Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[Windsurfer]

Who can guarantee shopping malls will even exist soon with the online phenoms.?

Why not a stop in downtown Pineville?

[InSouthPark]

6 minutes ago, Windsurfer said:

Who can guarantee shopping malls will even exist soon with the online phenoms.?

Why not a stop in downtown Pineville?

If they are planning that spur to Rock Hill, that would likely incorporate downtown.  But considering how much Pineville fought the initial light rail...heck with em.  

But if the mall doesn't exist in the future, whatever they develop there would likely house more people than downtown Pineville has (and might be a better option anyways.  Tear it down and build a Birkdale type mixed use.

[Windsurfer]

47 minutes ago, InSouthPark said:

If they are planning that spur to Rock Hill, that would likely incorporate downtown.  But considering how much Pineville fought the initial light rail...heck with em.  

But if the mall doesn't exist in the future, whatever they develop there would likely house more people than downtown Pineville has (and might be a better option anyways.  Tear it down and build a Birkdale type mixed use.

Too bad they can't do both then. I think most folks in Pineville have learned their lesson about shunning it.

[ertley]

I took the survey, and chose Option B for Pineville as well--a No Brainer. 

For Ballantyne, I chose Option B as well, but offered (of course, realizing any comments won't probably matter) a specific site for the station: the middle of the "Brixham Green" office park. Currently there's nothing but a tree'd mini park or plaza there (I hate losing trees, but obvs hundreds of trees are going to be cut anyway). The Brixham Green site would mean no existing buildings would have to be demolished, and there's SO much parking in that zone it provides ample room for a station along with a generous parking deck (or two), since certainly the Ballantyne station will have to have one, which could also compensate for the lost surface parking. 

Is there a reason, too, why the line is being taken along 485 after leaving Carolina Place instead of down the Lancaster Highway, where the county owns most of the land on the east side of the road? Unless there are engineering or environmental regulations why, it seems to me that routing would relieve a lot of right of way issues, and having the line come down the east side of the Lanc Hwy means you could even plan for an eventual intermediate stop there, before turning it east to go into the heart of Ballantyne.

I would just make it immediately parallel (again, unless its not practicable) to Duke's transformer right of way, from Lancaster Highway to Brixham Green.

IMHO. 

[LKN704]

I feel that the Ballantyne/Pineville extension would be pretty easy to get Federal/State funding for (although not in the current administration).

TBH, given the area's density, I feel that CATS should consider building the line on an elevated guideway. While it's not as pretty or anything, it would really eliminate all of the issues currently present with the Blue Line extension. 

[orulz]

If they are planning that spur to Rock Hill, that would likely incorporate downtown.  But considering how much Pineville fought the initial light rail...heck with em.  
But if the mall doesn't exist in the future, whatever they develop there would likely house more people than downtown Pineville has (and might be a better option anyways.  Tear it down and build a Birkdale type mixed use.

Light rail to Rock Hill (or Gastonia or Huntersville or Concord, all of which have been suggested in some official capacity) is insane. Regional rail, y'all.

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, orulz said:

4 hours ago, InSouthPark said:

If they are planning that spur to Rock Hill, that would likely incorporate downtown.  But considering how much Pineville fought the initial light rail...heck with em.  
But if the mall doesn't exist in the future, whatever they develop there would likely house more people than downtown Pineville has (and might be a better option anyways.  Tear it down and build a Birkdale type mixed use.

Light rail to Rock Hill (or Gastonia or Huntersville or Concord, all of which have been suggested in some official capacity) is insane. Regional rail, y'all.

Yea, none of this is how light rail is supposed to operate. 

[TangoWithTheRango]

I hate they are proposing to send it through the mall area.  Should be a stop right in downtown Pineville where there are lots of new builds in the area in walkable distance. 

[kermit]

Imagine how different downtown and South Pineville would be now if the Blue Line had been running there for the last 12 years.

[southslider]

Downtown Pineville isn't on the way to Ballantyne.

[asthasr]

Downtown Pineville is basically nothing, anyway. It'd be great to see it incorporated in a genuine urban district, but ultimately it's about twenty small downtown buildings that cover a footprint equivalent to two moderately sized modern "megablock" buildings. Carolina Place has more potential as a development parcel and may even be a walkable urban node in the future.

