.

Okay.

And why this change expected or why is it so variable?

Well, so again, the City of Raleigh general fund contributions towards transit has been pretty consistent, with the exception of a supplemental in 2025 that added $8.5 million.

Um since then, year in, year out, Wake Transit Plan is providing more of the funding for all of our fixed route operations, our bus vehicle purchases, our capital projects.

So again, that contribution from Wake Transit Plan is the reason why there are increases in our budget in transit.

So kind of the meat of the presentation here is uh again around safety and security and some of the media uh coverage that we have received around Go Raleigh station or the system as a whole.

And so I want to start out again by saying public safety is a top priority, and we're making decisions guided by data, partnering with uh Raleigh Police Department to really make sure uh that our transportation is safe and reliable for our users, and as we design some of our facilities that we're keeping in mind, uh things that will help deter and prevent some negative behavior.

So working through those crime prevention through environmental design principles, uh make sure there's visibility, lighting, uh considering how access to a particular location is managed, uh and again operationally working with Raleigh Police Department to really add some visibility within the system for um officers riding on the buses, patrol vehicles following buses, uh making more systematic um visible uh choices so that people can see that there are uh safety and secure.

And again, operationally working with Raleigh Police Department to really add some visibility within the system for officers riding on the buses, patrol vehicles following buses, uh making more systematic visible choices so that people can see that there are safety and secure.

Just want to say is this going to be our consultants going to be hired?

Is this just uh community conversation about what improvements to be put in place?

I'm just trying to understand how this is going to proceed.

I agree with all the goals.

There's one approach where you do defensive planning.

Then there's another one where you do another approach which has a different design that offers dignity and different approaches.

So I'm just trying to understand the approach we're taking.

Um sorry.

More to come.

I'll be quiet.

Yeah, no, I'll walk through all the considerations in terms of what we have done and what we're looking to do.

Uh again, it's not one single approach, it's going to be multiple layered.

Um, again, we're going to start with uh making sure that we have proper user expectations and accountability of the transit users themselves.

Uh in the fall of last year, the Raleigh Transit Authority started the process of updating our code of conduct policy for the system.

That was endorsed by Raleigh Transit Authority in March of 2026.

So we're working on an additional marketing campaign and increased signage, really about what are the behaviors that we expect of our riders when they're on the system, uh, things that can make it more clear what the expectations are so that bus operators as well as Raleigh police as they're going in and out doing their system checks can actually enforce certain things if they're not behaving to the um code of conduct policy.

From an operator support function, uh again, you heard in summer of last year and fall of last year from a couple of the bus operators about challenges that they faced as it related to non-destination riders or uh overall friction within the system for the operators themselves.

So the contractor RATP dev has a security director that has introduced a two-part uh de-escalation training that is available for all existing and the new operators that come into the system.

They're working on adding an additional component of that training that will focus on mental health specifically and doing more quarterly check-ins of that de-escalation training to see if there's other programs required.

They have an employee assistance program that's available to all the operators 24-7 with quarterly on-site visits for for consultations.

And then because of some of the increases in the budget that the contractor has also seen, they were able to secure two additional road supervisors and two additional dispatchers for this next fiscal year, again, adding for some additional presence at Go Raleigh station, as well as adding to some of our incident response times as it relates to when things happen outside of Go Raleigh station.

You also heard from the operators about the pool road operations and maintenance facility, some of the challenges there around lighting, uh more signage needed to ensure that pedestrians don't get into the bus lot itself.

Uh and since then we have worked to implement uh we fixed the gate, uh, we have fixed the signage, added some additional pedestrian signage to make sure that if you're at the pool road park and ride, you are guided back to the front of the building uh at the operations facility and not going in and out around the bus slot.

Uh and then additionally, we're investigating a badge access for the employee parking area as well.

So moving on to the station, and again, Councilmember, so I'll get to some of the other components from a partnership perspective through through the Go Raleigh Station conversation, um, which is again providing context.

We have about 65 buses going in and out of the station in an hour.

Um, about 14,000 to 17,000 people daily, so that almost is like a small airport.

Um, RDU captures about 32,000 people daily.

Uh and then on top of the transit facility, we have a 649 uh space parking deck.

So our operations are 4 a.m.

to 1230 a.m.

But really, due to the parking deck being operational 24 hours, the facility itself does see people going in and out of it all day.

Uh and then Golley station was renovated in 2017 with federal grant funds uh to really add uh some additional canopies, uh redesign our facility to add some capacity as well as um overall uh real-time arrival information and some customer uh experience, user experience uh amenities.

So I mentioned the access.

Again, we go Raleigh Station operates as an open door, open air facility.

We have access from each direction through Wilmington Street, Blunt Street, Martin, and Hargett.

