Charlotte Center City Streetcar Network

[kermit]

Last week's snowstorm enabled some nice symmetry: Anthony Foxx will attend the Gold Line Phase 2 groundbreaking on Saturday

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article126362194.html

 

 

[CLT704]

Phase 2 broke ground yesterday with Anthony Foxx present, as his final trip as Secretary of Transportation.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article126629704.html

 

(Don't read the CO comments, it makes me want to bang my head against a wall)

Edited January 15, 2017 by CLT704

[Dcarnys]

On 1/15/2017 at 5:14 AM, CLT704 said:

Phase 2 broke ground yesterday with Anthony Foxx present, as his final trip as Secretary of Transportation.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article126629704.html

 

(Don't read the CO comments, it makes me want to bang my head against a wall)

I'm surprised, the comments were a bit more tame then I expected. Only one real instance of just downright crazy.

[CLT704]

I can't remember if it does, or where it is supposed to be, but does Phase 2 include a dedicated car-house? Or is that for Phase 3?

[kermit]

At French street IIRC.

I am a bit puzzled by the inclusion of the seperate yard for the Gold Line. I would rather had an extra mile of track and had them store vehcles at the BLE yard at 25th, there is plenty of capacity there.

[15895]

Streetcar service really does need more frequency. I feel like I often walk instead of waiting and it pays off bigly just to walk. Other times I get there and it's there within 5 minutes and it's great. I feel like I have waited 20 minutes before 

Edited February 17, 2017 by AirNostrumMAD

[tusculan]

On 2/17/2017 at 0:13 PM, AirNostrumMAD said:

Streetcar service really does need more frequency. I feel like I often walk instead of waiting and it pays off bigly just to walk. Other times I get there and it's there within 5 minutes and it's great. I feel like I have waited 20 minutes before 

I think everyone understands that this phase 1 is a joke. Poor equipment, slow vehicles, infrequent scheduling, lack of integration and technology, and poor layout. Basically the only thing it has right is location. Phase 2 will certainly help with the vehicle speed and more reliable equipment. But the integration with the Blue Line and the technology really need upgrades. And the scheduling absolutely has to be fixed. The biggest draw to light rail/ streetcars over bus is dependability and frequency. If, through incompetence, this doesn't get fixed then the streetcar will be an abject failure. There should be cars travelling this route every 5 or 10 minutes on the dot in each direction.

Edited March 3, 2017 by tusculan

[southslider]

Six bus routes (9, 14, 15, 17, 27, 39) currently provide frequent service between CTC/Blue Line and CPCC.  After Phase 2, Gold Line still won't run as frequently as the six bus routes (1, 7, 8, 21, 26, 34) already operating between CTC and Gateway or the two routes (1, 7) between CTC/Blue Line and JCSU.

[videtur quam contuor]

Plus BCycle and remember that walking is about the same time from CTC to CPCC as streetcar, maybe less.

[Spartan]

On 3/4/2017 at 9:47 AM, tarhoosier said:

Plus BCycle and remember that walking is about the same time from CTC to CPCC as streetcar, maybe less.

Walking isn't the same amount of time, though the C5 proved you can keep pace if you run.

[Guest]

Walking isn't the same amount of time, though the C5 proved you can keep pace if you run.

Katie T runs a 5:30 mile. So not all of us can run that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[videtur quam contuor]

From CTC to CPCC, not to end of line, downhill whole way, with streetcar running at nearly 30 minute intervals, as reported here, I think I can walk that, briskly in thirty minutes.

[Spartan]

You can definitely walk 1.5 miles in about 30 minutes at a normal pace... you just can't walk it in the five-7 minutes it takes for the streetcar to go the same distance.

[videtur quam contuor]

No, my point was that if I miss the street car and am reduced to waiting for the next one, MAYbe 25 minutes, then the choice is walking, B cycle etc.

This was the truth for me when I lived in Dilworth, about an 8-10 minute walk from Bland station. If the LRT was pulling away as I walked onto platform headed to center city and it was a weekend  schedule, as was most likely, it was absolutely faster for me to keep walking up Tryon to the square.

[tusculan]

The following is from Streetsblog. What are the lessons here?

Unable to assemble new funding from the state to significantly improve the rapid transit system, the city of Atlanta chose to focus on a cheaper-to-implement streetcar line. The route opened in December 2014 after a year of delays and an almost $30 million cost increase, from $72 million to $98 million.

The hope was that the streetcar would attract 2,000 daily passengers, but it’s only moving about 700 riders a day as of the latest reporting. It has also faced considerable maintenance problems that have led state and federal officials to question its management.

The fact that the city runs the line, rather than an experienced transit agency like MARTA, probably doesn’t help. But there are fundamental flaws in the project that no maintenance or operational expertise is likely to overcome.

The streetcar travels only 1.3 miles, from downtown to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center, so it’s only useful for a limited variety of trips. It stops too frequently — six times over the course of its very short route — slowing service. And because the trains operate in lanes shared with cars, they average less than 10 mph on a good day; often, they get stuck at signals and behind cars, leading to delays and a high degree of unreliability.

Everyone I spoke with for this series agreed the street car line is not a model for future investment. No one wants to spend millions of dollars on projects that don’t work.

 

[southslider]

^Land use matters. CPCC boosts ridership. Route directness helps.

[tusculan]

11 hours ago, southslider said:

^Land use matters. CPCC boosts ridership. Route directness helps.

