CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines

[southslider]

^Hadn't heard, but she isn't seeking re-election 

[davidclt]

This is a good read about transit in the Puget Sound region (in Pierce County (Tacoma), King County (Seattle/Belleview/Redmond/Issaquah), Snohomish County (Everett where the 747, 767, 777 are built), and Kitsap County (Bremerton - across the Sound from Seattle and accessed by ferry or by crossing the bridge that replaced the bridge that replaced Galloping Gertie))

Mariya Frost on Twitter: "WPC asked national transportation expert and urban policy analyst, Wendell Cox, to evaluate transportation planning in the Puget Sound region. It is now available online for you to read. I'll share his key findings in this thread. #waleg https://t.co/vNJYG5G1r6 https://t.co/hr8QfTybFT" / Twitter

Humbling to consider.

Edited December 19, 2021 by davidclt

[southslider]

^Anything by anti-transit Wendell Cox simply concludes a small share of total regional trips are made by transit.   Anyone able to understand how far fewer miles of transit than roadways are located within any given region shouldn't be shocked by Wendell Cox's simplistic findings.

[kermit]

22 hours ago, davidclt said:

This is a good read about transit in the Puget Sound region (in Pierce County (Tacoma), King County (Seattle/Belleview/Redmond/Issaquah), Snohomish County (Everett where the 747, 767, 777 are built), and Kitsap County (Bremerton - across the Sound from Seattle and accessed by ferry or by crossing the bridge that replaced the bridge that replaced Galloping Gertie))

Mariya Frost on Twitter: "WPC asked national transportation expert and urban policy analyst, Wendell Cox, to evaluate transportation planning in the Puget Sound region. It is now available online for you to read. I'll share his key findings in this thread. #waleg https://t.co/vNJYG5G1r6 https://t.co/hr8QfTybFT" / Twitter

Humbling to consider.

Meh, Wendell Cox is literally this guy (see below, sorry about repeating myself, but it is relevant). He is a libertarian hack who's big shtick is to say that revealed choice shows us that everyone prefers to drive, while somehow managing to ignore all of the social engineering that produced auto dependence.

EDIT: Southsider beat me to it...

Edited December 20, 2021 by kermit

[Reverie39]

This is a minor point but I've been wondering for a while. How come Google Maps doesn't show the blue line (and now gold line) on their transit map? Stations are labeled but there's no actual colored line marking the transit path like there are in other cities. Even other relatively new light rails of similar caliber (Phoenix, Houston, St. Louis) are shown.

[kayman]

7 hours ago, Reverie39 said:

This is a minor point but I've been wondering for a while. How come Google Maps doesn't show the blue line (and now gold line) on their transit map? Stations are labeled but there's no actual colored line marking the transit path like there are in other cities. Even other relatively new light rails of similar caliber (Phoenix, Houston, St. Louis) are shown.

I would contact CATS directly about this as they should know 

[kermit]

This is hijacked from Citiboi's post in the Triad Transit thread:

1 hour ago, cityboi said:

Winston-Salem pushing to bring passenger rail to the city. The city wants to be included on an Amtrak leg that would extend to Asheville.

https://greensboro.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/winston-salem-plans-push-to-bring-back-passenger-rail/article_9b69b5c0-7951-5db3-a8d0-3e79fa7588b0.html

First, this falls into the "very, very, very, unlikely to happen" category but it is interesting. Winston leaders (mayor and council) were discussing their priorities for funding requests from the infrastructure bill. It appears they really want to be connected to the NC passenger rail network:

Quote

“We have got to get the plan, commitment, money set aside (and) matching grants,” she said. “Rail is critical to the future of Winston-Salem. You can’t move people and goods in the world we live in if you don’t have rail. Nobody looks at you.”

The reason this is relevant here is these plans involve using the O-Line from Winston to Barber Junction and then onto Asheville (this is the same line as what CATS wants to use for the Red Line here). NS will have exactly the same concerns about allowing passenger service on their tracks in Winston as they do in North Meck. While I doubt that NS will budge, it is significant that two cities on the O-Line are now maneuvering for access to it. This might spur the state to take a more active role in negotiations with NS for access to these tracks.

A rail connection between Charlotte and Winston (this is not discussed in the article above) would be a straightforward add if the above mentioned plan happens and it would have huge benefits for the new medical school and the WF Innovation Quarter.