[Windsurfer]

On 5/27/2019 at 11:22 AM, asthasr said:

Downtown Pineville is basically nothing, anyway. It'd be great to see it incorporated in a genuine urban district, but ultimately it's about twenty small downtown buildings that cover a footprint equivalent to two moderately sized modern "megablock" buildings. Carolina Place has more potential as a development parcel and may even be a walkable urban node in the future.

Like Eastland? ;-)

[asthasr]

58 minutes ago, Windsurfer said:

Like Eastland? ;-)

Not an unfair comparison, but Carolina Place isn't dead yet, might get a light rail stop before it is, and is (frankly) in a much better location with easy access to 485 and 77.

[grodney]

Well, I keep forgetting to check the time at the end of my train trip, because I just don't care enough.  So I'll just post my stats and give up.

Notes:

- *ALL* of my 23 trips lost time to the schedule.  That means: During the trip, they were farther behind schedule at the end of my trip than at the start of my trip.  This is on the original blue line, not the extension.

- Northbound from 485 (end-of-the-line), 8 of 13 trips started on time (or early).  This despite the incoming train being 3-8 minutes late (average 5.5) arriving on its southbound trip.  Luckily they have a 9 minute turnaround window.  Arriving stats not shown on chart.

- Southbound from 3rd Street was on time 2 out of 10 trips, with 6 out of 10 being 3 or more minutes late.

 

[davidclt]

32 minutes ago, grodney said:

- *ALL* of my 23 trips lost time to the schedule. 

It feels like there are a lot of new conductors (is that what you call train drivers?). A few weeks ago after 7:00 p.m., at 3rd Street, I watched northbound and southbound trains "Not in Service" stop shy of 3rd Street and pull in s-l-o-w-l-y. It was painful to watch as I waited for my revenue service train. Everything feels like it's slowing down and the schedules are (as stated before) illusory at best. With the buses, there may be some excuse. With Lynx, I really don't know what their excuse is. One thing is for sure, they're not engaged on social media except for boosterism, non-newsy updates and memes.

Edited May 29, 2019 by davidclt

[grodney]

1 hour ago, davidclt said:

One thing is for sure, they're not engaged on social media except for boosterism, non-newsy updates and memes.

On My 13 they tweetered:

"

WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS!

Tell us what content you want to see!  Drop a comment on this thread and let us know! 

#feedback #publictransit #CATSconnectsYou

"

They got some replies.....some about content for their twitter feed, and some about general improvements.

 

[kermit]

On 4/18/2019 at 3:13 PM, kermit said:

While we are talking about busted stuff...

This grade crossing signal and gate has been gone for more than three weeks. This situation requires every train to come to a complete stop before proceeding.

 

They were pouring concrete here yesterday for this gate replacement. So roughly 2.5 months to _begin_ to fix a crossing gate; this means that _every_ train passing through the intersection came to a complete stop here before proceeding for that entire time.

Related to the above schedule keeping has become atrocious. I watched 6 trains pass as I ate breakfast at Waffle House yesterday. None was within 3 minutes of scheduled arrival. One northbound train was seven minutes late (on a 15 minute headway!) while the northbound following was only 3 minutes behind it (both were in service). We paid almost $1.5 billion for this thing (BLE and the original line) -- why can't they run it properly?

Edited May 29, 2019 by kermit

[davidclt]

3 hours ago, grodney said:

WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS!

...

They got some replies.....some about content for their twitter feed, and some about general improvements.

Two of the replies were from me. Still, CATS doesn't engage on social media. They tweet messages at their followers (of questionable value) but they haven't changed their style or level of engagement at all. They rolled out another engagement channel to collect feedback (and incentivised engagement with a free day pass) and "engage." Once I realized that it too was yelling into a void, I deleted the app, abandoning that channel.

Their customer service is a joke, reflecting precisely how the feel about their customers (ambivalence at best but most probably contempt). CATS treat their customers (and Charlotte in general treat transit users) as though there worth no more than shame for having to or choosing to use transit. As evidence of this see: the state of their rolling stock that's greater than about two years old, the abysmal and dreary state of the Transit Center, the lack of upkeep on their light rail stations, the inability to establish and deliver on their schedules, the provisioning and maintaining of their bus stops, the inability to provide frequency on routes to make their service attractive (see Sprinter).

