Why People Don't Ride CATS

[SmellyCat]

Since I never used the term "racist", I'm not sure what your concern about being labeled has to do with what anything I wrote.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You said people on here used ghetto like a slur. Last I checked the word "slur" meant racial disparagement, which therefore implies a racist term. All I was saying is that I do use the term "ghetto" and if you consider that to be a slur, then I'm sorry!!! I don't mean it to be.

[lupitachica]

Just for clarification, a slur is a shaming or disparaging remark or innuendo. Ie, if I were to use "suburban" as a slur, I could say a person is acting so "suburban" when they (regardless of economic background) are a drug user aka criminal, elitist, immoral, drunk, cheat, etc because those kinds of behaviors are very typical of people from suburban america. Ya dig?

Anyway, back on topic. What I do like about the bus is that its cheap (atleast in comparison to what I'm used too). By buying an 10 ride pass, I save about 80 cents a day. That's not bad.

[monsoon]

It's even a better deal when you consider that gasoline is soon to cross the $3.00 mark in Charlotte probably in a few days. I've seen it for $2.89 in a few places today.

[nyxmike]

True Charlotte is a victim of automobile inspired development.  It started with Myers Park in the 30s and continues to this day.  Even with all that is known about this the Charlotte city council continues to approve development after development that will require more automobiles go onto the road.  It is the worst in the county in that regard. (Well Pineville is a very close second) 

However as bad as the development is, the bus system should not be used as a stick to punish those who choose and have to live in the 99% of the city that is like this. 

Now the problem with CATS and the 2025 transportation plan is that it also has a 1950s view of how transportation should be handled.  The biggest deficency is that it assumes that everyone who rides transit wants or has to go downtown.  Yet the vast majority of people in the county have no need to ever go there, hence CATS is very inconvenient to use as a bus transfer in the center city adds hours to a bus trip. 

CATS ought to take a page from Houston.  It is a much larger city than Charlotte and is comprised of the same kind of development,  ie sprawl and is surrounded by endless spagetti highways.  But at the same time they also manage to operate one of the most effective bus systems in the country. I am not sure but it might be #2 or #3 in the USA  based on the  number of people that it carries. 

If CATS learned from Houston's model, they would abandon the current 1950s thinking and instead put in routes and transit nodes that actually move people to where they need to go.  For example, look at University City.  There are far more people employed there than in downtown Charlotte.  If the Wachovia CIC and the Meridian exchange were fully utilized thats 30,000 employees in just 2 buildings.  Add to that the rest of URP, University Hospital, UNCC, etc, and there are 70 to 80 thousand people that need to travel to this area each day (and it is growing faster than downtown)

So with that many people needed to get to University City each day, how does CATS choose to connect it to the rest of the City?  2.5 express routes and one local route to downtown where relatively few people live.  And the times are oriented in the wrong direction. 

If CATS wanted to really serve this area, which would take cars off the street its not rocket science to do so.  They could build a major transit center in University city and run local transit buses to the major employment centers in the area.  Then they would have direct buses to places where people actually live such as Lake Norman, SouthPark, and East Charlotte where similar transit centers would be built.    These would be connected together without requiring the downtown connection.  Eventually trains could connect the transit centers to each other.  This is how it is done in many major cities. 

Is it too much to dream for, no.  Will it happen in Charlotte, no.  Our leaders are too myopic.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think they are doing the right thing by focusing all the transit lines downtown. Hopefully by doing so, more businesses will move downtown instead of choosing to locate in a sprawling business park (easy accessibility is a factor in where a business locates). They aren't basing the system on how the city is now - they don't want the city to continue growing uncontrollably - they are basing it on the future.

Eventually there will be lines to University City, Mt. Mourne (Lowe's Headquarters) and Rock Hill (and maybe even Gaston County). They also zoned station areas to be residential, retail, and office hubs and destinations. I think it will work - it is just going to take time.

By the way, when I was visiting last week, I read a small article in the paper about how the MTC and the surrounding counties will work together to make it a regional transportation system (something about how they found a way to let the lines extend into the other counties - sorry I'm being a little vague but I can't exactly remember it).

[NcSc74]

Well forget about 3 dollars try on 4 dollars. It is coming and I think CATS is going to have a few more riders. All I have to say is hope for LRT sooner than later.

[MZT]

Well here we are 5 weeks later and Gas is $3.09 to $3.19 on South Blvd.

I can't say I see any noticable change in ridership from times I used the bas last year.

