CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines

[tito_m9]

1 minute ago, kermit said:

because none of our political leadership (local or state) has the sack to take lanes away from cars (even for HOV).

;( I had a feeling you would say that. Thanks though

[videtur quam contuor]

One of the advantages of the 77 toll lanes for me is the absence of trucks in those lanes. I *feel* safer.

[CLT2014]

What is interesting is that counties with extensive HOV networks don't necessarily have higher percentages of workers carpooling than other areas. Los Angeles County, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Diego, Denver, et... all have HOV infrastructure yet have similar carpooling patterns to Charlotte. Being from the West Coast where HOV lanes are everywhere... the lanes were largely Hybrids with a single occupant or minivans / SUVs with children as the second occupant.  Finding people that were willing to change their commuting pattern around living / working in the same place as another person was very very niche. Rather than replacing a commuter, the HOV lanes were just a faster way for people that were going to ride together anyhow to get somewhere (a mom and her kid going to swim lessons, a family going on a roadtrip, a couple driving to dinner, et....) or in the case of CA, the Tesla lanes.

The county with the most carpoolers isn't even an urban county nationwide. Merced County, CA stands out in red on the map below and has a large migrant farming population. Low wages, a lack of car ownership by farm workers, and sprawling work at farms through the San Joaquin Valley result in workers getting together in groups of 5 - 8 to fill cars and drive from farm to farm to pick crops. Despite all the infrastructure in the urban CA counties to support carpooling, higher incomes result in most people still chosing their own car to get to work.

Edited July 14, 2023 by CLT2014

[nakers2]

On 7/14/2023 at 11:37 AM, videtur quam contuor said:

One of the advantages of the 77 toll lanes for me is the absence of trucks in those lanes. I *feel* safer.

Even though cars cause most truck/car accidents? 

[nakers2]

To steer this back to rail, I recently spent the week out west in Portland and Seattle (at least that's where I flew in and out of respectively) both cities that have rail to their airports and I've become convinced that might be the only way to get Charlotte back on board with rail investment after CATS has completely dropped the ball on giving our city anything that resembles a cohesive transit network (even on the bus end) by American standards or otherwise. Every news story on every social media network, which I realize is not always the harbinger of transit experts, has the comment section brimming with people clamoring for rail to the airport. If CATS wants the public support back, a rail line to the airport terminal itself is one of the low ball solutions that I can offer to them.  

[elrodvt]

Shouldn't our #1 priority for transit be to move people around who are poor and can't afford a car or end up spending all their discretionary $ on one? Make it free too. 

That's my belief now and think the best starting point is to bring in someone who's been in upper mgt for a system like nyc. Focus on busses first both because that best serves the poor and I'd like to see someone prove they can run a bus network before adding more complex rail. 

Do recognize it's hard to get funding as it's not sexy like rail and don't know how to get around our inherent problems with state interference and a weak form of city government. Any thoughts on that? 

[CLT Development]

7 hours ago, elrodvt said:

Shouldn't our #1 priority for transit be to move people around who are poor and can't afford a car or end up spending all their discretionary $ on one? Make it free too. 

That's my belief now and think the best starting point is to bring in someone who's been in upper mgt for a system like nyc. Focus on busses first both because that best serves the poor and I'd like to see someone prove they can run a bus network before adding more complex rail. 

Do recognize it's hard to get funding as it's not sexy like rail and don't know how to get around our inherent problems with state interference and a weak form of city government. Any thoughts on that? 

To me, because of Charlotte's complete and total lack of a grid (5% of the city is laid out in a grid) you cannot satisfactorily service the entire city with transit without utilizing rail. We should prioritize rail/brt in high capacity areas, and feed out to nearby neighborhoods with micro transit and buses that feed the rail transit/BRT. I recently moved from the Planning Committee to the Zoning Committee, as part o the Charlotte Mecklenburg Planning Commission and so I regularly look at projects now under the guise of "how far is the bus/train." and in a lot of cases its not that far, but when you look at the route, and how serpentine the routes have to be, its no wonder that there's so many problems with delays and usage. It makes more sense to make investments in to BRT, LRT, last mile connections and micro transit. Here are two sample routes in the University Area. 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by CLT Development

[15895]

Pretty sure the intention of this thread is mass transit in Charlotte & not just the silver & red line. Things I just don’t see happening anyway so. 
 

