Suburban Cary seeks public feedback as it begins planning a downtown transit center
Cary was built for the cars that most of its 175,000 residents use to get around. The town’s tree-lined roads, streets and parkways lead from subdivisions to schools, office parks and shopping centers.
But the town has begun planning for a future with more transportation options, including better bus service and commuter rail that connects to Raleigh, Research Triangle Park and Durham.
A key component of that future is something called the multi-modal transit center that the town hopes to develop downtown. It would be a place where buses, trains and other modes of transportation come together, both as a means of getting from one place to another and as a destination in the heart of town.
The proposed site is just west of the current depot, between Harrison Avenue and North West Street on both sides of Hillsboro Street, an area now occupied by a mix of businesses and homes.
Planning for the transit center is just getting started, and the town is seeking the public’s feedback with a short survey. The online survey, which comes with a nearly five-minute video, is meant to introduce the concept and find out what people think the goals and functions of the center should be.
Cary has a downtown transit center now. GoCary and GoTriangle buses serve the town’s train depot between Academy Street and North Harrison Avenue, where as many as 10 Amtrak trains stopped each a day before the pandemic reduced demand for travel.
But the depot site is too small for future expansions in bus service, which includes a planned bus rapid transit line connecting Cary with downtown Raleigh, said Kelly Blazey, Cary’s transit administrator. In addition, the train platforms at the depot are less than half as long as Amtrak standards, and there’s little room to lengthen them, Blazey said.
“Right now, there’s only about 550 feet of track between Academy and Harrison,” she said. “And so that creates a lot of traffic congestion as the train stops and blocks those crossings.”
The site west of Harrison Avenue would include enough space for straight, 1,000-foot passenger platforms on both of the two rail lines that converge downtown. It would also allow more space for buses, parking and rideshare drop-offs and pick-ups, as well as larger waiting areas for both Amtrak and planned commuter rail passengers.
Just as important, there’s the potential for private development that could include apartments, offices and retail that would benefit from being close to transit and downtown, Blazey said.
“It’s really a very walkable area; it’s becoming more of a destination,” she said. “The transit component just really expands on that.”
The details, including what kind of private development might take place, are still years away. After the feasibility study is completed next spring, the town expects planning and design work for the transit elements of the center would take another three years, before construction begins in 2024.
There will be several more opportunities for the public to weigh in along the way, Blazey said. The introduction to the multi-modal center concept and the first survey can be found here: publicinput.com/downtownMMC. The town will accept completed surveys through Oct. 30.
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 7:15 AM with the headline "Suburban Cary seeks public feedback as it begins planning a downtown transit center."
