Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[kayman]

2 hours ago, kermit said:

can we banish these drivers?

Edit: CATS can’t hire enough drivers to run four trains an hour, but they manage to have enough manpower so my fare gets inspected three times in a single trip.  Priorities…

 

Most of fare checkers are contracted through private vendors with the City of Charlotte to do their jobs... 

For the record, mass transit systems nationwide (MARTA in Metro Atlanta for example) are dealing with shortages of drivers and operators and reduced frequency. CATS is not some anomaly. 

[kermit]

Some changes on the UNCC main platform indicating that someone is thinking about 3 car trains:

(The 3 sign is in the distance, there is also a 1 sign)

Please no. Just run 2 car trains more often!

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by kermit

[tozmervo]

32 minutes ago, kermit said:

Some changes on the UNCC main platform indicating that someone is thinking about 3 car trains:

(The 3 sign is in the distance, there is also a 1 sign)

Please no. Just run trains more often!

They won't be running 3-car trains for a long time. There are still 9 or 10 platforms on the original blue line that have to be enlarged (including 3rd street and CTC, which will be really messy)

[Durhamite]

On 8/18/2022 at 9:35 AM, AirNostrumMAD said:

You’ve brought up the national and US environment before too, so forgive me for mentioning other areas in advanced…

My Fortune 500 company in the DC area currently has every vaccinated person coming in Tuesday & Wednesday’s. Starting October 10th, unvaccinated, immunocompromised and those with kids under 5 must come in too. Starting Jan. 2023, the required days ramp up to Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursdays.  Most companies are going back or going to go be back in the office. Transit agencies shouldn’t sit on their hands expecting to live in a pandemic lockdown world indefinitely. 

Looking at Los Angeles, Seattle, DC, New York, Amtrak, San Francisco and some others. They’re hardcore investing in transit, rail transit, bus enhancements, bus/streetcar only lanes and there are historical levels of investments in mass transit, green infrastructure, going carbon neutral, etc. If you look at Canada, it’s night & day versus what their country is doing overall vs. the US.

In DC, we have the 20 Mile light rail purple line U/C, 11 mile heavy rail extension U/C, streetcar extension about to be U/C, bus/streetcar only street conversions (K St. transit way), BRT extension , $2 billion long bridge replacement that will allow our suburban trains to act as a secondary metro u/c (similar to the already all day 7/day/week Camden line on MARC train), all buses to be 100% electric by 2045, the bus ridership, a southern light rail got preliminary funding, Northern Virginia is moving ahead with plans to jumpstart the $20 billion line that will start in Arlington, under the river and through Georgetown and through central DC, etc etc. There’s a lot more but point taken. And this same level of investment is true for quite a few other US cities. 

Yes, the pandemic changed some things. Lots of temporary things but one positive is that many transit organizations are pivoting from a commuter model to a holistic model of getting people to where they want to go. Which is the purpose of mass transit. If you have nowhere to go, don’t go anywhere, then you shouldn’t care about mass transit. 

Is Charlotte still going to grow? Is everyone buying homes in Charlotte never going to leave their homes? Will the density stop? Do people in Charlotte not go out? Go shopping?

If CATS is going to throw up their hands and say “well. Telework… nothing we can do about the pandemic making in-person work a thing of the past” - then again, they fail. Transit planning shouldn’t be about getting commuters to work and creating areas for real estate development… it should be about getting people where they need. And surely the people of Charlotte need/want to go somewhere outside of their homes… What if people needed to go to Target for a quick errand. Mass transit is an option where I am for say target. 

 

There would be more density and a lot more ridership if rail and bus could easily and quickly get you to Northlake, SouthPark, Concord Mills & Carolina Place malls, Carowinds, US National white water center, Birkdale Village, Cornelius, Huntersville, Davidson, Matthews, Ballantyne, all the various shopping centers & employment centers in the area, Gastonia, Concord, Rock Hill, Lake Wylie, Lake Norman, Indian Trail. If Charlotte had that, I’m sure many more people on this board would use their car less.

If people want Charlotte to grow. Want Charlotte to become more dense. Etc. There’s just no way around the continued importance of mass transit investments. Work from home or not. You can’t be dense, growing, low cost & not have significant mass transit. Telework, no telework, whatever. 

