Long Term Rail and CATS Transit Plans

[dubone]

CATS' North line will be single tracked, I believe. The costs are significantly more to double track, so it is easier said than done.

[monsoon]

The North line is commuter rail and it's fairly common to use single tracked line for it. With the proper timing, single tracking can work really well. The previously mentioned Shonan Monorail is an example.

[dubone]

The Eastland Mall Transit Hub is now under construction.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/14009760.htm

This and the other north, south, and west transit hubs will be great for improving suburb to suburb bus route convenience. I'm excited that this could help establish Eastland as the 'downtown' for east Charlotte, which will hopefully help its long term prospects for revitalization.

[lupitachica]

I'm a little confused about how these hubs will work. For example, if you lived near the Matthews or Southpark hub and wanted to go to the Eastland hub , would you have to travel to uptown first to get there?

I like the idea of Eastland Mall area becoming a "downtown" for the East as well - especially if its easily accessible from all parts of the SE. I'm thinking 125th Street in Harlem or better yet downtown Brooklyn..

[dubone]

No, the idea is that there will be routes that terminate at these new hubs instead of the downtown Charlotte Transportation Center. Many or most routes might still go through downtown, but there are now options for systems that focus on a quadrant of the city with out processing through downtown.

I don't think final routes are determined yet to know exactly how it will play out, but the strategy is to avoid the problem you are describing, where everyone must go downtown to change busses for indirect routes.

[lupitachica]

Thank goodness. Not having the ability to go crosstown on public transportation is frustrating.

How do you think all of these transit changes will affect how children go back & forth to school? I can only imagine that the improvements will eliminate some of the schoolbus use for the older children.

[dubone]

I think it will only get better in the next decade. The overall strategy is not only to add quite a lot of new busses and routes to the system, but to structure them into a more wholistic system. By having rapid transit and streetcars focus on the CBD, they can take away a lot of bus routes that operate in spokes in and out of downtown. They take away the routes that will be redundant with the new rapid transit lines, like along South Blvd and possibly a few others. Then they'll add a lot more circumferential bus routes to bring people to the rapid transit lines. The bus system will then be primarily focused around the new N, S, E, and W mini transit hubs, and also the stations for the rail and BRT lines.

It is an exciting change, as it should add a significant amount of efficiency and capacity to the overall transit systems.

Obviously it will take a long time and a lot of money to get all the pieces in place, but I really believe they are on the right track.

[MZT]

There are many major streets in Charlotte not serviced by busses. So allowing the fleet to comb through more parts of town, leaving the in-and-out traffic to the rapid transit corridors, will improve coverage.

Also, the current transit center is over capacity.

[crispin]

Is there much precedent for a metro mass transit extending into a second state?

There are a bunch of precendents.

New York City has three such systems. MetroNorth feeds Grand Central Station from Connecticut, New Jersey and New York State. New Jersey Transit feeds Penn Station from New Jersey. And the PATH system runs between New York City and New Jersey.

Philadelphia also has three. SEPTA's commuter rail system stretches into New Jersey (Trenton) and Delaware (Wilmington). New Jersey Transit runs a line between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. And the PATCO system runs between Philadelphia and New Jersey.

Chicago's commuter rail system extends to Kinosha, Wisconsin and South Bend, Indiana.

Boston's commuter rail system runs to Providence, RI -- and there is talk of serving Manchester, NH.

And the light rail line in St. Louis is half in Missouri and half in Illinois.

Funding disputes have affected many of these systems, but hey, what else is new in the world of mass transit? While WMATA has had its troubles, it's also a U.S. subway network built in the second half of the 20th century, which is a remarkable achievement.

[RugbyPike#11]

I skipped my rugby practice to check out the Rock Hill/York County Transit Study meeting last Thursday night. Right now, they're still in the analysis phase of their project. They expect to finish with the cost-benefit analysis for each possible transit alternative sometime around August. There are currently ten alternatives that will see full cost benefit analysis. (go to http://www.cityofrockhill.com/planningserv...nsportation.asp for all of the detailed information if you're interested)

Alternative 1

[monsoon]

Thanks for the update. That was very informative. I really would like to see some sort of rail line extended to Rock Hill.

[atlrvr]

Alternative 10 has always made the most sense to me. It could be an extension of the North corridor line. There would only be two stops sound of downtown in NC, one near the old coliseum which could be the southwest side transit hub and also have shuttle busses serving the business parks there, and the other at the South LRT terminus, which could share Park & Ridge facilities and allow for easy transfer between the two modes of transit.

The end result would be faster trips to downtown for York County commuters, office parks would be served with commuters from York and N. Meck, and the shared station with LRT would allow York commuters to have more local access with an easy transfer.

