CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines

[kermit]

14 hours ago, kayman said:

Charlotte Regional Business Alliance is relatively new; its the merger of the Charlotte Regional Businsess Partnership and Charlotte Regional Chamber of Commerce I think you're meaning Charlotte Regional Business Partnership (CRBP) which is the old economic development entity. The CRBA has the influence of both and a pretty strong lobbyists in Raleigh. The GOP knows that the money and economic development really matters when comes to population growth. 

Yea, we are talking about the same org. I know several former employees, they may not be super objective, but they offer consistently pessimistic perspectives on the current state of the membership. But, like I said, I hope you are right about their continued lobbying power.

I am honestly not sure the GOP understands the basics of contemporary economic growth. The state’s metro’s are responsible for the vast majority of economic output, but the GOP continues to parade around their anti-urban bonafides. They are just not a pro-business / pro growth party anymore.

Edited November 17, 2021 by kermit

[Blue_Devil]

So 15 Million for the Charlotte Transit Hub?

[Madison Parkitect]

2 hours ago, kayman said:

The GOP knows that the money and economic development really matters when comes to population growth. 

The GOP absolutely does not care one bit about population growth in urban centers. The more the NC cities grow, the more their power shrinks. They have a vested interest in anti-growth.

[kermit]

1 hour ago, Blue_Devil said:

So 15 Million for the Charlotte Transit Hub?

Yeh!

Definitely good news. I am a little confused about how the underground bus plan improves saftey, but I am certainly glad there are funds to rebuild and enable development in the area.

[Blue_Devil]

42 minutes ago, kermit said:

Yeh!

Definitely good news. I am a little confused about how the underground bus plan improves saftey, but I am certainly glad there are funds to rebuild and enable development in the area.

So this would be the CTC rebuild right, with the tower on top of it?

[kermit]

25 minutes ago, Blue_Devil said:

So this would be the CTC rebuild right, with the tower on top of it?

The money is for the reconstruction of the CTC. I suspect any tower would be after that is complete.

[TheMightyBK]

Looks like Charlotte will be awarded $15 million for a new transit hub uptown

It is notable that President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan would not have passed the House without the support of 13 Republican members.

It is also notable that not one of them is from North Carolina.

North Carolina’s Republican senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, joined 17 other Republicans in backing the bill in the Senate. But their eight House GOP counterparts said a collective “no” in the late Friday vote that sent the bill to President Biden. They opposed an infrastructure package that will bring nearly $9 billion to North Carolina over the next five years. North Carolina’s five House Democrats voted in favor of the bill. -The News & Observer, 11/9/21

Don’t let yourself be lied to. Burr & Tillis are trying to take credit for funding they opposed. Do not let them.


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[MothBeast]

“North Carolina’s Republican senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, joined 17 other Republicans in backing the bill in the Senate”

?

[TheMightyBK]

Reading is fundamental…and clearly I need to work on my fundamentals. Derp.


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[CharlotteWkndBuzz]

I've been to Boston's underground bus station (forget name) and it's pretty cool.  Feels like a subway almost but for buses.  Theirs is cool bc the buses are hybrids that run on overhead electric while underground and then switch over to diesel when it gets above ground.  Great news for CTC's future bc I feel like the current CTC is holding back development of surrounding blocks.  In a dream world, this CTC transformation coincides with an Epicentre overhaul as well.  

Edited November 17, 2021 by CharlotteWkndBuzz

[Blue_Devil]

9 hours ago, kermit said:

The money is for the reconstruction of the CTC. I suspect any tower would be after that is complete.

I guess my question is, CTC at the current location, which would be part of the tower project right? They did the RFP for that.

[kayman]

17 hours ago, Madison Parkitect said:

The GOP absolutely does not care one bit about population growth in urban centers. The more the NC cities grow, the more their power shrinks. They have a vested interest in anti-growth.

We all know they don't care about the population centers. However, they know not to repeat what happened to them in 2017-18 and chose to be blatant in their anti-urban behavior.  They know that corporations still care about imagery and they don't want to be the obvious cause of loss of economic growth for NC. 

Edited November 17, 2021 by kayman

[kayman]

15 hours ago, kermit said:

Yea, we are talking about the same org. I know several former employees, they may not be super objective, but they offer consistently pessimistic perspectives on the current state of the membership. But, like I said, I hope you are right about their continued lobbying power.

I am honestly not sure the GOP understands the basics of contemporary economic growth. The state’s metro’s are responsible for the vast majority of economic output, but the GOP continues to parade around their anti-urban bonafides. They are just not a pro-business / pro growth party anymore.

I know too knew a few former CRBA employees personally myself.  Money is what makes the world goes round still even in this current state of things.  They (the GOP) really don't care about anything but power.  However, they've learned that you can't be obvious in your obstructing things either.  This is all an image and money game how you shake things up & make things occur with the moronic-current leadership in the NCGA.

[tozmervo]

In some ways, ridership is beginning to claw it's way back. But in others there are concerning drops from last year. Particularly on local bus lines, headways are generally better than in 2019, so one would hope to see improvement in ridership. Whatever is affecting local routes would seem to be hitting the community circulators, too.

