Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[dubone]

Well, the FFGA is the final word, as it is a contract for the funds with the feds, which allow CATS to move forward with buying land and when they're ready, lay track.

If you're buying near a station, you'd probably do better before they lay track, given that most laypeople don't know about these types of things until local news starts showing up at annoyed small business owners that are affected slightly by construction.

"I'm here at Grandma's Country Kitchen on North Tryon near Tom Hunter Road where light rail construction has caused patrons to come in with dirty shoes! Grandma has spent considerably more time cleaning her floors....."

[dubone]

I was looking at the design drawings and noticed for the first time what I've missed when I looked at them earlier. Basically, for the 4 miles that the BLE runs in the median of N Tryon, they are widening Tryon on the north/west side of the line into all of the parcels. This will help make the street much nicer looking and new, I'm sure. It will also make the businesses along the street seem more urban, as their large front parking will be cut.

On the flipside, I recall the early planning for this line, that they kept saying that there was room enough in the central part of the street to not require widening. It is funny how strategic decisions that were made 10-15 years ago are turning out to be very expensive or pointless. In the case of the Red Line, constantly given CPR by the MTC balance of power of the northern towns, it was that the O line was to be barely used for freight. In the case of the streetcar and the regional rail, it was that they would be eligible for federal funding and viable options for transit planning. In the case of the southeast, it was that Independence could be converted to a transit oriented neighborhood.

All in all, it is ONLY the Blue line that succeeded in having the necessary technology and ridership projections to receive federal funding and become reality. All the other lines are virtual failures. The BLE is happening despite its strategic failings because the corridor has NoDa, UNCC and some relatively dense lower income neighborhoods, and was the extension of the only existing line, so it the high costs could be justified.

We ought to use the lessons of our only successful project, and rethink the other corridors along similar lines. If we can create a transit corridor by following freight rail corridors and forming a corridor in the median of a major road corridor, why were discussing streetcar on Monroe and not light rail along CSX and Monroe? Why not light rail along Central or a dedicated corridor for a streetcar?

[HopHead]

The Observer has picked up on the news as well... CATS will make the announcement for federal funding on Tuesday at 10am at what will be the 9th street station for the LYNX extension.

http://www.charlotte...al-funding.html

EDIT: In typical Charlotte Observer fashion, the comments do not fail to disappoint.

Edited October 15, 2012 by wend28

[DCMetroRaleigh]

Congrats Charlotte! The City should definitely push for a horizontal east-west light rail line from the Airport to East Charlotte. Additionally, I wish there could be some extension to South Park.

[southslider]

The City should definitely push for a horizontal east-west light rail line from the Airport to East Charlotte.

If there are any early lessons from BLE, it's build onto the existing line for a higher return, yet avoid significant reconstruction of streets (Tryon) for a lower cost. Hence, a future east-west line should interline with as many existing stations, plus utilize wide rights-of-way with limited street crossings for new alignment.

But for now, let's celebrate this latest milestone for Charlotte! There will be plenty of time during BLE construction to start re-thinking the greater system plan.

[dubone]

I agree ,at least we will have a line that goes end to end across the city. A 20-mile line is a significant accomplishment in a decade.

[Windsurfer]

Hence, a future east-west line should interline with as many existing stations, plus utilize wide rights-of-way with limited street crossings for new alignment.

Not sure of your opinion of freeways, but many have objected to freeways because they split up neighborhoods. Wouldn't limited street crossings cause the same thing?

[kermit]

OK, first I am estatic that the BLE is now (hopefully) beyond the meddling reach of anti-transit ideologues in Raleigh and DC.

http://www.fta.dot.gov/newsroom/12286_14886.html

Second (i realize this is tacky whining), I am a bit disapointed we did not get the same 'fast-track' (design build) status that the SW line in Minneapolis did two weeks ago.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/10/01/politics/white-house-expedites-sw-lrt/

Whining over, I'll go back to thinking about how great it will be to finally be able to sell one of my cars....

