Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[Andyc545]

I made trips 3, 4, and 5 today; rode between noon and 3 to take photos, etc. I'm not going to do a report b/c I don't want to bore ppl with repetative info, but I did want to note a few things while riding these trips.

I rode during lunch hours, obviously not during commute times, and all trains that I had seen were filled to capacity; 2 of the 3 trains I rode I had to stand. If this continues to happen, they are going to have to increase during non-commute hours from 15 to 7.5 minutes like the commute times or will have to run double trains, even if they run doubles every other train. It was very congested some of the trips.

The first train I rode actually had about 10 CMPD officers on, and they all brought their Segways on, which was hillarious.

Saw a good mix of people again- saw people just shopping with their groceries, business, and unfortunatly got stock on my last trip with a gang of about 10-15 black kids that were swearing up a storm and talking out loud how they should pick-pocket me, very unpleasant and needless-to-say they didn't pay. CATs will have to do something about this, as well as CMPD in the southern most stations. Saw a good amount of bikers- actually at one time there were 3 different bikers with their bikes on, which indicates something good!

Also- they are putting in glass insert for those steel frames in the southern stations, looks like their working their way up towards the city:

Sharon Rd. Station):

485 Station:

Looks like they may start doing some small advertisements, read about it in the 2030 thread.

I have a lot of photos of the line from today so check them out here.

Edited November 29, 2007 by Andyc545

[Mobuchu]

Thanks for the pics Andy. This should help a little with the wind. What is it made out of, it looks fragile?

[uptownliving]

Thanks for the pics andy. That sucks that people were threatening to pick pocket you. I havn't had that happen to me on the Lynx or any other public transit yet...but if it does I would be inclined to call the Police. It could be that the patrols were on the train right behind you and could come up to your car to calm things down. At the very least this type of activity needs to be documented so that CATS and the CMPD are aware of it so they can take steps to prevent it from happening again.

[JDC]

Yes, I had a ticket checker on my train. A very nicely dressed older gentleman with shiny shoes and a freshly pressed uniform. Everyone that I saw produced their ticket without a fuss.

They ought to get a big, scary drill sergeant-type guy on there who, every 30 minutes or so, should shout "LET'S SEE THOSE TICKETS!" Those who don't produce a ticket should be forced to do 20 push-ups.

[Atlside]

I made trips 3, 4, and 5 today; rode between noon and 3 to take photos, etc. I'm not going to do a report b/c I don't want to bore ppl with repetative info, but I did want to note a few things while riding these trips.

I rode during lunch hours, obviously not during commute times, and all trains that I had seen were filled to capacity; 2 of the 3 trains I rode I had to stand. If this continues to happen, they are going to have to increase during non-commute hours from 15 to 7.5 minutes like the commute times or will have to run double trains, even if they run doubles every other train. It was very congested some of the trips.

The first train I rode actually had about 10 CMPD officers on, and they all brought their Segways on, which was hillarious.

Saw a good mix of people again- saw people just shopping with their groceries, business, and unfortunatly got stock on my last trip with a gang of about 10-15 black kids that were swearing up a storm and talking out loud how they should pick-pocket me, very unpleasant and needless-to-say they didn't pay. CATs will have to do something about this, as well as CMPD in the southern most stations. Saw a good amount of bikers- actually at one time there were 3 different bikers with their bikes on, which indicates something good!

This is good to hear. I think as people get use to the system more will ride it. Just think if the northern portion of the Blue Line were already under construction going to the University Area.....This Blue Line will get a lot of riders.

[swampfox43]

Andy, what beautiful photos! I have yet to see this particular vantage point. Great job.

I am just dying to ride Lynx! I couldn't get on opening day so I am going to try tomorrow night to meet some friends at Jillians. I live about a mile from the 485 station so that should be a nice ride.

[Spartan]

Six paragraph CATS press release now up with first two days stats, short excerpt below:

"The first two days of LYNX Blue Line ridership started strong with 6,691 commuters using the service on Monday and ridership of 8,029 for Tuesday.

[Andyc545]

Andy, what beautiful photos! I have yet to see this particular vantage point. Great job.

I am just dying to ride Lynx! I couldn't get on opening day so I am going to try tomorrow night to meet some friends at Jillians. I live about a mile from the 485 station so that should be a nice ride.

Thanks!

There's more from where that came

[fulcrumsf]

I made trips 3, 4, and 5 today; rode between noon and 3 to take photos, etc.

