Most people in the Triangle have cars, which is evidenced by the increasingly congested highways (I can’t attest to this fact as I think “traffic” is not a problem in the Triangle as it is in my home town). But, if you fancy a day trip around town with a reduced eco footprint, there are several public transportation options to chose from. My young son thinks riding a bus is an adventure, I think the extra walking is good for me.
LOCAL TRANSIT
Capital Area Transit (CAT)
919.485.RIDE www.raleighnc.gov
Cary Transit (C-Tran)
919.481.2020 www.townofcary.org
Triangle Transit Authority (TTA)
919.485.RIDE www.triangletransit.org
R-LINE (Downtown Raleigh circulator)
919.485.RIDE www.yourhere.com
Wolfline
919.515.WOLF www.ncsu.edu/wolfline
Going out of town?
I recently heard of an express charter bus service, Megabus. This was a new name for me and I went online to do a bit of research. Though the site claims that you can get seats as cheap as $1, I didn’t see any of them. But I was shocked to find seats for less than 10 bucks.
One weekend I needed to go home but I had tons of work to do, which made being behind the wheel for seven hours less than ideal. Long story short, I took the Mega bus from Durham to Atlanta for 56 bucks round trip. That’s less than 30 dollars each way, and I certainly would have spent nearly 4x that on gas. Best of all, there is wifi on the buses. Not only did I save money, but I got work done as well.
I took the CAT bus to Durham Transportation Station where the mega bus picks up. When I got back to Durham, I took the CAT back home to Raleigh. With these trips included, the whole trip only took about an hour longer than it would have to drive my car. Not to mention there was no wear and tear on my new car.
The Mega Bus has daily service to nearly 60 cities in the U.S.