Um, that does provide certain challenges uh as it relates to behaviors that happen at the station and potential um for easily getting away uh if something does happen.

Uh again, I mentioned the Moore Square parking deck that has access and elevators into the station as well.

So operationally, uh, with that being 24 hours, we do have to keep access in certain areas for the station itself so people can go in and out of this the parking deck.

Some short-term, midterm considerations specific to the station itself.

Uh we did a bathroom redesign in May of 2025 that is currently getting scheduled to bid for construction later this spring.

Uh that will be really to upgrade some crime prevention through environmental design within the bathrooms itself and make the bathrooms commercial grade.

Uh we are looking at upgrading cameras within the parking deck as well as the transit center itself.

Um, and that contract has been executed.

Uh, additionally for the cameras, we're trying to figure out how to add some visibility to the cameras, so like a blue light feature that can help people recognize that there is a camera here and that record recording may be in progress.

We've added some additional signage specific to uh after hours uh on our real-time arrival signs that show that the station is now closed, uh, as well as we're working on adding some additional tobacco-free signage based on the the recent uh deployed new city ordinance.

So I mentioned kind of the partnerships and how this would be multi-layered.

Uh in May of 2025, uh Raleigh Police launched the hospitality district to really boost safety within those high traffic areas, including the downtown transportation hub.

There's space now at the downtown Gorale station for the transit recon and community engagement uh team within police department uh that functions out of there.

They have space for processing paperwork and an additional office space up there as well.

And again, that's to add some visibility for police department presence within the station, in and out, and in regular um checks within the station patrols.

We also have contracted services uh specific to security with Go Raleigh Station that are for Capital Special Police.

Uh they match our operating hours, 4 a.m.

to midnight, uh, and they have a two-person team that does supervisory check-ins throughout the day.

They do morning arrival check-ins at the station with the dispatchers and the supervisors, and then they'll do hourly bus walkthroughs when buses are coming in and out, as well as a regular patrol around the station itself.

Uh another aspect of safety and security that we are investigating is additional safety ambassadors uh to supplement that Raleigh police presence on those high visibility corridors.

This would be non-sworn employees that function as uh ambassadors to answer questions, ride the buses, uh, have eyes on the street, and again, provide a better customer service user experience for people that are in need of how to navigate the system as a whole.

So moving on to some of the long-term considerations for the station and the system, uh, the conversation around hub and spoke and a gridded transportation transit system uh has come up and our current system is that hub and spoke system.

It centralizes routes through that core hub for downtown commute as well as operational efficiencies, and a gridded system would parallel perpendicular routes that are providing more point-to-point connections uh and provide more frequent service on those parallel perpendicular routes to really uh meet that service effectively, the transfers that would be needed in that decentralized system.

So we looked at a little bit of data as to our existing Raleigh hub and spoke system.

The last origin destination survey we did in 2023 showed that 32% of riders transfer within our system, and out of those 32% of riders, 70% of those transfers are happening at Go Raleigh Station.

So a large amount of that transfer is happening from route to route within the downtown location.

Uh certainly, as we do additional origin destination surveys, we're gonna do one this fall.

Uh we can continue to look at what opportunities there are for better point-to-point connections, but that is one of those uh considerations of of the need for that centralized hub of transfers that that is currently happening in the system.

I'm also going to walk through a couple benchmark peer transit systems that have a gridded transit system to show what that looks like and how that compares to Raleigh's roadway network.

And then lastly, you know, Wake Transit Plan has a function through its planning services as an on-call that we can certainly rely on to do a longer-term study of what does a grid transportation transit system look like for the city of Raleigh if we wanted to pursue that, as well as station location and feasibility study if that is something that we also wanted to investigate.

So the Raleigh Transportation Network, I kind of uh hit the highlights in the beginning of the presentation.

You know, if you look at our roadway network, we do not have many direct east-west connections, especially inside the belt line going north past Wade Avenue.

Um then again, most of those major arterials all lead to downtown Raleigh.

And so I'm going to share a couple examples of a public transportation network that sits on a more gridded transit system, Phoenix, Arizona, Houston, Texas, and you can really see the difference within the city's roadway network where there are most more east-west connector uh major arterial routes as well as north-south arterial routes that provide transit services on those corridors and provide opportunities to transfer at decentralized locations and not in a centralized hub.

Um then again, the last point on the systems statistics itself, uh our highest ridership routes are those radial arterial corridors that are currently seeing um significant services.

So Capitol Boulevard, Newburn Avenue, South Saunders, Glenwood, Lake Wheeler Road, and Avon Ferry are month in and month out, some of our highest ridership routes.

Um from a long-term considerations perspective, uh I mentioned the Wake Transit Plan.