CATS needs revamped. And someone needs to have a vision of reimagining of how Charlotte moves. And views CATS as more than a system for poor minorities that have no choice but to deal with crappy frequency and crappy bus infrastructure and nice buses and some token trains geared towards white collar suburban workers.

If you want other examples of US cities planning for the future, sustainability, density, etc. they’re out there. But this wholesale idea that mass transit is a thing of the past is not true. The future is green. 
 

Edit: And if telework killed mass transit, then surely it is killing the need for more roads too. Maybe we can cancel all these crazy expensive road widenings, bridge replacements etc.  Nobody needs to drive if they can sit on their butt all day and still get paid. 

Ok, back in the office like Centene? This is pie in the sky talk,  all I’m saying is bring in all the thought leaders  to Charlotte you want, the problem is beyond CATs and is national. At the end of the study, the result will be more funding is needed.  How are you going to increase frequency with reduced ridership? That’s pure fantasy and delusional.  
 

  Well, that ain’t happening if ridership is decreasing and federal funding is on other infrastructure.  Do your research on sunbelt cities and the current state of mass transit then get back to me. …with all these glorious expansion plans.
 

 I leaved in DC for years, all over the metro area,  next to Orange and Blue line stops. Its still much more convenient to drive than use the metro for the large majority of people in DC.  I’m not inferring to throw the towel in but the problem ain’t CATs, it’s an American one…fix that, you fix CATs.

[15895]

16 hours ago, Durhamite said:

Ok, back in the office like Centene? This is pie in the sky talk,  all I’m saying is bring in all the thought leaders  to Charlotte you want, the problem is beyond CATs and is national. At the end of the study, the result will be more funding is needed.  How are you going to increase frequency with reduced ridership? That’s pure fantasy and delusional.  
 

  Well, that ain’t happening if ridership is decreasing and federal funding is on other infrastructure.  Do your research on sunbelt cities and the current state of mass transit then get back to me. …with all these glorious expansion plans.
 

 I leaved in DC for years, all over the metro area,  next to Orange and Blue line stops. Its still much more convenient to drive than use the metro for the large majority of people in DC.  I’m not inferring to throw the towel in but the problem ain’t CATs, it’s an American one…fix that, you fix CATs.

 

I do think CATS is performing worse than all of the others but I at least know what several agencies are doing to adjust to a post-Covid19 Pandemic. I'm not exactly sure what CATS's plans are.

And the data backs up that CATS is doing the worst in recovery (if not increasingly significantly worse) https://transitapp.com/APTA  I'm typing every major city I can think of from Pittsburg, Raleigh, Tampa, Kansas City, DC, Chicago, etc. and Charlotte considerably lags in the APTA ridership numbers. And in other sources I've seen, Charlotte seems to lag noticeably. 

 

https://www.wfae.org/charlotte-area/2022-07-18/getting-off-the-bus-how-charlotte-lost-75-of-its-passengers-in-less-than-a-decade additionally, CATS bus ridership has recovered the worst of the 50 largest transit agencies. There’s just a lot of evidence pointing to the need to examine CATS leadership, etc. There’s other articles with one council member I believe calling for a task force to examine CATS troubles. Some of you could defend Charlotte at its own peril. Yeesh.  On a side not, the Triangle has higher ridership than CATS  (as in raw numbers of riders between Go Raleigh/Durham/Triangle. Not just percent) 

Edited August 23, 2022 by AirNostrumMAD

[tozmervo]

2 hours ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

And the data backs up that CATS is doing the worst in recovery (if not increasingly significantly worse) https://transitapp.com/APTA  I'm typing every major city I can think of from Pittsburg, Raleigh, Tampa, Kansas City, DC, Chicago, etc. and Charlotte considerably lags in the APTA ridership numbers. And in other sources I've seen, Charlotte seems to lag noticeably. If the data is accurate, if I interpret it accurately. Then the dip in ridership is notable.

What a phenomenal data resource! You're right. No matter how you cut it, CATS is holding up very badly. I put in a variety of peer city and new south city systems to compare, and, well... CATS is still at the bottom, by quite a bit.

[JRCLT]

I hope good information come from the review

[kermit]

They managed to change the station signage, but they have not gotten around to the maps yet:

 

[tozmervo]

3 hours ago, kermit said:

They managed to change the station signage, but they have not gotten around to the maps yet:

Bus route 25 was also eliminated in 2018. 

