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Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line


dubone

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Will UNCC students hogging the deck in University be an issue? I wonder if some students will literally leave their vehicles there days at a time?

 

 

Also, will any BLE stations in University be connected to their greenway?

 

I hope in all of this, University will have some wide sidewalks and Pedestrians islands.

Barton Creek will have a overland connector to the JW Clay Station& Do by Creek will connect to the UCity Blvd station plus Ucity will connect to Toby Creek/Cross Charlotte Trail. So you will have a system that connects to multiple green ways including  Stewart& Clark Creek

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Yeah, I've thought about this too. How is this enforced in other cities? Why would students pay the college for parking, when they could park their cars at the J.W. Clay Station? I could even see some students using the deck at University Blvd, and then bike/walk to the college.

Charge for the deck and make money. I'm sure it will still be cheaper than paying for a commuter hangtag. 

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Charge for the deck and make money. I'm sure it will still be cheaper than paying for a commuter hangtag. 

a commuter hang tag is currently $450 (it increases every year). The UC deck will be about 250 yards from a free campus shuttle bus stop --  but cheap studnets will need to cross N Tryon to get to it. Its not uncommon for permitless students to park even further from campus, that deck is going to be mobbed.

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It looks like work is beginning on extending the walking path of the Blue Line from Publix to, I assume, Tremont on the east side of the tracks. The overgrown embankment along the backside of Atherton Lofts is in the process of getting leveled. Its going to be very tight when/if they get to the part of the building that houses the market and the gym, with only a sidewalk's width between the building and the fence.

Following up on this: looks like the path extension is full steam ahead, with crews working very quickly today. The path is cleared almost all the way to the old Tremont trolley station. Does anyone have any details on this? There is a large amount of dirt and gravel piled up behind Publix too, making me wonder if they are maybe going to grade for the rumored future station or crossing. 

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Following up on this: looks like the path extension is full steam ahead, with crews working very quickly today. The path is cleared almost all the way to the old Tremont trolley station. Does anyone have any details on this? There is a large amount of dirt and gravel piled up behind Publix too, making me wonder if they are maybe going to grade for the rumored future station or crossing. 

Sadly the rumored future station or crossing is unfunded thus far. All of the developers around there are trying to make it happen. I wouldn't doubt it if it was prioritized and started up over the next 12 months. 

 

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Talked to someone yesterday about this. Stakeholders in the area are willing to help fund, but not fund entirely. The angle they're all taking with NCDOT, the county, the city, etc is public safety which is definitely the best approach to fast track. 

 

There are still a LOT of hurdles to go. This would be a substantial project and definitely cost a few million that just doesn't exist right now. This station will happen, just not sure when. 

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there's actually a lot more involved with this because it would have to be built not to disrupt existing service. New materials would have to be printed. The list goes on

meh, there is six hours a day when the track is not used plus CATS has shown they are not afraid of single tracking. I am totally not buying it, they would adapt existing designs, there is no dramatic site work necessary. Its just some freaking concrete.

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How about move the speed zone farther south and just make a pedestrian crossing --- not a full station.  Any precedent for that on other light rail systems?

the worry there is people walking into the trains not looking or paying attention. They'd rather go all out and do a station than a PED crossing and then a station later. 

Edited by Jayvee
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If you or a company you know can do it for much cheaper then I urge you to bid on the project when it comes available.

I bet us UPers could knock it out over the weekend. Just give us a few cases of Local Beer, some Pizza, and we are game. I should note that I told a friend in the media the same thing about redoing the Zoning too. 

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Until someone sues for no ADA compliance. Unsolved. 

Then you hire a concrete guy to pour a new sidewalk for $20 per square foot. Solved again.

Sorry, I don't know how nonillogical's name ended up attached to that quote

Edited by kermit
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^The actual at-grade crossing of the rails may run a bit more than your standard panels of sidewalk. 

I've decided to build a gondola across. Just a one time payment of $1million to cross and you cross for free after.

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I bet us UPers could knock it out over the weekend. Just give us a few cases of Local Beer, some Pizza, and we are game. I should note that I told a friend in the media the same thing about redoing the Zoning too. 

no cost figures are included but some simple engineering diagrams for LRT ped crossings are avaialble here (from TriMet). None of the crossings systems look like anything that a couple of us couldn't handle. Thus is seriously not rocket science.

http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec058/08_02_Irwin.pdf

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Some Spectrum residents we bumped into complained to construction crews about the noise at night and were told this work IS for a pedestrian crossing. I'm fairly skeptical still, but that's what we're hearing.

Inbound trains are slowing and blowing the horn with each pass now (not always with outbound, strangely), which would actually make sense if they were testing the timing impact this would have. 

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A few shots along Brevard taken hastily this morning. Particularly in the third photo, I would like to draw your attention to one impactful change: cantenary poles are going up. This is in the area of the new vehicle storage yard, which makes me think they're pushing it so they can take delivery of the vehicles starting in 2016.

2015-09-03 10.41.09.jpg

2015-09-03 10.41.23.jpg

2015-09-03 10.41.33.jpg

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If they  get the vehicles a bit early they can start testing them on the existing line prior to moving them into service. Smart if they can get the storage for some or all of them ready ahead of time.

From what I understand that does not disqualify the testing of the entire line, but would help with the high hours requirements for the actual trains themselves.

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A few shots along Brevard taken hastily this morning. Particularly in the third photo, I would like to draw your attention to one impactful change: cantenary poles are going up. This is in the area of the new vehicle storage yard, which makes me think they're pushing it so they can take delivery of the vehicles starting in 2016.

2015-09-03 10.41.09.jpg

2015-09-03 10.41.23.jpg

2015-09-03 10.41.33.jpg

Question: Are there plans of giving a streetscape to Brevard? Or at least sidewalks? Seems like a good opportunity to add a sidewalk or multi-use path running along side the BLE.

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