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Existing Conditions
improve service frequency and coverage.
Hours of Operation and Fare Structure.
Peak period frequencies (30 minute headways) oc-
cur from 6am to 9am and from 3pm to 7pm; off-peak frequencies are one hour and occur
from 9am to 3pm. One-way fares are generally $1.00 each, but $.50 for seniors and dis-
abled in the off-peak period. Children six years of age and younger ride for free; children
must be at least 12 years old to ride unaccompanied by an adult. C-Tran will accept senior
(over 55) and disabled riders originating from Morrisville if the pick-up and drop-off loca-
tions are in Cary. Packages are available that reduce the cost of fares, including monthly
and 11-day pass tickets. Transfers within C-Tran are free, and C-Tran accepts Triangle Tran-
sit transfers and monthly passes without any additional cost.
Door-to-door service reservations can be made from 24 hours to two weeks ahead of the
trip; riders must be 55 years old or older, or disabled to be eligible. Door-to-door service is
available from 7am to 7pm, Monday through Saturday. One-way trips in-town are $2.00 in
peak periods, and $1.00 in off-peak periods. One-way, out-of-town trips cost $4.00 each.
Wake Coordinated Transportation Service Transportation and Rural Access (TRACS)
Services.
Wake County operates TRACS as an open-door, demand-responsive service to
any citizen in Wake County beginning or ending in a non-urbanized area (e.g., a trip can-
not begin and end in either Cary or Raleigh). Service through TRACS is provided both
through a 42-van fleet purchased by Wake County, as well as three private operators.
Wake County operates other services, including a service for elderly and disabled citizens.
Customers must make a reservation with TRACS at least 24 hours in advance. The service is
not guaranteed, and TRACS has recently not been able to keep pace with the increasing
requests for service. The pick-up and drop-off times are supposed to be within one hour
of the customer’s desired reservation times. Currently, Morrisville pays $5,000 annually to
TRACS to guarantee that three seats per day are available to the citizens of Morrisville; the
TRACS manager does not believe that they are turning away many riders from Morrisville
at this time. While the service is extremely flexible and can literally provide door-to-door
service to anyone in Morrisville to any place in Wake County for a reasonable fare, the
service is not entirely reliable, and the one-hour window for pick-ups and limited days of
availability may deter time-sensitive riders.
Hours of Operation and Fare Structure.
The hours of operation are generally limited on
TRACS to Monday - Saturday service between 6am to 11am and 1pm to 6pm. Level of
service is dependent upon annual grants; the number of days per week may change if
funding is reduced. Notably, service is provided on a first-come, first-serve basis which has
translated into TRACS turning away approximately 25% of the requests in fiscal year 2007-
2008 due to capacity shortfalls.
Durham Area Transit Authority (DATA)
The City of Durham operates a city-wide bus service (DATA - Durham Area
Transit Authority) with seven-day service, a comparative rarity in the Tri-
angle Region. Service hours run from 5:30am to 12:30am during weekdays
and Saturdays; from 6:30am to 7:30pm on Sundays. The regular fare is
$1.00; Seniors and Youth under 12 ride for free. The closest point that any of
the 19 routes come to Morrisville is Route 12, which has a turnaround point
at the intersection of Davis Drive and NC 54.
Two additional projects currently underway have the potential to impact
future transit services in Morrisville:
Special Transit Advisory Commission (STAC)
The Special Transit Advisory Commission (STAC) is a collaboration of the
Region’s two metropolitan planning organizations, Triangle Transit, North
Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), and the Triangle J Coun-
cil of Governments to establish long-range, regional transit priorities. At the
time of this writing, the final recommendations were not known, but follow-
ing are key draft recommendations that may impact Morrisville (updated information is
available at:
www.transitblueprint.org/stac.shtml):
•
A regional bus system would connect Morrisville with Durham to the north and Cary
to the south with a route along Davis Drive.
•
A regional rail service using diesel-powered locomotives is proposed through Mor-
risville (paralleling NC 54 / Chapel Hill Road) would connect Durham, Morrisville,
and Raleigh. Minimum station spacing is one mile.
•
A circulator service connecting the RDU Airport, Research Triangle Park, and Dur-
ham through Morrisville was noted as a “high priority” in the draft plan. The service
and technology proposed would be high-frequency, curb-guided bus, although
this is not a certainty.
North Carolina Railroad Shared Corridor Track Expansion Study
The North Carolina Railroad (NCRR) is completing a study to investigate the feasibility and
costs of implementing passenger service between Burlington and Goldsboro, part of which
would presumably occupy the current line paralleling NC 54 / Chapel Hill Road. NCRR
leases freight rail rights from Norfolk Southern in Morrisville. As this report was not available
for viewing, only limited information is known about its contents. However, the service as-
sumptions for passenger service are four trains in the morning period and four in the eve-
ning. Significant freight and passenger (eight Amtrak trains/day) travel this corridor now,
so any future passenger rail service locally would need to compete with freight, interstate
passenger train service, and, in the future, proposed high-speed passenger rail service.
Triangle Transit bus with a
bicycle on the front rack.
Figure 3.10 Recent C-Tran Performance
(FY 2002 - FY 2005)
Passenger
Trips
General
Fund Subsidy
(per trip)
FY 2002
16,517
25.01
FY 2003
32,992
28.16
FY 2004
44,000
19.2
FY 2005
52,800
11.36
3.2 Public Transportation, cont’d