[Urbanity]

^^If I read that article right it seems like the Minneapolis line is still in the planning stages and on the environmental impact portion. Unlikely they will get built before we do.

[dubone]

We already did the design part, so design-build can't save us money. This announcement kicks off the spending federal money on construction. Knowing we'd get the federal money allowed us to start spending some local money to order the vehicles. But of course, we have to first spend some money buying the property for the new right of way.

Unlike in the South corridor, there are lots of individual property owners affected, because unlike originally envisioned, they needed to widen N Tryon into all of the adjoining properties. This is somewhat like they did at Scaleybark at South, but this time they used a bridge to and from that median rather than a much maligned surface crossing.

If they had chosen the alternative route of staying on the Norfolk-Southern right of way the whole way, obtaining the rights of way would be nearly immediate rather than the year long process that this route requires.

[Norm2]

Why did the city decide to put in the light rail in the middle of N. Tryon rather than follow existing rail lines?

[southslider]

^For awhile now, University City Partners has envisoned a transformation of North Tryon from IKEA to UNCC. The alignment should help facilitate UCP's committed transformation.

[tozmervo]

Not to mention it'll lead to direct infrastructure improvement for 4 miles of North Tryon, which is already a surprisingly pedestrian-intensive stretch.

I never noticed this metric, but it's worth mentioning: they're estimating 18000 riders for the extension and providing 3100 parking spaces. I don't know what the balance is for the existing blue line, but I was impressed that they're estimating that many ped/bike/bus boarders. (note: that would be 9000 one-way riders, so roughly one parking space for every three commuters)

[orulz]

If you're wondering what North Tryon Street (might) look like after it's built out, I recently was in San Jose, California. I envision North Tryon Street looking a lot like what the VTA light rail on North 1st Street looks like from about Mission to Tasman. VTA light rail gets a lot of criticism in blogging circles for its low ridership per mile, but that's a product of its outer branches like the part between Mountain View and Great America station. The First Street spine is really quite busy. There's also several large TOD apartments both recently completed and under construction along the line that were built after the most recent Google Maps images were taken.

[thetrick]

A couple things to remember.

The low cost of the southern portion of the Lynxs is due to the fact that the portion from Woodlawn north was not only and existing railroad right of way but it was abandoned. The portion south of Woodlawn while in an existing RR right of way is dramatically more expensive due to it needing to facilitate an existing active freight RR.

There are no abandoned railroad right of ways in Charlotte that go through anything even remotely as dense an urban environment as the existing Lynx route. The only thing that comes close is the old Piedmont and Northern heading east from downtown, but it is only partially abandoned.

Also Airport links are not the no-brainer that people think they are. It is a single point destination and if you can not pick up enough high density urban areas along the way the total number of daily riders vs cost is way off.

The BLE while expensive will be a massive boon to the area, I can't wait. Plus this will make my Bike-Train-Bike commute I have dreamed of a reality.

TH

[Urbanity]

Not to mention it'll lead to direct infrastructure improvement for 4 miles of North Tryon, which is already a surprisingly pedestrian-intensive stretch.

A lot of people do not realize this. From the UNCC to the IKEA - North Tryon (particularly the West side ) is a continuously side walked and very pedestrian used area. The part that drives me nuts though is WT Harris which doesn't have a crosswalk or even pedestrian crosswalk lights.

The BLE will hopefully add more density along that strip and make it more urban.

[New Name]

It's time to review the station plans for WT Harris - who will dig through the years of drafts to find "the one"? My memory is that the LYNX will begin a slow ramp up starting around McCullough, crossing WT Harris, then diving down to a station near where the Panera Bread currently is - and then immediately going subterranean crossing under Tryon to access UNCC.

I plan to go to the second station area planning meeting on Thursday - but they are not focusing (or showing) the University section at these meetings.