Impressive showing from Richmond but more noteworthy/Germane to Charlotte, Raleigh has another data Point again and consistently showing strong ridership. 
 

It’s particularly noteworthy over the other agencies as Richmond & Raleigh are fairly big. St least fairly recently Richmond was posting higher ridership than CATS and CATS is pulling barely ahead in raw riders these days - for size reference. Most of the others are much smaller agencies) 

particularly noteworthy is all the investments into brt & bus lanes in Richmond. I don’t know about Raleigh, but the Triangle has been posting great transit recovery for at least a year now. I do know Raleigh received an $86M Federal grant for their BRT corridor. I don’t know the deal with them, but I think they may be on to something? (& fyi. I don’t know the area well enough, But it’s sort of annoying to see “Walmart” be the terminus for a $100M+ project but I mean.)

My absolute favorite idea in Charlotte… just pick 4 popular routes for buses, create separate branding. Have 10 minute frequencies. Machines that accept debit cards (or free) and just let that permeate and get the citizenry comfortable with buses. That is probably my #1 wish for Charlotte transit atm. Oh, and that do NOT go uptown. I rather them go around uptown, connect the major inner city neighborhoods with some terminating at the blue line for uptown access  

The fake trolley bus routes in uptown were very popular. Pretty sure they were free but I also think being colored and easy frequencies just made it intuitive for choice riders to use. 

Edited July 25, 2023 by AirNostrumMAD

[elrodvt]

6 hours ago, CLT Development said:

To me, because of Charlotte's complete and total lack of a grid (5% of the city is laid out in a grid) you cannot satisfactorily service the entire city with transit without utilizing rail. We should prioritize rail/brt in high capacity areas, and feed out to nearby neighborhoods with micro transit and buses that feed the rail transit/BRT. I recently moved from the Planning Committee to the Zoning Committee, as part o the Charlotte Mecklenburg Planning Commission and so I regularly look at projects now under the guise of "how far is the bus/train." and in a lot of cases its not that far, but when you look at the route, and how serpentine the routes have to be, its no wonder that there's so many problems with delays and usage. It makes more sense to make investments in to BRT, LRT, last mile connections and micro transit. Here are two sample routes in the University Area. 

 

Agree with much of this but may miss your main point? I'm probably being dense but why does a lack of grid prevent great bus service? Is it that walking distance due to tortuous suburban streets with no connections between them means a lot more buses? I can't hardly imagine the number of buses we could throw at the problem for the price of another lrt track. Is that wrong ? 

We need to advocate for a system where one can live without a car. Our current system has not done that for most. Focus is Park and ride? - (I don't have numbers to back that up just personal observations)

One thing that seems almost certain is that where ever light rail is it'll eventually gentrify and not serve our most needy residents. I know that's good for the wealthy and hopefully for density but is it really the priority? I've never read studies on this but even reading this thread much of the excitement is about development along the line and not about moving people. I think given the inevitable scarcity of rail in the near future this is baked in. One of many reasons I'm starting to think we need to shift resources to busses and brt. 

 

An aside: Who ever is confused by my prior post why don't you ask a question or point out the issues with it? It's "mildly infuriating"  to let people be fan boys and just use the emoticons anon whenever a comment doesn't reflect their party line. No idea if that's the case here but get a lot of that for any contrarian posts. 

[CLT Development]

11 hours ago, elrodvt said:

Agree with much of this but may miss your main point? I'm probably being dense but why does a lack of grid prevent great bus service? Is it that walking distance due to tortuous suburban streets with no connections between them means a lot more buses? I can't hardly imagine the number of buses we could throw at the problem for the price of another lrt track. Is that wrong ? 

We need to advocate for a system where one can live without a car. Our current system has not done that for most. Focus is Park and ride? - (I don't have numbers to back that up just personal observations)

One thing that seems almost certain is that where ever light rail is it'll eventually gentrify and not serve our most needy residents. I know that's good for the wealthy and hopefully for density but is it really the priority? I've never read studies on this but even reading this thread much of the excitement is about development along the line and not about moving people. I think given the inevitable scarcity of rail in the near future this is baked in. One of many reasons I'm starting to think we need to shift resources to busses and brt. 

 

An aside: Who ever is confused by my prior post why don't you ask a question or point out the issues with it? It's "mildly infuriating"  to let people be fan boys and just use the emoticons anon whenever a comment doesn't reflect their party line. No idea if that's the case here but get a lot of that for any contrarian posts. 

