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Long Term Rail and CATS Transit Plans


monsoon

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Over the weekend, I heard an update about the status of the CATS mass transit plan from someone in Charlotte who follows these things very closely. There were several things that he mentioned that I hadn't already heard.

Firstly, the idea of streetcars in the west corridor is apprently very popular among the public and the agency. People don't seem to care that it's slower than LRT; they just like the idea of having vehicles on rails.

He also said that if there's one corridor that's most likely to end up with BRT as the technology, it's the Southeast/Independence corridor. The public is pretty much in favor of LRT, so a privately funded group has hired a consultant to look for ways to cut costs on the LRT alternative in order to bring it back in line with the BRT alternative.

Lastly, and this is news to me, there is a sixth leg of the CATS transit network currently in the Major Investment Study phase. This is the commuter rail/DMU line from Rock Hill through Fort Mill and Pineville to the future Charlotte Intermodal Station on W Trade. He said when the study is supposed to be complete, but I forgot to write it down so I don't remember. There is a chance that this line will happen sooner than you might think, depending on how much South Carolina helps out.

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i agree that streetcars in the west are a viable option. the distance is so short between the airport and the cbd (4 to 5 mi) that any speed differences will be minimal. The big difference is in price, as stations don't need to be built along the way (which is okay with most people, as there are no major activity centers along the way, so regular stops will suffice).

I hope that streetcars are built on that corridor.

I'm still very skeptical about LRT on the SE corridor. Not only would it render all sorts of past spending on Independence as a big waste... but it will be very expensive to make it gel with TOD, which erodes the benefits of LRT.

The SC line will be good, as it will help to support LRT ridership. I don't believe it will go to the uptown multimodal station, though. Whenever i have read about it, word has always been that it will end at the 485 station of the South LRT. I'm sure it will be a big success if built, and might actually help to put pineville on transit to correct some of the mess in that town.

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Another important note: there are three public meetings regarding the alignments for the West and Southeast corridors starting tomorrow. Here is the schedule information:

West Corridor:

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 from 7 - 9 p.m.

Christ Presbyterian Church, 2461 Arty Avenue

(Service by CATS bus route 2 - Ashley Park)

Southeast Corridor, Two meetings

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 from 7 - 9 p.m.

Matthews Community Center, 100 McDowell Street East

Town of Matthews

(Serviced by CATS bus route 27 - Monroe Road)

and

Thursday, June 16, 2005 from 7 - 9 p.m.

Charlotte Merchandise Mart, 2500 E. Independence Blvd.

Here is the link to the press release on the Charmeck.org homepage.

Anybody who cares about rail transit in Charlotte should GO TO THE MEETINGS! Even if you don't particularly care or don't live on the corridors or don't think you could give any intelligent input, still. GO. Although it's not the specific subject of this meeting, at some point it's doubtless that the issue of LRT-vs-BRT for the SE corridor will come up. At some point in your life you're probably going ride Charlotte's transit system, and this might be your only chance to get your voice heard. Ask questions. Pick the CATS staff's brains.

If nothing else, by going to the meeting you can report back to the rest of us about what happens ;)

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In fact, that is the case according to the local Huntersville paper.  CATS will lease the line in part due to the legal problems that have appeared on the South LRT.  Namely property tax owners and railroad agreements that go back to the 19th century.  If they lease the O line instead they can avoid all these type of headaches. 

The only freight that I have seen on this line is a single train that hauls scrap metal to the steel mill furnace located on 115 near Harris.  I have never seen a train used on the track in Huntersville and points further North in more than a decade of living here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

frankly, i hope that much more scrutiny can go into our future lines to take lessons from the first line.

1) Do we really need bridges over all the cross thoroughfares? South Boulevard is a heavily travelled corridor. If Arrowood, Tyvola, Archdale, and Woodlawn can all stop long enough and often enough for South Blvd to have a green light, then certain they can stop a block away for a light rail train to pass. If coordinated right, it might even have no more impact on the cross streets, similar to timing lights in a grid.

2) Do we really need two tracks on 100% of route. If one bridge is there already but only fits 1 trackset, can't trains be coordinated to share that track for that small stretch? For example, they are rebuilding/widening many of the existing bridges downtown. I agree that downtown is worth it for the widening, but certainly if other corridors have that issue, then they need to consider just making do with the existing infrastructure.

3) Does light rail really need its own right of way? If existing streets are low volume enough, then let the trains mix in traffic, or block off a lane.

