nmundo

There’s info in “The State of Higher Education in Charlotte” thread. Construction should be complete around 2020.

University City Partners just posted this on Facebook. It mentions 10 minute headways. I really hope they're not backing down from 7.5min... https://universitycitypartners.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UC-Getting-Around-Map.pdf

There is a train stopped across the street from the Tryon Walmart. Like completely stopped and the gates are down as if the train is about to cross. It’s been like this for about 5 minutes now. I wonder if this is going to cause a delay. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk There is a train stopped across the street from the Tryon Walmart. Like completely stopped and the gates are down as if the train is about to cross. It’s been like this for about 5 minutes now. I wonder if this is going to cause a delay. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Everyone's been talking about theoretical future routes. I've been working on this map for about a week and I finally think it's good enough to share, still have a bit of work to do on alignment and transfer stations and such but I think it's pretty solid.

They’ve confirmed that they are running trains at 7.5 min headways on the entire line Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They seem to have installed the new ticket machines at all of the stations now. Here's some pics I took of them at McCullough and 9th St stations but I saw them on all of the stations I saw all the way up through campus.

Samsung Pay is NFC, just like Apple and Android Pay. Has a fallback to magstripe emulation but prefers NFC. PayPass is RFID, not the same tech but to the end user it might as well be since anywhere you see the PayPass logo any contactless payment card will work (including mobile wallets) so I didn't think making the distinction was important.

Yeah, it has the MasterCard PayPass logo on it which is the same tech as Apple, android, Samsung pay use. Hopefully it will actually be enabled though. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I noticed this new TVM at 7th St Station earlier today and I don't think I've seen anyone point it out here. It says something along the lines of "test machine not in service" on it and it seems to accept basically any payment system out right now. Swipe, chip, and NFC (there's a MasterCard PayPass logo on it.) Along with maybe change cards (hopefully the buses start giving those out soon. and contactless fare cards. I'm really excited to see what kind of fare card system they end up implementing, and also being able to buy a ticket with Apple Pay.

Just drove past JW Clay station and noticed that all of the station lights are on now. The area is now significantly brighter than it used to be. For some reason it seems like the lights are set up different on the 2 bridges though which looks pretty bad IMO. Also, I didn't see anyone mention anything about last weeks public meetings but they stated that they are planning to start doing low speed testing by the end of the month between 7pm and 6am.

Last night while driving dow Tryon near the U City Blvd station I noticed the signals on the tracks where running (both red.) The ones further up were not on yet though. Hopefully we'll start seeing some trains rolling soon since signaling seems to be going up now.

Even though they won't be running 3 car trains for a while they will start running trains at 7.5 min headways during rush once the BLE opens thanks to the electrical upgrades an the south side. From what I understand the plan is to go back to 10 minutes once they have extended all platforms. I don't know how popular that'll be though. (Disclaimer: It's been a while since I read up on it and I may be wrong.)

Current Blue Line peak service is a train every 10 minutes and will be going down to every 7.5 minutes once the extension opens. I still don't think sharing tracks is a very smart idea since it would mean a single point of failure would cause problems on both lines and you'd have capacity issues. Bringing down the crossing gates every 2-3 minutes during rush hour would cause some major problems.

The city needs to really get their online game fixed. This is no longer available, neither through this link nor the one from CATS own website.

47 minutes

UNCC started handing out ID cards with contactless capabilities this year and you can tap them pretty much anywhere. I'm pretty interested to see how CATS handles it though, specially on the light rail.

CATS have posted on their Facebook that as of tomorrow the catenary system will be powered up to 25th st station. I wonder if they're planning to start storing trains on that section soon.

I noticed they started doing that at 7th street station also.

Yes, I know that. I mean the actual timeline that has each stage of the project and their completion timeframe.

The catenary wire is up between Old Concord and the I-85 connector and it looks like most of the rail is down all the way through campus. Does anyone have a link to the project timeline? I could've sworn I'd saved the pdf but I can't find it now.

It makes no sense to put the sign up if service hasn't started. It'll probably only serve to confuse people thinking they can get to UNCC from the station.

I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned that shuttle routes are getting reworked to work as feeder lines. I also could be misremembering though.

Some of the newer vending machines say "Tap your 49er card" and the newer buildings also have contactless readers so I would not be surprised if this is the way they go.

Is the pedestrian bridge at JW Clay station supposed to go across the entirety of Tryon? I drove past last night and it looked like they were building a structure for it on the side of the campus but I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned on any of the plans...

It's for vehicle storage like they do at 485 station.