It just kicked off its bus plan efforts.

That is a 10-year uh investigation of programming for operation operational projects.

Uh there actually already is some decentralization of the Go Raleigh system in the plans.

Uh they have a new route identified for a connection from North Carolina State University, Centennial Campus to Midtown Raleigh that would not come into downtown, uh, as well as some additional frequencies for those existing crosstown connections that we provide to see how those point-to-point connections would do with 15-minute frequencies and see if the transit uh ridership shows uh a need there as the frequencies increase.

And then lastly, something else that can be looked at uh as we continue to do long-range planning efforts is how does the bus rapid transit plans uh of the four key key corridors, the trunk lines that we have identified uh serve as potential services that fixed route can connect into and transfer opportunities into the BRT.

So, again, not trying to bring everything into downtown, but but focusing on those key corridors.

Uh and then largely a shift from a high uh from a hub and spoke system to a grid transportation system would require some additional considerations for the capital infrastructure that would be needed for a more opportunities to transfer at those various nodes and facilities, and then from an operations perspective, uh there would certainly also be some considerations about buses driving from the garage to the start point.

That's being a little different from how we operate now.

Um, so we can investigate all of those things through the long-range planning efforts as well as working through industry partners like VIA that provides the micromobility service and look at some operational efficiencies that could be considered um in the out years.

And I know I went through a lot of that quickly.

Um I'm happy to answer any questions.

If there was something that staff missed, uh, we're happy to take feedback through this presentation and come back um with more information.

Silver?

So I'm gonna go back to my earlier question.

Uh first I appreciate the city manager, you know, listening counsel and others that this is an issue we have to address.

I think the conversation about uh more square certainly started a larger community-wide conversation.

But in terms of the approach, you listed a lot.

Um I don't know when you intend to start the scope.

You have some about enforcement, about the user experience, about the design of the station, addressing you know, ingress and egress.

Uh is this someone's gonna be hired?

Is it gonna be done in-house?

Uh a lot of stakeholders and constituents want to make sure we also understand, because we heard the users, but I'm hearing from a lot of the property owners and businesses in the area.

Uh so I just want to make sure as we proceed with this, just want to have a better understanding about how we're going to proceed.

Is this going to be housing transportation, being partnered with urban designers, landscape architects and architects, so it's not a transportation, it's a design solution.

I'm refreshed to see crime prevention through environmental design.

Uh there are certainly experts that focus on that.

So just I'm not a fan of the blue lights, by the way, because I've been to some cities with so many blue lights.

I want to leave the city because I feel like there's too many blue lights, it feels unsafe.

Uh, but I just want to just make sure that what is the plan going forward, or is that for us to give you feedback about what direction just seems it's a lot when it comes to the bus terminal uh to take on, and just wanted to know what is the path forward specifically with addressing some of the concerns for the transit station.

Yeah, so certainly the the short-term, midterm recommendations are things that we are starting to work on in-house, the code of conduct policy, additional signage, additional uh signage around cameras or things that can be implemented with uh transit, parking, and our other partners.

The long-range considerations of access at Go Raleigh station would be a separate study, so we could utilize an on-call contractor through the Wake Transit Plan to do that, or put out our own uh process to select someone and really investigate that.

Um the reason why that's a long-term consideration again is we really need to look at the elevator access in and out of the parking deck, overall access, as you mentioned, someone that also specializes in the crime prevention through environmental design features to see what can be done to help some of the current challenges within the station.

So that would be a contracted study.

Counselor Ford.

I actually got two questions.

Um as it relates to the hub and spoke model, years ago I asked a question about using smaller vehicles and trying to use like sort of like a feeder system so that you didn't have so many large buses moving throughout the city and not necessarily having a lot of folks on the buses.

And I was told that there was some federal issue.

Um could you explain what that problem is in terms of why we can't use smaller buses and do a feeder system?

Yes, I think operationally uh one of the things that we have to keep in mind is a lot of times a route coming in to downtown may have been operating as one route.

When it gets to downtown, it switches to another route and it's providing services on another corridor.

Uh and then from an equity perspective, when we do buy buses with federal funding, uh we do have to equitably put them along all routes in the system.

So certainly that also plays into how we manage our fleet and then how um operationally those uh services are provided.

We do have certain smaller buses that do probably run on couple routes that have less ridership.

So we do have some small vehicles, but not a lot.

Okay.

Is there a way for us to work around that?

Madam City Manager, can we negotiate with some folks to figure that portion out?

Um because we want to make the system more efficient.

Um if the federal government is kind of tie in our hands, then maybe we need to have some conversations about how we can loosen up those those challenges.

We can try to facilitate some of those conversations with our federal partners.

Okay, thank you.

