nmundo

Here is the complex across from U City Blvd station last week.

In center city Philly they have stops every 2-3 blocks. 3rd, CTC & 7th are all heavily used, Stonewall is slowly getting there and I'm sure 9th will too once Levine gets off his ass. The platforms at 3rd St are already super crowded during rush hour and once all the construction down stonewall is done I'm sure it will be too. It takes 7 minutes to get from Stonewall to 9th St on the light rail. Right now Google Maps pegs that drive as 10mins on Tryon. I think the travel time through uptown is fine.

Morning trains from UNCC, around 7am, have been crowded the past few days. The trains have also been having non-stop issues and getting delayed basically every day now. I wonder how many people are getting turned off by that fact.

Trains seem to have been busy throughout the weekend. This was a train from NoDa to Uptown around 11:30pm on Saturday. They still seem to be having issues, on Saturday around 5 they had a train sitting at JW Clay for about 10-15 mins causing the train behind to run behind schedule, while I was at 25th St yesterday an announcement came on saying they were having delays both north & southbound, and this morning my friend told me that his train had to be restarted. That's 3 days in a row with at least 1 issue...

I just got on a train at JW Clay and the first 2 floors of the deck were basically full. It definitely seems like night life use from non-students is picking up based on the people I saw on the train vs what I was seeing on the first week. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Friend was on a train this morning that had to stop and be 'rebooted' so it seems to not have been a one off when it happened to me. Anyone have any ideas as to why they might be needing to do this?

My train car (left UNCC at 7:20) was pretty full all the way through to 3rd St. I would say ~90% of the seats were full and there were some people standing. Enough that it felt crowded but not packed. Still not at the same level as the south line but I've definitely seen steady increase in people riding in the past 2 weeks.

MARTA has a train in the central stations every 10mins during the day on weekends. Not as good as their ~5 min on weekdays but still way better than 20mins in the middle of the day.

I have an hour lunch break, if I leave a few minutes too late because someone held me up as I was leaving or getting my food to slightly longer than usual, if both of those happen that's a full 30mins out of my break sitting around waiting for a train, not counting the walk to/from the station and the actual time spent eating and on the train. At that point I might as well just drive and for that I need to have taken my car to work. I'm personally willing to put up with some of those inconveniences but most people are not. Another example, on Saturday night some friends and I decided to go to NoDa at the last minute. We got to the train station just as the train was leaving, driving to NoDa was heavily considered as that would have been 15mins vs 20mins waiting for the train and then another 20mins on the train.

I’ve been riding the entire line pretty much every day and ridership looks to be doing pretty well. Unrelated to that the train I was just on was acting weird and they made everyone get off. It was one of the newer ones, I wonder what happened to it. EDIT: The last few trains I’ve seen between University and Tryon have been packed. I really wished they had better midday/Saturday frequencies. Even 12mins would be a great improvement. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The 7:35 train (the one I’m on right now) was also insanely packed with students. I’d be really surprised if it’s not for the game. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This mornings ride was interesting to say the least. Between UNCC and Sharon Rd the train came to an abrupt stop 5 times (4 of those were on the BLE, the last one was just before Sharon Rd.), like the brakes were applied full on. At one point we started rolling back down the Old Concord ramp. It was not very reassuring, I'm really interested in figuring out what was going on...

Looking at the draft map for the system redesign CATS has a bus (Rt.229) going from UCity Blvd station to PNC. It seems to stop at 7 though so I don't know how useful it would be for concerts.

I saw one this morning at my apartment complex in university. I was wondering how long it would take them to creep up here now that the light rail is running

I work near Arrowood Station at 8am so I don't get to see much of the rush hour crowd since I'm on the train at 7 but these past 2 days the trains have had a decent amount of people. Not packed but about 70% of the seats filled without anyone standing up, most people seem to get on/off at JW Clay, UNCC Main, and some at Old Concord and 36th. It's going to take some time for people to change their commute patterns but it's definitely already getting some use considering it's been running for less than a week. In other news one of the retail spots at JW Clay was lit up and had some boxes inside, I'm going to keep an eye on it on my way home this afternoon and see if something has started to move in there.

Just rode from UNCC to 25th St. and the train was completely packed, about as bad as rush hour. I'm excited to see what ridership for this weekend was and if it holds up after the newness wears off. One thing to note, most of the people got on at UNCC, JW Clay, and 36th St. I'm sure that'll start to change as the area around the other stations gets developed but if we already have packed trains while most of the stations sit unused they're going to need to start increasing weekend frequencies (or use the longer trains.) Also, I question I've had that I haven't been able to find an answer for, has CATS even hinted at what will occupy the retail spots at the stations, or even when we'll start seeing them start to fill in?

The ID cards stop letting you into the dorms the second you stop living there. They take a while to revoke access to labs and other buildings though, I was able to get into Woodward and the library for quite a bit after I stoped being a student. Cats has already said that they plan to have fare inspector carry around validators to tap the cards on to may sure they’re valid. They already (according to CATS, I haven’t tested it out myself) have this working on the buses so I don’t see it being to far off. Physically changing the cards is pointless if they have a centralized database to validate the cards against. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

UNCC switched to ID cards with NFC last year and you can tell wether it's a new one or not just by looking at it. What I've been hearing is that inspectors will start carrying validators at some point in the future to make sure the cards are actually valid (I'm sure this is super important with faculty since they don't all automatically have passes.) The system seems to already be in place since cards have to be tapped on the fare box to get into a bus. We'll see how long it takes them to get the whole system is up and running. I wonder if they'll have a different punishment for people using invalid IDs as that probably falls under fraud along with fare evasion.

According to the timetable train should leave at 10:06

Around 12 I noticed a bunch of traffic at the Hebron St. crossing, near where I work, and the train crossed extremely slowly. The gates were also down for a while, as where the ones at Sweden Rd. when I tried avoiding the Hebron backup. I wonder if they were having issues with the signals again.

I believe CATS has stated a few times that that is the plan. Busses get to use the lanes for free so they are planning to take full advantage with that. Same thing with the express lanes on 74.

I'm not 100% sure but it seems like that's round trip time from knowing about how long some of the other routes should be. For example, 229 should be about a 20 minutes from end to end but it's showing a 42min run time, the Blue Line is showing a 92 min run time, etc.

http://charlottenc.gov/cats/transit-planning/envisionmyride/Pages/envision-my-ride.aspx I don't think anyone has posted this yet. CATS has released their overhauled bus system draft for public comment. I really like a lot of the proposed changes, especially with the high frequency additions.

It seems to be incomplete, doesn't give directions to 36th st (wants me to get off at Sugar Creek and walk to NoDA) nor 9th St (wants me to get off at 7th an walk.) It also doesn't seem to know you can get to UNCC Main from campus, this is what it wants me to do from my apartment.

Looking at that the time table it looks like the 22min travel time to uptown they've been touting isn't happening. It's 33min from UNCC to CTC and 59min from end to end according to the schedule. Hopefully once the drivers become more comfortable on the line they can shave a few minutes off that. Edit: That's about a 5 minute saving from what google maps says it takes the 11 to make the trip from start to end. That's crazy considering that for about 4.5mi (about half the line) it's a fairly straight section of track with really only one grade crossing, 16th St (I'm not counting the Old Concord crossing as it's so close to a station it shouldn't affect top speed.) I'm really hoping it's just a CATS playing it safe with top speeds and they'll be able to ramp up speeds after they get comfortable with the system being in service.