Local Bus
October '19:  1,015,558
October '20:  505,765 (49.8% of '19)
October '21:  484,941 (47.8% of '19)

Local Express
October '19:  60,047
October '20:  3,049 (5% of '19)
October '21: 7,026 (11.7% of '19)

Community Circulators
October '19: 63,857
October '20: 31,099 (48.7% of '19)
October '21: 24,607 (38.5% of '19)

Blue Line
October '19: 822,278 
October '20: 254,885 (31% of '19)
October '21: 330,714 (40.2% of '19)

[Blue_Devil]

15 minutes ago, tozmervo said:

In some ways, ridership is beginning to claw it's way back. But in others there are concerning drops from last year. Particularly on local bus lines, headways are generally better than in 2019, so one would hope to see improvement in ridership. Whatever is affecting local routes would seem to be hitting the community circulators, too.

Local Bus
October '19:  1,015,558
October '20:  505,765 (49.8% of '19)
October '21:  484,941 (47.8% of '19)

Local Express
October '19:  60,047
October '20:  3,049 (5% of '19)
October '21: 7,026 (11.7% of '19)

Community Circulators
October '19: 63,857
October '20: 31,099 (48.7% of '19)
October '21: 24,607 (38.5% of '19)

Blue Line
October '19: 822,278 
October '20: 254,885 (31% of '19)
October '21: 330,714 (40.2% of '19)

The Blue line is going to be interesting. Wells starts back to work in January. That is 30k employees back to Uptown. I imagine October '22 numbers will be around 600k or greater. 

[kermit]

^ yea, those blue line numbers aren’t bad considering that virtually none of the uptown white collar crowd is riding now. They were upwards of half of pre-Covid ridership

[Skyybutter]

Any news about how much Grant $ the Light Rail and Trolley system is getting from the Infrastructure bill??? Thx

[kermit]

50 minutes ago, Skyybutter said:

Any news about how much Grant $ the Light Rail and Trolley system is getting from the Infrastructure bill??? Thx

Unless I missed something the Infrastructure bill isn't doling out money to all comers. It is expanding existing grant programs and creating a few new ones. CATS will need to apply to the grant programs for any funds. The funds will be parceled out over several years, there is a chance that that expanded pool of money may still be available to fund the Silver Line from the capital improvement grants program. But in order for that to happen CATS will need to a) finish preliminary design and b) identify local matching funds, which will require 1) permission from the state to have a referendum to increase sales taxes; 2) the referendum to pass; and 3) for Tariq to stop being an asshole

tldr: CATS is completely unprepared to take advantage of the bill

Edited November 18, 2021 by kermit

[kayman]

I wouldn't say CATS is exactly unprepared. Short of the passage of the referendum occurring on this past November 2nd,  CATS wouldn't have been able to take advantage of the infrastructure bill until 2024 at the earliest.  It's going to be all about the politics and project design & development process lining up. Also the referendum isn't expected until 2023.

[tozmervo]

Progress update on north corridor BRT study tonight at 5:30

Projects & Transit Planning > MetroRapid BRT (charlottenc.gov)

[tozmervo]

Sorry for the slide bomb. There is a LOT to process here. Particularly at Northlake, they see major changes coming soon that could radically affect what they're thinking about today, so they're hedging a bit on what can be done there. They anticipate the next phase of design work would start in July 2022 after continued development and presentations to the town boards and MTC.

Notably the scope of the study does not include Uptown circulation, but I'm not quite as bothered by that since it's really a systemic question more than a question for a single service. 

 

[LKN704]

Does the plan seriously call for the "BRT" (if we can call it that) to exit I-77 and travel down a backroad to reach Northlake Mall before reentering 77?

[kayman]

3 hours ago, LKN704 said:

Does the plan seriously call for the "BRT" (if we can call it that) to exit I-77 and travel down a backroad to reach Northlake Mall before reentering 77?

It's BRT.  It fits the FTA definition of fixed guideway as a motorbus with its own lane(s) separated by bollards or concrete barrier from general purpose lanes. The addition of the mobility hub amenities such as benches, direct access to/from the managed express lanes,  covered areas, and dedicated park-and-ride lot confirms that the MetroRapid North will be true BRT.

Edited November 19, 2021 by kayman

[buildleft]

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-11/RaiseGrants_Capital Fact Sheets.pdf

It looks like Charlotte only got $15m instead of the $25m Tillis announced for the replacement bus facility at CTC. Not sure what this means for the project, but it doesn't seem great. Interesting that the grant indicates the office dev will take place after the facility is constructed and not simultaneously, was this already known?

[tozmervo]

5 hours ago, LKN704 said:

Does the plan seriously call for the "BRT" (if we can call it that) to exit I-77 and travel down a backroad to reach Northlake Mall before reentering 77?

To be fair, in the spoken presentation that was treated more like a placeholder until redevelopment around the mall happens and they can integrate into whatever is done there (like use new road network, etc)