And then my second question is I know you um you had a slide about some of the improvements that you wanted to or the department is going to be working on with um employees.

I know we still hear a great deal from the bus drivers about some of the challenges there.

Have you all sat down and like had conversations with them directly about some of these issues to address some of the because I still get text messages from folks about some of those um complaints?

Yeah, there have been conversations with our trans station manager, contractor uh that provides the services, as well as Chief Boyce has attended a few.

Uh there's monthly safety meetings uh as well that the contractor holds with the operators.

Um so there have been listening sessions to better understand what the challenges are.

We're continuing to address some of these.

Um I think the presence of RPD riding within fall of last year to now has been noticed by some of the operators as well, and that has helped.

Um continue to add more visibility, both on that side as well as maybe additional services.

Thank you.

Counselor Lambert Melton and then Patton.

Sure.

Um I have some general comments and then a couple questions.

I'll start by saying that this entire discussion about the transit center, I'm not sure how it emerged.

I think it got like placed in the media and it just took off.

And now all of us at this table, everywhere we go, we're being confronted with opinions about it, people who are concerned and afraid that transit riders are going to be pushed far away from downtown and far away from the services they need.

We've got folks who on the other side are like the idea and want us to move the transit center.

We've had no discussions of doing that.

I don't know how this idea picked up like wildfire, but now it's out there and we're all having the answer to it.

But I do think if one benefit from it can be a greater discussion about the needs of the transit center, then I think that's a good thing.

Um, I have heard from transit riders who are concerned with some of the activity and the environment happening at the Go Raleigh Station.

I've heard from business owners who have invested their time and their money downtown who have similar concerns, and residents.

And we've all heard at this table from transit operators because they came and talked to us.

So clearly something needs to be done.

Um a few questions I have.

First is years ago there was a discussion about trying to find a way to secure this station with like roll-down gates or something.

If you look at the new Rust bus facility, um that has two points of ingress and egress, a pedestrian plaza on one side and then an entrance for the buses on the other side, and both of them close with gates when the last bus leaves.

Is there a way we can do that here?

Have we considered maybe reducing?

I mean, the slide, we have a lot of access points here.

Have we considered reducing some of these access points?

I think a primary point of concern is the tunnel from Wilmington Street to the transit center.

Can we somehow secure that or close it?

There are many of other ways to access.

Is that something we're considering?

Yeah, so that would be part of that long-range uh study for uh the station considerations that would look at crime prevention through environmental design.

But on the access side, like you said, Wilmington probably provides the most amount of opportunity to maybe close as a storefront of some kind and already has uh better corners on the building side of things.

Um the other three entrances, Blunt Street, Hargett, and Martin are a little bit more challenging where they are a little bit more open, and certainly um in a downtown environment, we want to be mindful of what the gates look like, what the closure looks like.

So there are some of those considerations to think about.

But um that would be part of that long-range study of how can we manage access to minimize some of those um flows to allow for better enforcement if that's uh that's a goal.

Could you clarify long range when you say that?

Like give us a long range would be we would work through on-call uh to get a consultant on board, uh probably a study that is 12 to 18 months to to get a better idea of what can be implemented quickly again, and then longer term considerations of are we looking at feasibility of moving the station?

Are we looking at additional capacity needs or considerations?

So that long-range study would look at all of those things.

Yeah, I I personally don't know that this issue can sustain another 12 to 18 months of studying.

Um I think some of these solutions are obvious.

I will just go ahead and throw my support behind.

I think on a temporary basis or long-term basis, we should probably close that tunnel from Wilmington Street to the center to the transit center.

And then the open access points on Hargett, Blunt, and Martin Street, maybe the solution there is to make them more open.

Um if they're really open and visible, that would I think reduce the willingness for anybody who's coming down there, just as a lot of people down there just coming down there to do bad activity.

And then if you close off the tunnel part where it's easier to conceal bad activity, that may be a solution to this problem.

And then the other point I wanted to highlight is from all these discussions we're having the public now because this topic has picked up.

There are a lot of folks who I think would like us to find a way to increase efficiencies.

Right now you've got folks that are coming from way North Raleigh all the way downtown to transfer to go back up maybe somewhere adjacent to their North Raleigh departure location because we're not offering a lot of cross-town routes.

And so if there were a way to shift some of this out of the hub and spokes model, um, we will be increasing efficiencies for our transit users, which is always a benefit.

And then a derivative of that is there will be less people at the Go Raleigh station, and so that will help reduce some of the traffic down there too.

And so those are the two points that I would like to make.

One, this entire discussion did not originate from this table.

We are just sort of dealing with the repercussions of it now, and I think some good can come of it.

And two, I don't think we can wait 12 to 18 months to study solutions.

