North South Bus Rapid Transit receives federal funding, needs more for completion

The North-South Bus Rapid Transit System, a project that has been in the works for nearly 15 years, officially received an additional $24 million federal investment last month.

Chapel Hill Transit Director Brian Litchfield said the project is in a “60 percent design” process, which is a refined design procedure that helps identify the next level of cost and what the engineering will look like. 

Up to this point, the Town has received $32 million in federal funds for the project, but Litchfield said they still need more than $140 million to complete the bus system.

The NSBRT will follow the current North-South bus route, which is an 8.2 mile route that stretches down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from Eubanks Road to Southern Village.

“This is a corridor that we, over the last 15 years, have identified as a corridor that needs additional transit service improvements, and we’re to the point today where just putting more buses out there isn’t going to meet that need,” Litchfield said. 

Litchfield said that the project will provide dedicated bus lanes for the buses to operate and move ahead of traffic if they’re running behind. It will also expand the Town’s number of 60-foot buses allowing for a higher capacity of riders. 

“That's going to alleviate crowding on the route,” Matthew Palm, an assistant professor in city planning at UNC, said. "It's going to increase ridership, so there's going to be less people driving the campus, but it should also help make the buses that are already there less crowded, because there's better service that can move people faster.”

Stephani Kilpatrick, the development and communications manager at the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, said many people experiencing homelessness do not have access to a car and depend on public transit.

"The shelters are out on MLK and Homestead Road, and so [public transit] is how they are able to get wherever they need to go, grocery store, work," she said. 

The project also seeks to improve the pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, with a plan to add a multi-use path on one side of the corridor for walking, biking or riding and a sidewalk on the other side, Litchfield said. 

Kaitlyn Kelly, a Chapel Hill resident, relies on the fare-free NS bus to get to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, job interviews and the grocery store. She said the only problem she faces with Chapel Hill’s buses is their reliability, so she feels great about the prospect of the NSBRT project. 

Litchfield said that the route will have stations right next to the IFC shelter, near the Compass Center and the Seymour Center, improving access for people regardless of where they’re coming from. 

“We are one of the first and only fare-free transit systems for a community our size and the Bus Rapid Transit being part of that fare-free system would make us a leader in this area, not just in North Carolina, but in the country,” Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson said. 

The earliest that construction could start for the project is 2027, depending on federal funding, Litchfield said. 

Litchfield said that the project has been recommended for funding at the federal level and included in the previous presidential budgets, though it's unclear what could happen in upcoming federal fiscal years. 

“Given the size and scope of the project, we need support from other levels of government,” Anderson said. “And I think, you know, we're seeing those investments, because it is clear the importance of the need.”

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