[dylansukkert]

Cats should be embarrassed with the light rail last night. 30k+ at the CFC game, 15k+ at the Lumineers concert, and then another concert at the Uptown Amphitheater and then the regular Saturday night crowd. Seems like a decent night to add more trains. Waited at the station in Southend for a solid 45 mins with at least 50 other people. When the train finally came it was at max capacity. Only way we got on was a few people getting off, the majority of the people waiting had to wait for the next train which was scheduled for 30 mins later. How many times does this have to happen for CATS to change things? 

[Desert Power]

13 minutes ago, dylansukkert said:

Cats should be embarrassed with the light rail last night. 30k+ at the CFC game, 15k+ at the Lumineers concert, and then another concert at the Uptown Amphitheater and then the regular Saturday night crowd. Seems like a decent night to add more trains. Waited at the station in Southend for a solid 45 mins with at least 50 other people. When the train finally came it was at max capacity. Only way we got on was a few people getting off, the majority of the people waiting had to wait for the next train which was scheduled for 30 mins later. How many times does this have to happen for CATS to change things? 

There is no hope of change without a change in leadership and that may even not be enough.

[15895]

Some of Y’all would know better. On days they know there are special events, can’t they put a couple more trains on say from 485 to 7th st. And back and from UNCC to Carson and back in addition to the regularly scheduled trains? Even bus bridges to select park & rides. 

Maybe even have staff at select stations that will likely be the busiest to answer questions, give real time updates , recommendations etc. 

They do have to get better. They have the resources to be better on even just having staff out at a couple stations answers questions… or some bus bridges. 

Edited August 28, 2022 by AirNostrumMAD

[Desert Power]

42 minutes ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

Some of Y’all would know better. On days they know there are special events, can’t they put a couple more trains on say from 485 to 7th st. And back and from UNCC to Carson and back in addition to the regularly scheduled trains? Even bus bridges to select park & rides. 

Maybe even have staff at select stations that will likely be the busiest to answer questions, give real time updates , recommendations etc. 

They do have to get better. They have the resources to be better on even just having staff out at a couple stations answers questions… or some bus bridges. 

Not sure if it is the case for train conductors, but worth noting that bus drivers are not actually part of CATS. Probably isn't very simple to get folks to work more when you have the bureaucracy of a third party contractor to deal with.

[dylansukkert]

Also how do buses and the gold line have real time tracking but not the light rail? 

[kermit]

1 hour ago, Desert Power said:

Not sure if it is the case for train conductors, but worth noting that bus drivers are not actually part of CATS. Probably isn't very simple to get folks to work more when you have the bureaucracy of a third party contractor to deal with.

Ely Portillo told the story of how we ended up with unionized bus drivers. He didn't explicitly mention the rail drivers, but the reason Ely gave suggests that the Blue Line drivers are non-union. Regardless, CATS has known about these events schedules for many months (at a minimum), there is absolutely no operational reason (other than a failure to staff properly) why they could not have added another couple of trains for the post event period.

https://ui.charlotte.edu/story/four-things-i-wish-id-known-about-charlotte-transit-i-started-writing-about-it

Edited August 28, 2022 by kermit

[JRCLT]

Also how do buses and the gold line have real time tracking but not the light rail? 

Mix of much easier to put together for those vehicles/incompetence and shortsightedness.

[gman430]

6 hours ago, dylansukkert said:

Cats should be embarrassed with the light rail last night. 30k+ at the CFC game, 15k+ at the Lumineers concert, and then another concert at the Uptown Amphitheater and then the regular Saturday night crowd. Seems like a decent night to add more trains. Waited at the station in Southend for a solid 45 mins with at least 50 other people. When the train finally came it was at max capacity. Only way we got on was a few people getting off, the majority of the people waiting had to wait for the next train which was scheduled for 30 mins later. How many times does this have to happen for CATS to change things? 

Isn’t there a lack of drivers right now? You can only have so many trains running with the drivers that are available. 

Edited August 28, 2022 by gman430

[CLT2014]

It's like CATS wants people to stop using public transit. People have an experience waiting 45 minutes for a train and having it take forever to get home and go "WTH.... our buddies got home  after the game driving all the way to Albermarle in the same time it took us to go from Uptown to Woodlawn on the train... why on earth did we do this?" They then don't repeat ever again and stay glued to their Jeep Wrangler for everything. 