I know there's some short-term ones, but we've got to make some more seismic shifts.

And that does not mean moving Go Raleigh station out of downtown, but improving what we have.

Yeah, well, that definitely covers a bunch of questions that were on my list.

So I'll put a check mark on I think closing that breezeway between the platforms and Wilmington Street, I think is top priority.

I think we're, you know, it's noted that that's a very porous area where crime can kind of just very easily move um out of lines of sight.

And I think not unknown to the mischief makers is there's a lot of like jurisdictional challenges between the different security companies and what levels of enforcement they can do and and like physically where they can do them.

And so I think close like finding a way to close that breezeway in the very immediate term.

I acknowledge the challenges that like the rest people have to be able to get to the restrooms from the platforms and have to get be able to get to the elevators.

Like not saying it's simple, but I do think it's top priority, and I echo that it's um you know, I don't think that waiting 12 to 18 months to get a recommendation that we then have to find a way to pay for it is um just too long of a it's too long of a turnaround time.

Um other questions, uh I have many questions, but staying in the safety one.

Another one other thing I've well first, can you speak I know coordination between the different security companies has been um a source of additional friction in the past that like Capitol Police can only operate inside of the station and then the like ones for the parking decks are separate and the so anyway, the coordination has been a bit of a challenge and um has needed some like arm wrestling to get everyone on the same page.

Can you speak to sort of how the coordination is working now?

Yeah, so um and I'll see if uh David or anyone else wants to add to this after I respond.

But certainly um there are monthly meetings between the different contracted securities and Raleigh Police Department that uh have information sharing about what's happening at the Go Raleigh station, the parking deck, uh DRA is part of that as well, uh as well as the park the security out at Moore Square as well.

So um I'll see if David or anyone else.

So is so only so monthly is the rate of coordination.

Monthly coordination for the larger group.

Um certainly the people that are actually there day to day are are speaking to each other more frequently.

Um so again, if there's more interest in gathering what that looks like, we can put together a manager's update on that.

Yeah, is there you do know off the top of your head if there's like a daily shift level stand-up that gathers all the folks on shift at the time?

I do not.

David, can you come to the podium, please?

David Walker, transit division.

So there is a daily huddle between the the security teams and RPD daily at 12 o'clock, right there at the top of the breezeway there on Wilmington Street.

Okay.

And does that capture there's probably more than one shift, right?

Cut to cover 20 hours, that's probably two shifts.

Does the 12 o'clock?

Well, I I think the shift for the the Capitol Special ha change that change happens around two o'clock in the afternoon, but they do have some overlap in their schedule, so they they brief each other.

Okay.

Um we sure that um we're confident that every one of the participating security agencies is like compliant with that?

Are they actually attending these daily huddles on a daily basis?

I I don't attend those meetings.

Uh we did actually have our our monthly call with Chief Boyce at 10 o'clock today, and uh during that meeting it it came up that the our our partner had not attended recently, so we are reaching out to them to ensure that they do that on a daily basis.

Okay.

So I don't know if he's got something to say.

Yeah, well, while he's walking down, I'll just say if there are any of those partners who are not attending a daily huddle on a daily basis, I would like for us to do whatever is needed to to change that or make that part of a contractual obligation that they have.

Absolutely.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Rico Boys, Chief of Police.

Uh we are having ongoing conversations with our partners to help secure not only the transit mall but more square.

Uh what that looks like from a police perspective is we do have two shifts of also that work throughout the day.

We have a tr hand off when those officers in shifts and begin shift.

But throughout the shift, it's an ongoing conversation about what is going on.

Uh what came out of the conversation today um was that we're gonna increase our frequency and meeting and having communication between the security companies, go Raleigh, as well as Raleigh Police Department.

It was unfortunate today that one of our partners could not be there, uh part of that conversation today.

But overall, uh since we started a hospitality district, and we have a dedicated group of officers that are working that area.

Uh we now have a quarterly meeting that we're gonna step up to, like monthly meetings.

And that's important to so we know what's going on from all aspects of security in the transit mall.

Okay.

Thank you, Chief.

I would say if there are any meetings that you're having that either daily or monthly, if there are participants who are not attending at that cadence, I I would like to see that they do.

I took ownership of that um, Councilmember Patton when we had some some conversation, you know, last fall about the transit mall.

That is now my responsibility as a chief of police to make sure that these meetings are attended, making sure that everybody is voicing their concerns and what they're seeing down there in the transit mall, and then that information is then uh sent out to uh uh our side of the hall as far as RPD and make sure we bring in a resources uh to the transit mall to keep everyone safe down there.

Thank you.

Chief, I think Councillor Jones and Counselor Ranch have questions.