[again, this is very very very very unlikely to happen, but it is interesting news]

Edited December 27, 2021 by kermit

[jthomas]

Very interesting, and I’m glad to see that rail is on the radar of city leaders in W-S. That said, a train to Asheville via the O-line would be terribly slow, even with significant investment in the route. A better way to tie Winston into the rail network would be to have the new Wilmington service run to Winston (I assume that it is currently planned to terminate in Raleigh). This would be a more attractive route and would also have the benefit of increasing the number of trains between Greensboro and Raleigh. I do think there should also be trains from W-S to Charlotte (a great route would be Winston-Charlotte-Columbia).

Edited December 27, 2021 by jthomas

[kermit]

3 minutes ago, jthomas said:

Very interesting, and I’m glad to see that rail is on the radar of city leaders in W-S. That said, a train to Asheville via the O-line would be terribly slow, even with significant investment in the route. A better way to tie Winston into the rail network would be to have the new Wilmington service run to Winston (I assume that it is currently planned to terminate in Raleigh). This would be a more attractive route and would also have the benefit of increasing the number of trains between Greensboro and Raleigh. I do think there should also be trains from W-S to Charlotte (a great route would be Winston-Charlotte-Columbia).

agree on all counts (and the Winston-Columbia train is a particularly good idea). The Asheville train is a comically bad idea (from the perspective of travel time). But connecting Winston to the NC passenger rail network (ideally to both Charlotte and Raleigh) is a spectacular idea.

[videtur quam contuor]

Perhaps we can convince NS by offering alternating sections (640 acres) of land along each side of track.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)

(My high school US History teacher [RIP] would be so proud to see me make this joke. Influence never ends for teachers)

Edited December 27, 2021 by tarhoosier

[cityboi]

Interesting points Kermit. I'm glad rlthe city is at least taking a proactive stance on the issue. NS can be a thorn in the side. They are the reason we have a railyard in downtown Greensboro that is an eyesore. They won't sell so the city can convert it into a park.

Edited December 28, 2021 by cityboi

[15895]

I haven’t followed Charlotte light rail in a long time so apologies if I ask anything dumb. 
 

I remember talk of a portion of the silver line going underground in uptown. Is there any possibility with the Infrastructure bill an underground option be revisited? The most important aspect of the light rail network in Charlotte will be the connections. 
 

Has there been any talk of the impacts of the Infrastructure bill and silver line progress??

[kermit]

8 minutes ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

I haven’t followed Charlotte light rail in a long time so apologies if I ask anything dumb. 
 

I remember talk of a portion of the silver line going underground in uptown. Is there any possibility with the Infrastructure bill an underground option be revisited? The most important aspect of the light rail network in Charlotte will be the connections. 
 

Has there been any talk of the impacts of the Infrastructure bill and silver line progress??

The Silver Line is in a weird purgatory. Its route has been decided, which means that changing to an underground route through uptown is virtually impossible. But, the plans have not yet reached the 60% design and engineering stage which is necessary to apply for federal funding (this design process is currently underway). A  local funding commitment is also required for federal funding, but that is at least a couple of years away (at best). So basically the Silver Line won’t benefit from the infrastructure bill and it cant really be modified either. Its stuck.

Commuter rail in the Triangle is in a much better position for infrastructure bill funding.

Edited December 28, 2021 by kermit

[15895]

26 minutes ago, kermit said:

The Silver Line is in a weird purgatory. Its route has been decided, which means that changing to an underground route through uptown is virtually impossible. But, the plans have not yet reached the 60% design and engineering stage which is necessary to apply for federal funding (this design process is currently underway). A  local funding commitment is also required for federal funding, but that is at least a couple of years away (at best). So basically the Silver Line won’t benefit from the infrastructure bill and it cant really be modified either. Its stuck.

Commuter rail in the Triangle is in a much better position for infrastructure bill funding.

Ok. I know you're smart at this so let me ask, I read that there will be a lot of $$$ from the infrastructure bill still to be awarded through grants and applications for projects that support the administrations goals (rail transit, etc.) over the course of the next couple years and that they want the grants to be large enough to help jumpstart large/significant/transformational projects. Is there a possibility the Silver Line could get enough funding in the next couple years of the Biden Administration?

