southslider

Forget sidewalks. City Council confirms this is a drive-thru town.

Speaking of "orientation towards cars," NC has its own problems with transportation funding well beyond transit. For the first time in forever, no new roadway projects were added to the STIP and many of the remaining ones previously programmed for implementation were reduced to only design, requiring those previously "committed" projects to compete once again for funding. The "Prioritization" process NC uses is deeply flawed, capping funding for individual corridors statewide and dividing up non-expressway funding into 7 equal regions and 14 equal divisions, regardless of population, jobs, or even traffic volumes. No, my criticism of Moore is that he won't actually lead to solve problems that affect even the very areas that empower him. He has a great opportunity to empower rural, urban, and everywhere in between to fund a variety of visions. And much more than cities are thinking of diversifying their transportation for quality of life, including small town downtowns and trails, not just major metro greenways. But given how rural hospitals going out of business begged the Speaker for Medicaid expansion while he stubbornly resisted, even when his Senate counterparts were ready, I fear this man would still play the culture politics of pitting urban and rural against each other, rather than what unites NC.

With Johnston Rd, Reimagined is east, Village is west, and never the two shall meet.

Blue Line frequency will soon come back, though initially just rush hours. The bigger concern this year is Speaker Moore and his enlarged majority. Just as this man has prevented Medicaid expansion year after year, he also has the power to prevent regional transit expansion.

2026 isn't even certain, given both Greyhound's demands and the market's frailty.

It's disappointing that the State Legislature disrespects home rule, but when City Council is so married to a poorly conceived Silver Line, they deserve each other.

Heck, forget Levine, the Hal Marshall Annex property is already owned by the County. This public property along the Blue Line even stretches from 9th to 11th Streets. Imagine a "climate-controlled concourse" that actually connected Silver Line and Blue Line.

Ironic that a Council concern for keeping the LPA is CTC redevelopment when the LPA completely misses the CTC.

If you call signal priority, queue jumps, and enhanced stops "BRT," then sure. As for seriously prioritizing bus, the very pilot listed for the CATS Envision My Ride plan was Central Ave, which Car-lot killed. So unless CATS finds some easier wins soon, I truly worry their Envision My Ride plan may join Red Line on the shelf.

Albemarle Rd and Wilkinson Blvd would be a much more cost-effective BRT version for Silver Line. It could be built all as one phase, within a decade, and without any additional sales tax.

And with the higher-cost/lower-ridership LPA set to remain unchanged (just tweaks around Bojangles Coliseum), there hasn't been any progress on Silver Line either.

There are some positives, though maybe not Silver Line, but instead... *renewed interest in equity with Council support for CTC above ground and prioritizing bus improvements *local support for prioritizing bus, but covered largely with existing revenues *Mecklenburg support for expanded transit, but with realistic expectations and timeline commitments for North Mecklenburg *regional support for state-enabling tax levies, though mostly for roads, trails, and schools *CATS becoming a regional authority, but only adding Gaston and Cabarrus *rapid transit expansion, but more cost-effective solutions like northeast commuter rail on NCRR, north BRT on Express Lanes, and BLE2 with value capture at Carolina Place and in Ballantyne The silver lining of Silver Line is that the LPA will now be seen as such low ridership return for high cost that so many other local bus and regional system transit needs at lower costs and higher needs can inevitably take over, though perhaps, not until after the dust settles on the LPA destined for the shelf.

If City Council really wants to keep the LPA, maybe CTC should move next to where Silver Line will cross Blue Line. The County and Levine own quite a bit of land around the existing 9th Street and planned 11th Street stations.

Urban area numbers to be finally released just before year's end

So it was pretty clear this week at Council's Transportation Committee that the LPA will remain unchanged in Uptown. Granted, the alternatives have been designed for failure. For some reason, Shared Blue Line didn't include a continuation west at Carson, thereby disconnecting West Phase B. And ultimately, Shared Gold Line is being conceived as too large of a reconstruction, such that Uptown interests see too much pain for the gain. If the LPA holds, i just hope the 9th St to 11th St transfer is at least improved. While Councilmembers are hardly transit riders, they should at least try out transferring between Blue and Gold Lines to see if that's really what actual riders depending on transit should experience regularly on their already too long travel times when an even worse design "connects" Blue and Silver Lines.

^At least these newer bypasses have fully controlled access. Nothing more wasteful than allowing a bypass to be stripped out with so many commercial driveways and signals that then another bypass ends up being recommended, like Shelby and Monroe each on 74.

BLE was designed as a heavily separated LRT, so why is it traveling so slowly? The original line has street interaction at Scaleybark. The original line has track splits for the VMF near New Bern. What makes the train slow down in sections likd Sugar Creek to Old Concord completely free of at-grade crossings?

Most LRT systems don't have control gates. Wonder if CATS could just remove them, especially those near stations, where trains already run slower.

^Sure, there'll be space for peds and bikes, but what about transit? Just imagine if Silver Line actually went to the terminal then continued to downtown Belmont via River District. Would replace the need for both an airport people mover and a Belmont trolley.

Too many think of the B in the BRT, when the real appeal is the R. True BRT must have dedicated lanes in key places to be rapid, or more importantly, maximize convenience for maximized user experience. Just imagine leaving CLT airport at the Terminal's curb at a station-like stop, traveling in a dedicated lane on Wilkinson Blvd between the airport and 277, then even a dedicated lane in Uptown, like College St, dropping you closer to Tryon than Blue Line. As it stands, the LPA for Silver Line would require connecting on an airport shuttle or separate airport people-mover out to an Airport station on Wilkinson, transferring to Silver Line, traveling to 11th Street in Uptown, then walking to 9th Street to transfer to Blue Line, then traveling to CTC/Arena, 3rd St/Convention or Brooklyn Village stations, then still walking an extra block to Tryon, compared to a single-seat, direct ride from the airport terminal curb to College St. Now also imagine waiting on that less convenient Silver Line to be built an extra decade into the future as the second phase of a rail project not even funded yet for its first phase out to Matthews.

If both Atlanta and Raleigh are pursuing BRT, why not Charlotte? Granted, to be true BRT, Charlotte would need to dedicate some lanes. Personally, I'd start with any of the six-lane thoroughfares in Charlotte, like Albemarle Rd, Freedom Dr, or Wilkinson Blvd.

All the more reason to either provide an exclusive signal for buses to queue-jump or continue bus-only lanes through the intersection. An easy first step for Charlotte to keep up with major cities would be to add some red paint to the 4th St bus lane in Uptown.

The width for the red area and center barrier doesn't exist today and does require slight widening. At Hawthorne, NCDOT is looking to shorten the outbound Express Lane to stay within the existing bridge span, rather than rebuild a recently rebuilt bridge.

The pre-existing busway isn't the same as the planned toll lanes. The general public can't just travel highway speeds within the busway without having some barrier or other separation. Granted, barriers and shoulders aren't the same as widening for additional lanes, but in the vicinity of Hawthorne, even widening a bit still takes up limited space.

NCDOT STIP Project U-6103