[tozmervo]

^ Select the appropriate stretch and enjoy: http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/cats/planning/BLE/Pages/BLEAlignmentMaps.aspx

The heavy pink line indicates where the tracks leave grade

[Niner National]

I thought they did away with the subterranean portion?

If the design work is already completed, why is construction not starting for 13 months. Seems long to me, but I know very little about what must take place before construction can begin.

[tozmervo]

There's still a lot of design work to do. On July 9 they were 65% done. Land acquisition will take quite a bit of time, then utility relocation is a whole mess on it's own.

[ah59396]

^plans are done, but they still need to go through right of way acquisition. It can be a difficult process at times.

So, what Tozmervo said.

Edited October 16, 2012 by ah59396

[dubone]

I thought they did away with the subterranean portion?

If the design work is already completed, why is construction not starting for 13 months. Seems long to me, but I know very little about what must take place before construction can begin.

There is no subterranean portion. They are probably 3/4 through design, but most of the strategic decisions are likely done, with the remainder being value engineering and utility details, etc. Obviously some things will change, but highly doubt they will be for the better (recall all the things we lost at the very end of the South line, including 3-car stations, to stay in budget).

According to the current design maps (again, unlikely to change substantially), they have the following bridges:

- Short bridge over CSX

- Short bridge over Little Sugar Creek

- Short bridge over the tracks and substation access road east of Matheson

- Short bridge over the sunken 36th St

- Long bridge to cross to the other side of the freigh tracks (at Craighead)

- Short bridge over the sunken Temporarily at-grade crossing at Sugar Creek Road until NCDOT builds a bridge over the rail corridor

- Extra span of bridge for Eastway to go over the BLE tracks

- Long bridge to enter the median of Tryon

- Short bridge over redone i85 connector

- Short bridge over University City Blvd

- Long bridge over Harris Blvd

- Medium bridge to exit median of Tryon onto UNCC campus

- Long bridge over Toby Creek

It is a lot of bridges, but most of them are short spans with long ramps up.

They have a quite a large number of at grade crossings, too:

- 7th, 8th, 9th, [10th], 12th, 16th near uptown

Then at pretty much every minor traffic signal on Tryon:

- Orr, Arrowhead, Owen, Tom Hunter, Orchard Trace, Shopping Center/Univ. Pointe, McCullough, Ken Hoffman, JM Keynes, JW Clay, Institute Circle.

They do, however, have a long section with no at-grade crossings when going along the freight corridor from 16th to Old Concord, so that is likely where they will go at the higher speeds. Many of the grade crossings on Tryon, do not have a lot of traffic crossing Tryon, as many of those roads go primarily on one side of Tryon, or they are enter/exit shopping areas. So I suspect there won't really be any one of those at-grade crossings that affects traffic enough to be a problem for average citizens.

[Urbanity]

If the design work is already completed, why is construction not starting for 13 months. Seems long to me, but I know very little about what must take place before construction can begin.

As dubone already stated:

Unlike in the South corridor, there are lots of individual property owners affected, because unlike originally envisioned, they needed to widen N Tryon into all of the adjoining properties.

EDITED: BTW as a resident of the area - my complex has a number of flags on the property on the North Tryon side and while it would not affect any of the actual residences directly - there is SIGNIFICANT grading work to do as most of the area is a steep decline (45 degrees at least). If that is just one property I can't imagine the who stretch that crosses into traffic on North Tryon which is a moderate to heavily developed area of the city.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Urbanity

[Guest]

http://m.charlotteobserver.com/charlotte/db_97739/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=wmoVJbOF

A great article by one of the more conservative CO writers. Cheers to a big day.

[Otto]

- Short bridge over the sunken Sugar Creek Road (paid for by NCDOT outside of this project, so not shown)

NCDOT and CDOT are proposing to carry Sugar Creek Road over the NCRR/BLE corridor. Taking Sugar Creek under the railroad corridor would result in a severe low spot under the railroad bridges. As such during severe rain events, draining the low spot would be very difficult without the installation and maintenance of some type of pump system.