Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[tozmervo]

I believe CATS/the planners are having some difficulty with the JW Clay station location, so I would not be surprised to see the LRT plans around that area change quite a bit as the planning continues. One would hope that it would be closely coordinated with DOT plans to eliminate the intersection. I think tunneling Harris underneath Tryon ala Connecticut Ave could be a great move.

[tozmervo]

Overheard on the train: "I think its really great, but its too bad it goes through all these poor areas."

le sigh.

[Spartan]

That's ironic since historically non-poor neighborhoods fight transit investments because it will bring in poor people.

[Charlotte_native]

Overheard on the train: "I think its really great, but its too bad it goes through all these poor areas."

le sigh.

Also ironic because one of the points used by the anti-transit tax anti-choo-choo people during the referendum battle was that it was being built to service the rich and go through rich areas. Never worry about having a debate with just the facts, huh? It was pointed out, though they never acknowledged it, that most of the line actually travels through middle income then low income areas.

[orulz]

OK so no news but a random question.

So where the South line runs in the median of South Blvd near Scaleybark, all the cross streets are protected with gates and flashers, effectively giving the light rail signal priority over cars. As far as I can recall, there's nowhere along the entire line where a train ever has to wait for a car. It always has priority.

This plays a role in why the Charlotte light rail has had fewer accidents than, say, the line in Houston for example, which is entirely in the street and has few gates/flashers.

Now, the Blue Line extension will travel a great deal more distance in the median of Tryon. Will street intersections there similarly be protected by gates and flashers, and the trains given signal priority? Or is the Tryon Street right-of-way too narrow to allow this? Some light rail lines with on-street sections do not give the trains priority at intersections. For example, the Baltimore light rail. Through downtown, you spend a great deal of time stopped at red lights and it's actually quite maddening.

[Spartan]

The trains will always have priority, but there are many more grade separations over major intersections in the northeast corridor than in the south. Starting at Old Concord Rd the train will be located in the center of North Tryon Street, and the road will have to be shifted to accommodate the two train tracks and the necessary travel lanes. As such, there will be ALOT of ROW purchased to reconstruct the road in the right place. The ROW and grade separations are one of the main reasons this project will be over $1 billion. Rebuilding several miles of N Tryon St will not be cheap.

These trains won't ever be in mixed traffic like Houston or Portland.

[InitialD]

The trains will always have priority, but there are many more grade separations over major intersections in the northeast corridor than in the south. Starting at Old Concord Rd the train will be located in the center of North Tryon Street, and the road will have to be shifted to accommodate the two train tracks and the necessary travel lanes. As such, there will be ALOT of ROW purchased to reconstruct the road in the right place. The ROW and grade separations are one of the main reasons this project will be over $1 billion. Rebuilding several miles of N Tryon St will not be cheap.

These trains won't ever be in mixed traffic like Houston or Portland.

One thing I haven't seen so far is how the tracks will work with the planned redesign of (Future University) City Blvd interchange with Hwy 29/49. Flyover planned here? I'm guessing the bridges here are going to be replaced anyway?

[southslider]

^The US-29/NC-49 "weave" is being redesigned to have at-grade, signalized intersections. The BLE will "flyover" both intersections of the newly rebuilt North Tryon at both I-85 connector and University City Blvd. The "University City Blvd." station, however, will be at-grade and located in between these two flyovers at a new signalized intersection, near where Stetson intersects North Tryon today.

[InitialD]

On the BLE transition from Tryon to UNCC:

"Over the past several years, CATS has worked closely with UNC Charlotte officials in the planning and design of the LYNX Blue Line Extension (BLE) light rail project. The BLE project will serve the UNC Charlotte campus with multiple stations, including a station at JW Clay Blvd near the Charlotte Research Institute (CRI) and future football stadium, a station directly on campus along Cameron Blvd near the new Student Union, and a station at Mallard Creek Church Rd where the university is envisioning future university-related development.

During the first phase of preliminary engineering, CATS has worked with the university to design the alignment into the university’s campus to minimize the impact to the campus environment while providing a direct, efficient connection to the proposed station location along Cameron Blvd. CATS is also coordinating with the university’s update to its Campus Master Plan. As a result of this coordination, the university requested that CATS shift the alignment onto campus north to maximize the developable property on the CRI campus. CATS determined that this shift is feasible and would also eliminate the grade separation at the UNCC Research Dr. Light rail is now proposed to cross this intersection at-grade, then drop below the existing street elevation and cross under the northbound travel lanes of N. Tryon St. As the project moves forward, CATS will continue to coordinate with UNC Charlotte to develop a design that is integrated with the campus and provides convenient connections for students, faculty, and visitors."

