CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines

[DH17]

32 minutes ago, dubone said:

I'm still burned up that the ARRA money that was going to fix the mainline crossing next to NC Music Factory was canceled and shifted out of Charlotte.   It is a major impact to Fourth Ward from noise, but the freight companies really do not like any disruption in operations, even if it is for their long term benefit.    But that intersection will be a hassle some day for the Red Line and the potential northern route through uptown for the Silver Line to connect to the airport corridor. 

Any knowledge on if that intersection will still be upgraded at some point? Agreed 100% on the noise in Fourth Ward. I've gotten used to most of the trains at this point, but once in a while one goes through exceptionally loudly with their horn and wakes me up around 3 or 4 am.

[kermit]

9 minutes ago, DH17 said:

Any knowledge on if that intersection will still be upgraded at some point? Agreed 100% on the noise in Fourth Ward. I've gotten used to most of the trains at this point, but once in a while one goes through exceptionally loudly with their horn and wakes me up around 3 or 4 am.

It looks like CSX (or the next owners) don't see enough traffic on the route to warrant any new investment on their part. Since CSX is no longer uptight about how long they will need to sit and wait for NS traffic to pass through the diamond I would say that this project is dead and has no prospect of returning. Its also one more nail in the coffin of the Red Line as commuter rail.

[southslider]

^Agree that Red Line is dead as commuter rail north. Fortunately, Gateway still works for Amtrak, and more importantly to transit, commuter rail along the I-85 corridor.

Years from now, it'll be bittersweet for NS as more passenger trains on NCRR end up a requirement during the lease renewal process.  By then, bus use of the I-77 Express Lanes will be so common, that no one will still be thinking of funding freight reinvestment on an antiquated spur just to have the privelege to run a few peak commuter trains to/from North Meck Towns.

[nmundo]

http://charlottenc.gov/cats/transit-planning/envisionmyride/Pages/envision-my-ride.aspx

 

I don't think anyone has posted this yet. CATS has released their overhauled bus system draft for public comment. I really like a lot of the proposed changes, especially with the high frequency additions.

[Spartan]

I like the high frequency lines too. I'll have to dive into it a little more... so far I like what I see. The only thing I would want to be different is interlining of existing routes to remove the need to "layover" at CTC. The cross town routes help deal with that issue, but when you operate solely inside of Route 4 but on all sides of CTC it becomes a bit of a hassle to use the bus.

Also, I think its funny that they use "25:30" to represent 1:30am.

[tozmervo]

First comment - that web map is hell on mobile. 

Now that I'm on my computer, I do like some of the options I'm seeing. It's a huge gamble to put many of the high-frequency options as suburb-to-suburb, but hopefully intuition bears out improved ridership. 

Not surprisingly, they're proposing some big changes to the express bus lines going 77 north. The Mooresville line appears to be returning, and an additional "78x" is being added to service the west side of exit 25. All in all, it appears to distribute service better to take advantage of the express lanes. 

South Park seems to have radically different (improved?) service. 60 Tyvola and 30 Scaleybark connect there as high-frequency lines. Then 6 Kings Drive, 57 Archdale, 28 Sharon Amity, 20 Sharon, 18 Selwyn, 37 Rea Road all have terminuses around the mall. 

 

[kermit]

The head of the chamber in Cobb County GA says this about local economic development:

Quote

Chamber CEO: 45 percent of businesses rejecting move to Cobb do so because of lack of public transit

http://cobbcountycourier.com/2018/03/chamber-ceo-45-percent-of-businesses-rejecting-move-to-cobb-do-so-because-of-lack-of-public-transit/amp

Wonder if anyone in Iredell pursues the news?

Edited March 14, 2018 by kermit

[Bikeguy]

Am I reading this correctly ??  CATS is posting a 1.5 hour travel time from Davidson on the 77-X  EXPRESS route ?  

[CLT2014]

16 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

Am I reading this correctly ??  CATS is posting a 1.5 hour travel time from Davidson on the 77-X  EXPRESS route ?  

It will be an empty bus if it takes that long. Transit times like this are why people drive. 

[nmundo]

2 hours ago, Bikeguy said:

Am I reading this correctly ??  CATS is posting a 1.5 hour travel time from Davidson on the 77-X  EXPRESS route ?  

I'm not 100% sure but it seems like that's round trip time from knowing about how long some of the other routes should be. For example, 229 should be about a 20 minutes from end to end but it's showing a 42min run time, the Blue Line is showing a 92 min run time, etc.

Edited March 14, 2018 by nmundo
Fixed run time for route 229

[UPNoDa]

If the Red Line is unofficially "dead" why don't they just let the Davidson Express bus 77-X run in the new toll lanes so as not be sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, no? 

[nmundo]

12 minutes ago, UPNoDa said:

If the Red Line is unofficially "dead" why don't they just let the Davidson Express bus 77-X run in the new toll lanes so as not be sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, no? 

I believe CATS has stated a few times that that is the plan. Busses get to use the lanes for free so they are planning to take full advantage with that. Same thing with the express lanes on 74.

[SgtCampsalot]

Wait, what's the status on North Express buses using the toll lanes?...

[southslider]

18 minutes ago, SgtCampsalot said:

Wait, what's the status on North Express buses using the toll lanes?...

Step 1- the private contractor needs to finish construction of the Express Lanes.

[dubone]

1 hour ago, southslider said:

Step 1- the private contractor needs to finish construction of the Express Lanes.

