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South Light Rail Transit


monsoon

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Second, the line doesn't go anywhere except downtown, which still only has about 8-9 thousand permanent residents, little shopping, and outside of business hours, gets very little visitors (relative to what you need to justify a transit line).

The concept for the LRT was really a broken one, have all the lines come downtown. But that assumes that people really want to go there and in Charlotte that does not seem to be the case. When this fact is pointed out the argument changes to, it will deliver workers downtown. But then why are we not building commuter rail instead which costs far less and would serve the public better?

Before Houston had its METRORail, downtown was deserted at night, every night. Now METRORail has an event to go along with it every Friday night and Saturday night to attract visitors to downtown at night. It is called "The Main Street Event". At 5:00, they close down Main Street to cars for several blocks for this event. Restaurants pull out chairs for outdoor dining, and people can walk Main STreet, ride a taxi bike or catch the METRORail to go clubbing or shopping. The party don't stop till 2 am.

Other cities with light rail that do not have much of a deserted downtown at night are:

- Sacramento. The K Street Pedestrian Mall stretches four blocks in downtown, thanks to the RT system.

- Portland. Despite MAX running on one way streets east-west reduced to a car lane and a parking lane, it still manages to attract people to Pioneer Square. Future plans call for new rail lines to run in the Transit Mall, currently having buses cruise here.

- New Orleans. There is as much activity in downtown and the French Quarter with its three streetcar lines terminating here.

I hope Charlotte has new renewal projects related to the new CATS light rail that attracts people to Uptown outside business hours.l

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I think the new arena is a start for the NBA's latest expansion team... the Charlotte Bobcats. Bob Johnson is calling that an "entertainment" arena. There is supposed to be shops, artwork, etc. throughout the arena and will be used for concerts as the Verizon and other larger venues are not so large due to their location. I believe this will be a success as he is the founder of BET and knows the ET business. This seems to be a step in that direction. I think the 90M or close donation I was reading about that will be donated to Uptown to support the arts is also another step along with rebuilding the old Convention Center into an ET spot. I think Charlotte is doing what it needs to do.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree that they should extend lightrail to Carolina Place Mall, as 485 near Pineville already ends up having worse traffic congestion than 77. (I know they are widening it, but that is not going to solve the traffic). I think it would even be a good idea to extend it to Johnston Road, and maybe even Providence.

Since malls have built out such massive parking lots to account for the christmas rush and weekends, they might be able to give up some spaces for use as a light rail park and ride for the rest of the year. I wonder if the city could strike up a deal with the mall owners to fund a park and ride deck that the mall could use part of for christmas peak, but would be smaller than the city would independently build for light rail .

I think there is plenty of room for a win-win deal because weekly peak times for the mall would be different than light rail's. (Transit peaks are during the weekdays 7a-6p, but the mall's are after 6 on weekdays and on weekends)

Let's say the mall currently has 30k spaces to account for the christmas rush, but typically use 20k at peak weekend times, 15k at weekday peaks. (these are hypothetical numbers because i have no earthly idea). The city might need 20k spaces for a light rail park and ride for peak weekday times (during the day), and 5k for weekends and christmastime. The city could build a smaller deck (10k), half as large as otherwise. With the new 40k total capacity, 20k would be used for transit during workdays leaving the mall with 20k when they will need a max of 15k. On weekends and christmastime, transit might use only 5k, leaving 35k for the mall (a net total increase for the mall at times when their spots are most needed.

Not only does the mall win extra peak capacity at the simple expense of sharing spots that would otherwise go unused, but the extra parking capacity and transit might also help the mall win potential future zoning for expansion (to compete with the other expanding regional malls). The mall would also realize the intangeable benefits of all the transit users that end up shopping at the mall more often because it is on their way home from work.

I know this is just a rough idea, but i think there is a lot of potential.

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I like the idea dubone but getting them to add to the already costly line now would be way out there. I'm sure that when they were planning this someone stood up and said, "Hey, let's end the rail line at the Carolina Place Mall!" Who knows though. Is Carolina place officially in the City of Pineville or is it still City of Charlotte? I could see where this would make a difference quite obviously. It's just so very close to the mall. Of course, if you go to the mall you could also say why not go to Carowinds while you're at it?

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I guess some people are willing to walk from the furthest out park spot to the store in those bigbox commercial developments (maybe they need transit for the parking lots :) ). It is probably the most walking those people ever do.

I know we are talking 2030 and beyond here... but it seems like at some point pineville will plateau on growth, and will realize that they can't annex south carolina and charlotte.... and will need to grow inside their borders can tap into the vast amounts of land currently wasted on surface parking lots. Pineville currently just rubber stamps commercial rezoning requests, but eventually they might actual require things like the residential that was part of southpark's rezoning in Charlotte. At that point, transit is the only way to provide meaningful transportation. (How wide can Pineville-Matthews road get?).

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I was just thinking about the planned light-rail and thinking about how it is supposed to shut down at night at 11:00 right? Anyway, Do you think the city would consider running a limited route system until 3:00 am on the weekends to help get partyers home safely? I'm thinking about the route from say SouthEnd to UNCC open until after last call on Fridays and Saturday nights. This seems to hit some of the larger party spots in the city getting the students at UNCC and the young professionals in SouthEnd, Uptown home safely. It also encourages people to go out into SE, uptown, NODA etc. for the nightlife if they know they can hang around until the end and not have to worry about driving home. A lot of students at UNCC don't head into Uptown or NODA because there from out of town and don't want to get lost. I'm a college student and a lot of my UNCC friends won't go uptown because "the roads are too confusing". This could also encourage the students around UNCC to live in a more urban style around the rail line. It would help leaders in the University Area create that transit oriented "downtown university city" idea they have been thinking about. This just seems to be a way to keep drunk drivers off of the road and encourage center city nightlife at the same time. Just a thought.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was talking will a coworker today about the economic cost of commuting and all those hours everyone wastes not relaxing or getting work done. One idea that came up is that Charlotte should include free Wi-fi in the lighs rail system. It would be a great marketing tool, and might encourage employers to get their workers on the train.

What do all think about that? Does any other city do that?

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