Lynx Blue Line (South Corridor)

[monsoon]

Actually the correct analogy is that you hired someone to build a house for you and they don't do it properly, i.e they spend more of your money than they were supposed to, they didn't build it to plans, and because of it you can move in for months. Is it your fault for letting the work go on for so long without any checkpoints and then paying them without inspecting the work? When the roofers show up to put your roof on and the house has not been framed yet, then I would think most people would take notice their general contractor is not doing the job.

[dubone]

Maybe they are all correct analogies, just a difference in opinion on who is at fault. I'd sue the people contracted to design and/or build the house, as they would be at fault for their errors. I did my part to check on it, although I couldn't catch every detail on geology, code law, and dimensions of every corner. I can't do everything and I don't know everything, which is why I hired them to begin with.

If the result of the suit is that the architects and contractors are responsible, then they are. But if a review finds that I should have found the problems, the I am responsible.

My feeling is that is the city/CATS loses this lawsuit, then Tober should be canned. If they win, then it was Parsons fault.

[monsoon]

Well unfortunately we are not talking about building a house, we are talking about building what is turning out to be a $1/2 billion transit line, and there should have been decent oversite by the CATS management to insure the contractors were doing their work properly. Part of this apparently was the fact the contractor improperly billed CATS for travel expenses which should have been a red flag right there.

[MZT]

I view it as good news that the city council is ready to get tough on costs and oversight, though. Sounds like the days of just shrugging off raised estimates are behind us.

[monsoon]

I view it as good news that the city council is ready to get tough on costs and oversight, though. Sounds like the days of just shrugging off raised estimates are behind us.

They are going to have to be because the overruns are going to come right out of the city budget. The feds promised to pay 50% of the line as originally forcast and they won't go one dime over. Before this latest debacle the amount had dropped to 48% and I suspect that it will eventually fall to 45%. The same goes for the NCDOT. They parceled out 25% for the original budget costs and won't spend more on the project. So its the local tax payers that have to pick up the slack for the costs associated with CATS making mistakes.

[monsoon]

Maybe some heads are going to rool at CATS according to this article.

The rest of the people in town are making jokes about CATS now. Read Here.

[cinco]

The rest of the people in town are making jokes about CATS now. Read Here.

man, i wish ol' doug robarchek was still @ the observer... he would've really laid into the transit mishaps, and i would've actually laughed.

[MZT]

Well we just saw a 300M dollar arena built on time and on budget. This is a "finance town" after all - Tober may be facing a situation where people have less tolerance for budget booboos than Boston did.

[monsoon]

They really need to fix this problem fast. From that article it sounds as if Syfert and Tober were in DC making the case for the rest of Charlotte's transit system and this mess came up. Our two local legislators have not said much about it except it sounds like there better not be anymore screw ups or Charlotte has seen it's last federal dollars for transit projects.

[Mobuchu]

WBTV news was out taking video, and they did an interview with one of the CATS reps. He said they will be doing low speed preliminary testing for now, and will start full speed testing in a couple weeks.

By a couple weeks he meant 1 week, I just saw the train fly by on Remount. Maybe Ron is affraid of more delays so he only allowed for one week of preliminary testing .

[monsoon]

It does sound as if some on the city council are quite upset at what has happened. We won't know the final costs tally for weeks because it is going to be that long until they can figure it out. Councilman Andy Dulin has fired the first shot at Syfert & Tober and a number of other people at CATS. He is quoted in today's paper "When you change coaches on a football team, you usually get rid of his assistance coaches.".... "Those assistant coaches on both ends, on the manager's side, and the transit side, ought to be worried too."

My interpretation of that is that he wants to get rid of Syfert, Tober, and all of their assistant managers. Given the city council alone right now knows the true level of what has happened, it sounds as if they might have really screwed it up for a councilman would go on the record like this.

[uptownliving]

Andy Dulin is the most anti-CATS person on the City Council. Everytime something comes up for CATS, even if it is on the Consent agenda he has Ron Tober up there explaining it all in detail and then he will proceed to vote against it. He has not voted for anything in favor of CATS since Dulin came on board less than a year ago. Those comments by Dulin do not surprise me at all, but don't take Dulin's comments to represent the feelings of the rest of the city council. In fact Dulin is on the political fringe of the City Council.

[dubone]

I think I'm starting to agree on Tober. I firmly do not agree on Syfert.

But this news is really damaging to CATS. Now, no one will believe the costs estimates ever again.

I still believe that Tober should be kept through the end of the construction phase, but that they should then have a post mortem on the cost overruns, and likely fire him at that time. They will then have the ability to make a new start.

[uptownliving]

The CBJ is reporting about the latest cost overruns on the South Line by Parsons, and states that city officials "hope it tops out at $22 M"

Hopefully CATS takes Parsons to court or some other way and recoups a lot of that money.

It does puzzle me how much press CATS gets for its cost overruns...and yet NC DOT overruns or delays for 485/85/77 just gets a mention in the paper. Its as if people just expect road projects to be delayed and over budget...but they hold mass transit projects to a different standard.

[monsoon]

$22M is another 5% overrun. That is a pretty significant amount when you consider they have already run it over by $33M and have to cut stuff out of the project as a result. On top of that I believe we are up to about 60% more than it was originally promised when the voters here first approved it. A lot of people here are unhappy about that and of course the media loves to fan those flames. That is why it is very very important that CATS not screw this up as it will mean there won't be any support for future lines.

When I attended the session in Mooresville, where CATS was trying to convince the local population to support the North CR line, the very first question was "How much is it going to cost, and why should we trust you...?" Along with that was how much the S. LRT had gone over budget from the original amount that was promised when the Mecklenburg voters here voted it in. There was a lot of concern that CATS would do the same thing to the people there.