Hey Andy, do you wear glasses, and have a Nikon camera? I saw someone today taking photo's while I was on the train. I think if that was you, you got off at East/West or one of the stations near there to take some photo's of the train as it passed. I believe there was a driver change at this point. Anyway it was the first time I have taken the train all the way to the 485 station and back. I'm sad to hear you had to deal with those little terrorist kids. I usually try to sit as close to the front as possible to try and avoid that kind of stuff, as they tend to like to sit in the back of the bus so they can act up. I took some pics, but mostly tried to get video clips with my point and shooter. I'll try to upload a youtube clip when I get the chance. I again saw all walks of life riding the train, and I had a great experience round trip. I hope the diversity in riders continues to happen, and police continue to keep a strong presents. I think the rug rats will unfortunately continue to ride, but hopefully they will be outnumbered by good riders that they feel less inclined to act a fool. It's definitely hard to ride a train when you feel you are being threatened, as I can contest. But those things can happen almost anywhere.

One other thing I noticed, that even the Police Officer had confusion with, is that People are allowed to hop on the train from a transfering bus, and vise-versa as long as they have a transfer that hasn't expired. Which is usually 90mins from the time the ticket is issued. For some reason the Police Officer thought that you had to buy another ticket if you got off at a station went and had lunch, then got back on the same station and continued your route. This is not illegal unless you are riding back to your original destination, (in this case it would be considered a round-trip and you would need a return ticket). You can continue to go in your outbound direction as long as you do so withing the 90 min window your ticket allows. The Cats person cleared this up with the Officer checking tickets. So I have seen some people assuming that passenger are riding for free if they don't buy a ticket on the platform station they are leaving from. We can't assume these people aren't paying, they may very well have rode a bus to that particular station, and in that case they would have a transfer from the bus driver. Also people may be using day,week or month passes, which allow them to ride on any Cats Operated route including Lightrail in which ever direction and time they please.

Edited November 30, 2007 by fulcrumsf

[Andyc545]

Hey Andy, do you wear glasses, and have a Nikon camera? I saw someone today taking photo's while I was on the train. I think if that was you, you got off at East/West or one of the stations near there to take some photo's of the train as it passed.

Haha- I do have glasses, but my camera is a Sony. I was at East/West around noon-1pm sometime around there, and then when I left about 3pm. I took many photos of trains today, as you can see, so it may have been me.

[dubone]

I rode the train 3 times this evening. It was decently filled each time, although it felt a little more full when it was a single car, than the end of the period when it was two cars. There were a few times when a group of people came on and were excited, like it was an excursion to dinner or somewhere and they realized they could just hop on the train. I heard a group of behind me on one trip talking about how they couldn't believe such a thing was in Charlotte.

There were probably more than a hundred people on the cars each time I rode.

I used the ticket machines for the first time today, and I was really not very pleased with it. For one thing, when the train was sitting at 7th Street, I had no idea how long it would be there, so I felt hurried. The people in front of me did each ticket one at a time. They finally left and the screen stayed at 'Take Your Ticket' or whatever for an excrutiatingly long time keeping me from starting. I suppose it will be much more reasonable when the credit card function works and you don't have to feed the coins one at a time.

I think, mostly, I'm just disappointed since my most significant transit experience was in Singapore where you just fed your stored value card through a reader and it popped right out in half a second with a receipt and you moved on. You'd only need to go to a machine if you forgot your stored value card or else you needed to recharge it. Obviously the subway had regular gates and stuff, but the busses had the little machines at each door so you could just jump on and feed your card through. That is a model that I felt would work with all of the priorities of the CATS ticket system but with significantly more convenience.

[dubone]

Given that both the South Corridor and the NorthEast corridor are the same "Lynx Blue line" and the fact that the South corridor is now operating and the NE extension of the Blue Line is the next line pitched for federal funds, I think it is fair to include both of those discussions in this thread. The 2030 Plan thread can continue to be focused on the longer term outlook and the prioritization and timelines of the whole CATS system.

I suspect that over the coming year or two, discussing the operational matters of the current Blue Line will taper as the news about the extensions increase. But given that major steps are occuring in the NE extension plans, it is not as useful as it once was to have it grouped into the single 2030 thread topic.

I hope that makes sense to everyone.

[dubone]

I was walking today along the line uptown and I noticed that all of the street lights between 5th and 6th along the line are dark. Is this another failure of Duke Power, or is it a task that likely was left to the post-operation phase of the project? With the uplighting of the parking deck facade never having happened, it really is very dark on that block without those lamps lit. They are the crown-topped poles built with the original trolley.

That reminds me, I am so relieved that they kept the crown-topped caternary poles in the trolley section. It was so wasteful to me that they originally planned to replace them all. It was bad enough that they took out so much of the Trolley line, but to replace the poles so soon after putting them in would have just been terrible. They don't fit the modern style of the line, but they do fit the public street furniture and brand of the city overall, so it seems to not detract in any way from the line, but I'm sure it saved thousands of dollars.