I will give CATS credit for something-- they do run the busses late. Lots of lines have busses running to midnight. I've been in cities pretty much shut down their bus systems, by 7:30. That really blows. Then you have to either ask for rides at a gas station, or cough up cab money.

[dxartist]

Well here we are 5 weeks later and Gas is $3.09 to $3.19 on South Blvd.

I can't say I see any noticable change in ridership from times I used the bas last year.

I will give CATS credit for something-- they do run the busses late. Lots of lines have busses running to midnight. I've been in cities pretty much shut down their bus systems, by 7:30. That really blows. Then you have to either ask for rides at a gas station, or cough up cab money.

I agree. I really don't see a lot of people waiting a bus stops during the morning rush.

On the gas note, when I worked downtown, the 6 extra dollars for a fillup didn't kill me. The $25 fillup would last 2 weeks. Now that I work on the other side of town, the $25 fillup only lasts me one week. Ouch

[monsoon]

I've said this before. High gas prices alone are not going to get people out of their cars. If you want people to use mass transit, it has to be convenient, on time, and actually provide an advantage over using the automobile. I don't use CATS simply because it doesn't go anywhere that I need to go.

[MZT]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/12846389.htm

This is kind of what I expected... that you don't really notice an increase in people visually, since the busses had capacity for more riders. But 55% increase is pretty significant on those express busses.

Question now is, whether that small fare increase CATS just passed, is making up for the cost of fuel

[dubone]

CATs has gotten praise over the last year for how many new riders it has attracted (mostly due to more bus purchases and new routes), but had taken a hit because of the rising cost per rider, which is still relatively low, but had increased rapidly.

most of the costs in a transit system are fixed, with only a small difference in the cost of moving an empty bus versus a full bus. my guess is that these new riders will help dillute our cost per rider, even if the fare increase doesn't fully meet the extra cost of gas. the full fare for the new riders will more than cover the extra gas it takes to carry that extra person.

That is the genius of fare-free systems like Chapel Hill, where the fixed costs are covered by institutions like the city and the univesity, but the empty fare box leads to a full bus. The only problem is that the fixed costs are quite expensive and rely on the farebox to help offset those costs.

[UrbanCharlotte]

Theres a good article today on how gas prices have propeled bus ridership to its largest increase in 28 years.

High Gas Prices, Soaring Bus Ridership

[RiverwoodCLT]

As the price of gas goes up, they will ride CATS.

[monsoon]

As the price of gas goes up, they will ride CATS.

It will shake loose a few more express riders. I don't think it will do much for local bus ridership unless prices start hitting $5-$6 mark. CATS ought to release real #'s instead of percentages so we can judge the real increase.

[atlrvr]

Ron Tober presented to the town of Davidson last week and brought some stats.....as was stated earlier in this thread the 77X (North Meck Express) and 83X (Mooresville express) grew 20% and 46% respectively, the North Meck Village Rider decreased 11% in ridership between fiscal years '04 and '05......

HOWEVER.....

Between the month of July and August (both 2005, and the first two months of FY06), the 77X grew 30% and the 83X grew 28% over the one-month period......this means that the the 77X ridership grew more in one-month of this new fiscal year than, than all of last year, and 83X was close.

The additional good news is that the Village Rider is once again gaining riders (all 4 routes gained over the one month period), and gained 9% as a whole.

[MZT]

I don't normally have too much complaint about the maintenance of the busses... Sometimes they're kinda rattle-y or the A/C doesn't work...

But tonight my bus home was really sounding sick. It seemed like the transmission was slipping when it sped up, and the motor was ready to konk out at stops. Didn't help either that the pull-ropes were VERY loose on the left side of the bus... I mean hanging down, in long loops!

It *really* gave me the impression that they dug one of the marginal busses out of the shop, in order to fill out the fleet this evening.

[monsoon]

...

The additional good news is that the Village Rider is once again gaining riders (all 4 routes gained over the one month period), and gained 9% as a whole.

This happened only after a local official in one of the towns pointed out the insanity of having these village rider routes that made no connections to the express ride lots and centers. Most of the village riders run around town all day mostly empty. They could really increase ridership on the northern part of the county if they build a transit center, and had all of the local riders terminate their routes there so that it is easy to jump lines. And there should be a rider stationed at the express lots that connect to the transit center. This would increase ridership dramatically in N. Mecklenburg I would predict.

[Batou]

The only CATS busses I have ever ridden are the shuttles that go around UNCC's campus, most of the time it's pretty good but has some issues sometimes.