[dubone]

Commuter rail trains are allowed on the same tracks as freight so I agree option 10 makes a lot of sense. I also like that it would provide a SC rail connection to the intercity rail that will stop downtown. My chief concern would be that it might compete with the LRT for commutes from 485 to downtown. However, since we hope for enough TOD to support the line, maybe commuter rail will be a good complement.

[atlrvr]

Well, it would only share the one station and it would serve a different part of downtown (about 1/2 mile away). I think they would complement more than compete. Besides, if a person who lives in Rock Hill works in South End (or even at the University), then changing trains at the souther LRT terminus would make the most sense.

I just think LRT all the way to RH would be prohibively slow, and with the wider roads and less traffic in SC, LRT probably wouldn't be very competitive time-wise.

[monsoon]

Agreed. LRT to RH isn't going to make much sense. Light rail simply can't handle a 30-45 mile long line. Remember the plans for the South LRT include an extension to 485N. Imagine a train leaving 485 north and traveling to Rock Hill. It would take forever and put that particular train out of commission for more than an hour while it made that long trip to SC.

It needs commuter rail due to the higher speeds. (or heavy electrified rail, but that will never happen here)

[orulz]

I would rather see DMUs than conventional commuter rail, because DMUs accellerate faster, make more frequent stops, allow for greater reliability (more than one motor per train) and greater flexibility (shorter trains at off hours saves fuel) and, in my opinion, just look better than push-pull locomotive setups.

One potential problem is that FRA-compliant DMUs do not generally have low floors - but then again even conventional "low-floor" bi-level rail cars do not have level boarding, and a few steps up and down to board the train doesn't really mater.

Does anyone know if CATS is still considering DMUs for the north corridor as well?

[monsoon]

Does anyone know if CATS is still considering DMUs for the north corridor as well?

Yes they were considering it, but I don't know if that is still in the plan. There was word at one point of piggybacking on the DMU purchase the TTA was going to make for the RDU system, but it doesn't appear that is going to happen. However, I don't think the final plans have been released yet.

[Creasy336]

Agreed. LRT to RH isn't going to make much sense. Light rail simply can't handle a 30-45 mile long line. Remember the plans for the South LRT include an extension to 485N. Imagine a train leaving 485 north and traveling to Rock Hill. It would take forever and put that particular train out of commission for more than an hour while it made that long trip to SC.

It needs commuter rail due to the higher speeds. (or heavy electrified rail, but that will never happen here)

I agree commuter rail is the only way to go.

[dubone]

It seems to me that the faster acceleration and more frequent stops are not that important for a Rock Hill line. It was important for the TTA, as it had to travel both longer distance overall, but then operate almost like LRT within the city centers.

A Rock Hill line wouldn't need to operate in the same way. Or least not with as priority all the added expense of adding tracks and doing as much engineering as TTA had to design.

[dubone]

http://www.charmeck.org/Departments/CATS/R...Transitions.htm

The Northeast line's newsletter is now available on CATS's site. (The "2005" in the PDF is a typo)

The only real news is about the 29/49 intersection. It talks a lot about the plans for the City Boulevard and station area.

[MZT]

Many unanswered planning questions remain on this line.

Routing by Asian Mall... better servicing to UNCC... Whether to cross 485...

[dubone]

Yes, and those questions will likely remain options for years. This line past NoDa is a decade away from even starting construction, and that's only if it stays on track.

It actually is great to see them create variant options from the original plan. It highlights how they are reviewing all the possibilities. Although they must stay pretty close to the original plan.

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

Yes, and those questions will likely remain options for years. This line past NoDa is a decade away from even starting construction, and that's only if it stays on track.

It actually is great to see them create variant options from the original plan. It highlights how they are reviewing all the possibilities. Although they must stay pretty close to the original plan.

Your right, unless growth explodes in the NE part of the city. I could see the timetable pushing forward if a major company relocates HQ in the NE part (or like IBM and build a huge complex). Then you would get pressures both from city and Corporate circles to build it.

[appatone]

Sorry if this was discussed somewhere else earlier as I rarely venture into the transportation forums but I have heard that next month some guys from Raleigh will be coming to Monroe to discuss the possibility of extending rail transit into downtown Monroe. I didn't know if any of you were familiar with this. The folks in Monroe all seem to be more than supportive of the idea, if not thrilled if it actually were to become a reality.

[dubone]

That's great news for both Charlotte and Union county. Many of the new Union county (and probably many of the old ones too) are tax- and transit-averse. It'll be interesting to see how they pay for it, and whether it'll get any major opposition from residents outside of Monroe.