[monsoon]

^Indeed. I ran across these photos that I posted years ago on this forum. These were taken the first day of full service to downtown Charlotte. Some might not remember that the Trolley at one time did not come into the center city because there was no bridge over I-277. That bridge now serves the LRT that has basically replaced this trolley. You can clearly see the crowned poles.

In any case a bit of a reminder of how much it has changed since then.

[monsoon]

A bit of triviality for the people that joined the forum since the above photos were posted. That particular trolley car, car 85, was actually in service in the 1930s as part of Charlotte's original trolley system. When they shutdown the trolley system in 1938, this vehicle ended up in Huntersville where it remained for decades until it's discovery in the late 80s. A group of volunteers ended up acquiring the trolley from the person who owned it with the intent to get it back into running condition. The effort to restore it and get it into service was the spark that later led to the effort to get a light rail running in the city. Had it not been for this trolley car, we may not have a LRT today.

[Andyc545]

That trolley reminded me. When I was on the LRT today I noticed that there were 2 yellow trolleys sitting outside of their compartment warehouse in the CATs main maintanance station in between the LRT's parked. I must say they looked good .

[monsoon]

Those yellow trolley/green cars are actually modern reproductions that were manufactured in 2004 for Charlotte. You can read about them here.

[ScottCLT]

I do love the light rail and I hate to complain about it, but I took it for the 6th time since its opening tonight to Bland St. Station to watch to the Cowboys vs. Packers at the Gin Mill. When I left (shortly after halftime), I went to the station and at the inbound line, the ticket machine had a big "not in service" sign displaying. So, I walked to the southbound line to buy my ticket to come back to CTC, which is the closest station to where I live. The single machine on the southbound line was out of order, too, but it just had a mouse cursor in the middle of the screen and none of the buttons worked. So, I was forced to ride the light rail without a ticket back to CTC station. Being the good citizen that I am (and in 100% support of the rail), I paid my fair at the CTC station at a machine there after I got off.

I think the light rail is an invaluable asset to the city, but if no machines at a station work, how are people supposed to ride legally???? If I was stopped by police, and questioned, I would have gladly paid the $50 fine because I knew I was doing something wrong in the legal sense (even though I intended to pay in the first place). And it's not like I'm going to hop off the train at Carson Station to use the machines there because the next train won't come for 20 more minutes. But at the same time, I was close to home during the whole trip and could probably have walked (albeit a long walk) home. If I was at 485 station, I may have been stranded because of the machines' dysfunctionality. How would you like to take a train to Pineville (or CTC depending on which way you are going), and not have any way to legally get home except a $40 cab ride?

On an up note, my ride to Bland Street was packed around 8pm -- no sitting room at all. On my ride back around 11pm, it was still busy! About 3/4 of the seats were full and there were more standers than it would take to fill the seats. Both outbound and inbound trains were right on time.

Oh, and by the way, did you guys notice that the trains are now running every 20 mins until 1am? I was thinking that it was 30 minutes on off-hours a few days ago. Nice picking up 50% on the schedule!

[CLT]

A bit of triviality for the people that joined the forum since the above photos were posted. That particular trolley car, car 85, was actually in service in the 1930s as part of Charlotte's original trolley system. When they shutdown the trolley system in 1938, this vehicle ended up in Huntersville where it remained for decades until it's discovery in the late 80s. A group of volunteers ended up acquiring the trolley from the person who owned it with the intent to get it back into running condition. The effort to restore it and get it into service was the spark that later led to the effort to get a light rail running in the city. Had it not been for this trolley car, we may not have a LRT today.

Monsoon do you know what came of the trolley that was part of a dry cleaners in Spindale? I was by there a few years ago and it was gone.

[monsoon]

^No unfortunately I am not familiar with it.

[Commoner]

Spoke with a CATS official (I'm substantially certain that I'm not using "official" too lightly in this case) this morning at the Carson stop.

He said that during the "day/peak" hours, the average time between trains yesterday was 7.2 mins. (inbound and outbound). He also said that ridership on Wednesday was higher than the 9k+ figure that CATS estimated would be its average daily ridership for the first year of service.

[Mobuchu]

I do love the light rail and I hate to complain about it, but I took it for the 6th time since its opening tonight to Bland St. Station to watch to the Cowboys vs. Packers at the Gin Mill. When I left (shortly after halftime), I went to the station and at the inbound line, the ticket machine had a big "not in service" sign displaying. So, I walked to the southbound line to buy my ticket to come back to CTC, which is the closest station to where I live. The single machine on the southbound line was out of order, too, but it just had a mouse cursor in the middle of the screen and none of the buttons worked. So, I was forced to ride the light rail without a ticket back to CTC station. Being the good citizen that I am (and in 100% support of the rail), I paid my fair at the CTC station at a machine there after I got off.

