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CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines


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4 hours ago, tozmervo said:

Yup! I've been beta testing the bus tracking for several weeks. Apart from a couple of squirrely glitches (which this release may have fixed), it's worked pretty well. Bus locations are refreshed every 35 seconds or so. I'm not sure exactly when the rail tracking will be toggled on.

2021-10-12 12.03.29.jpg

I would have loved to beta test this! Still it's better than nothing but usability is a bit squirrelly. Once you figure out how it works, you can trace back and find the upcoming busses but I would expect to see the estimated arrival for all upcoming buses for a stop. It only tells me when they're scheduled. I hope it gets bettr friendlier but I fear this is what we have for the next five years now. Why does CATS make is so hard? 

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1 minute ago, davidclt said:

 I would expect to see the estimated arrival for all upcoming buses for a stop. It only tells me when they're scheduled.

Ugh, this is just about as bad as nothing. The schedule on the Blue Line is basically worthless, my northbound trains have consistently arrived 5 minutes later than the published schedule since mid August -- yet the schedule remains unchanged...

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14 minutes ago, Nathan2 said:

Tried messing with the app yesterday. The trackers seem to be pretty off. The #17 bus passed my apartment but the #17 on the app still showed that it was about a mile or so away. 

I just checked with the #16 that goes by my office's window.  The GPS location on the map was off by about a mile like you said, but the predicted time for it to pass the bus stop near my office was almost dead on (it was maybe 30-45 seconds early). I guess the GPS track lags since it isn't updated at a high rate.  So the lesson is to follow the time and not the GPS track.

Edited by TGIBridays
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1 hour ago, Nathan2 said:

Tried messing with the app yesterday. The trackers seem to be pretty off. The #17 bus passed my apartment but the #17 on the app still showed that it was about a mile or so away. 

As I mentioned earlier, the refresh rate seems to be about every 35 seconds, so on highways or otherwise long uninterrupted travel, the bus might be ahead of it's dot. I've experienced the same with uber/lyft pickups. Arrival times change while en route, etc, because of unexpected traffic conditions and the GPS dot is sometimes a little bit off.

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21 hours ago, kayman said:

 

This goes back to CATS being a de facto City of Charlotte city department instead of an actual independent regional transit authority like most tier 1 mass transit entities of similar size or larger across the US.  CATS leadership are basically city employees who are hamstring by lack of leadership from the Charlotte City Manager and Charlotte City Council. They are more responsive to the City Manager's office and  City Council than us the citizens and customers. They are both very cheap. Neither want to invest in the more efficient of transit smart devices technology including real-time GTFS which basically free from Google if a public transit entity coordinates with them.

It's embarrassing as we must push for CATS to be an independent regional mass transit authority.  We must advocate for our Charlotte City Councilmembers and Members of the Mecklenburg County Delegation in the NC State House Representatives and Senators to roll off as an independently-run mass transit entity.

I've always wondered why CATS was a department of the city rather than a regional authority, transit district, or public-benefit corp. I believe Charlotte is the largest US city to have a transit system directly operated by a city (I think San Antonio might have a city-owned transit system...I'm not sure), and there's a large number of medium and small-sized cities with transit systems that are directly controlled by an independent authority. 

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The app still appears to only have schedule info (rather than tracking data)  for the Blue Line. I just saw a northbound train pass Publix at 1:20, but the app said the next northbound arrival at East/West was 1:38 (although the published CATS schedule says 1:36). Seems like the app already cleared the scheduled 1:16 arrival which was running late, but not catching the delay kinda defeats the purpose of the app. Blue line data still displays “real time tracking not yet enabled.”

So many other transit agencies have had this technology for a while. Why is it so hard for CATS?

Edited by kermit
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It certainly seems like there are some very large, end of life-cycle, maintenance bills looming for this portion of 277 (but just guessing on the timing and magnitude). I wonder how the state is going to approach paying for those repair costs in the current political climate of ‘cities are bad’. It really seems like the city should have a plan for  when that time arrives (high capacity boulevard, capping, removal, etc.)  for 277 that is ready to go.

Edited by kermit
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Just now, southslider said:

Ironically,  Church St is the one exit used on 277 by inbound Express buses and future BRT from North Mecklenburg Towns.

It is, but it's not ideal. True BRT will need a safer way for 77 express buses to get into Uptown. They have about a half mile to get four lanes over to exit now, and that's a bit harrowing given how people drive that stretch. 

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1 minute ago, tozmervo said:

It is, but it's not ideal. True BRT will need a safer way for 77 express buses to get into Uptown. They have about a half mile to get four lanes over to exit now, and that's a bit harrowing given how people drive that stretch. 

Just turn Tryon St into a bus mall, and you can give buses more time to exit Tryon instead.

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I was in Toronto this past weekend and used their transit system extensively.  While the scope of their system is something Charlotte will likely never need (Buses, Streetcars, Subway, and commuter rail (including a dedicated line from the airport to downtown Toronto).  They did have one system that was really useful that wouldn't be impossible or unrealistic for Charlotte to Implement.

They have a program called Presto where you can can purchase a card at various stations and convenience stores.  You pre-load money onto it and it can be used for any of the  modes of transportation.  You just simply tap it on the podium (at either the station or on the vehicle depending on mode of transportation.    It offers discounts for all modes and offers free-transfer from one mode to another as long as you use it within a 2 hour window.

For the subway you needed it to go through the gate, but it seemed to be an honesty policy for other modes.  Having said that, most people seemed to follow it.  

https://www.prestocard.ca/en

 

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