4) Is light rail really needed vs a lower cost option like streetcars? (my opinion for west corridor is that less expensive streetcar will do the job). Creating expensive stations at key spots is good, but in many cases, the economic development is provided simply by the fixed-route rail, and not necessarily by the expensive stations. Simple stops are often fine.

Don't get me wrong.... i love these projects, and know the drive for wanting what is built to be everything it needs to be, as if you don't get it right, you wont have a chance to rebuild it.... but the south lrt could have been much closer to the original estimates (ie. less expensive) if they had made do with more of the existing rail infrastructure. If that money had been saved, the political opposition would not be there as strong against the others, and we'd possibly have enough more money for a more extensive streetcar distribution system around town, which could have a massive impact on intown density.

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The problem with street cars is they really are nothing more than glorified city buses. If there are no set stations, and the cars have to share their space with auto traffic, then you can't have predictable schedules which really hurts ridership. And there are problems with accidents as well.

If the goal is spurring density, then schedule realiability is very important. You really need to have transit stations, a dedicated ROW, and freedom from the effects of automobile traffic. The more you can do this, the more success the LRT will be in affecting development.

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good points,

For the SE line, BRT and LRT would be the same as far as timing and predictability for the majority of the route. The bottlenecks in the suburbs would be much less of an issue for the BRT, and the flexibility allows for much better service than LRT.

For the West corridor, the risks of congestion are minimal, as the corridor is blighted, short, and has very few traffic lights.

I agree that schedule predictability is of the highest priority, but there are still ways to accomplish this without viaducts, bridges, and dedicated right of ways. I just hope we can avoid the remainder of these lines from close to doubling in cost as the South line has done.

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Okay, more conjecture about commuter rail.

Let's assume for a moment that 30 years from now, CATS will be running a number of commuter trains on the railroads radiating from uptown. Assuming that the P&N will be used instead of the NS to Gastonia, there are seven possible routes:

Charlotte-Huntersville-Mooresville-(Statesville?)

Charlotte-Concord-Kannapolis-Salisbury

Charlotte-Norwood-(Albemarle?)

Charlotte-Matthews-Monroe

Charlotte-Pineville-Fort Mill-Rock Hill

Charlotte-Mount Holly-Gastonia

Charlotte-Mount Holly-Stanley-Lincolnton

Not being a Charlotte native, I don't know a lot about these corridors. So, rather than guess, I thought I'd ask you: how should these corridors be prioritized? Obviously the North Corridor to Mooresville is going to happen first, but physical characteristics and freight traffic issues aside I have a feeling that it isn't the most important.

If you feel like it, say where you think stops should be located on these lines, too.

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The Charlotte-Monroe line is very important IMO, as well as the Charlotte-Gastonia and Charlotte-Salisbury lines (in that order). The first two (Monroe and Gastonia) would parallel two toll road proposals. The fact that there are such road proposals indicates the need for more transportation along those routes. The need for the Salisbury route can be seen just by driving on I-85 through Cabarrus County--what a zoo!

In time there may be a need for the eastern route to Albemarle, but certainly not right now. I'm also doubtful that a Lincolnton route would be necessary for a long time.

And it goes without saying that the proposed Rock Hill route is also needed, though I would put more emphasis on one to Monroe.

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The problem with the Monroe line is that CSX is not willing to share those tracks due to high traffic on that line......additionally, the ROW there is too narrow accomodate a new track in many places. I was told by a CATS manager that the number of properties to be condemned to widen the CSX ROW would exceed the total number of all properties condemned for any public project COMBINED....therefore they were not interested in pursuing it.

I do think it would be the most useful line (after Rock Thrill), with very natural stations at Village Lake/Thermal, Sardis Rd. North, downtown Matthews, CPCC, downtown Indian Trail, and downtown Monroe.

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i agree about the SE line, that it is important, but is so busy. Are there any other options to solve that, as it seems it will only get more busy as it is the line to the coast. For example, what about the line that heads east from 30th st in NoDa and eventually follows albemarle/nc27 out of meck county... could that ever be a bypass route to the beach? in this google map it goes to norwood and then swings south to wadesboro. Perhaps if the SE charlotte line is not possible to upgrade, then upgrades could take place on that route to create a faster freight alternative.

I'm not very informed on the freight system, so i'm sure i'm missing something... but something will eventually need to be done. Should NC build an "outer loop" railroad system to keep freight outside of city limits (especially useful if yucca mountain opens, which would put nuke waste travelling right next to all our new TOD... and blocks from my house :) ).