I did, but I think you answered it right there because that was going to be my question was who's the lead department on handling the conversations between, but you just uh responded, so I do appreciate that.

I had one other question, not for you.

Um I think head when you had the presentation about safety, we did talk about an ambassador.

And I just was wondering what is the difference between the what you're talking about there and what we do with uh DRA currently.

It would actually be similar.

Um DRA ambassadors are focused in downtown.

They're walking around downtown actually helping people navigate where they're going in downtown.

So an ambassador in the Go Raleigh system would be doing something similar, riding our high frequency corridor routes, engaging with the the riders, helping them answer questions if they're having challenges with uh figuring out where they which route they need to transfer to or go.

So it would be a separate entity.

It wouldn't be what they were doing.

Okay.

It would be separate.

Thank you.

Council branch.

Definitely thank you.

So this question, uh Chief, I don't know if it's for you because y'all your team plays part of it.

And I was looking for Paul because I know we had a conversation.

Oh, so he's out sick.

So help hopefully you can help his.

I understand RPD does trespass individuals, but it's up to Rapdev to contact those individuals and make them aware they've been trespassed.

Is that happening?

And if it's not, what is being done to address it?

Councilmember Branch, you must have been in our meeting today.

No, I was I was at a ribbon cutting.

Um that was part of our conversation today with our partners about that trust pass process.

I'll be full train fully transparent and tell you uh that that is an area that we can improve on in communicating how that looks with all the security um departments down there as well as go Raleigh.

Uh that's that's a work in progress uh because it's not perfect, but we did acknowledge that that is an area that can improve overall safety as well as efficiency in the transit mall.

So I don't have an answer for you today, but what I can tell you is that we are working on it and we identified that that is an area that uh that needs some attention.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's my last safety question.

Um as far as the more square, in 2017, we completed the renovations of the center.

And we actually moved the elevators, at least the eastern ones, to where they are now.

Um so hopefully there's still some information, some data, so you don't have to wait so long so you can pull that information and look at okay, how can we redo this and and and make this right because I think some issues have come up that weren't there before.

Um so I know the elevators can be moved because I was at the ribbon cutting when we opened up what's there now.

So um I just wanted to pass that on and make it public that, hey, we've moved these elevat at least one set of elevators before.

Um so I think relocating them, closing off the the breezeway as as we're naming it, um, would benefit everybody.

And then when we even talk about the overall station and closing it off, maybe we just close off the part that goes under the parking debt.

It leaves the road part open, but at least we secure the building, the building part of it.

Um and then that leaves your cameras and everything else, and then it limits the way people can come in and out um of the station.

Um thing I want to pivot from just a little bit when we talk about the the system and our the system as a whole.

Cleanliness, not just downtown, but across the system at stops that are out on routes.

Where are we with addressing those concerns?

Yeah, so we certainly have a couple of partnerships there as well.

Um continue to work with SolidWays Services for frequencies on the routes that they um service for us for transit shelters.

Uh we're also working on a pilot project with Greater Raleigh cleanup uh that is currently in contract uh execution to try to get some additional services there on those high frequency corridors.

Uh and then we're also implementing some additional pilots that were starting in transit to try to put out some additional um trash bags that are easily able to be picked up inside the vehicle and try to coordinate how people, again, from a user expectation or behavior perspective trying to help more visibility of what you should do when you're in the bus.

Okay.

And also my last question when we talk about the the hub and spoke system and going to more grid, one of the things that we talked about were parking rides.

And we had, I know some that were planned.

Where are we with the planning of park and rides that will help enable that crosstown functionality?

Yes, the park and rides and the transit centers uh have been out there as capital projects in the Wake Transit Plan.

Um some of the challenges around those have been the system itself needs to build out to where there's multiple routes connecting in a location for that node to be built out as a park and ride or a transit center.

Um real estate is really challenging throughout the city uh as it relates to actually finding space, having the money to to go out and and do that.

Um but those are out there in in in future years for the system as a whole.

Um we have a couple identified, and and when I presented on the Northern Corridor bus rapid transit study, I'd said that that was another study that we were looking to do is strategic locations that we could start working on now for uh park and ride as well as transit center facilities.

Okay.

And my last comment, I know uh Raleigh Transit Authority addresses a lot of these issues and things of that nature.

I'll just ask that maybe quarterly some managers up there, whatever, just at least for right now, keeping the council abreast of some of the things or challenges are that they're seeing.

Um I know we have a great liaison that's taken over um from me as far as being liaison to Raleigh Transit Authority, but I think just sharing information um readily would be helpful.

Yeah.

And and I think Councilmember Patton, at the April 7th meeting, you had said to have this presentation go to RTA due to the schedules that did not happen in that time frame, but we will be taking this presentation to RTA at their May meeting.

