Rocky Mount Lands $3M Grant to Bus Workers Straight to Raleigh Jobs

Rocky Mount is moving forward with a commuter bus service that would carry workers between the city and Raleigh during peak weekday hours, after the North Carolina Department of Transportation awarded a $3 million grant to get the project off the ground. City officials are now searching for a qualified vendor to run the service, with plans to connect two of the state's fastest-growing labor markets roughly 56 miles apart along U.S. Route 64.

According to CBS17.com, the Rocky Mount City Council has approved matching funds for the grant, and Mayor Sandy Roberson said the initiative addresses both employer workforce needs and transportation gaps for residents. “Employers need workers,” Roberson said, according to the outlet's report, noting that some people lack reliable transportation to jobs. He added that the investment gives people more choices about where they live and work.

The grant itself traces back to a Special Statewide Allocation from the federal Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality Improvement program, structured by the city as a three-year pilot, according to City of Rocky Mount documents. That federal funding mechanism specifically targets projects meant to ease traffic congestion and cut vehicle emissions, rather than simply subsidize a new bus line indefinitely.

Why Rocky Mount Needs the Triangle's Workforce

Roberson's comments point to a broader economic push. He said companies are recruiting from a much larger geographic area than before, and the new commuter service expands the workforce available to Rocky Mount while moving the region closer to what he described as communities working together. The mayor framed the bus line as giving residents another option for connecting with good jobs.

That demand is tied to major industrial investment landing in the city. Natron Energy's planned $1.4 billion sodium-ion battery plant at the Kingsboro Business Park is expected to add 1,000 jobs, per the Rocky Mount Telegram, and the 1,500-acre site is described as North Carolina's only shovel-ready megasite. Rocky Mount also became a regional logistics hub in 2021 when CSX opened its $40 million Carolina Connector intermodal rail terminal, which the Carolinas Gateway Partnership says handles up to 110,000 shipping containers a year from a location five miles off I-95 and 60 miles from Raleigh.

Filling a Gap Commercial Buses Don't Cover

Right now, getting between the two cities without a car means relying on once-daily Greyhound or FlixBus trips, which take roughly an hour and 35 minutes and start around $15 to $16, according to Greyhound's own route listings. Those intercity buses are built for long-distance travelers, not for people trying to clock in for a shift during peak commuting hours, which is the gap the new NCDOT-backed service is meant to fill.

The commuter route is expected to run out of the Helen P. Gay Rocky Mount Historic Train Station downtown, a Romanesque Revival building dating to 1893 that already hosts four daily Amtrak routes along with local bus lines and Greyhound service, per Wikipedia. Inside the city, Tar River Transit currently runs six fixed routes across Nash and Edgecombe counties with a $1.25 base fare, offering no service on Sundays, according to the transit agency.

More Routes to Greenville, Wilson Under Consideration

Regional officials aren't stopping at Raleigh. They're also considering future routes connecting Rocky Mount to Greenville, Roanoke Rapids, Wilson, and Elizabeth City, positioning the city as a transportation hub linking Eastern North Carolina with Triangle jobs. The Raleigh commuter line is part of a wider modernization push for Rocky Mount transit, which in March 2025 saw the city council approve a separate $786,500 NCDOT Mobility for Everyone, Everywhere NC grant for an on-demand microtransit pilot operated by Tar River Transit, according to city council records.

The scale of the opportunity is significant: Rocky Mount's own population sits at roughly 55,000 straddling the Nash and Edgecombe county line, but regional officials estimate the broader 90-mile labor market reaches more than 3 million people, per Business North Carolina. The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization projects the Triangle region will add 1.4 million residents and 1 million jobs by 2055, a forecast that is pushing transit planning further out along corridors like U.S. 64.

Rocky Mount officials have not yet announced a timeline for selecting a vendor, finalized ticket pricing, or the exact drop-off location in Raleigh, whether that ends up being Raleigh Union Station or a stop near the state government complex. It also remains unclear how the city will fund the service once the three-year CMAQ pilot grant runs out.