Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[kermit]

Retail is filling out at the base of the JW Clay deck. Still nothing at University City deck.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by kermit

[KJHburg]

Just a train not sure if on schedule or not but there nonetheless.  Conductor must have saw me as he blew his horn LOL. 

[Reverie39]

Many shots of South End these days are reminding me of parts of the DC area. Especially the little urban pockets in Northern Virginia.

[dylansukkert]

Looks like we have real time tracking now for the Light Rail. 

[kermit]

Fare checked twice on my morning commute today.

[dylansukkert]

21 hours ago, dylansukkert said:

Looks like we have real time tracking now for the Light Rail. 

Annnnndd it’s not working. 

[JRCLT]

Annnnndd it’s not working. 

Considering it’s not announced…it probably
Suggests it’s in testing…so it’s likely not going to be reliable. So yeah, it might not be working when you expect it to.

[RANYC]

6 hours ago, JeanClt said:

Considering it’s not announced…it probably
Suggests it’s in testing…so it’s likely not going to be reliable. So yeah, it might not be working when you expect it to.

I’ve been using it for the gold line and my ridership is up 10x

[15895]

3 minutes ago, RANYC said:

I’ve been using it for the gold line and my ridership is up 10x

It makes a world of difference to have real time information or at least reliable timetables. You’re anecdotal proof of that. 

[JRCLT]

I’ve been using it for the gold line and my ridership is up 10x

Glad to hear! For clarification’s sake, I meant currently due to testing. Once it is implemented fully and released it should be more useful and obviously reliable.

[Reverie39]

I hope CATS markets this feature well once it is released. We should see big notices about it at all stations, on all trains, and maybe even in random other places. This could lead to a huge boost in ridership if done right.

[RANYC]

Never thought I’d say it, but I’m on the gold line every morning and afternoon these days and the experience is thoroughly enjoyable, and consistency with app guidance is the key factor.  In fact, even when you get the occasional flare of mental illness on display, it’s almost like something theatrical one might work into a screen play.  If there were boards at each stop announcing arrival times, I think you’d see an uptick in tourist/visitor ridership.

also, is there such a thing as acquiring a bus fleet that looks and feels like the interior of a street car…perhaps battery-assisted, dual side door, double-decker trolleybuses?   Raised & covered platforms for stops, both street side and in street medians, enabled by dual-side-door feature.

Maybe a far quicker way to implement clean, flexible, fixed transit along Central through Plaza Midwood out to east Charlotte.

Edited September 23, 2022 by RANYC

[kermit]

Get all of your piercing needs met at East/West station. Hurray for TOD bringing us neighborhood retail!

 

[JRCLT]

Seems Blue Line tracking has been fully released.

[KJHburg]

Once the loneliest transit stations around but no more with massive amount of apartments underway within 2 blocks of this station.   The 25th St station.  

[Hushpuppy321]

3 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Once the loneliest transit stations around but no more with massive amount of apartments underway within 2 blocks of this station.   The 25th St station.  

Do you believe if this corridor was BRT instead of LRT that there would be this much change in just the 4.5 years the BLE has been open?

[KJHburg]

10 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

Do you believe if this corridor was BRT instead of LRT that there would be this much change in just the 4.5 years the BLE has been open?

that is hard to say because intown apartment development is so hot.  In Nashville which has no light rail or any on the horizon has huge areas of intown apartment complexes in corridors near their downtown.  I think it somewhat concentrates it because it is a transit line but whether it is or was a BRT or train not sure if there would be much difference.    All of these older industrial areas near uptown are undergoing rapid changes to new uses.  (FreeMoreWest, Camp Northend not to mention Southend and NoDa etc) 

[kermit]

^ agree here. As much as I would like to credit rail with seeding infill development, I suspect broader trends towards intown living (and working) are more responsible to industrial land repurposing in Southend and Brevard than transit. KJH mentioned Nashville, but you can also see identical forms of intown development in Durham and Raleigh (as well as Freemore West). Prepandemic ridership numbers (relatively weak from Southend stations) kinda confirm that rail is somewhat incidental to this development IMO.

Having said that, I think nearly all of the new apartments from Eastway to UNCC along the BLE are a product of rail transit access (the same number of units probably would have been built, but much more dispersed through NE Charlotte). I don’t think BRT would have triggered this level of density due to its relative impermanence, but that is just my gut feeling, its not data driven.

 

Edited October 10, 2022 by kermit

[kermit]

Real time tracking for the Blue Line was officially announced three days ago has been promoted a good bit on social media. 

But its somehow not working today…

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by kermit

[RANYC]

2 hours ago, kermit said:

Real time tracking for the Blue Line was officially announced three days ago has been promoted a good bit on social media. 

But its somehow not working today…

 

Is John Lewis punking and mocking us?

[kermit]

Maintenance of way equipment staged at UNCC main. I haven’t seen much else ready to go for this weekends blitz.

There are still two piles of stick rail at UNCC left over from a pre-Covid maintenance shut down. 

Perhaps they will also take down no longer accurate signage in stations as well? (Probably not) (we have not had 15 minute frequencies since mid August)

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by kermit

[kermit]

I got ghost-trained today…

shoulda used the tracking app…

 

Edit: no ghost train coming home, but it was butt-to-nut crowded leaving uptown at 4:25. We need more trains!

Edited October 25, 2022 by kermit

[asthasr]

Took the blue line from I-485 to Uptown today to have lunch with my lovely wife, for the first time in years. A few observations:

1. The cheap LCD marquees at platforms are terrible. It'd be nice to have indicator maps showing where the trains are, but that's very fancy. Having them not broken, and showing the time for the next arrival, would be acceptable.
2. I missed my train at I-485 because the ticket kiosk took over a minute to charge my credit card. I was literally standing there watching asterisks pop up, one by one. I've never seen a POS do that!
3. The rails (or train suspension?) felt very rough on the northbound train. The return trip wasn't nearly as bad.
4. There's noticeably much more infill development along the line than there used to be. Many of the large gaps are gone.
5. My tickets were checked, and there was security on the train on both rides.
6. The stations felt less secure than the trains. There were a fair number of people loitering around 3rd St. Station and one person sitting behind a pole periodically yelling profanity.

I appreciate the positive changes, and ridership was healthy for the "off hours" I chose to travel, but I hope that some of the technical issues can be addressed and that the perception of safety at stations is given some priority as well.

[tozmervo]

2 minutes ago, asthasr said:

1. I missed my train at I-485 because the ticket kiosk took over a minute to charge my credit card. I was literally standing there watching asterisks pop up, one by one. I've never seen a POS do that!

get ye the CATS Pass app and never touch a kiosk again. 

[jthomas]

3 minutes ago, asthasr said:

Took the blue line from I-485 to Uptown today to have lunch with my lovely wife, for the first time in years. A few observations:

You had lunch with your wife for the first time in years?