CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines

[js4life]

^^^No general purpose lanes can be added without compensation to Cintra if it will negatively impact them. Either way this is a opportunity for the Lake community to embrace other forms of transit IMO

[Spartan]

 

our hub and spoke system is such a farce! Our routes are dictated-not by efficiency-but by federal funding that subsidizes proximity to low income housing.  They don't care how long it take poor people to get to work...  As long as they provide a tentacle to keep their numbers up..

 

Sorry.  none of this is based on actual research...  just relaying rants I've heard from some wonky bureaucrats.

 

I would be surprised if the hub and spoke system design is actually required by the federal government. 

[15895]

^^^No general purpose lanes can be added without compensation to Cintra if it will negatively impact them. Either way this is a opportunity for the Lake community to embrace other forms of transit IMO

The lake area already embraces rail (and bus). There just isnt money to build it. But yeah, hopefully this will sway the powers that be in Raleigh that commuter rail is a viable form of transportation. I'm not convinced of the low ridership figures.

Edited May 13, 2015 by AirNostrumMAD

[ChessieCat]

CATS also provides two direct bus lines to the airport from Northlake Mall & Archdale Station. http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/cats/Bus/Pages/airport-connector.aspx

 

I have taken the Archdale connector 3 times now.  Even though Archdale is a further LRT ride from my place than CTC, the nonstop service to CLT is nice and worth the extra price compared to Sprinter (Express vs local). Unfortunately I was the only person on the bus 2 out of those 3 trips.  I don't know what ridership levels are like but I have my doubts about its long-term sustainability.

Edited May 13, 2015 by ChessieCat

[15895]

Everytime I take 485 LKN - Gastonia, I see it twice and I'd say 30 out of 30 times I've seen in on 485, 100% empty

Edited May 13, 2015 by AirNostrumMAD

[kermit]

^ The 4-5 times I have ridden the Sprinter from CLT to CTC it has had fewer than 4 people on it the entire ride. #Anecdote

Edited May 13, 2015 by kermit

[tozmervo]

I've been on the Sprinter packed to the gills. As with most lines I'm sure it varies by time of day. It doesn't surprise me that the 590/591 airport connectors would have very light traffic though, the vast majority of the county probably doesn't know they even exist.

[15895]

I've used Sprinter once. It was only me & 1 other person from the airport, after a few stops along Wilkinson, it got really full pretty fast

[ChessieCat]

^I've taken Sprinter over 30 times the past few years and it definitely gets packed during rush hour times from CTC to CLT.  Even then it never takes more than 25 minutes to the airport terminal, the stops are manageable.

 

Sprinter's greatest inconvenience is that it originates/ends on the Brevard St side of CTC, so it's a long walk and an elevator ride up to the LRT stop on the other side of CTC.  I've missed the light rail on more than one occassion cause of that inconvenient transfer.  It's quicker to get off in front of the Omni Hotel and walk to the CTC Lynx station through the Epicenter.   

[archiham04]

I would be surprised if the hub and spoke system design is actually required by the federal government. 

It does not explicitly require a hub and spoke, but the emphasis on the proximity of a line to a certain type of neighborhood and no requirement for efficiency (so im told) encourages CATS to look no further than proximity and ignore the inefficiency of having to travel  great distances to transfer.

Edited May 13, 2015 by archiham04

[southslider]

BLE will enable more hubs and fewer spokes.

[archiham04]

^ that was the promise when Lynx came in, and additional crosstowns were added, but it is still very much a single hub system, where you must go through uptown to connect to most anywhere.

[seth0423]

Let's take a step back, and look at the CATS system map: http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/cats/Bus/maps/Documents/Charlotte%20Riders%20Guide.pdf

 

#1, Charlotte is a very hub and spoke city to begin with. 90% of the major arteries run outward from downtown.

#2, Look at the Crosstowns in the South of the city vs the north. Sure there is a big hub in the center of the town, but we don't have the density to support another large hub. We have these collections of mini-hubs in Southpark, Eastland, etc. and they seem to be doing a pretty good job.

[Spartan]

It does not explicitly require a hub and spoke, but the emphasis on the proximity of a line to a certain type of neighborhood and no requirement for efficiency (so im told) encourages CATS to look no further than proximity and ignore the inefficiency of having to travel  great distances to transfer.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you here - but part of a public transit system's purpose is to provide service for everyone, low income or otherwise. Efficiency can be viewed from a passenger's perspective (ie: being forced to travel uptown to transfer), and from the CATS operational perspective. I bet there are a lot of low ridership routes that are inefficient for them to operate due to low ridership, but they do it to provide access.

 

What is more frustrating to me is that the city has allowed so many disconnected cul-de-sac neighborhoods that it is impossible to provide parts of the city with good transit.