Edited May 29, 2019 by davidclt

[Durhamite]

24 minutes ago, davidclt said:

Two of the replies were from me. Still, CATS doesn't engage on social media. They tweet messages at their followers (of questionable value) but they haven't changed their style or level of engagement at all. They rolled out another engagement channel to collect feedback (and incentivised engagement with a free day pass) and "engage." Once I realized that it too was yelling into a void, I deleted the app, abandoning that channel.

Their customer service is a joke, reflecting precisely how the feel about their customers (ambivalence at best but most probably contempt). CATS treat their customers (and Charlotte in general treat transit users) as though there worth no more than shame for having to or choosing to use transit. As evidence of this see: the state of their rolling stock that's greater than about two years old, the abysmal and dreary state of the Transit Center, the lack of upkeep on their light rail stations, the inability to establish and deliver on their schedules, the provisioning and maintaining of their bus stops, the inability to provide frequency on routes to make their service attractive (see Sprinter).

Not certain about other rail transit systems (and have ridden CATS rail), but the Metro in DC was unreliable when I use to commute everyday for work.  I'm not certain as to what magic wand you want them to wave but this seems to pretty common with most rail transit systems in this country.  I do think there's a lot of negative hyperbole regarding public transit  (definitely could be better but surely not as bad as made out to be), it's a sacrifice in most cases plus in DC,  Fed Gov employees are subsidized to commute, so grin and bear it (parking really isn't a good option)

I think people are so accustomed to the convenience of a car so expectations are out of whack with reality.  Train is gonna be late (a lot), all sorts of unforeseen mechanical and weather related issues, etc.  Rail is a pro and con situation  everywhere.

[XRZ.ME]

Recently schedule is in a mess
And lots of mechanic issue at least from twitter
Yesterday 4:50~5:20
A train stops at 7th st south bound directly affect rush hour service.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kermit]

19 minutes ago, Durhamite said:

Not certain about other rail transit systems (and have ridden CATS rail), but the Metro in DC was unreliable when I use to commute everyday for work.  I'm not certain as to what magic wand you want them to wave but this seems to pretty common with most rail transit systems in this country.  I do think there's a lot of negative hyperbole regarding public transit  (definitely could be better but surely not as bad as made out to be), it's a sacrifice in most cases plus in DC,  Fed Gov employees are subsidized to commute, so grin and bear it (parking really isn't a good option)

I think people are so accustomed to the convenience of a car so expectations are out of whack with reality.  Train is gonna be late (a lot), all sorts of unforeseen mechanical and weather related issues, etc.  Rail is a pro and con situation  everywhere.

Sure, yes, transit is complicated, yada yada.

The point remains, if we want people to ride transit, those people need to be confident they will be delivered to work on time. Reliability is the chief selling point for rail (congestion free trip, etc.) but CATS can't manage any semblance of schedule keeping on its single -brand new- line with vehicles that are all less than 12 years old. What is going to happen as the system ages and gets more complex?

I ride the Blue Line every day to work, unfortunately I have to use my car on non-work trips because the 15-20 minute headways are just too much of a time suck for me. CATS is missing out on about 10 additional rides per week from me due to their scheduling, and the city is missing out on having an additional car free household. My wife is considering abandoning the rail and returning to her car because she is tired of showing up at the station and then waiting 10 minutes beyond the schedule for her train.

[davidclt]

1 hour ago, Durhamite said:

I'm not certain as to what magic wand you want them to wave

Increased headways all day long would be a good start. 5 minutes in the rush hours, 7-8 all other times until 10 p.m. when it goes to 10-15.

[kermit]

12 minutes ago, davidclt said:

Increased headways all day long would be a good start. 5 minutes in the rush hours, 7-8 all other times until 10 p.m. when it goes to 10-15.

Yup, this would solve nearly all of the schedule problems CATS currently inflicts on itself.

Don't forget, CATS promised 5 minutes peak and 10 minute all day headways in their FFGA application and travel demand models. Asking them to actually deliver what was promised does not seem to be a big ask. 

[davidclt]

7 hours ago, davidclt said:

They rolled out another engagement channel to collect feedback (and incentivised engagement with a free day pass) and "engage."

Because I'm a masochist (and like talking to myself), I reinstalled SpokeHub on my phone to see if  CATS had done any more "engagement" in the SpokeHub than they had in Twitter. I'm dismayed to see their presence on SpokeHub is even more sporadic than Twitter.

[Brendv7]

Can we just hire whoever runs Disney’s monorail? On time or crap hits the fan I bet.