Right.

I'm gonna stack the next speaker.

So Mayor Pro Tem, uh, then Councillor Silver, and then I believe Councillor Ford also wanted to say something.

Yeah, I just want to uh second everyone about anything that we can do in the very near term for security is critical for the ridership here.

And um I appreciate everything that's going on at Go Raleigh Station.

Obviously, it is an incredible resource for all of our riders.

Um I also want to just thank our security forces, RPD and different partners.

I think that would be helpful to have that list of who's working in different parts of this area in a managers update as well, because I do get a little confused about all the different contracts that are out there, um, just so I'm fully aware of who's kind of managing what parts, I'd appreciate that.

Okay, Counselor Silver.

Can you go back to the map that showed car access and public accessories?

Okay.

There you go.

There it is.

So I agree with my colleagues, there certainly needs to be a near uh a immediate uh solution, but then a near term rather than 12 to 18.

I think nine to twelve may be better.

Uh the only 12 months.

Days.

He said days.

Oh, I j the reason why I say that we're talking about the breeze way off of Wilmington.

You know, I know when I use that deck, I use that breezeway.

It's the closest access to the elevators, not just those who are using the bus terminal, it's also those that are using it to park.

And so you have two elevators, the one I use.

I have used the other one, but when I park on that side, I use the one and enter the breezeway.

If we close that off, we also have to think about the other users, and that's so when we come up with a solution, a short-term solution, want to make sure we understand the implications and not we're not creating another problem somewhere else.

So uh in the short term, uh as you look at this one, uh the users are yes, those that are going to the bus terminal, but also those using the parking deck.

And just want to make sure that's taken into consideration.

But again, I would shorten.

I guess nine to twelve days sounds good.

Nine to twelve months, because I think that there are particularly when we look at crime prevention through environmental design and other considerations, it may benefit from a multidisciplinary team going beyond to see how this can be addressed to have the bus terminal complement the surrounding area and deal with some of the other issues that we're hearing from all sides of both the users as well as uh other stakeholders in the area.

Councilor Fort.

Yes, I just want to commend you, Councilman Rabranch.

I actually saw a cleanup crew in your district.

Um, I actually I think it was a Go Raleigh truck and they had the equipment on the back.

They were spraying down one of the stations.

And so I've seen them moving around doing a lot of the cleanup.

So that work is being done.

So I do want to commend y'all for doing that.

All right.

I've got a number of questions, but do you want to?

Sure.

Okay.

Um another thing I wondered about is like you know, I've I've gone through the station, and as you noted, there's 65 buses going through the station every hour.

Like there's not a lot of elbow room sometimes, which I think if you know if you're a mischief maker or if you're just like a person who may be a little agitated, like there's it's just like a compressed environment.

Has there been any consideration for like dropping some routes off like deboarding the buses on the blocks instead of pulling through the station?

So there's just a little less congestion.

Yeah, so that was a consideration for bus rapid transit.

You know, bus rapid transit is not going to come into the station.

It's gonna route around the block, uh, stop at Wilmington and then stop at Blunt on the other side.

So that's four routes when that becomes operational, that would be coming out of the hub and spoke going into more square.

Another opportunity from again a long-range planning through wake transit plan is if there are any opportunities to have some routes that shift over to Raleigh Union Station bus facility where Go Triangle comes in and out with their um regional routes.

So again, I think we are looking at some of those opportunities and seeing how space can be uh managed within our existing facility.

Okay.

Are those so those both sound like sort of far out?

I mean, BRT is far away, and then Wake Transit Plan is sort of that's like a long procedure that you just described.

Are there any opportunities that are being weighed for the right now of it all?

I mean the operational considerations for existing routes, not BRT, um going from More Square to the outskirts, either at Blunt Street, Wilmington Street, or at the Raleigh Union Station bus facility could be in the short range plans, which would be in the one to three-year range.

Okay.

I think that's it's probably worth looking at just to diffuse some of the congestion in there, which might also help some tensions.

So I have some others that I'll pass it to the mayor.

I also just want to say I really appreciate all this information.

I mean, seven and a half million people.

I think I saw an in the news article that we have now surpassed Durham.

I mean, so you just think about the size of this.

So this is a broad macro question, but you know, uh clearly you've talked about the federal government, you've talked about wake transit.

So this is a this is a system where our level of discretion as a city and our decision making is is constrained.

Could you just if you had to summarize like do we you know what is our level of decision making here?

And I guess that could be over, you know, the whole system, like do we have 10 percent or 15 percent of all the decisions are really up to Raleigh and the rest are dictated by the feds or our regional transit.

How would you sort of summarize that?

That's a tough question to to put a percentage on, but I would say um the decision is certainly still ours, but it would have costs associated with it.