Ok - better route. Sure. The argument in the text seems to be that the streetcar is performing so badly that it must be a cataclysm of different factors. Route, management, maintenance, speed, too many stops, too slow, and no independent ROW. Can we determine which of these actually matter though by way of a comparison to other streetcar systems? Does anyone know of a way to compare them, so that one can evaluate which of these is most important? Let's say a perfect score is 100 - if route matters the most, and the route is bad, then the highest grade you can get is a 65 - barely passable if everything else is spot on...

In my estimation,

Route (including number of stops) = 35%, management (including integration with devices and other transit) = 15%, maintenance/reliability =25%, speed (irrespective of ROW) 20%, all other factors 5%. 

Does that seem reasonable?

 

[kermit]

meh. I have ridden the Atlanta street car a couple of times and have a good amount of experience with Atlanta transit -- I really think the criticism of their streetcar is overblown.

First, just like our streetcar, they built a starter segment that was never intended to stand on its own. The starter segment was designed to connect downtown hotels to the King historic site. When Atlanta decides what to do with its new transit money it will likely extend the street car to run along the belt line which will a) connect many of Atlanta's most walkable neighborhoods and b) provide a radial connection between some densely populated residential areas and some of the most heavily used MARTA stations (thus making their heavy rail more usable).

Second, I really think complaining about streetcar speed is disingenuous. They were never intended to be fast transit for suburbanites and never intended to directly compete with cars. Instead they exist to encourage circulation within a dense urban environment (and doing that in Atlanta WITH air conditioning is a huge bonus). By making downtowns more transit friendly, streetcars have the long term potential to generate dramatic land use change by making the residential and retail use of downtown more attractive for people who may want to go car free. As a rider I can confirm that the Atlanta streetcar is much faster than walking along its modest route and certainly faster than driving as well once you factor in time to park (which always takes FOREVER in central Atlanta)

Having said that, there are certainly huge amounts of operations incompetence with the Atlanta Streetcar. Not having integrated fares with MARTA is inexcusable. Its current route is minimally useful for tourists staying downtown but basically useless for downtown workers (and downtown Atlanta kinda sucks anyway). Finally, frequency sucks (like every other recently built streetcar). Given the short distances they travel, streetcar service with more than 10 minute frequency is basically pointless for regular use. Transit agencies have got to suck it up and run streetcars every 5 minutes and see how ridership explodes. Autonomous streetcars are much simpler tech than cars -- no reason they can be run on three minute frequencies after that. 

Again, its just a starter segment, once its expanded to serve a tangibly useful transit function (radial service with downtown connections), is operated by adults and is integrated into the existing transit network (a single fare) ridership will be fine.

Edited March 14, 2017 by kermit

[tusculan]

Kermit, you might be right about speed as it applies to the uptown segment. But I am guessing that there is some definable distance or zone whereby the speed will certainly play a factor - as will the stop location, for presumably you will have less frequent stops the less dense the community is.

I will certainly agree that within uptown - frequency and keeping to a schedule matter almost as much as the route. No one wants to sit outside in a suit in July waiting for the streetcar to finally appear.

[kermit]

File under: "some US streetcars work well"

The Kansas City streetcar opened a bit under a year ago and has exceeded everyone's expectations in terms of both ridership and the amount of new business stimulated along its route. The service is free to riders and operations costs are paid via a municipal services district (businesses in the district voted on imposing the tax), an additional 1% sales tax paid within the district (running about $1 million per year over projections), a special assessment on surface pay parking in the district (about $50 per space per year) and a city appropriation ($2 million per year). Performance is so strong that they have been running all four of their vehicles at peak periods (never planned) and they have decided to order two additional vehicles (using excess revenues) in order to further bolster frequency.

The KC example shows two important rules for making streetcars work: First, high frequencies and real time arrival info at stops really does attract riders; Second, the presence of a useful circulator can substantially improve the neighborhood business climate. Kansas City has lots of important lessons for the GoldLine, I hope someone is paying attention.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article144407659.html

 

[CLT704]

^ Whilst I don't think the idea of free service would be beneficial for the city, I don't like the idea of $2.20 one way for an adult- IMO that might make people less likely to ride the streetcar. Maybe we could have a hybrid system incorporating fares and Kansas City's system? Maybe $1 one way for all passengers with the added costs being picked up by a tax district. 

[kermit]

^ I haven't thought much about fare structure on the streetcar after Phase 2 opens. One possibility is CATS could program its smart cards to cap charges at $4.40 (or whatever the round trip fare is) per day. With the cap CATS would get full payment for each rider's round trip into town but would give them 'free' access to circulation services once they arrive. I can't imagine such a strategy would heavily impact CATS revenue stream and would certainly make transit more attractive to all riders.

I am a superfan of levying an annual fee on every surface lot space inside 277 -- it produces lots of positive behavioral incentives.

[southslider]

Ideally, the MSD in Uptown administered by CCCP would continue to support a free Gold Line, just as it has supported a free Gold Rush.  The City could pick up the difference, continuing their current support for the Gold Line. 

 

[lit]

I think one of the biggest selling points our streetcar has is that it is going to link JWU and JCSU to CPCC. I could see some people who live on those campuses picking up a course or two at CPCC once the Gold Line 2.0 is in place

Edited April 18, 2017 by lit

[kermit]

The public meeting presentation for Phase II had a couple of small tidbits:

1) Revenue service date has already slipped to August 2020

2) Hawthrone bridge will be removed in July (after the 4th) and be closed for 18 months

3) A streetscape project on Turner St (e.g. Blue Blaze Brewing) and Frasier st realignment will occur with Phase II construction.

4) Replica trollys will be "retired"

5) Phase I service will be shut down in mid-late 2019 for 6-9 months for platform reconstruction

http://charlottenc.gov/cats/transit-planning/gold-line/Pages/phase-two.aspx