Apex work session previews Plan 2055 transportation goals as officials debate transit assumptions and equity

At a recent Apex planning work session, consultants and town staff presented the transportation element of the town's comprehensive plan, "Plan 2055," asking the panel to confirm goals and help prioritize projects for the next 30 years.

Ashley, a transportation consultant with Santech, framed the overall goal as "to create a connected, safe, and efficient multimodal transportation network," and walked members through seven objectives that include expanding access to walking, biking and transit, improving connectivity between homes and activity centers, and prioritizing low-cost, high-impact projects such as signal technologies and side-paths along major corridors.

The presentation emphasized a shift from parcel-level thoroughfare maps to context-sensitive place types and a street typology. "We're looking at mixed-use, suburban and rural place types so that street sections and priorities respond to local character," Ashley said, and described new metrics the team will use: sidewalk and bike network coverage, populations within a 10-minute walk to transit and community facilities, intersection and roadway density, and high-injury crash densities.

The session turned to transit assumptions and ridership. One committee member cautioned that rising housing costs and displacement of lower-income residents could leave the fixed-route system with persistently low ridership. "I think that as people who are low income continue to be displaced ... it's hard to imagine something other than an equally empty bus 10 years from now," the member said. Ashley replied that the team reviewed demographic trends in an existing-conditions report but warned that precise long-range income or demographic projections are not possible: "We can't really project out income and race and ability...so it doesn't completely answer your question."

Officials discussed what "premium transit" would mean in the plan: the transit map assumes future premium service that could be passenger rail, bus rapid transit or higher-frequency bus service where place types and density support it. Mobility hubs and park-and-ride strategies were raised as ways to concentrate service and extend reach to lower-density areas.

On safety and design, consultants pointed to Vision Zero analyses and high-injury network mapping to target lighting, crossings, traffic-calming and street-tree placement. Committee members repeatedly urged completing sidewalk gaps, adding shade and benches on longer pedestrian routes and ensuring bus stops have weather protection in the long term.

Members also discussed corridor-level priorities. Consultants highlighted the NC 55 corridor as the spine of proposed mixed-use activity centers and identified the area south of US 1 (near Jesse Drive and Viridian) as a major opportunity area for redevelopment and investment in multimodal infrastructure.

A range of service options to address low-ridership pockets drew discussion: targeted door-to-door shuttles for seniors, weekly direct shuttles to grocery or retail, increasing GoApex route coverage and using technology and partnerships to better align routes with where people live and work. Operational concerns such as missed trips and rider notifications were noted; staff said GoApex users can enable alerts in the service app.

Consultants asked the group to weigh priorities in a space-allocation exercise (how much right-of-way to assign to transit, pedestrians, bikes and travel lanes in different place types) and invited the panel to comment at a larger public forum planned for the fall. No formal votes were taken on policy changes during the work session.

Next steps: the consultant team will run updated travel-model scenarios using the adopted place types, refine recommendations, and present draft recommendations at Public Forum 3 (date to be scheduled in the fall).