CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines

[kermit]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

The reason Pineville was against being the terminus of the LYNX line was traffic as 51 was 2 lane coming from SC and they did not want all those Charlotte bound commuters to crowd their little town's downtown.  I think it was better it ended at I-485 and South Blvd. 

But the traffic came anyway, and any half-competent politician should have known that it would. So instead of densifying, Pineville was forced to sprawl, this simply sped decay and severly damaged the tax base. The town didn’t admit all this was a mistake until Lending Tree abandoned their plans to move into a refurbed Cone Mill because of its isolation and congestion (I believe the mill is still vacant). IIRC the Pineville terminus was not planned as a park and ride and Ron Tober was sensitive to the need to not mess downtown Pville up.

Imagine a densified downtown Pineville with a refurbed mill all anchored by a Blue Line stop. It would have been a nice combination of today’s NoDa and Davidson (refurbed mill village plus space for new housing. A walkable oasis at the end of the Blue Line and a 25 minute, traffic free commute to Uptown. Also think about how different our transit system would be if it had termini (or near termini) in a) Downtown Pineville; b) Downtown Davidson; c) Downtown Matthews; d) Downtown Belmont — all of those stations were at least considered in planning. Alas, a downtown Pineville station will never happen now that the extension plans are all about btyne and none of the other downtown stations are going to happen partly because our local decision makers are unable to learn from their mistakes (Pineville).

Having said all that, its likely that the Pineville stop would have been cut during design due to the same Blue Line budget woes that caused the cut of the pedestrian bridge over the future Belk River. That bridge over 485 was going to be EXPENSIVE, and CATS could not share the existing NS bridge. (the same sort of budget cut killed the Mallard Creek station on the BLE)

Edited August 15, 2020 by kermit

[Third Strike]

17 minutes ago, kermit said:

But the traffic came anyway, and any half-competent politician should have known that it would. So Pineville’s only alternative was to sprawl which ended up leading to decay and severely damaging the tax base. The town didn’t admit all this was a mistake until Lending Tree abandoned their plans to move into a refurbed Cone Mill (which is still vacant). 

Imagine a densified downtown Pineville with a refurbed mill all anchored by a Blue Line stop. It would have been a combination of today’s NoDa and Davidson and a super attractive residential spot for bankers. Alas, a downtown Pineville station will never happen now that the extension plans are all about btyne.

Having said all that, its likely that the Pineville stop would have been cut during design due to the same Blue Line budget woes that caused the cut of the pedestrian bridge over the future Belk River. That bridge over 485 was going to be EXPENSIVE, and CATS could not share the existing NS bridge.

(the same sort of budget cut killed the Mallard Creek station on the BLE)

On your last point about budget woes, can we realistically expect the same from the Silver Line? I feel like when it’s all said and done, the airport and downtown Matthews stations will be the last stations and not the Belmont and CPCC ones. Seems like crossing over/under 485 is cost prohibitive, especially with a line as long as the Silver Line, though I hope I’m wrong. 

[kermit]

1 hour ago, Third Strike said:

On your last point about budget woes, can we realistically expect the same from the Silver Line? I feel like when it’s all said and done, the airport and downtown Matthews stations will be the last stations and not the Belmont and CPCC ones. Seems like crossing over/under 485 is cost prohibitive, especially with a line as long as the Silver Line, though I hope I’m wrong. 

Maybe, but if Gaston comes up with any cash at all I doubt Belmont will get cancelled. I think the east end is a coin flip, I never had the impression that Union had much commitment to a connection. 

I didn’t think there was a downtown Matthews station?

Edited August 15, 2020 by kermit

[Hushpuppy321]

I don’t think that the CPCC (Levine) portion would get cancelled because CATS likes to stop at colleges for the built in ridership.  Also it plays better when they submit design to the Feds for funding consideration.  I think the Belmont portion would be more at risk of being a future phase or outright cancelled if funding for another Catawba crossing (NCDOT) doesn’t materialize.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Hushpuppy321

[kermit]

49 minutes ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

I don’t think that the CPCC (Levine) portion would get cancelled because CATS likes to stop at colleges for the built in ridership.  Also it plays better when they submit design to the Feds for funding consideration.  I think the Belmont portion would be more at risk of being a future phase or outright cancelled if funding for another Catawba crossing (NCDOT) doesn’t materialize.

