Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[Appetite for Construction]

Here is the invite that was sent out to folks on the CATS press release email list. I'm looking forward to seeing how the trolley fits in with the operation of the LRT vehicles.

Edited April 9, 2008 by Appetite for Construction

[Spartan]

The average citizen all over the world goes through that mess everyday. Bus transit has a negative connotation almost everywhere. Here in Vancouver it is called the 'loser cruiser'; however, many people still ride it because the regional policy encourages it through the use of financial disincentives to driving. [...] These same problems are a plague in many cities.

Vancouver is a good model for any North American city to follow. They are a growing city that has embraced transit instead of highways... and they do pretty well for themselves. Granted the scenery helps alot, but its still a concept that works.

[uptownliving]

At last night's City Council Meeting CATS CEO Keith Parker gave a presentation on the overall status of CATS. One of the items discussed was the LYNX Blue Line extention. He talked about how CATS has been meeting with officials from Concord about extending the line up to the Speedway as recently as last week. It was decided that Concord would need to work with STV (the engineering consultants for the NE Line) on their own without CATS so that the current NE Extention would not be jeopardized. It seemed from what Keith was saying that Concord was still interested in doing the extention. So we will have to see what comes of it. CATS stated they are in favor of it as long as it doesnt impact their ability to get Fed funds.

An extention up to the Speedway would be nice but I'm not sure the cost and complexities (practical and political) are going to be able to be overcome by the Concord crowd.

[dubone]

It seems that once the core project is done to 485 (assuming all goes well), it will be a no brainer to call up Bruton Smith on his pledge, and extend the line into Cabarrus.

The Blue line is the anchor line for the system, given its route, and its status as the highest ridership corridor. So a modest extension (hopefully on both ends) will help to extend that line further into the suburbs and further support ridership growth. If CATS can gain that ridership with none or minimal costs, it will be a very good thing.

[monsoon]

The FTA will use the total cost to build the line to determine cost effectiveness. They don't care where the money comes from. Unless the Concord portion adds a tremendous amount of new riders then it will cause the entire project to fail the cost effectiveness requirement calculation.

[dubone]

I'm interpretting that this is being considered as a much later subsequent phase. There is not a chance in my mind they could arrange for funding, and preliminary engineering to catch up with the rest of the line.

[monsoon]

Yeah, for the amount of money that is going to cost, I just don't see it happening, especially if Concord/Cabarrus has to impose a tax increase in order to pay for it. The same arguments will be made by most of the county about paying for a small sliver of a train line that were made in Iredell by the vast majority of people who will not be served by it.

I am still of the opinion that Concord would bet a much bigger bang for the buck if they funded some kind of commuter rail line to run down the Amtrak route that passed right through the county. Unlike the N. Line CR line there won't be a huge cost to upgrade ancient tracks and it would serve the needs of the county residents much better than a light rail spur to the racetrack.

[dubone]

I completely agree about using the Amtrak line and join up with Kannapolis or something. I do think they are completely set on trying to tie into the race track and the mall area somehow, as they seem to want to make that a major hub center for the town. They also seem to be more interested in connecting in with Charlotte/Mecklenburg than Iredell did.

I see it as a decade long process to build the political will, establish significant improvements in zoning for that area, and develop a tax to help pay for it. Who knows, though, they might have the rights to add that new rental car tax for transit, or add a 1/2 cent tax like Charlotte did with current law (does anyone know?). In that case, it is just a matter of them approving it for their county or city.

Given that Concord and Cabarrus County in general are really needing to transition from their reliance on manufacturing, it seems that they might be very open to investing in infrastructure that connects well to the Charlotte economy. They don't really want to be a bedroom community, but I'm sure they see a train to downtown Charlotte as a helpful tool, rather than a negative like Iredell county did.

We'll see, but I absolutely don't want them to try to latch on and try to add it to our current federal request. It feels like we have an uphill battle like it is, and I don't think adding miles just to go to the speedway will be acceptable to the feds in the near term.

[Andyc545]

Given the cost of the extension to Concord (thinking the 485 bridge, 2 miles of track, improvements, stations, etc) that has all been discussed before in other forums on this topic, it would seem to me the estimated riderships that were vaguely determined would hurt federal funding rather than leaving it end at it's current last stop just before 485. I would think, assuming that Concord was serious about this, that the extension up to Concord should begin it's beginning stages (where the current pace that the NE Line is now) not until after we recieve the federal funding for the current NE Line (again, assuming we receive it).

Out of curiousity, were there any other details at the meeting that expressed the Concord extension, as far as where they were interested in placing station(s) and if they wanted to end it at the Speedway, or somewhere else?

[uptownliving]

^ No details as far as station locations. It is all very preliminary talk at this point, but serious enough where Concord is looking at engaging an engineering firm to do more study on it. It seems that if we are going to hear anything in the future about this extention it will be from Concord and not CATS.

Something I think they should consider is the redevelopment of the Philip Morris site just past the speedway and how tapping into the Blue Line for that site will could make an economic development boom for the area.

[dubone]

I moved the streetcar discussion to the 2030 thread. This thread is purely about the Blue line and planned [and possible] extensions.

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Charlott...-Sy-t43044.html

Sorry for any inconvenience.

[monsoon]

......

Something I think they should consider is the redevelopment of the Philip Morris site just past the speedway and how tapping into the Blue Line for that site will could make an economic development boom for the area.

