Raleigh awards a $65 million contract for its first bus rapid transit line
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- City Council approved a $64.7 million contract for New Bern bus rapid transit line.
- BRT project totals 5.4 miles, including 3.3 miles of bus-only lanes and 10 stations.
- City projects $108M cost, $46M federal aid; remainder from city and Wake County transit tax.
For more than a year, Raleigh couldn’t find companies to build the city’s first bus rapid transit line along New Bern Avenue. Now contractors are committed for the bulk of the project, and work is getting underway soon.
On Tuesday, the City Council approved the second and largest of three contracts for the 5.4-mile BRT line. The city will pay the Fred Smith Co. of Raleigh about $64.7 million to build the section between Poole Road and Interstate 440, including a pair of new bus-only lanes down the median of New Bern Avenue.
In July, the council awarded a $28.7 million contract for the first phase of the project, which includes paving, sidewalk and utility work along New Bern Avenue and Wilmington, Blount and Edenton streets between downtown and Poole Road. That contract went to Rifenburg North Carolina.
By the end of the year, the city will seek bids on the third contract to continue roadwork east of I-440 and build stations along the entire route.
The bus rapid transit line will be the first of its kind in North Carolina. It will follow a path along what is already one of the city’s busiest bus routes between downtown, WakeMed’s main campus and a new park-and-ride lot where New Bern Avenue meets New Hope Road.
BRT seeks to improve city buses by giving them some of the qualities of more expensive commuter or light rail trains.
Passengers will buy tickets in advance and board buses from covered, elevated platforms, as on a train car. Displays at the stations will show when the next bus is due to arrive. The buses will get priority green lights at intersections and often travel in their own dedicated lanes, to avoid getting slowed by traffic. The New Bern Avenue BRT line will have 10 stations and 3.3 miles of bus-only lanes.
If all goes as planned, GoRaleigh hopes to begin service on the line by summer 2030. The city expects it will cost $108 million. Raleigh has received $46 million from the federal government, and the rest will come from the city and from Wake County’s half-cent sales tax for transit.
City struggled to find contractors to do the work
The city held a groundbreaking ceremony for the New Bern Avenue line two years ago and had hoped to finish this fall.
But two attempts to seek bids from construction companies last year failed. The first time, no one bid.
The second time, the city broke the project in two and began by seeking a contractor to do just the roadwork. That yielded one bid that was more than $41 million higher than the city’s estimates and was rejected. That offer came from the Fred Smith Co., which won the contract awarded Tuesday.
Earlier this year, the city sought to entice more interest by breaking the project in three and making changes to the bid specifications following suggestions from contractors. That included giving them more time to complete the work.
The city received bids from four companies for the first phase of the project and two bids for the second phase. In both cases, the winning bids were roughly in line with estimates from city engineers.
The city eventually plans to build four BRT lines radiating from downtown, as outlined in the Wake Transit Plan, which voters endorsed when they approved the sales tax for transit in 2016. Design work has begun on the southern leg to Garner and the western route to Cary.
This story was originally published October 7, 2025 at 4:43 PM with the headline "Raleigh awards a $65 million contract for its first bus rapid transit line."
