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Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line


dubone

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20 hours ago, SgtCampsalot said:

I feel the Parkwood Station should have been at 16th St.

Beyond the Optimist Hall issue, the gap running from 9th St to 16th St would be bad enough, but to Parkwood (which is essentially 20th St) is all that much worse.

Prediction... there will be a stop between 9th and Parkwood by end of 2030. (not in blue)

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Just now, Scribe said:

Prediction... there will be a stop between 9th and Parkwood by end of 2030. (not in blue)

as someone said I dont this it is possible.  the line is elevated there due the fact it is going over the CSX line and the cost to build a new station in an elevated area like that would be HIGH

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Probably means nothing but...

On the train this morning someone (heading uptown) was riding with rolled up blueprints for a project for Publix by Little Architects. Unfortunately that was all I could see. I am not enough of an architect fanboy to know what they are working on at the moment. I guess odds are its some suburban stripmall project.

Edited by kermit
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2 hours ago, kermit said:

Probably means nothing but...

On the train this morning someone (heading uptown) was riding with rolled up blueprints for a project for Publix by Little Architects. Unfortunately that was all I could see. I am not enough of an Architect fanboy to know what they are working on at the moment. I guess odds are its some suburban stripmall project.

Probably someone heading into work as their office is at 615 College right by the Westin. As a former employee I know they do a large amount of supermarket projects... they have an entire studio devoted to it. I know we have some active posters here currently employed by little who could divulge if they are indeed working on an urban publix

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9 hours ago, UrbanCharlotte said:

Probably someone heading into work as their office is at 615 College right by the Westin. As a former employee I know they do a large amount of supermarket projects... they have an entire studio devoted to it. I know we have some active posters here currently employed by little who could divulge if they are indeed working on an urban publix

Don't work for Little but there has been plans for a Publix on the ground floor of a new office development at 9th and Tryon floating around since 2016 but that was Furman/Axiom not Little, although I could see that site being upgraded into something larger than was originally planned. I think there was also talk of a Publix Greenwise store opening in the Amelie's development in Villa Heights

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Random observation. There’s a lot of people onboarding from 25th Street Station now. Used to be a ghost town. The new apartments are barely open and there are hundreds of additional apartments in progress in the immediate area. 
 

Trains are already packed. Has CATS mentioned any plans for how to address the morning commute?

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1 hour ago, Matthew.Brendan said:

Trains are already packed. Has CATS mentioned any plans for how to address the morning commute?

Based on their statements and how they compile their ridership data, I would be surprised if  CATS was even aware that peak hour crowding is an issue. I have never once seen CATS report anything other than monthly ridership numbers. There isn't much that CATS can do in the short run, any capacity increase at peak will require more vehicles, the factory lead time on those will be at least a year.

I kinda think that we should structure some coordinated data collection so we can show CATS that crowding is a problem — not sure how to make that work...

 

Edited by kermit
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2 minutes ago, kermit said:

Based on their statements CATS does not appear to be aware that peak hour crowding is an issue. I have never once seen CATS report anything other than monthly ridership numbers. There isn't much that CATS can do in the short run, any capacity increase at peak will require more vehicles, the factory lead time on those will be at least a year.

I kinda think that we should structure some coordinated data collection so we can show CATS that crowding is a problem — not sure how to make that work...

 

I was talking to my friends about this last night.  Can you imagine peak hour trains at East/West once Lowes and our new 23 story tower open?!

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When we say packed we mean there are people standing everywhere along the entire length of the train, at least from my experience.

Thing is, we and CATS need to be in action about this now, due to the realities of a long timeline to implement any new changes. The absolute explosion in population/work/commute ridership in the coming year will easily overwhelm morning and afternoon rush times. 

It's a great problem to have, with it being a wild success, but there needs to be active planning / implementation NOW, not after the problem has grown into a miserable condition.

 

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46 minutes ago, grodney said:

At these super-crowded times, do people go up in the front and back and stand in the aisle between the seats?  I'm only on a crowded train about twice year, and nobody seems to do this.....but my sample is exceedingly small.

Yup, happens to me about 3-4x a week on Southbound afternoon trains between 4:30 and 6 (but only CTC and after). 

The BLE is certainly performing better but is a long way from this level of crowding. The only times I have  seen lots of people  standing on the BLE is on event days.

as an aside, one of the incredibly nice things about the Blue Line is, when crowded, people standing near the doors will exit the train and stand beside the doors to make it easier for others to exit. I have seen that no where else in the world. It’s an incredibly considerate gesture.

Edited by kermit
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11 hours ago, UrbanCharlotte said:

Probably someone heading into work as their office is at 615 College right by the Westin. As a former employee I know they do a large amount of supermarket projects... they have an entire studio devoted to it. I know we have some active posters here currently employed by little who could divulge if they are indeed working on an urban publix

Not a part of that specific studio but unless they're keeping it a secret from the rest of the office, no urban Publix planned here. Almost definitely one of the many Publix stores we work on around the country.

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Just kicked off a train at Parkwood which attempted to reboot, the train came back online but was immediately taken out of service. 

I don’t expect CATS to be perfect but a two year old train crapping out for mechanical reasons in mid-run? Gezzz.

066F3B94-387D-4598-8093-EEA7E2FBB50E.jpeg

Edited by kermit
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1 hour ago, kermit said:

Just booted off a train at Parkwood which attempted to reboot but the just went out of service. 

I don’t expect CATS to be perfect but a two year old train crapping out for mechanical reasons in mid-run? Gezzz.

066F3B94-387D-4598-8093-EEA7E2FBB50E.jpeg

I can remember this happening on the Light Rail in Pittsburgh more times than I can count.  It REALLY sucked in the winter!

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3 minutes ago, kermit said:

ahh, I had thought all the 300-series trains were acquired for the BLE. Mea culpa if I was mistaken.

I paused before I posted about #302 but I'm not certain if I'm right, either. Wikipedia doesn't include an exhaustive list of all our train vehicles and their service dates :)

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