So you know, just because there's federal interest at the facility doesn't mean we can't move it.

It's movable, but it means that you'd have to repay the federal interest in in those renovations that were completed under that grant.

Uh on the Wake Transit Plan side, again, the decision that Raleigh makes can work through the Wake Transit Plan planning process, but it would have impacts to the larger capital programming as well as the operational programming and the 10-year model.

So if the city decides again we want to do something uh larger or better at this location or another location and want to pursue that from a long-term design feasibility perspective, we can certainly go to Wake Transit Plan to look at that.

Uh but that would have some trade-offs associated with it and costs associated with it.

One thing that I understood is that uh right now we can make several changes a year on major routes, but uh with the next that that that may be the aperture there is narrowing, and we would will only be able to make maybe one major change a year, kind of getting back to this, how much discretion will we have and is that tightening?

Yeah.

So uh in the uh recent bus plan update, again, um there is some funding out there, but operational projects, and given some of the needs of the other municipalities that are also pursuing transit projects in the wake transit plan, um, the overall programming for 15-minute frequency services for Raleigh specifically has gone down to one project a year in in those out years.

And so again, those are concert uh conversations that we're continuing to have with our Wake Transit Plan partners uh of where does the need arise within our system for continuing to add those frequencies?

How can we manage that trade-off or balance about again potentially um pushing certain capital projects into out years if they're not priorities and focusing on operational improvements, um that sort of thing?

So another we talked a lot about the downtown transit station.

We do have a pretty major hub at Crabtree.

I know there were past conversations about North Hills.

I mean, could you just speak a little bit about what qualifies as a hub?

Like what how would you define those?

Do we have other locations that could be like you know, how with Lenovo as it builds out, will there be more of a nexus there?

Yeah, so certainly um under the Wake Transit Plan, when there's three or five, three to five routes converging in one location, they identify that as an opportunity for a transit center or a mobility hub of sorts that could provide multiple multimodal resources in one location.

And so the Midtown uh transit center is one of those that's been identified in the outyear, Triangle Town Center is another one.

There is additional routes coming in the Wake Transit Plan again, pretty far in the out years, but on the Southern Corridor with Tri-on Crosstown Connector, that would potentially bring in three routes to the southern BRT terminus.

So that could become a terminus or a node of multimodal multimodal hub as well.

Okay.

Um be another example as as development continues to happen and and some additional transit services are provided there.

Um another way to think about this is nodes or transfer hub opportunities are where multiple transit agencies are coming together as well.

So we have areas where a Go Triangle route may be coming in along with a Go Raleigh route and a Go Carry route that's happening at uh an enhanced transfer point on the Western Corridor right now.

So we're looking at those facilities where there's multiple um routes coming in one location.

Final question.

Schools.

Uh how do we coordinate with Wake County public schools and or charters?

You know, any of this around you know, obviously you said school children under 18 are uh do have free passes.

Could you just comment on that?

Yeah, so we we have our uh transportation demand management team.

That's part of our marketing program, and they do a lot of educational outreach.

They actually go out to schools and present to schools, uh, help people understand how to ride the bus.

Um so they work in in the community to try to connect to schools and the Wake County public school system to really again explain the opportunities of the youth go pass, help people sign up that need those passes, uh, as well as just again have some programs that are directly uh coordinated towards reaching the different uh populations that would benefit from that service.

Do we know what percentage of the seven and a half million riders would be youth and specifically some you know school related?

I do not off the top of my head, but we can certainly look that up.

All right.

And to build on that, can you speak to any partnerships like directly with Wake County Public Schools in terms of route planning?

You know, I know they struggle also to re maintain their school bus operations, and there could be some opportunities where a city bus line is serving a similar geographic area to its school bus.

Um I will see if David wants to help me answer this one from a context perspective on the operational side.

I mean, we do certainly talk uh as we plan new routes.

We look at facilities uh uh in institutional facilities, commercial facilities that the route would be connecting to.

But I'll see if David has anything to add.

Yeah.

We have met with Wake County School S transportation staff in the past.

It I'll I'll say it has been probably a couple of years.

Uh the challenges with the schools is their routes can change very quickly on an annual basis, and we don't change our routes that that frequently.

Uh there are also some federal regulations that say you're not supposed to supplement federal or bus routes with federal dollars to supplement yellow school bus transportation.

So there are some limits on what we can do.

But we we do by all means, uh as suggested, we work with the schools that are on the routes that we we operate to make sure that they are there is awareness.

Our team goes out, they take their printer so they can print those youth go passes on the spot for anybody that wants those.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All right.

We appreciate all the information and the answers and look forward to continuing the conversation.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

I might not get a chance to bring it up today.