 The 74 bridge is on its last legs and NCDOT agreed to build the replacement (soon) with LRT in mind. This was 100% funded  pre covid, not certain about now. I am more concerned about the 4 miles of track between 485 and Belmont, that will be a big bill just for a Gaston stop (but I really would like a “Catawba Beach” station)

Edited August 15, 2020 by kermit

[Third Strike]

3 hours ago, kermit said:

I didn’t think there was a downtown Matthews station?

It will be located on the southwestern part of Novant’s Matthews hospital, making it a five minute walk to the heart of Matthews (assuming a new connection to North Trade happens). I guess it technically isn’t part of downtown, but it’s proximity makes it accessible for people visiting or leaving this area. 

[elrodvt]

15 hours ago, KJHburg said:

The reason Pineville was against being the terminus of the LYNX line was traffic as 51 was 2 lane coming from SC and they did not want all those Charlotte bound commuters to crowd their little town's downtown.  I think it was better it ended at I-485 and South Blvd. 

I wasn't aware of that. However, I have heard several mentions of the crime increase it would have brought. Not mutually exclusive reasons...

Btw, Carnac the swami was a really funny Johnny Carson bit from back in the day that I've seen on reruns. Predicting the future or guessing what was in someone's pocket stuff like that.  That was the lame, I guess, attempt at a joke. Not quitting the day job. ;-)

Regarding a stop for Carolina Place, Who knows what the future will bring for these large malls. It would not surprise me if they go the way of the drive-in theater.

[dubone]

The Carolina Place stop will support the mall for its remainder of life, but will also support whatever growth they pursue to reinvent the land.  Many malls are adding office and residential to their huge parking lot spaces, and eventually that could take over with the mall itself being office space.   But it will be foolish to extend Blue line to Ballantyne but not add a stop for the mall and whatever that land is in the future. 

 

 

[kermit]

I don’t want to pretend these numbers are relevant for post-plague ridership but someone compiled an interesting table of US LRT ridership per mile (defined by vehicle type, so streetcars are included, heavy rail subways are not). These numbers probably do reflect design (routing) and service (frequency) quality. 

Charlotte ranks 19th.  We outperform Salt Lake City, Dallas and Sacramento, St. Louis and Baltimore (all longer systems which stretch out into the burbs). Our performance is only marginally below Denver and Phoenix. Worth noting, the best performing modern systems (Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston) all operate at higher frequencies than the Blue Line (and are also have less of their route miles outside of employment centers).  Also worth noting, the KC streetcar carries almost twice as many riders as the Blue Line on a per mile basis — not all streetcars are dumb.

Looking more closely at the Charlotte numbers, it appears they included Gold Line phase 1 mileage (1.5 miles) but not GL ridership (1,500 per day) in the stats. Recalculating the Charlotte numbers to exclude the GL data increases our per mile number a bit (to 1,549), but it does not change our rank.

* Four systems above us are not really apple to apple comparisons. Boston, San Francisco (MUNI and Cable Cars are listed separately) and Newark are all legacy systems. They all have the benefit of 100 years of supportive land use change around their stations. None of the newer systems have that advantage.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by kermit

[DCMetroRaleigh]

Minneapolis light rail kicks ass. I am so impressed by it 

[kermit]

59 minutes ago, DCMetroRaleigh said:

Minneapolis light rail kicks ass. I am so impressed by it 

A line that connects two major CBDs (with Five major-league sports facilities, plus a college football stadium plus a minor league ballpark) with a huge University in the middle is always gonna do great. The airport connection on the Blue line also shows suburbanites that transit is safe and useful. Their trunks will continue to draw riders to their new lines as well. The have an ideal geography for transit.

Edited September 5, 2020 by kermit

[elrodvt]

Having moved here from Denver I find this information suspect as a means of evaluating a system. My perception is that the CLT system is far below RTD.

[CLT>]

On 4/26/2020 at 6:28 PM, CLT> said:

We used to have some, that were abandoned by MARTA and rehabbed by CT back in the 90s, and painted blue (compared to the white which all the buses were at that time).

CATS posted a pic of one of their bendy busses from the 90s on their Instagram. 

