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Charlotte Center City Streetcar Network


Sabaidee

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^ its not really like buying a car off the lot. Lead times for new vehicle construction are generally several years due to backlogs. CATS had to get special permission to start the vehicle acquisition process several months ago in order to meet the phase two open date of 2019.

Having said that, Atlanta might have some new streetcars to sell soon.....

Edited by kermit
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/\ Yeah, I know, I've been following this thread. What I mean is couldn't CATS condense the time for vehicle selection and have Siemens start construction before other operators to get the streetcars in service for early 2018? 

 

Also, I know Atlanta Streetcar is struggling, if they do close the system down would CATS be interested in purchasing the vehicles of Atlanta? If so, they could put them in service earlier than 2019 I guess. 

Edited by CLT704
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On 6/17/2016 at 2:01 PM, southslider said:

Circulators have diminishing value the farther one has to travel.  And the momentum for West/Airport is to be an extension of Silver Line or light rail from Matthews. Overall, a new system plan has been promised.

I have advocated this for a while, so I'm glad that this is concept is being considered by the planners.   We really will be better off if we plan the line this way, as the West corridor was too short to have critical mass ridership on its own, but connected across uptown to the east it should be viable as a new line.  

I still believe that they should be considering making this streetcar and any potential extensions less of a mixed traffic design.   If 100y ago, Charlotte could justify dedicating medians to streetcars (and those medians still exist in many places, they should be planning the cross sections of potential streetcar corridors with sufficient median width.   Trade could have a road diet with just paint for most of this line.  Just paint it as a transit only lane and it would reduce some of the mixed traffic nature of this.  We ought to have more transit only lanes anyway in various parts of the city so that congestion can be bypassed. 

 

 

 

 

16 hours ago, kermit said:

 

Having said that, Atlanta might have some new streetcars to sell soon.....

I haven't seen any news on this.  What is this referring to?  Are they disbanding, or reducing the number of vehicles on their streetcar line?

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2 hours ago, dubone said:

I haven't seen any news on this.  What is this referring to?  Are they disbanding, or reducing the number of vehicles on their streetcar line?

Its mostly hyperbole, I thonk the Atlanta streetcar will be fine and evolve into a useful system after they expand as originally planned. The short-term threat is that the GADOT have voiced serious concerns about the management and saftey of the streetcar. About a week ago they gave Atlanta Streetcar (the operator) two weeks to solve the problem or they would be 'shut down until the problems are corrected.' This shutdown could happen next week. 

I rode the Atlanta streetcar last week and my short visit suggested all of the concerns are overblown. However there is deep political animosity about the streetcar (and really any public transit in Atlanta) and the streetcar is the current target (MARTA is running pretty well thanks to Keith Parker) - the streetcar didn't help itself by choosing a mediocre route for their starter segment.

Edited by kermit
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43 minutes ago, go_vertical said:

^^ But isn't that Atlanta's MO in regards to transit? From what I've always heard, MARTA struggled for a while because the trains didn't go to where people needed to.

Yes Atlanta has always had a complicated relationship with transit. The city "too busy to hate" really likes to use transportation as a method of defacto segregation so the 'trains don't go where people need them to' trope is a matter of considerable debate. Only Fulton and Dekalb counties were willing to pay for MARTA (meaning heavy rail does not reach the affluent people in Cobb and Gwinett). Within Fulton and Dekalb MARTA reaches most core areas however the system designers did an incredibly crappy job of making stations fit into neighborhoods (stations are massive and ugly and nearly always surrounded by parking and bus bays) and planners did zero to encourage density and walkability around stations. Concomitant with MARTA construction was the suburban flight of much of downtown Atlanta's employment. In short, given the magnitude of events outside of MARTA's control they did a decent job connecting people (meaning City of Atlanta and Decatur residents) to jobs.

I do think that some attention to zoning around station areas, better circulation (things like the streetcar and bikeshare) and the hopelessness of the car as a commuting mode will make MARTA heavy rail into a very useful system.

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MARTA has been doing that, though. The one benefit of having so many parking lots is that they are prime for TOD. I don't know to what extent they are making progress, but you can look at Lindburgh Center Station and see a ton of TOD where there used to be parking. That area includes the MARTA HQ building and the AT&T HQ... It's also an interesting contrast of fairly good urban development and terrible sprawl across the street along with an ok example of walkable urbansim next to a 6 lane road.

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  • 3 weeks later...
34 minutes ago, CLT704 said:

^ So? They sat unused and mothballed until CityLYNX started up. 

 

54 minutes ago, kermit said:

.... Parts are certainly still available.

Since they were 1) manufactured recently; 2) produced and designed by a still existent corporation; and 3) CATS had plenty of time to get them back into shape during the shakedown phase of the Gold Line;  there should be no problem that is too big for a skilled maintenance crew to handle in less than a week (a day for repairs plus 6 days for parts delivery -- these are not hugely complicated machines). Instead we have been in a situation where TWO of these vehicles have been out of service for over two months. In the absence of information about what the problem is I can only assume gross incompetence on the part of CATS -- I can't think of any other reason that might justify this incredibly crappy level of service for so long.

Its a shame, the Gold Line was cultivating decent ridership (for its configuration). After two months of nearly non-existent service I am sure they lost a substantial portion of those riders to other modes.

 

Edited by kermit
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The running gear for the streetcars came from scrapped Milan, Italy streetcars. Gomaco built the bodies and control systems. The reason for streetcar 92's absense is a missing part which can't easily be replaced (at least that is according to the driver today). Gomaco is kind of a specialty manufacturer and these parts are harder to replace then one would think. Regardless, they should have been able to solve the problem by now or at least tell the public what's going wrong.

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Phase 2 bids are in, and they have blown the budget. The low bid was 30% over budget, although it sounds like the biggest overages are on the non-streetcar related stuff that the city was going to do while the streets were torn up.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article90876167.html

Article is kinda confusing. I am not sure about the explanation about bundled work, and the tone at the end of the story is that the city isn't really worried about the situation. Also surprised that there are only two bidders.

Edited by kermit
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3 hours ago, kermit said:

Phase 2 bids are in, and they have blown the budget. The low bid was 30% over budget, although it sounds like the biggest overages are on the non-streetcar related stuff that the city was going to do while the streets were torn up.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article90876167.html

Article is kinda confusing. I am not sure about the explanation about bundled work, and the tone at the end of the story is that the city isn't really worried about the situation. Also surprised that there are only two bidders.

I am surprised neither by the number of bidders nor the 30% bid bust. This is extremely common in the construction industry right now in general, there's way too much work for the number of companies/workers out there. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
3 hours ago, CLT704 said:

I still think these problems would have been resolved if new vehicles were used from the get-go. 

Is it possible that because they are using the current stock of vintage looking streetcars, but know they are going to be replaced, they are reluctant to spend any real money on them? As such, they are only band-aiding the problems they are having?

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