I do think that people have a double standard when it comes to road building but on the other hand this really does put into question CATS ability to make a decent cost estimate, stick to a budget, and to manage a large construction project. It think it would behoove the city to look at moving the construction portion of this and future transit projects to another department that has more experience at this.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

It does puzzle me how much press CATS gets for its cost overruns...and yet NC DOT overruns or delays for 485/85/77 just gets a mention in the paper. Its as if people just expect road projects to be delayed and over budget...but they hold mass transit projects to a different standard.

It is certain that people will use the roads but less so that people will use the LRT. Honestly, I don't know anyone outside this forum that thinks the LRT will be a success.

I'm not sure if it will be, but I hope it turns out to be a resounding success.

[orulz]

I doubt the transit line will be a hit-the-ground-running smash hit. I predict that ridership will be decent, but not spectacular, for the first few years. Trains will look rather empty, and the critics will have their heyday.

But five years from now, as more of the system comes online, traffic gets worse, and center-city redevelopment continues, the system will experience a significant jump in ridership. The naysayers will have to eat crow, so their criticisms will shift to general transit bashing to save face ("We could have had added a lane to I-77 for that much, transit is for America-hating commies and terrorists, blah blah").

[AuLukey]

I doubt the transit line will be a hit-the-ground-running smash hit. I predict that ridership will be decent, but not spectacular, for the first few years. Trains will look rather empty, and the critics will have their heyday.

But five years from now, as more of the system comes online, traffic gets worse, and center-city redevelopment continues, the system will experience a significant jump in ridership. The naysayers will have to eat crow, so their criticisms will shift to general transit bashing to save face ("We could have had added a lane to I-77 for that much, transit is for America-hating commies and terrorists, blah blah").

I agree and I hope you're right. Although, that's the same thing Jacksonville said about monorail.

[monsoon]

...... It think it would behoove the city to look at moving the construction portion of this and future transit projects to another department that has more experience at this.

WSOC TV is reporting that this will most likely be on the agenda of tonights city council meeting. Part of their consideration will be why CATS management did not notice anything was wrong for months.

And Amazingly, Parsons has this to say about it. "It has been asserted that deficiencies in the Parsons team design resulted in increasted costs. We have not been officially notified by CATS of any such deficiencies...."

Someone has been asleep at the wheel and if this is true, there really should be a shake up.

[uptownliving]

WSOC TV is reporting that this will most likely be on the agenda of tonights city council meeting. Part of their consideration will be why CATS management did not notice anything was wrong for months.

And Amazingly, Parsons has this to say about it. "It has been asserted that deficiencies in the Parsons team design resulted in increasted costs. We have not been officially notified by CATS of any such deficiencies...."

Someone has been asleep at the wheel and if this is true, there really should be a shake up.

The Charlotte Observer reported on this a while back where the future CATS construction projects would be under the perview of the City's Engineering Dep run by Jim Shumaker. This is the same group that was responsible for building the new arena on time and on budget.

[A2]

This whole issue just makes me gag!

Without decent leadership, the future success of our Transit is held hostage. Fire Tober and anyone eles that is even close to responsible for "derailing" (pun intended) our light rail budget and time-line. This will send a CLEAR signal to the public that the city is serious about mass transit and more importantly serious about getting it done ON BUDGET & ON TIME!

Without sending a message, all we do is gather more steam for the oposition to bash Mass transit as an economically viable option for the Charlotte Region.

We all know that we NEED it, but with the kind of overruns and time delays we have had on this project, people will assume blow a half a billion bucks someplace else. (Like Lights on the Interstate. )

A2

[MZT]

I know I tend to take a skeptic's role on UP, but this is one area where I'm an opimist, and I think the LRT will exceed ridership expectations. People will be complaining in a few years why CATS was too shortsighted to build 3-car stops and buy longer trains.

There were skeptics galore in Dallas and San Diego too -- very sprawly, auto dominated places. But today their citizens are quite proud of their systems.

[monsoon]

Indeed A2. Charlotte is fortunate to have been awarded this project and it would be very disappointing to see them blow it because of incompetance.

[atlrvr]

I know I tend to take a skeptic's role on UP, but this is one area where I'm an opimist, and I think the LRT will exceed ridership expectations. People will be complaining in a few years why CATS was too shortsighted to build 3-car stops and buy longer trains.

There were skeptics galore in Dallas and San Diego too -- very sprawly, auto dominated places. But today their citizens are quite proud of their systems.

I definitely agree about it being shortsighted to shorten the stations to allow 2 car trains at a max...I also tend to be fairly optimistic. I'm not sure that right off the bat that ridership will be that strong, but I do believe that many people moving into the projects proposed along the line are doing so because they value the convenience of LRT. In the long run, this will exceed CATS expectations....

I didn't know where to put this, but I'll add that Crosland announced that they made a new hire who will oversee the redevelopment of the strip center and former HQ at Scaleybark and South, as well as other mixed-use infill projects that they will begin to focus on.

[monsoon]

I know I tend to take a skeptic's role on UP, but this is one area where I'm an opimist, and I think the LRT will exceed ridership expectations. People will be complaining in a few years why CATS was too shortsighted to build 3-car stops and buy longer trains.

Oh I agree with you on ridership and I don't think there is any question if people will ride it once built. I am of the opinion the models they are forced to use delibertly understate ridership so less lines will be funded by the feds. When this line is completed I think they will exceed ridership unless crime becomes a problem. (and that is a distinct possibility given the growing gang problem)

The problem is that if they completly blow the budget and it was because of incompetence, it will affect the ability to build future systems in town. Almost every mid-sized city in the USA is now going to the feds for transit cash and there is very little of it to go around. Charlotte doesn't need a bad reputation for wasting this money next time it gets in line.