Also, another small rendering of the tunnel under north bound lanes of Tryon: http://www.charmeck.org/NR/rdonlyres/eh6d6...umFall09Web.pdf

Edited September 8, 2009 by InitialD

[tozmervo]

The August Ridership report:

"Ridership across all services decreased -12.2% for the month of August 2009 as compared to August 2008. All service categories decreased with regular bus routes down -11.2%, regional expresses down 30%, neighborhood shuttle down 20% and the LYNX Blue line down 12.7%. The Human Services Transportation category was up 8.4% for the month. System-wide the average daily ridership was over 80,700 per weekday and the LYNX system averaging over 14,600 weekday riders.

Analysis:

CATS continued to experience the negative effects of the recession across all service categories. Fuel prices were 40% higher in August 2008 as the region experienced the highest fuel costs at over $4.00 per gallon and fuel shortages. Layoffs conducted by many uptown and regional employers during the past 6 months, continue to have a negative effect on express and other routes ridership. LYNX weekday ridership maintained an average of over 14,500 while Saturday ridership dropped, mainly due to fewer pre-season home games this year. Route eliminations conducted since last year attributed to 1% of the drop in ridership YTD. Although ridership is down, the YTD results remain 19% higher than the first two months of Fiscal year 2008. Calendar days had no effect on results since August 2008 and 2009 had the same number of week and weekend days."

It was also noted in the meeting minutes that system-wide ridership is still 24% above ridership in 2007, I'm sure owing largely to LYNX.

[Spartan]

CATS also made a lot of service cuts in terms of frequency. I wonder how much this impacts people's decision to ride transit? If the bus only comes every half hour it might deter choice riders.

[dubone]

http://www.charmeck.org/NR/rdonlyres/ev7er...090929BLEPM.pdf

I was out of town, but did anyone get to go to the series of BLE meetings last week? Here is the link to the presentation.

They are basically using both the 2016 date and the 2019 completion date, with the latter being the budget constrained date if the tax proceeds don't recover between now and then. With the inflation adjustments from that delay, the costs now go up another 200 million to $1.336 Billion.

This is also the first I have seen that they will add another maintenance yard for the BLE, and they plan to use the land freed up by the truck yards in Optimist Park. So there will be a whole lot more rails with the rail yard staying and the maintenance and storage yards there.

They will move the 27th Station to 25th Street south of the creek. That puts Parkwood and 25th quite close together. I hope there isn't a future update that they'll eliminate one of them. They are only 5 blocks apart and one side of their service area is dead land with the yards there.

The 36th Street station at NoDa will be moved to south of 36th to better coordinate with the high speed rail project and, as we already knew will be grade separated.

I believe they have changed the plan for a trench for the LRT and are now going at grade and then dipping to go under Tryon while entering UNCC campus.

They are updating the ridership projections and will get a new FTA rating review at that point.

[Spartan]

I wouldn't be surprised to see 25th St Station value engineered out.

[New Name]

I wouldn't be surprised to see 25th St Station value engineered out.

I think they should ditch 25th. Build Parkwood. And eventually build one at/near 12th Street (hopefully to change the use of 11th and 12th Street from merely feeder roads for I-277).

[southslider]

The spacing of Parkwood and 25th is greater than any two of the three stations serving South End. Maybe this area will develop into a comparable "North End" (yes, I know that name is already being used over by Double Oaks). And since 25th is a center-platform station, it's likely not that easy to eliminate completely from the design.

More likely, there will still be a foundation built for a future platform, but it may not be completed on opening day, especially if its surroundings aren't yet changing. But if the area is at least transitioning by opening day, with just a few projects or even one significant project, I say open the station. That wouldn't be too much different from how New Bern currently feels with 3030 South sitting by itself.

[dubone]

Escapists, you will not likely see them moving the station between 9th and 10th to north of 277 for multiple reasons. That station serves not only the UNCC project (BLE is seen as a critical link between the uptown and UC campuses of UNCC), but also serves the eventual redevelopment of the Hal Marshall center and Levine's land in the area. The potential of that service area far exceeds what can be done around Alpha Mill.

We will see what they do with 25th, but I agree there is some difference in the markets served, however, if we are going to have stations in this area separated by only .4 miles, I would far rather them move the previous 27th St Station to north of the Matheson Bridge. Putting it instead at, say, Brevard and Mallory, services the Highland Mill Apartments and the southern section of Noda residential, while still servicing the area just south of Matheson. However, you could say Parkwood serves Optimist Park, 25th serves Villa Heights, and 36th serves NoDa, and that would make it hard to justify removal of 25th, even if it is slightly closer to Parkwood than desired.

