https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/article315125868.html

This is how systemic racism works. Probably not a single racist person to be seen, just a bunch of nice white people who only want the best for the city.

«Remember that all the organizations that serve the poor got clustered in downtown Raleigh in the decades when nobody wanted to be there. Fayetteville Street was a pedestrian mall, and only a handful of businesses kept the lights on past 5 p.m.

Now, apparently, people in Raleigh want it back.»

If I could figure out how to share this (from my phone), I would, but there’s no gift link. Obsidian markdown file, anyone?

---

—
title: “Move Raleigh’s downtown bus station? Riders resent blame aimed at Black and poor”
source: “https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/article315125868.html”
author:
  – “[[Josh Shaffer]]”
published: 2026-03-23
created: 2026-03-24
description: “A Raleigh Magazine article called crime at the Moore Square station a “significant impediment” to downtown growth. An N&O columnist responds.”
tags:
  – “clippings”
—
At lunchtime on Thursday, I watched while five Raleigh police officers approached a haggard-looking man sitting on a park bench at the Moore Square bus station, yelling, “Hey! Hey! Hey! Let me see some ID!”

When the officers reached the man, one confiscated his tallboy can of Icehouse and poured it into a nearby planter while another retreated to his police car to write a citation. The crowd nearby groaned and complained, but the offending drinker folded his ticket and stuffed it inside his shirt pocket.

What struck me is that, technically, this Icehouse drinker sat inside the borders of downtown [Raleigh’s Sip ‘n’ Stroll District](https://downtownraleigh.org/sip-n-stroll), which the city advertises as “a magical zone where you can enjoy your favorite alcoholic beverages outdoors.”

Click to resize

But this magic applies only to people who buy an $8 draft or a $12 cocktail from a city-approved bar — not to people who fancy two-buck cans of malt liquor.

For me, this illustrates Raleigh’s attitude toward its downtown bus station, which increasingly catches the blame for crime, chaos and overall discomfort.

Last month, Raleigh Magazine [published an article](https://raleighmag.com/2026/02/25/moore-square-bus-station-relocation/) titled “Moore Square Bus Station Relocation — Is it Time?” calling the transportation hub “a significant impediment to DTR’s growth.”

It cites rising crime and security costs as sound reasons to move bus riders someplace else, clear of the shoppers and brunch-eaters downtown so desperately wants.

But some of the 13,000 bus riders who pass through GoRaleigh Station every day have thoughts they would like to add to the debate.

“This is not about crime,” Southeast Raleigh activist Octavia Rainey told the City Council last week. “This is about being Black.”

One of GoRaleigh’s new compressed natural gas buses at the main bus station at Moore Square downtown. The buses look similar to the diesel buses they are replacing, except for the compartment on the roof where the CNG fuel tanks are kept. Richard Stradling rstadling@newsobserver.com

## An eyesore?

For the unfamiliar, the Moore Square station sprawls over a city block with four separate entrances — one of them through a tunnel. Critics point out, fairly, that its design creates a dozen hiding places perfect for people who want to lurk and start trouble.

But the defining quality for this station, and for Moore Square across the street, is that it offers a place to sit in the shade, out of the rain, for people with nowhere else to go.

Dozens of homeless people huddle under blankets here, many of them obviously mentally ill. I rode a GoTriangle bus to the airport last month, and I waited on Blount Street between two women holding loud conversations with nobody in particular. Once I got on the bus, a woman in front of me woke from her sleep to announce, “No weapon formed against me shall prosper,” over and over for 10 minutes.

This, I would argue, is Raleigh’s true objection to buses in Moore Square: People there look scary and poor.

“It has become an eyesore, a place that people avoid — certainly families,” Carly Jones, CEO of nearby Artspace, told Raleigh Magazine. “Folks like us that constantly have events for families, that’s one of the things we hear about.”

Millbrook Baptist Church serves hot sausage biscuits to the hungry and needy as they line up on the sidewalk in Moore Square at Martin Street on August 31, 2013 in Raleigh, N.C. The church prepared nearly 200 biscuits to distribute along with granola bars, coffee and toiletry items. Robert Willett rwillett@newsobserver.com

## Almost anything

For anyone who lives near Moore Square — and I do — this is a familiar refrain.

In 2013, Raleigh police barred local charities from handing out food to the homeless. Around the same time, the Salvation Army relocated to Capital Boulevard, as did the downtown Greyhound station.

At the time, the N&O pointed out that a Greyhound rider would have to cross six lanes of traffic to catch a local bus downtown, while Downtown Raleigh Alliance raved that the old Greyhound station had the potential to become offices, apartments or a hotel — “almost anything.”

Gregg Sandreuter, a downtown developer, suggested to Raleigh Magazine that the city float a $20 million bond to scrap and relocate the station at taxpayer expense. By selling the bus station land, then collecting taxes on the new development that would replace it, the project would pay for itself in four years, he argued.

No one seems to be suggesting more resources for the homeless or the mentally ill. Presumably, they would follow the bus station to whatever inoffensive spot the city chose.

“I’m just insulted,” Rainey told the council. “We are not addressing the homeless issue the way we should. The issue is the mental health. You have got to confront those issues. We all know that Black people is the largest people down there to catch a bus. That’s who you blame?”

## ‘I just watch my surroundings’

There is certainly crime happening in and around the bus station.

I’m pretty sure I’m looking at the same statistics Raleigh Magazine cited, which showed 97 assaults in the 200 block of South Blount Street in 2025.

But remember that the bus station is a big place with people coming in and out. How many bus riders committed those assaults? How many people pouring out of downtown Raleigh bars committed those assaults?

What about Taiseer Zarka, who [stabbed a shoplifter](https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article297345994.html) to death inside Taz’s — his former store which sat next to the bus station entrance on South Wilmington Street? Was he part of the problem?

What about Glenwood South? Is anyone objecting to the heavy police presence required to keep those bar crawls under control, and is anyone suggesting they sell Jager bombs someplace else?

I spent lunchtime Friday at the station and met Robert Scott, who told me he rides GoRaleigh buses four or five times a week. Moving the Moore Square station would complicate his travel schedule, but he would adjust out of necessity.

As for danger there, he told me, “It feels alright. The police are already down here. I just watch my surroundings. These young’uns, some of them are wild. But some are respectful.”

At a meeting Rainey called last week, City Councilman Corey Branch said nobody is officially suggesting this move.

“We’re not even looking to have the conversation,” he told me.

For one thing, the amount of federal dollars invested in the downtown Raleigh transit means the U.S. government would certainly weigh in.

Still, Branch added, “It’s one thing to have whispers and rumors. It’s different when you put it on paper.”

Remember that all the organizations that serve the poor got clustered in downtown Raleigh in the decades when nobody wanted to be there. Fayetteville Street was a pedestrian mall, and only a handful of businesses kept the lights on past 5 p.m.

Now, apparently, people in Raleigh want it back.

That bus station could be offices, apartments, a hotel. Almost anything, as long it’s expensive.

This story was originally published March 23, 2026 5:00 AM.

[%5D(https://www.newsobserver.com/profile/218916710/)

The News & Observer

[919-829-4818](https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/)

Josh Shaffer is a general assignment reporter on the watch for “talkers,” which are stories you might discuss around a water cooler. He has worked for The News & Observer since 2004 and writes a column about unusual people and places.