So the difference between our two concepts is I'm advocating for a webwork of LRT that utilizes rail ROW and DOT ROW that connects to more places, and then using buses, vans, last mile initiatives to feed into those LRT lines. Honestly the biggest drivers of cost of the LRT lines today are predicted inflation, all the money spent on public engagement, back patting, and one bajillion consultants. If we just acquired the land and did it, it'd be half the cost. 

[elrodvt]

Gotcha. I'm sure we'll have to prioritize though. Maybe we can do the buses while the rail planning inches along. Build temporary depot's where we envision lrt stops. 

[KJHburg]

This decision has major implications for Charlotte's transit planning.  Maybe we need to do a lot more Bus Rapid Transit as the FTA suggests.  Concerning the Triangle's commuter rail but see what the Feds are saying.  I would say the any thought of the Red line is dead on arrival. 

https://www.axios.com/local/raleigh/2023/07/26/raleigh-durham-commuter-rail-faces-bleak-funding-outlook

[Hushpuppy321]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

This decision has major implications for Charlotte's transit planning.  Maybe we need to do a lot more Bus Rapid Transit as the FTA suggests.  Concerning the Triangle's commuter rail but see what the Feds are saying.  I would say the any thought of the Red line is dead on arrival. 

https://www.axios.com/local/raleigh/2023/07/26/raleigh-durham-commuter-rail-faces-bleak-funding-outlook

I was just about to mention that - I’m guessing that all rail is now on the federal budget chopping block because of the cost, regardless of future ridership?  Can we just extend the Blueline and then establish a BRT System.

[15895]

5 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

I was just about to mention that - I’m guessing that all rail is now on the federal budget chopping block because of the cost, regardless of future ridership?  Can we just extend the Blueline and then establish a BRT System.

Federal dollars are flowing for rail transit more than in many decades.

My uneducated/lazy guess is the rail project wasn’t that competitive. How much money from the feds vs. NC/Local for … a couple thousand commuters (in a world of hybrid work at that) during the weekday for $3.2 Billion? And likely 0 on the weekend. 

You could build the silver line with an uptown tunnel & go right up to the airport with 30,000+ riders a day for that money. Vs. 1,400 or however many a weekday their commuter rail would garner. 

I think I remember Pete Buttigieg back when the Infrastructure Bill passed said they rather give out fewer but bigger awards to fund transformational and projects that make a large impact rather than smaller awards to more places that would have less impact, or only be able to pay for studies, etc.  So it wouldn’t be surprising to me for a M-F commuter rail on a hybrid world where the job center is more sprawling than your typical office park. It’s not like it’s Ballantyne. RTP is colossally auto-dependent - especially for commuter rail - and makes Ballantyne look like a dense urban oasis.

Edited July 28, 2023 by AirNostrumMAD

[CLT Development]

3 hours ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

Federal dollars are flowing for rail transit more than in many decades.

My uneducated/lazy guess is the rail project wasn’t that competitive. How much money from the feds vs. NC/Local for … a couple thousand commuters (in a world of hybrid work at that) during the weekday for $3.2 Billion? And likely 0 on the weekend. 

You could build the silver line with an uptown tunnel & go right up to the airport with 30,000+ riders a day for that money. Vs. 1,400 or however many a weekday their commuter rail would garner. 

I think I remember Pete Buttigieg back when the Infrastructure Bill passed said they rather give out fewer but bigger awards to fund transformational and projects that make a large impact rather than smaller awards to more places that would have less impact, or only be able to pay for studies, etc.  So it wouldn’t be surprising to me for a M-F commuter rail on a hybrid world where the job center is more sprawling than your typical office park. It’s not like it’s Ballantyne. RTP is colossally auto-dependent - especially for commuter rail - and makes Ballantyne look like a dense urban oasis.

  

[kermit]

On 7/27/2023 at 1:14 PM, KJHburg said:

  I would say the any thought of the Red line is dead on arrival. 

