Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[southslider]

I don't think charging for parking at UCB makes sense, when this will be the newest location and the largest deck (bigger than 485) with the closest Interstate access.

[Niner National]

Opening of extension delayed to spring 2018 per cats Twitter.

 

Edit: per Andrew dunn, citing cats ceo on Twitter. Sorry, I misread a tweet.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Niner National

[jednc]

4 minutes ago, Niner National said:

Opening of extension delayed to spring 2018 per cats Twitter.

Wonder what happened?

[NCMike1990]

6 minutes ago, Niner National said:

Opening of extension delayed to spring 2018 per cats Twitter.

What went wrong?

[Niner National]

Just now, jednc said:

Wonder what happened?

Those sunny summers with record stretches of dry weather have been known to cause massive construction delays.

[NCMike1990]

At least another year now. Something is not right there.

[NCMike1990]

50 minutes ago, Niner National said:

Edit: per Andrew dunn, citing cats ceo on Twitter. Sorry, I misread a tweet.

Here is the link. 

 

Edited February 28, 2017 by NCMike1990

[Desert Power]

Very disappointing 

[nakers2]

I was wondering how quick something would be posted. I am genuinely shocked, every indication was that there would be an on time opening. Even at their information meeting they hinted that they may be opening early. (I even just had a dream that they'd open on the 10th of August, how crazy is that?) March of 2018 seems almost ridiculous to me, I got my information via the Observer and I hope maybe there was a communication issue. My understanding is that March 2018 is the absolute maximum before they incur penalties from the Feds, but I find it hard to believe they are 7 months in the hole without having any prior announcements about it. If so this could possibly be chalked up as one of CATS' biggest blunders and might be a huge black eye to the 6 billion dollar proposal for a major system buildout. 

[deleted]

Just based on a visual look at the completed work, I thought they were ahead of schedule.  Just at UNCC and area today and everything looks awesome.  Very disappointing.  But, under budget!

[nakers2]

Just now, JBS said:

Just based on a visual look at the completed work, I thought they were ahead of schedule.  Just at UNCC and area today and everything looks awesome.  Very disappointing.  But, under budget!

I wonder how feasible it would be to use that saved money to hire more workers or to possibly expedite work (24/7 construction) I personally would rather be on, even slightly over budget but finished on time than be months late and under budget. A lot of students are making their housing choices next year with the assumption that they won't need to buy parking passes for campus, not to mention eager commuters. 

[15895]

50 minutes ago, nakers2 said:

I wonder how feasible it would be to use that saved money to hire more workers or to possibly expedite work (24/7 construction) I personally would rather be on, even slightly over budget but finished on time than be months late and under budget. A lot of students are making their housing choices next year with the assumption that they won't need to buy parking passes for campus, not to mention eager commuters. 

Yeah. I was banking on commuting from work uptown to UNCC. Sucks. Coming from uptown to UNCC for night classes suck. 

[tozmervo]

They're blaming utility relocation for the delay, and if the extra money to accelerate the project had not been approved they would be looking past March 2018.

That implies they are saying utility relocations are responsible for up to a year on schedule delay. That sounds like total BS to me. Total BS or an abundance of incompetence by the contractors and/or CATS project management.

This is insulting as a taxpayer and really humiliating for CATS and public transit.

[CriticalT]

This is a big F up.  CATS just threw gasoline on Northern Meck repeal ember.  Plenty of politicians and their constituents that will never see a tall building let alone step foot on a bus or train will be cheering for this.  Get your crap together CATS.

[nakers2]

Maybe its just my lack of knowledge on the engineering element of this project, but it would seem to me that the connections and utilities would have been planned out and blueprinted well before the project even broke ground, if not shortly after. The only reason I can see for HALF YEAR delay is that they dropped the ball on the electrical engineering aspect of this project and are rushing to play catch-up. 