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One comment on all these lines.

There are only 45K jobs in downtown Charlotte. Assume that 50% of these jobs were filled by people willing to get on one of these trains. (and this is a high percentage for the USA) that means you have 2 LRTs, 3 BRTs, and SIX commuter rail lines to deliver only 22K people to the center city.

I just don't see it happening. Keep in mind that most people who drive into Charlotte to work don't work in downtown or in places that can reached with anything except a vehicle.

The line to Mooresville might be built because it is relatively inexpensive. I don't see any of the others happening.

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I just don't see it happening.  Keep in mind that most people who drive into Charlotte to work don't work in downtown or in places that can reached with anything except a vehicle.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're absolutely right that these are of debatable value, and unless gas prices go way up, it's unlikely that all of these lines will be built in our lifetimes.

However, You're forgetting a couple of very important things. The current CATS bus system is mostly line-haul, radial routes bringing people from outlying areas to downtown and back. With the coming of rapid transit, the entire system will be realigned so that the LRT/BRT handles more of the line haul traffic, and the conventional buses will be rerouted to act as feeders. That way, even people who don't work near the corridors can get there with just one transfer.

There's always the issue that many North Carolinians consider themselves to be too good to ride a bus, but I think there's a good chance that rail/BRT will change the public's perception of public transit entirely.

Then there's the biggest wildcard: The metro area is growing explosively, and will probably continue to do so for at least the next few decades. Even though present-day Charlotte doesn't lend itself well to a massive transit system, with the infrastructure in place things could change very quickly - if the transit corridors capture 20, even 10 percent of that growth. While nobody knows exactly how well TOD will catch on, if South End and the condo boom uptown are any indication, the potential is enormous.

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CATS are also focusing on neighobor shuttles which can be transfer to the main routes. There are a few crosstown routes that do not connect those routes to the Transit Center, like South Park to UNCC. I think CATS need to eliminate routes that operates on the same line but it branches out, like the 10 (West Blvd) used to have 3 branched out routes like 10 C, 10 R, 10 T and such and such. 10 C would use West Blvd then Clanton Rd, 10 T would use do the same but then use Tyvola. Now CATS eliminated 10 C and Clanton Rd has its own Route. The 39 and 11 routes used to overlap before both reached the 29/49 connector. CATS has since drop the 39 routing going to UNCC and made the 11 routing to UNCC. The 11 route had 2 branches 11 S and 11 T. 11 S has been replaced with a neighborhood shuttle serving the Hidden Valley area and connects to the new 11.

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an additional aspect of this, is that employment growth in downtown will continue to occur. These lines are just being planned now, but most wouldn't be operating until 5/10/20 years from now.

I know on MUMPO's 2030 transportation plan it has something like >125k/sq mi people employed in downtown charlotte in 2030.

http://www.mumpo.org/2030_LRTP.htm

(That is just a rough number from the map legend, and i'm sure there are more precise projections somewhere)

The transportation planners must figure out how to get people to those employment locations in those future years. We are already at a point where marginal cost for capacity on roadways is very high, so building the foundations for the train networks now, although expensive for initial costs, will be the only way to get the 2030 transport network that is affordable.

Even though right now it might look expensive, such as $400m for only 20k daily riders, by spending that 400m now, we save ourselves half a billion in 2030 from having to build lanes 10 and 11 on I77. Money has to be spent somewhere to get people to those jobs, but by building the expensive track infrastructure now, we buy ourselves into the much lower marginal costs in the future.

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For the "anti-rail" forces out there:

Do you have information to share with us about the cost/benefits of new road construction?

Don't forget to include the cost of ongoing - neverending - maintenance and expansion due to new development that is follows roads.

While you're at, why not show just how much development is built around highway interchanges and rail or busway transit stations.

Compare these and then, let's talk about fiscal responsibility and the associated fiscal efficiencies of scale including the delivery of public safety, public services, and public utilities.

Finally, don't forget "demographic trends", "freedom of choice", and "social engineering" when you're talking about people being "forced to 'give up cars'" but having no other choice but to drive their cars to go anywhere.

It's time for transit supporters to take the offensive folks! It's way too easy!

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  • 1 month later...

I hope they can build the west corridor rail line.  The benefits of light rail to/from the airport and uptown are obvious and appealing.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

er, we won't know until 2006 when MTC gets the new studies. But we can expect some politics will get involved at the MTC level on which part of the town will get what.

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