The FTA has said they are no longer interested in funding commuter rail, but this was a specific reference to rail service that has service focused on the traditional morning and afternoon peaks and has little activity at other times. The FTA is still still willing to fund heavy rail projects that function like regional rail, meaning service patterns that are more consistent throughout the day and frequencies around every 15-30 minutes (think the Denver A line). The latest (moribund) Red Line plans were for traditional commuter rail, but the route can support more evenly distributed regional service (particularly if extended to airport /Gastonia or Rock Hill) and CATS acknowledged a high frequency service pattern is realistic when they flirted with Statesville road LRT on the route (Red Line regional rail would be -much- more cost effective than N Meck LRT).

So I wouldn’t say the possibility of federal funding for N Meck rail is dead, but two things would certainly need to change: The plan would need to be tweaked to offer non-peaked service; and NS would still need an attitude change (which is a much bigger road block than federal cash). 

I am not sure the FTA’s suggestion that they ‘would encourage BRT development instead of commuter rail’ is being reported accurately. BRT is a pretty lousy technology for the 20+ mile trips that traditional commuter rail handled. BRT can replace short-distance rail trips (less than 10 miles) relatively well (if built properly), but really looses efficiency on longer trips (especially when cheaply built). Without billions in investment in dedicated lanes BRT is really going to struggle to attract ridership between Durham and Raleigh (and RTP in the middle).

I am very concerned about what this FTA decision does to RTP’s future (and the wider Triangle economy). The Park has been struggling for a while due to its isolation and horrendous traffic. While Apple allowed us to look past the park’s decline briefly,  it seems like the writing is still on the wall for suburban office complexes — And that is really all RTP is these days. The Park really needed excellent rail service,  a large urban node and smaller scale office space in order to remain viable, and the Foundation acknowledged that and was spending heavily to fix it (with the expectation that local govts would provide transit connectivity).

Edited August 1, 2023 by kermit

[Matthew.Brendan]

meanwhile China continues it's enormous buildout of trains, maglevs no less! which might as well be science fiction here in the states.

[blt23]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:43 PM, AirNostrumMAD said:

Federal dollars are flowing for rail transit more than in many decades.

My uneducated/lazy guess is the rail project wasn’t that competitive. How much money from the feds vs. NC/Local for … a couple thousand commuters (in a world of hybrid work at that) during the weekday for $3.2 Billion? And likely 0 on the weekend. 

You could build the silver line with an uptown tunnel & go right up to the airport with 30,000+ riders a day for that money. Vs. 1,400 or however many a weekday their commuter rail would garner. 

I think I remember Pete Buttigieg back when the Infrastructure Bill passed said they rather give out fewer but bigger awards to fund transformational and projects that make a large impact rather than smaller awards to more places that would have less impact, or only be able to pay for studies, etc.  So it wouldn’t be surprising to me for a M-F commuter rail on a hybrid world where the job center is more sprawling than your typical office park. It’s not like it’s Ballantyne. RTP is colossally auto-dependent - especially for commuter rail - and makes Ballantyne look like a dense urban oasis.

The ridership projections weren't just a couple thousand, they were 11,000-12,000 weekday riders. That's still really bad for a $3.2 billion project, but it's also about the same capital cost per rider as an $8 billion silver line for 30,000 daily riders. 

16 hours ago, kermit said:

The FTA has said they are no longer interested in funding commuter rail, but this was a specific reference to rail service that has service focused on the traditional morning and afternoon peaks and has little activity at other times. The FTA is still still willing to fund heavy rail projects that function like regional rail, meaning service patterns that are more consistent throughout the day and frequencies around every 15-30 minutes (think the Denver A line). The latest (moribund) Red Line plans were for traditional commuter rail, but the route can support more evenly distributed regional service (particularly if extended to airport /Gastonia or Rock Hill) and CATS acknowledged a high frequency service pattern is realistic when they flirted with Statesville road LRT on the route (Red Line regional rail would be -much- more cost effective than N Meck LRT).

So I wouldn’t say the possibility of federal funding for N Meck rail is dead, but two things would certainly need to change: The plan would need to be tweaked to offer non-peaked service; and NS would still need an attitude change (which is a much bigger road block than federal cash). 

I am not sure the FTA’s suggestion that they ‘would encourage BRT development instead of commuter rail’ is being reported accurately. BRT is a pretty lousy technology for the 20+ mile trips that traditional commuter rail handled. BRT can replace short-distance rail trips (less than 10 miles) relatively well (if built properly), but really looses efficiency on longer trips (especially when cheaply built). Without billions in investment in dedicated lanes BRT is really going to struggle to attract ridership between Durham and Raleigh (and RTP in the middle).