[tozmervo]

Guard yourselves, SILVER LINE MEETINGS ARE COMING. 

https://charlottenc.gov/cats/transit-planning/Pages/silver-line.aspx

They will be conducting a number of area-focused virtual meetings, the schedule is on that website. && Under the "Online Open House," you can find a tab with a map for alignment feedback. We all love maps!

[ertley]

2 hours ago, tozmervo said:

Guard yourselves, SILVER LINE MEETINGS ARE COMING. 

https://charlottenc.gov/cats/transit-planning/Pages/silver-line.aspx

They will be conducting a number of area-focused virtual meetings, the schedule is on that website. && Under the "Online Open House," you can find a tab with a map for alignment feedback. We all love maps!

... but NO ONE loves maps more than me!!

I've already gone to the site and entered my comments for five of the focus areas (not for the potential Union Co. extension). I *highly* recommend every UPer provides comments as well.

I was really impressed by the refinements they're considering to the LPA that was announced (last year?)--essentially, it looks like, to me, they've now done very preliminary assessments and are pretty much looking to jettison the LPA for the most part.  

The thing I am MOST excited about is that they're looking at what I all along hoped they would do: Instead of plowing the Silver Line down the middle of Wilkinson--IMO putting a light rail line in a median is a last, horrible resort--they're thinking of placing it along the rail right of way that's just below Wilkinson (on the north side of the rail lines, obvs). I think it's a win-win: All of those blocks on the south side of Wilkinson then have the potential for TOD, with multi-use structures with street and pedestrian frontage on their north, and light rail access on the south (and potentially pedestrian too). They're then also looking at just going straight along south of Wilkinson and through the Pipe & Foundry property (!) to the Gateway Station. 

The only segment where I prefer the original LPA is the Independence corridor: I think eliminating the driveways for the remaining businesses along Independence is a good (but I realize somewhat painful) thing, and helps Independence become more completely controlled access and not the weird hybrid it is now. I'm all about learning from the highway excesses of the past, but Independence is too far gone at this point. More importantly, it allows TOD redevelopment of those parcels and keeps the actual line at greater remove (just a half block) from the alternative presented.  

Anyway, this was one of the most affirmative things I've seen in a while!

[CLT>]

I love that the Tradition of misspelling Tryon Street in almost every CATS planning document continues 

[Desert Power]

That station looks so ridiculous next to all those automobile lanes.

[tozmervo]

10 hours ago, Desert Power said:

That station looks so ridiculous next to all those automobile lanes.

On the alternatives map, there are options for at-grade and below-grade alternatives. I personally prefer the bridge over the blue line. 

[Desert Power]

2 hours ago, tozmervo said:

On the alternatives map, there are options for at-grade and below-grade alternatives. I personally prefer the bridge over the blue line. 

Oh yeah, I prefer the bridge too. Particularly if we could incorporate a rail trail connecting Alexander Park/Greenway.

[LKN704]

I'm confused in regards to the below grade option. If the ROW is to be below grade, how will that cause an issue with the Silver Line interfering with the Blue Line?

[Hushpuppy321]

59 minutes ago, LKN704 said:

I'm confused in regards to the below grade option. If the ROW is to be below grade, how will that cause an issue with the Silver Line interfering with the Blue Line?

I took that to mean the SilverLine would be below the 11th Street Grade which would be at Grade with the BlueLine.

My preference would be for a bridge over the BlueLine

[kermit]

I have not looked at the current LPA, but crossing the Blue Line at grade would be an colossally stupid move which would almost certainly require us to never have better than 10 minute frequencies on either line or to go back and separate the crossing in the future for an additional 9 figure amount.

[cltbwimob]

35 minutes ago, kermit said:

I have not looked at the current LPA, but crossing the Blue Line at grade would be an colossally stupid move which would almost certainly require us to never have better than 10 minute frequencies on either line or to go back and separate the crossing in the future for an additional 9 figure amount.

Agreed.  The idea of crossing at grade is exceedingly dumb.  Unless there is some future version of PTC that was capable of legit magic, this idea should be rejected immediately (and truthfully shouldn’t have been put on paper in the first place).

[Desert Power]

Maybe not so bad, the train already inexplicably slams it's brakes under 277

[Hushpuppy321]

BRT for the Charlotte Region.  Anyone know where we stand in relation to establishing BRT?  Seems like Wake County has firm plans established for East-West and North-South Routes and are currently in design on at least part of the East-West Route.