[kermit]

On 12/28/2021 at 2:09 PM, AirNostrumMAD said:

Ok. I know you're smart at this so let me ask, I read that there will be a lot of $$$ from the infrastructure bill still to be awarded through grants and applications for projects that support the administrations goals (rail transit, etc.) over the course of the next couple years and that they want the grants to be large enough to help jumpstart large/significant/transformational projects. Is there a possibility the Silver Line could get enough funding in the next couple years of the Biden Administration?

The design work should be done in plenty of time for funding eligibility. The trick to getting the Silver Line moving forward is identifying local funding (it does not matter how many $$$ are in the infrastructure bill, none of it will go to projects without a local match). To get local funding the following needs to happen:

• The council needs to agree on a specific tax and amount (sounds like they have landed on a half cent sales tax as the primary source of local funding)
• There needs to be a clear transit plan for people to see what the tax will pay for (this is still vague)
• The state legislature needs to approve any proposed sales tax increase (Tariq Bokhari is currently working to obstruct this approval and get more of the ‘transit plan’ to be spent on roads. This is according to his own tweets). Given the political makeup of the NCGA and their well-established anti-urban stance, this may be a difficult process.
• There will need to be a referendum on the transit tax, the majority of Mecklenburg voters will need to approve it (after all of the above happens). There have been five transit tax referrendums in NC since 1997 (ish) including 2 in Mecklenburg and one each in Orange, Durham and Wake. All have passed easily.

We are a long way from the last 3 bullets happening. Best case I see is all this gets approved in about 3 years (best case). If we have another MAGA administration then we wait more before the 6-7 years construction  process begins.

IMO CATS was distracted with BLE construction problems and let planning slide. A future transit plan (and funding strategy) should have been squared away 5 years ago (before BLE opening). The fact this was not done was a huge failure of leadership (at CATS and the city) IMO. That failure means we are likely to loose out on any infrastructure bill dollars for LRT expansion.

Edited December 30, 2021 by kermit

[CLT2014]

Silver Line is for the future generations....this thing is so far away from reality that many of us posting on here will be counting down the days to retirement, moving into assisted living, or dead by the time it launches. 

[Reverie39]

On 12/19/2021 at 10:52 PM, kayman said:

I would contact CATS directly about this as they should know 

Interesting, I would have figured it was just Google being behind/mistaken. I used Google Maps' feedback form to suggest the line be added. Who could be reached out to at CATS?

[tozmervo]

I'm not sure how the actual line work is generated, but onn Bing, if you select a transit route it will show you the route. (Also note that like Google Maps, the live bus location information is freely pushing to all map services)

[tozmervo]

1 hour ago, Reverie39 said:

Interesting, I would have figured it was just Google being behind/mistaken. I used Google Maps' feedback form to suggest the line be added. Who could be reached out to at CATS?

telltransit@charlottenc.gov. It will get routed to the right people.

[Guest]

I have been in touch with someone and it is just a simple matter of  the right people not being aware. Should be a quick fix

edit: keep in mind it is the holidays and local government so it will still take longer than it should 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Guest

[Reverie39]

On 12/30/2021 at 5:16 PM, MothBeast said:

I have been in touch with someone and it is just a simple matter of  the right people not being aware. Should be a quick fix

edit: keep in mind it is the holidays and local government so it will still take longer than it should 

Assuming you're talking about CATS lines on Google Maps, awesome that's great of you. It's minor but can't hurt to help make anyone traveling through more aware of transit options by making them more visible. 

[Spartan]

On 12/4/2021 at 10:46 AM, Desert Power said:

Illegal in North Carolina

Re: articulated buses: They aren't illegal in NC - just Meck Co, I think. But I'm unclear on the status since the planned rapid transit service on Indy has been converted to LRT.

[JRCLT]

Why exactly are these illegal?

[kermit]

3 minutes ago, JeanClt said:

Why exactly are these illegal?

A former state senate rep from Matthews got the law passed in an effort to force CATS to run LRT to Matthews instead of the proposed (at the time) BRT along dedicated bus lanes on Independence.

[tozmervo]

Ratified in November 2021, HB165 includes:

Further, in summer 2020, CATS had an RFP out in their "Bus Procurement Project" that included requirements for 60' articulated buses in lieu of 45' buses. I don't think they've officially ordered longer buses, just collected bid information on doing so.