Earlier this year, GoRaleigh introduced their latest service changes, which focused primarily on improving frequency and expanding their increasingly complex service network. This comes after the agency's recent shift in focus from expanding coverage to improving within the existing network. 

4 existing routes were affected by these service changes, which were put in place on March 22nd. One new route was also introduced, the first new route since the 9 in September of 2024. The new route is the 14, which serves Atlantic avenue and the Triangle Town Center mall (TTC). Route 14 runs every 30 minutes every day, which is very respectable for a brand-new route. Its alignment has also proved to be useful, serving previously untouched areas along Wake Forest road, Atlantic avenue, and New Hope Church road. Not only does it now provide service to these areas but it also provides connections throughout the route to the 25L, GoRaleigh's Triangle Town Link, as well as route 1 and the GoTriangle Wake Forest express at TTC. I got the chance to ride the 14 a few weeks ago and I can say that it already gets decent ridership, as we saw about 5 collective riders board and de-board throughout the route, as well as upwards of 10-15 riders gained at both endpoints.

The high ridership for the new route doesn't come as too much of a surprise, because TTC is one of the most utilized transfer centers on the GoRaleigh network. Route 1, which serves TTC via Capital Boulevard, was just recently improved to every 10 minute frequency, becoming the most frequent route in the Triangle. The route also now utilizes 60-foot articulated buses from New Flyer, which are common in larger areas like New York and Los Angeles, that the agency bought with intentions to use them on their somewhat ill-fated New Bern avenue Bus Rapid Transit line. On the topic of Route 1, it was one of the affected routes in the service changes. While it is a small change, the route was realigned to turn west on Peace street heading towards TTC (as opposed to the previous alignment where it turned east), which allowed it to better serve Seaboard Station and merge onto Capital Boulevard much earlier than before, since Route 14 now serves the residential areas the 1 used to weave through before getting on Capital. Route 2 (Falls of Neuse) was also realigned similarly, using almost the same alignment as the 1 to join Capital, stripping a small portion of the previous alignment that utilized West Jones Street to get to Capital Boulevard. I will provide a map of these realignments below for you to visualize my awful explanation. 

As previously stated, some route frequencies were also changed, including route 2 and route 17 (Rock Quarry). Route 2, which previously ran on a half-hourly basis, has been added to GoRaleigh's high frequency network, now running every 15 minutes on weekdays and half-hourly on weekends. Route 17, which previously ran on an hourly basis, now runs half-hourly, 7 days a week. This leaves GoRaleigh now with 11 high frequency routes and only 3 hourly local routes, the 18L, 25L, and 70L. Technically the 20A and 20B are also hourly by themselves, but if you count them as one route they can be combined to provide a half-hourly schedule.

These changes are a great improvement for GoRaleigh and they are a big step in reshaping the agency's future. More frequency means more riders, which means more demand, which means more service, which means more frequency, and so on and so forth. GoRaleigh has not announced any further changes at this time.