RALEIGH – More routes, increased service, “floating bus stops.”

These are some of the early proposals of a cooperative study released today by the Regional Transportation Alliance business coalition (RTA), GoTriangle, and the NC Department of Transportation (NCdot).

After pulling the plug on the Durham-Orange light rail project last year, the group is now pitching the Freeway and Street-based Transit (FAST) network concept as a “scalable approach” to transforming the Triangle’s roadways into “multimodal corridors.”

“Our goal is to complement the ongoing and upcoming work on bus rapid transit and commuter rail, while proposing a scalable approach to leverage our existing roadways,” said RTA’s executive director Joe Milazzo II during a virtual study briefing on Thursday.

Funded by a 50/50 public-private partnership, the study led by consultant team VHB outlined immediate low-cost transit options for high-impacted freeways and streets like Six Forks Road and Capital Boulevard.

Among them: traffic signal priority, queue jump lanes, enhanced access, RED Bus Lanes, and off-board fare payments.

The study also includes a 2025 FAST plan that would capitalize on ongoing and future highways projects, such as bus rapid transit and commuter rail, serving RTP and RDU Airport.

Proposed future FAST freeway and street corridors also include routes from Raleigh to Garner and Clayton, and Cary to Morrisville and RTP, among others.

However, it’s still a work in progress, stressed GoTriangle’s president and CEO Charles Lattuca.

“The projects are not definitive,” he said. “The goal is to advance new ideas.”

Last March, GoTriangle voted to axe the Durham-Orange light rail project, after decades of discussion and more than $130 million spent on planning.

A pile-up of problems – cost overruns, languid private fundraising, lackluster legislative support and no deals in sight with key partners in Duke University and the N.C. Railroad – made the project untenable.

Julie White, NCdot’s secretary for Multimodal Transportation, said she believes the FAST approach could serve “as a template for many areas across the state to advance regional transit.”

Research Triangle Foundation’s CEO Scott Levitan, who sat in on the session, agrees.

“What they’re proposing this morning is very positive,” he said, “because they’re thinking about transportation on a regional.”

The study partners are opening it up to the public for comments until August 31 via FAST@letsgetmoving.org.

To view the preliminary FAST network, go here.