[CLT704]

Wow, this is disappointing- especially after hints that the BLE would open earlier than planned- and totally embarrassing. And so soon after CATS and John Lewis announced they wanted to build $6 billion worth of lines at once, this 7 month delay won't help that. At least the project is still under budget, but that will probably be used up to help get it open in March 18. 

CATS seems to be a little mess recently: failing ridership, reliability issues, accidents, limited budget, and now, a construction delay. I personally think it may be time to merge and reorganise CATS and MTC, clean slate so to speak- if we are to keep expanding transit. I know it's mundane and common, but I do like "CHARLOTTE METRO".

Edited February 28, 2017 by CLT704

[nakers2]

I just can't get past the 7 month delay, I mean I know it's not a small feat, but how messed up and complex are the electronics that it takes 7 months past sechedule to complete? (along with testing and stuff too of course) CATS could really use a crash course in customer service and public relations. After months of hearing veiled hints at an on time or even early opening they drop this bombshell, it's not like they didn't know before that there at least "might" be some delays which they could have passed along to the public. That could've either softened the blow or if they ended up opening on time it would have been a pleasant surprise. My guess would be that 7 months is the absolute max, and that to cover their proverbial asses CATS has high balled the completion date. I predict operations by winter 2017-2018, any longer than that and I suspect CATS hasn't been entirely forthcoming. 

[southslider]

NCRR is a very large "utility" to relocate. 

[uptownliving]

Good Ole Norfolk Southern....so shocked to hear that they are being slow and obstinate in relocating their tracks and being the main reason for the BLE delays. If anyone wants to see why the entire BLE project is being delayed just go take a look at 36th St Station where construction has been put on hold for good ole Norfolk Southern to complete their work.

[kermit]

^ yup, not a surprise. They were also one of the causes of substantial delays in opening the South line back in 2007.

[ah59396]

The real both job here isn't the delay, it's the timing of the announcement.  We were creeping up on the expected start date of this thing and out of nowhere we get a "whoops, it'll actual be next year!".

Now I don't even trust them to have it done by March 2018.  If they missed the timeline estimate this badly, why should I buy the new estimate?

[cjd5050]

4 hours ago, CLT704 said:

Wow, this is disappointing- especially after hints that the BLE would open earlier than planned- and totally embarrassing. And so soon after CATS and John Lewis announced they wanted to build $6 billion worth of lines at once, this 7 month delay won't help that.

The timing of the 'Big Bang' idea and the announcement of this delay is a bit of a head scratcher.  Borderline incompetence from a CEO honestly.  

Hell, he could have spun this negative into a positive and rolled the two announcements together.  Something like:

The Blue Line is currently under budget but is delayed due to difficulties with 3rd parties outside of the control of CATS.  Because of this, the development team needs to slow down what they can do and wait for these items to be addressed.  This will eat into the budget and possibly cause project overages, in addition to, delaying the line opening by several months.

Which is why Charlotte needs to consider doing the next 3 lines at the same time rather than just 1 as the next step beyond this extension.  This will allow the project team to shift resources between each line in the event of an inevitable delay when taking on such a project like this.  In turn, it will allow CATS to deliver all 3 lines much faster and cheaper to Charlotte and this is before you get into the savings in financing all 3 lines at the same time.  

 

[HopHead]

40 minutes ago, ah59396 said:

The real both job here isn't the delay, it's the timing of the announcement.  We were creeping up on the expected start date of this thing and out of nowhere we get a "whoops, it'll actual be next year!".

Now I don't even trust them to have it done by March 2018.  If they missed the timeline estimate this badly, why should I buy the new estimate?

I thought the SAME exact thing. I would be fine if he says, well it may be a month late. Maybe two late because we ran into a snag. But not six months. That's a huge oversight. They knew about this for a while.

[CLT2014]

Government....

[southslider]

Monthly project progress reports, which are public record, haven't shown an August completion date for some time now.  But based on those, it shouldn't be March next year either.