I think the light rail is an invaluable asset to the city, but if no machines at a station work, how are people supposed to ride legally???? If I was stopped by police, and questioned, I would have gladly paid the $50 fine because I knew I was doing something wrong in the legal sense (even though I intended to pay in the first place). And it's not like I'm going to hop off the train at Carson Station to use the machines there because the next train won't come for 20 more minutes. But at the same time, I was close to home during the whole trip and could probably have walked (albeit a long walk) home. If I was at 485 station, I may have been stranded because of the machines' dysfunctionality. How would you like to take a train to Pineville (or CTC depending on which way you are going), and not have any way to legally get home except a $40 cab ride?

The ticket machines and the ticket system in general is the biggest problem this system has right now. The station announcement problem has already been fixed, and several other small startup issues are being resolved.

There are ALOT of TVM's that are not functioning correctly, and many people are getting free rides. I cant say with 100% certainty, but I doubt they will be giving out any $50 fines until the machines are fixed. I've been told by CATS representatives at the stations to just get on the train because the TVM was not working. I'm sure the manufacturer has reps in town working along with CATS to get the problems resolved. These machines were one of the last parts of the stations to be installed for fear of vandalism, so mass use could not be tested.

Having said that, I still think the ticket system even after working will be my only complaint. It's not universal with the buses, and does not have the same ease of use as the buses. I cant use my 10 ride pass on the Lynx system? Since I dont commute using the transit system, a monthly pass is not reasonable for me, but I do use the system about 3-4 days of the week. So a 10 pass makes the most sense. Also, it would be great to have cards that worked for both the bus and the trains like thye do in NY/NJ. Put a certain amount of money on a card and carry it with you. The ticket machines would only need to give you a reciept with the same info as a ticket in return.

I still love the blue line though. It's like the city completely changed overnight. I cant imagine what it will be like when midrises start popping up all along the line. And if you haven't visited the Tyvola station yet, you need to. It was a great design, and has a sort of urban feel to it with the wide steps leading up to the station at both ends. It also gives a great view looking south from the platform with the tracks to either side and the large artwork springing up from the lot below. I hope dense development fills in around the station to give it a better sense of place.

Two quick things that need to be added to the line: Ashtrays at the stations.... The Trade st. station was covered in cigarette butts last night. A couple of those tall vase looking things with the small hole at the top to collect them would do wonders.

I'd also like to see signs on the fences in the middle of the tracks indicating what direction the train is going. I've seen several groups of people that were disoriented as to which side of the tracks they should be on. For most of us this is not a problem, but for out of town visitors, it's easy for them to lose their sense of direction when trying to figure out which platform to stand on. A small sign on the fence next to the tracks indicating " <-----To 7th st/uptown" or "To 485 ----->". This is a necessity in subways when you have no idea which direction your facing after the walk down to the stairwells, but it could certainly help here too.

[lptk]

I'd also like to see signs on the fences in the middle of the tracks indicating what direction the train is going.

Totally agreed on that. I took some out of town folks on and they got turned around at two different stations.

And on the ticketing issues. I'm torn about the passes. I'd like to have hop on/off ease and support the system at the same time, but the monthly pass just isn't justified. I'd like to have a multi-ride bus+train option for convenience, even if it's at full-fare cost.

[Windsurfer]

"...

And if you haven't visited the Tyvola station yet, you need to. It was a great design, and has a sort of urban feel to it with the wide steps leading up to the station at both ends. It also gives a great view looking south from the platform with the tracks to either side and the large artwork springing up from the lot below. I hope dense development fills in around the station to give it a better sense of place...."

I like the Tyvola station too. It's too bad more stations aren't elevated in order to minimize automobile traffic stops. The big issue I have with Tyvola's ARE the steps. They're uncovered and very vulnerable to icing, unless they have some sort of wiring running through the concrete. When we used it it was pouring down rain. There's going to be a lot of slipping and sliding down those steps, even from just the rain. And, it's a long way to fall. Just a nice looking tarp over the stairs would work. If I had those kinds of steps at my warehouse I'd shutter thinking about the potential lawsuits.

[Raintree21]

Anybody noticed that this week's Rhino has absolutely no mention of the LRT in it? Funny how probably the biggest critic has seemingly been silenced. I'm sure they're just waiting for something to pounce on.