Scoopbth

The Amelie’s closure hurts. I have been really stressing about uptown and going above and beyond to support. We are there almost every weekend. We actually moved right before the pandemic from Fourth Ward to Dilworth and the difference between South End and Uptown is drastic currently. South End is fine and bustling. Of course South End had a lot of momentum before the pandemic. But I still struggle with how the difference can be so stark. I understand all the empty office towers is an obvious answer but there are still plenty of high rise apartment and condo buildings (we sold our place in the Avenue) uptown. I don’t know the exact numbers but surely the amount of people living in uptown vs South End can’t be that different especially considering the number of condos / apts in some of the bigger buildings. So why such a big difference? I know Uptown will recover but I think it will get worse first before we begin the recovery. I love uptown so besides the obvious answer of spending money and supporting these businesses, are there any creative solutions to address the current crisis?

Second crane going up.

I travel every other week and take the Sprinter to the airport!

Glad to see these increases! We are taking the train to Raleigh from Charlotte in a few weekends! Can’t wait to see the new Union Station. Also using the new Piedmont frequency on the way back, it fills a much needed afternoon spot.

Crane going up today.

The pizza place (Sapienza) is quite good and reasonable priced too. It has become our go to pizza spot now and it is always busy with take-outs and people eating inside.

Yes, beyond excited! Definitely going. I was there last October and met some of the Royal Riot members and they are beyond awesome, their dedication to watching the Panthers is impressive!

Sounds like a great idea!

Lol, yeah I definitely missed it.

That is not the Arlington. That is the Kimpton Tryon Park hotel with the sun reflecting off of it.

Crane is going up today

Crate and Barrel. But I would also love to see a Zara come to either Uptown or Southend. It would kill.

My family and I took the train from Charlotte to Raleigh this weekend. We took the Carolinian to Raleigh on Saturday and the Piedmont back to Charlotte on Sunday. I have taken the train to Raleigh before and really enjoyed it but it has always been on the Carolinian. The Carolinian was completely packed by the time we reached Greensboro. I was most excited though for an opportunity to ride the Piedmont. It was very nice! The windows are huge and much bigger than those on the standard Amtrak rolling stock so you really get to see a lot. The interior was very nice as were the seats. They had 3 coach cars but were only using two, divided between those traveling to Charlotte and those getting off at other stops. Both of them were almost completely full! Raleigh's new Union Station looks incredible and we are definitely planning a trip back to see it once it is open, hopefully on the 3rd Piedmont.

Saw someone riding the new yellow bikes (Ofa?) in the rain today! Also, I took a photo of this bike! Awesome!

My apologies as I know my response was a bit impulsive and sarcastic. I am definitely in support of all the bike options that have exploded throughout the city and have used a few (mainly Limebike) and found it to be very useful. I think proper parking of the bikes would help fight the "clutter" argument. My thoughts are that it does look better if parked next to something (i.e. a building, a sign, a tree) then just in the middle of the sidewalk. These are exploding all over the country and I am glad to see that we have some of the bigger brands already. I noted over the holidays that a smaller Boston based company (Antbike) just introduced a handful of these bikes at the train station in Swampscott, MA. This will be really useful for the "last mile trips" to get from the commuter train station to ones front door (when the weather is not -5 degrees). Something interesting though was that their usage guide specifically stated to leave the bikes at bikes racks when finished with the trip. This is likely their attempt to address the "clutter" issue and also require people to leave them in a more populated area (as opposed to someone's front yard) so that the next person can easily use it. I thought though that limiting it to a bike rack was silly because then if all the dockless bikes are in front of a bike rack it would block regular bikes from access to the bike rack to be locked up which of course the dockless bikes do not need to be locked to the rack at all. Anyways, just my observations but I did think it was cool that these bikes were being introduced in what I would call a small town that is somewhat auto-dependent (although certainly much more transit-friendly and walkable than any suburb down here but that is another discussion).