[southslider]

^ that was the promise when Lynx came in, and additional crosstowns were added, but it is still very much a single hub system, where you must go through uptown to connect to most anywhere.

BLE will finally create a rapid crosstown.

[archiham04]

I consider a "Crosstown" as a route that travels across the town without going through uptown. yes BLE + Lynx will go across the entire city, and will be a much improved condition.

[15895]

I am very skeptical of cross town routes.

Most of the people in would be cross town hubs don't have the pedestrian infrastructure or culture (as a result of no infrastructure) to make cross town work.

[archiham04]

So I'm not really advocating a central hub with spokes and increased crosstowns.  That is the direction we are headed and it is bad.  What I think the city needs is to break the CTC up into about five central interwoven transit centers that all have through routes that overlap.  

[tozmervo]

I think crosstown routes do work, but Charlotte's development patterns just aren't there yet. With great consistency, CATS's crosstown routes perform terribly, but they are still tweaking and trying to make them work. Last year they added Route 51 Pineville-Matthews. A couple years ago Route 29 Eastway was on the cutting block but was saved by riders fighting to save it. At the next schedule change, Route 60 Tyvola will be reduced because no one rides the damn thing.

[15895]

I think crosstown routes do work, but Charlotte's development patterns just aren't there yet. With great consistency, CATS's crosstown routes perform terribly, but they are still tweaking and trying to make them work. Last year they added Route 51 Pineville-Matthews. A couple years ago Route 29 Eastway was on the cutting block but was saved by riders fighting to save it. At the next schedule change, Route 60 Tyvola will be reduced because no one rides the damn thing.

I think connecting community transit centers will work, I just think in Charlotte, cross town transit will capture only those in poverty. I can't see any other demographic, including nerds like me who go out of their to use transit, using the bus where yo have to cross dangerous lanes of traffic, no place to walk after you get on or off other than in a grassy ditch, etc. I think you have to be really desperate to take some of the potential routes I would imagine.

Maybe some could work if they went in actual development centers. Like at birkdale, it's cool to have 97 service inbound. But if you want to go outbound, you have to cross Sam Furr. Etc etc. it's 100% not worth it

[Spartan]

How about routes that connect more of the in-town neighborhoods to each other? To me it would make sense to be able to have a bus route from NoDa to Plaza Midwood, Dilworth, Wesley Heights (etc.) business districts.

 

it would also be great to have routes that continued through uptown, so if you live on one side you can get to the other side without having to transfer at CTC (ie: Third Ward to Midtown/Cherry).

[archiham04]

I think that the city should be focusing on making transit better for people in poverty that depend on transit.  Right now they have succeeded in making it available, but what is available does not work well enough. Clustering transit centers might connect some of the intown hoods, but it's primary goal should be connecting the deep WestSide residents with multiple nodes of employment, and the deep EastSide residents the same.

[tozmervo]

could you expand on that? how would you describe it's current failings and how exactly you would remedy them? 

[archiham04]

If you live on the Central corridor Further out than Eastway... as many working poor do, you have great bus service IF:

1. you can walk to the bus

2. you work within walking distance of one of the three bus lines that travel Central.

 

If either of these are untrue, your commute to work can be well in excess of an hour.  I would be willing to wager that more than 50% of the riders fall into that catagory.

 

I am not  a transit engineer, but it seems to me that if the system worked similar to big city transit systems routes could be strung together more efficiently.  Perhaps having routes that do not terminate uptown, but continue through uptown and overlap at one or two central stations would provide a network of connections that commuters could string together to make an efficient travel trip.  I think that Dallas or Houston or some out west city may have redesigned theirs this way recently.

Edited May 19, 2015 by archiham04

[DMann]

If you live on the Central corridor Further out than Eastway... as many working poor do, you have great bus service IF:

1. you can walk to the bus

2. you work within walking distance of one of the three bus lines that travel Central.

 

If either of these are untrue, your commute to work can be well in excess of an hour.  I would be willing to wager that more than 50% of the riders fall into that catagory.

 

I am not  a transit engineer, but it seems to me that if the system worked similar to big city transit systems routes could be strung together more efficiently.  Perhaps having routes that do not terminate uptown, but continue through uptown and overlap at one or two central stations would provide a network of connections that commuters could string together to make an efficient travel trip.  I think that Dallas or Houston or some out west city may have redesigned theirs this way recently.

Do you take the bus on a regular basis?  I have used the 3 and 23 a lot, and come in to the transportation center and jump on a 20 or 15 or LYNX with no issue.  If the bus I came in on wasn't planning to head in the direction I wanted to go I would have to change anyway.  The number of people who live up on Shamrock and need to go to Randolph on a regular basis is probably not enough to support regular service, and could easily take up to an hour anyway.  The transportation center works much like the airport.