[New Name]

Escapists, you will not likely see them moving the station between 9th and 10th to north of 277 for multiple reasons. That station serves not only the UNCC project (BLE is seen as a critical link between the uptown and UC campuses of UNCC), but also serves the eventual redevelopment of the Hal Marshall center and Levine's land in the area. The potential of that service area far exceeds what can be done around Alpha Mill.

I didn't mean to eliminate 10th St/UNCC station. I meant to add another station on the "outside" of 277 at 12th Street to service Optimist Park (and presumably N. Tryon area via 12th St.). Brevard between 12th and the deadend at Caldwell has a lot of redevelopment potential around Alpha Mill. And 12th Street is nothing more than a runway for 277 between Davidson and Graham.

[southslider]

^Trouble is, between 12th and 16th, the BLE is rising and falling to go up and over the CSX line. Hence, no level spot to put a station.

Plus, Alpha Mill residents will be able to walk into Uptown via new sidepaths extended northeast of Reid's/7th Street Station to 12th Street.

Edited October 13, 2009 by southslider

[dubone]

Also the 10th street station is less than a half mile from the alpha mill area while Parkwood station easily serves the greater residential section of optimist park.

[tozmervo]

As the blue line rolls its way near 2 years of hauling passengers, there are still a couple of operations issues that irritate the hell out of me.

The first is that they still occasionally change out operators at the LRT facility. This just seems unprofessional, keeps car crossings closed unnecessarily long, and adds an extra "stop" for passengers. CATS should halt this practice entirely and require that operators change out at New Bern station, if not the ends of the line.

The other is that they are still too conservative about running two-car trains. Too often I find myself on jam packed single-car trains, such as today when I went into Uptown just before a Checker's game.

[uptownliving]

I agree with your list of operations issues.

I think the best way to effect change to get them to stop changing drivers at the LVM and adding a car is to contact the members of the TSAC (Transit Services Advisory Cmte). These are the people tasked with evaluating CATS from an operational standpoint.

You can find their contact info here:

http://www.charmeck.org/Departments/CATS/MTC/TSAC+Members.htm

Or you can attend one of their monthly meetings and speak publically about these issues.

The more people you can get to participate the more effective you will be.

[grodney]

The single-car thing is annoying, and is also poor customer service (or poor delivery of a service, whichever). Friday afternoons get REALLY crowded. And we all know there are empty cars just sitting at the end of the track. I have submitted this complaint to charmeck.org via the feedback link.

The "number of spots left in the lot" sign at 485 seems like a ridiculous waste of money, but it's hard to complain about something that's already done.

Other than that, I don't have many problems. I'm a year into daily riding, and it's generally all good.

(Oh, one other thought -- the other day for the "get motivated" event, it was painful to see 15-20 people standing at each TVM trying to get tickets. Didn't impact me, but it would be *nice* if CATS/LYNX had a human on hand at such times to dispense tickets more rapidly. I can imagine more than a few had negative things to say (right or wrong) about LYNX after missing a train due to standing in line for a ticket.)

[AuLukey]

(Oh, one other thought -- the other day for the "get motivated" event, it was painful to see 15-20 people standing at each TVM trying to get tickets. Didn't impact me, but it would be *nice* if CATS/LYNX had a human on hand at such times to dispense tickets more rapidly. I can imagine more than a few had negative things to say (right or wrong) about LYNX after missing a train due to standing in line for a ticket.)

It's not like another train didn't come five minutes later. I can't tell you how many times I just missed trains in Sydney and Paris before and had to wait for the next. It's really not that big of a deal.

I don't ride LRT enough to know this so I'll ask on here, but does CATS sell an extended service pass for LYNX like a year/month/week pass? Seems like that could free up lines. I used to buy week passes outside of Sydney at convenience stores and news stands.

[tozmervo]

Yes, they have monthly unlimited passes (I'd bet that most of the regular work riders use them). They sell passes through several area grocery stores like Teeter and Food Lion. And CATS has made an effort to alleviate special event ticketing - both I485 and the CTC station got two additional ticket machines some time ago, so both ends of those respective platforms has two machines for a total of four.

[queensguy06]

As much as I have complained in the past about the TVMs, and some of the problems first time riders have figuring out how to use them, they still are certainly more user-friendly than the machines used on Marta in Atlanta. It took us 10 min. trying to figure out which one of the two day passes to buy (yes, there is more than one); it really seemed they could have done away with about half of the ticketing options.