I am very concerned about what this FTA decision does to RTP’s future (and the wider Triangle economy). The Park has been struggling for a while due to its isolation and horrendous traffic. While Apple allowed us to look past the park’s decline briefly,  it seems like the writing is still on the wall for suburban office complexes — And that is really all RTP is these days. The Park really needed excellent rail service,  a large urban node and smaller scale office space in order to remain viable IMO.

I don't think the FTA is saying to build 20+ mile BRT lines. I think they are saying to build BRT and BRT-lite in the places where they make sense, and don't go chasing 20+ mile transit trips until the easier and more obvious opportunities have been taken advantage of.

[Hushpuppy321]

Is it feasible in Charlotte/Mecklenburg (City & County) to have Property Taxes raised enough to Fund the Transit Plan? (SilverLine & BlueLine Extension to Ballantyne).  Isn’t that how Austin is moving forward?  Also - Property taxes are a way to bypass the NCGA?

Edited July 30, 2023 by Hushpuppy321

[kermit]

1 hour ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

Is it feasible in Charlotte/Mecklenburg (City & County) to have Property Taxes raised enough to Fund the Transit Plan? (SilverLine & BlueLine Extension to Ballantyne).  Isn’t that how Austin is moving forward?  Also - Property taxes are a way to bypass the NCGA?

yes to all questions. Unfortunately such a raise would be tough politically. IIRC the average property tax bill increase was (I believe) > $500 per year. That would have a much harder bite than a sales tax increment.

[Nathan2]

https://youtu.be/g9O6RzsXIqQ

The new Montreal REM is everything the silver line and future transit in  Charlotte should strive for. The notable thing is that this project was first announced in 2016 and the first phase is already in operation.  The automated trains would solve CATS issue of staffing. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Nathan2

[videtur quam contuor]

REM is possible because the major investor is Caisse Dépôt et Placement, (Caisse), the Quebéc retirement system manager. The law allowing them to participate in infrastructure was passed in 2015 for this project. That gives REM  nearly unlimited funds at the lowest rate. 

I will be in Montréal in September and I hope they have established tap-and-go for conventional subway for use with U. S. cards by that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caisse_de_dépôt_et_placement_du_Québec

edit: All above does not diminish the achievement. It looks superb and operates well

Edited July 30, 2023 by videtur quam contuor

[kermit]

4 hours ago, Nathan2 said:

https://youtu.be/g9O6RzsXIqQ

The new Montreal REM is everything the silver line and future transit in  Charlotte should strive for. The notable thing is that this project was first announced in 2016 and the first phase is already in operation.  The automated trains would solve CATS issue of staffing. 

and if my currency conversion is correct it was built at roughly the same per mile cost as the BLE

Edited July 31, 2023 by kermit

[elrodvt]

Hopefully the construction wasn't provided by the company that built the "Big O". 

I'll never forget squirming in my seat the year after a big beam fell onto the seats. Luckily I believe there was no one around. Of course after Loria bought the team that could have been true during a game. 

[kayman]

https://charlotte.axios.com/335708/charlotte-regional-transit-authority-connect-beyond-centralina/

A regional transportation authority idea is gaining traction and consideration as how to get more transit investments in the region as a whole. The issues seem to be more between the North Carolina side & South Carolina side of the metro area though.

The current MTC might be merged into this proposal or altered to be a committee body subordinate of the proposed independent regional independent authority like the current MARTA Board is of the Atlanta Region Transit Link Authority aka the ATL (which is the merger entity of GRTA & SRTA).

This is where looking into an interstate compact which formed the Bi-state Development Agency that operates St. Louis MetroLink, Kansas City Area Transit Authority, Washington Metropolitan Authority Transit Authority (WMATA) [the transit agency], Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission (WMATC) [the Metropolitan District regulatory agency that oversees all other passenger transportation entities outside of WMATA in the District of Columbia/Maryland/(Northern) Virginia aka the DMV area], and Virginia-North Carolina High Speed Rail Compact (which is oversees the implementation of the Charlotte to Raleigh to Washington Amtrak passenger railway improvements and the NCRR/NC Rail improvements connection to Richmond are being executed for the Southeast High Speed Rail project) would come in handy of considerations of getting uniform improvements on both sides of the metro area on reasonable terms .

Edited August 1, 2023 by kayman