CATS is currently estimating $75M/mile to build the NE LRT. They consistently underestimate costs so I am going to say they will most likely hit $100M/mile once this thing gets closer to reality. It's 6 miles from Phillip Morris to where the line is currently going to terminate. Add in $50M to build the bridge across I-485. So we are easily talking about a 1/2 billion dollar project or more to put light rail in a pedestrian unfriendly not very high density area. Even if Phillip Morris is re-developed into something higher density, the LRT isn't going to make much difference in this area. I just don't see it happening at all.

[New Name]

I saw the trolley on the Lynx lines this afternoon (specifically at 7th St. Station). It looks absolutely ridiculous. The Lynx line is modern and sleek, and the trolley just looks stupid on those tracks.

[dubone]

Ha! The second sentence caught me off guard and I just busted out laughing. I haven't seen it yet, but you have a very good point.

Those poor trolley people started this whole thing and now their project is a laughing stock.

It will be interesting to follow that story throughout the year. I know people have been talking about running them on Trade and Elizabeth, but it just seems a bit fruitless.

I guess the point of the trolley is to provide a link to history, so in some ways it is a nice contrast to see the old style trolleys on the modern tracks. But knowing that those cars were built circa 2004 does add the element of ridiculous.

[tozmervo]

WFAE has a brief interview with Tober. Direct link: http://www.wfae.org/wfae/audio/JR20080417.m3u

They also report that Trolley 85 will begin service at 1p on Sunday after a ceremony at Atherton Mill.

[MZT]

I had my first experience this week comparing express bus service on 45x (Carmel Road) with driving to a Lynx station and taking the train.

I think the parking/train combo is a little better. It's nice to have the upholstered seats of the bus, and the bus is a little quieter without the LOUD announcements you hear on the Lynx. But the express bus is about a 50 minute ride, which is a long time to be cooped up. And you still get to sit in traffic and feel the bumps in the road.

Some people may not like being on the train platforms "outside in the weather" - but I guess I like the option to pace and wander about while waiting, or to sit on a bench and feel more rested than on a moving bus.

Edited April 18, 2008 by MZT

[Spartan]

Becareful if you plan to ride on opening day. I just received this notice.

"*Service on opening day will operate from Atherton Mill to Ninth Street with no stops in between."

[palmetto75]

Charlotte.com (WCNC) is running some pretty interesting footage of the silo collapse and and the impact on the Lynx service right now.

[monsoon]

That is pretty interesting about that silo collapse right onto the tracks. Thank goodness it didn't hit a train. Maybe CATS should have done a survey of these kinds of structures near the tracks as there is no doubt some kind of failure. I wonder if vibration from the trains caused it. I guess a lot of people will be riding the bus this afternoon.

There are some fascinating photos on the WCNC website that were taken from their helicopter.

[origin.clt]

southbound track damage

[HopHead]

Apparently the silo collapse was due to the attempted removal of it for the Silos of Southend project... I would guess it had nothing to do with the trains going by. Funny thing was I drove by that during lunch today wondering how they managed to take them down without any problems. Well, I guess they had some kind of problem. Good thing no one was hurt.

[dubone]

I sure hope that construction company removing the excess silos pays for the damage. That is crazy, and it izs super obvious they caused. Also, does this leave them with only 2 silos now? These are the namesake of that project, so it can't be good.

Perhaps it is viral marketing though?

[HopHead]

I sure hope that construction company removing the excess silos pays for the damage. That is crazy, and it izs super obvious they caused. Also, does this leave them with only 2 silos now? These are the namesake of that project, so it can't be good.

Perhaps it is viral marketing though?

I'm think it was the last one they were knocking down? Agreed, the construction company should pay for it. You have to question how much thought went into how they were taking these down.

[Andyc545]

That is pretty interesting about that silo collapse right onto the tracks. Thank goodness it didn't hit a train. Maybe CATS should have done a survey of these kinds of structures near the tracks as there is no doubt some kind of failure.

Monsoon, you bring up a good point. I can speak directly that I know of several other incidents that could have happened, even on a greater scale, that had been ignored or worked around not in the best ways while construction of LYNX took place and now that it is fully running with pedestrians. I know I reported a while back about the lawsuit over 210 Trade's crane passing over the LYNX construction just below the CTC Station. Also, I was told that the contraversial art "discs" at Scaleybark were never tested for structural integrity against high winds. In other words, no one knows how much wind it would take to knock one of those down because the what-should-have-been-necessary testing on them was overlooked due to budget constraints within the arts budget. These discs could easily fall onto a car or pedestrians in the event of high winds, possibly. As far as 210 Trade, I don't know the outcome, but I know the crane doesn't allow anything it's carrying to pass over the tracks, especially now that citizens are using LYNX. I have a feeling that some PE's may be getting fined or suspended liscenses.

[tozmervo]

So I just got home. There wasn't much to it, the bus bridge worked fine. I'd say it took about 10 minutes longer than usual to make the trip. There was one windbag whining and moaning, but everyone else seemed to be taking it in stride, especially when the bus got a red light at Poindexter and we could see all the crews and equipment out on the tracks. Most people were more worried about the service getting back to normal by Monday.

Edit - I just watched a news clip about it, and the media is making passengers sound a lot madder than was my impression. However, I did catch it a bit after the height of rush hour, so perhaps their bridge system was working more smoothly.

Edited April 18, 2008 by tozmervo