"This is an outrage that proves that CATS does not serve Lake Norman towns!" - Cornelius Culdesac Citizen probably

 

But when the lanes are done, and Express buses are actually far more efficient and on time, it'll be nice to see how ridership levels on 77X adjust.   These managed lanes and express buses are great combinations. 

 

[tozmervo]

77x, which starts at exit 30, is the top express route by a fair margin. 48x starts at exit 25 and is the number 3 express route. Northlake express (53x) is number 4. 77x has several mid-day runs in addition to 10-minute headways during peak hours. All three routes total carried 21,252 passengers in December. I have to think that express lane access - which will probably cost a lot more than the $3 fare - will boost ridership quite a bit. 

That said, those run times do seem suspect to me. They seem closer to existing runtimes (roundtrip), not what they may achieve in the toll lanes. Given the politically tenuous status of those lanes, though, I wouldn't be surprised of CATS is being conservative with their planning. 

Edit: while composing the post, Spotify played a Lynx blue line commercial. 

Edited March 14, 2018 by tozmervo

[elrodvt]

This is old but I think it could have great impact on  our bus and trolley line.

 

[UPNoDa]

Algorithms and AI will certainly help with traffic congestion in the long run, however what it is not taking into consideration is the stopped traffic in the opposing lanes. i.e. North and Southbound traffic may be stopping 30% less thru the intersections, but that simply means the East and Westbound traffic is still stuck at the intersection.

A more streamlined solution would be to simply time all streetlights in one direction (say within a 10 block or so grid)  to run red or green at specific intervals thus moving traffic quicker thru the downtown congested areas. Make sense?

[elrodvt]

No, what makes sense is optimizing for the most variables possible. There is no reason to assume cross traffic has to be ignored.

[kermit]

Expect lots more talk about the Big Bang now that the BLE is open.

Here is today's installment: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article205319024.html

An interesting tidbit about the Red Line, not sure what to make of it.

Quote

Some north Mecklenburg mayors, including Huntersville’s John Anarella, have said they want the train [the Red Line] on the freight tracks as planned – or they don’t want it at all.

At Anarella’s request, the Metropolitan Transit Commission is scheduled to vote March 28 on whether to direct CATS to end the Red Line study.

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by kermit

[Third Strike]

2 hours ago, kermit said:

Expect lots more talk about the Big Bang now that the BLE is open.

Here is today's installment: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article205319024.html

An interesting tidbit about the Red Line, not sure what to make of it.

How feasible would it be to add a second rail line along side the O-Line? 

And I’m curious about one more thing: how has other American cities dealt with adding commuter rail on tracks owned by freight companies? There has to be a reasonable solution for the Red Line.

[kermit]

4 hours ago, Third Strike said:

How feasible would it be to add a second rail line along side the O-Line? 

And I’m curious about one more thing: how has other American cities dealt with adding commuter rail on tracks owned by freight companies? There has to be a reasonable solution for the Red Line.

It was originally a 100' corridor (e.g. room enough for four tracks), but I believe their are quite a few encroachments now. I would guess that NS might be OK with leasing a portion of the ROW for CATS to build completely new tracks for commuter rail (not LRT).  CATS has essentially said this strategy is out of their price range, but this puzzles me since new commuter tracks would certainly be cheaper than building entirely separate LRT tracks.

Its a good question about other cities. In most cases commuter rail exists elsewhere because of history --  the predecessor railroads  ran their own commuter service on the tracks 'back in the day' and regulators required that the service be allowed to continue with public-agency operators. (Southern Pacific operated what became CalTrans, the C&O operated what became MARC, Illinois Central operated a portion of METRA,  etc.). There are very few commuter rail services that are truly new, VRE in DC, Sounder in Seattle and Northstar in Minneapolis are the only ones that come to mind now -- I believe in most of those cases the host railroad extracted something they needed from the state (permission to close crossing, land grants to build build new yards, tax forgiveness, etc).

The Red Line is much more complicated than most because NS has a complicated relationship with this part of the state. The NS mainline is owned by NC (NS is just a tenant). NS will certainly need to renew their lease (in 20-30 years) and the Red Line is their only negotiating leverage at the renewal (NS can theoretically reactivate the Red Line tracks as their mainline between DC and GA, so they can (theoretically) tell the NCRR that they don't really need to renew their lease on the NCRR). Unfortunately there are not really any other potential lessees for the NCRR (and it is also basically impossible for NS to reactivate the Red Line as a main).

One possible solution (IMO) is the NCRR could sell 50' of ROW to NS (the NCRR has 200' or ROW). NS could then own its own freight mainline and enough room would remain for NC to build lots of passenger rail. Unfortunately NS does not want to pay what the land is worth (they have suggested something well below $500 million if I remember correctly) and such a sale would then leave the NCRR without any revenue -- it would be _very_ expensive for NC to properly maintain 200+ miles of passenger only tracks. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by kermit

[orulz]

I didn't think Norfolk Southern wanted them to build completely independent commuter tracks, I thought they just wanted CATS to pay to double track the O Line.  CATS just wanted to build a siding or two.

[southslider]

^NS is cool with another track, if completely offset from theirs. But then, the property impacts and costs are too high. 

[CLT2014]

17 hours ago, kermit said:

Expect lots more talk about the Big Bang now that the BLE is open.

Here is today's installment: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article205319024.html

An interesting tidbit about the Red Line, not sure what to make of it.

Wow, 1.5 cents sales tax increase would be needed to self fund it... it is going to take some creative revenue planning to find other sources of revenue to make this possible.