Edited August 28, 2022 by CLT2014

[kermit]

I am sure CATS is suffering from a lack of drivers. But, its CATS' job to run a reliable and frequent transit service so people can be confident they will get to work and back. The driver shortage is about two years old now. The fact that it has not been fixed means that someone (multiple people) have not been doing their jobs (to properly staff CATS) for MORE THAN TWO YEARS. Have pay rates gone up? Yes -- but its John Lewis' job to approach the city to ask for more (or use some of the stimulus money ) for the purpose -- I have not seen any sign he has done that. Are working conditions worse in the pandemic era? Undoubtedly yes. But its CATS' job to figure out a way to ameliorate that. 

It is not unreasonable to expect CATS to run bus and train service at a frequency that riders were accustomed to before the pandemic -- that is what we agreed to pay for when we voted to support the transit tax TWICE. CATS' incompetency is also not justified just because other transit agencies are also having trouble. The organization has leaders, the job of leaders is to solve problems. Until I see them busting their collective asses to solve these problems (no evidence of that) I am not letting anyone off the hook.

I am pissed. I am a daily rider. I want to be a transit evangelist. But I am pissed.

Edited August 29, 2022 by kermit

[TheMightyBK]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the staffing issues/quality of service is on purpose.


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[Durhamite]

17 hours ago, kermit said:

I am sure CATS is suffering from a lack of drivers. But, its CATS' job to run a reliable and frequent transit service so people can be confident they will get to work and back. The driver shortage is about two years old now. The fact that it has not been fixed means that someone (multiple people) have not been doing their jobs (to properly staff CATS) for MORE THAN TWO YEARS. Have pay rates gone up? Yes -- but its John Lewis' job to approach the city to ask for more (or use some of the stimulus money ) for the purpose -- I have not seen any sign he has done that. Are working conditions worse in the pandemic era? Undoubtedly yes. But its CATS' job to figure out a way to ameliorate that. 

It is not unreasonable to expect CATS to run bus and train service at a frequency that riders were accustomed to before the pandemic -- that is what we agreed to pay for when we voted to support the transit tax TWICE. CATS' incompetency is also not justified just because other transit agencies are also having trouble. The organization has leaders, the job of leaders is to solve problems. Until I see them busting their collective asses to solve these problems (no evidence of that) I am not letting anyone off the hook.

I am pissed. I am a daily rider. I want to be a transit evangelist. But I am pissed.

Got damn, how can you even justify with low ridership? The problem is everywhere and some of y’all just can’t seem to accept the entire public transit system in America is a mess and severely understaffed and underfunded.  Maybe they should shut the entire thing down, that is an option. They simply don’t have the money, you can be pissed.  The level of restaurant service is awful post pandemic, slow, shoddy service, etc.  This is the new normal and don’t give a damn who you put in charge.  Everyone wants to WFH, and for the most part can.  Where are you going to find these new riders outside special events?

They will ultimately get new leadership but the old model and guarantees are gone.  And I don’t think anyone has a solution, it will take years to determine exactly what an effective model will resemble or one that is sustainable.   

 

[carolinaboy]

Maybe CATS drivers are now WFH? 

[tozmervo]

6 minutes ago, carolinaboy said:

Maybe CATS drivers are now WFH? 

[Durhamite]

3 hours ago, carolinaboy said:

Maybe CATS drivers are now WFH? 

https://www.governing.com/now/washington-metro-is-a-transit-system-in-deep-trouble?_amp=true

The entire system is in bad shape and it’s a CATs problem,y’all keep thinking that it’s ok other places, it is not!  

Edited August 29, 2022 by Durhamite

[JRCLT]

https://www.governing.com/now/washington-metro-is-a-transit-system-in-deep-trouble?_amp=true
The entire system is in bad shape and it’s a CATs problem,y’all keep thinking that it’s ok other places, it is not!  

No one is saying it’s ok nor is it acceptable. Where on this thread are people saying things such as:

“20 minute head ways is decent compared to other places!”

“The bus system is not that bad.”

(Only saying this because you are pretty much counter-arguing with “air” so to speak).