I'm impressed by how a metro more sprawled, less pedestrian friendly and with a smaller urban core then ours has been able to get this off the ground.  Years ago at Urban Planet we used to go head to head with the Charlotte group there, but its apparent that place is a lot more progressive then we will ever be in the near future.

I feel like Ocklawaha must have felt back in the late 70s/early 80s when JTA pushed the skyway through, while cities like Portland, San Diego and Calgary decided to go with light rail instead.

A $200,000,000 dollar dead end... Don't say they didn't get a warning!

Not only is JTA and City Hall taking the same approach, (IE: plowing right ahead in spite of the citizens comments or wishes, and downtown, all but ignoring the whole process except for one Councilwoman) we are now seeing the same players getting involved, with Jake (the snake) Godbold coming back into the arena to rescue Peyton. The deck is stacked, JTA is a highway builder, Peyton an oil mans kid, and Jake refused to even meet with his own council when their opinion of the Skyway was different then his own. Bottom line, these folks never saw a sulfur belching, rubber tired beast that they didn't love.


Naked Skyway Photos, it's easy to see why certain powerful industrys would want this thing rather then steel wheels on steel rails.

We no longer need words, we need legal help to draw up and get this on the ballott. We MUST defeat BRT as JTA has planned it. Change the plan to surface street feeders for rail, and I'm off their back.  
Ocklawaha

I thought I read something recently about CSX and FEC looking at rerouting freight traffic off of the US 17 and US 1 corridors and around to the 301 corridor, thereby opening these corridors up for commuter trains.  Any comments on that?

Light-rail ridership high in 1st week
STEVE HARRISON

CATS estimates the Lynx Blue Line handled 13,000 rides on Friday, Nov. 30, and that the light-rail line carried about 36,000 riders that Saturday and Sunday.
That is good news for the Charlotte Area Transit System, which projected an average ridership of 9,100 weekday trips in the first year of operation. CATS said the average daily ridership in the first seven days of service while charging fares was 12,300.

Ridership on the first day of paid service for the line, Monday, Nov. 26, was 6,700. That climbed to just over 8,000 on Nov. 27.

CATS chief executive Ron Tober said the high ridership for the first week was due to more people than expected riding the train during off-peak times.

"There also was something going on at the (Charlotte Bobcats) Arena almost every night," Tober said. "That's our read on it -- stronger midday ridership and special events."

CATS took detailed hand counts of passengers on the first two days of service. It now is counting in about one-third of trains to estimate ridership. It also is looking at park-and-ride lots and the amount of money collected in kiosks. Some trains also have automatic passenger counters above the doors, which note when people get on or off the train.

Many park-and-ride lots still have few cars. But at the line's southern end, at the Interstate 485/South Boulevard and Sharon Road West stations, the number of cars is increasing.

On the line's first day of paid service, the garage at the 1,120-space I-485/South Boulevard parking area had roughly 200 cars in it. That increased to about 450 cars by midweek, and Tober said he counted 600 cars at the garage early last week.

The parking deck appeared to be about 60 percent full Monday.

Getting commuters out of their cars is a key goal for CATS. Not only are park-and-ride customers most likely new transit users, they usually take longer train trips -- getting cars off the road and reducing pollution.

In other Lynx Blue Line news:

• Malfunctioning ticket kiosks are still bothering riders. Technicians from Atlanta-based ACS, the vendor, have been trying to correct glitches with the printers.

• Passengers have complained that CATS doesn't offer a round-trip ticket. Tober, who retires Dec. 21, speculated that CATS might sell them next year. The ticket machines sell four types of tickets, and Tober said CATS could swap the daily pass for a round-trip ticket.

CATS doesn't yet sell a round-trip ticket because of its proof-of-payment system, which is common in transit systems with light rail. Tickets bought at machines are time-stamped and say at which station they were purchased. That information allows fare inspectors to make a reasonable guess whether a ticket is being used more than once.

A possible solution for the round-trip ticket could be for fare inspectors to mark tickets or punch holes in them when they are used.

The lack of a round-trip ticket option can be especially vexing for people leaving big events, such as a Panthers game. They don't want to wait in a long line to buy a ticket home.

• Tober said the Scaleybark park-and-ride lot -- the line's seventh -- should be open in two weeks.

The Reseda Blvd. intersection also illustrates the level crossing problem. After a spate of accidents, buses now slow down to about 10 mph to cross through all level crossings and intersections.

As previously noted, at the western end of the line, buses operate in mixed traffic to loop around and serve the Warner Center station. Traffic conflicts and modest congestion were evident.

in some cases, buses are impeded by other motor vehicle traffic. Here, what seems to be a supervisor's car is blocking the buses' lane; buses had some trouble pulling out because of traffic in the other (inside) lane. Fortunately, this was the midday, off-peak period, so traffic was relatively light.

High event ridership reshapes CATS plan

The Charlotte Area Transit System plans to capitalize on high ridership from special events like Saturday's Meineke Car Care Bowl by working with local event planners.

The new Lynx Blue Line has reported ridership of 22,000 to 25,000 on weekend days when uptown is buzzing with activity.

That's about twice the weekday ridership of 12,000, which is also above the projection of 9,000 for light rail's first year.

CATS is working with the Panthers and the Bobcats to offer light-rail passes with season tickets. Kinard said CATS would like to arrange with the teams so that season tickets also could be used as light-rail tickets on game day.

CATS also is considering selling tickets over the Internet for special events to help reduce lines on those days.

"A lot of people are using the Lynx line to come to an event uptown," Kinard said. "It's doing much better than we anticipated."

On Dec. 8, for example, three symphony shows, a play at ImaginOn and a Bobcats game drew a ridership of 25,000 in one day, Kinard said.

"It's a great way to save on parking -- and not just the cost, but also figuring out where to park," Henry McMaster said.

Posted on Thu, Apr. 03, 2008

Light-rail riders feel parking deck squeeze
STEVE HARRISON

CATS, which once worried whether people would ride light rail, now finds itself with a much different problem: It is running out of parking.

With ridership topping projections, the Lynx Blue Line's 1,120-space parking deck at the Interstate 485/South Boulevard station is filling up consistently, and drivers are circling for spots.

Now the Charlotte Area Transit System is studying ways to add more spaces, perhaps by expanding a small surface lot or re-striping some spaces for compact cars.

CATS chief executive Keith Parker said he wants to avoid building a second deck for as long as possible because it would cost the transit system millions and eat into its budget for other, smaller improvements. Those could include buying new buses, for example.

When the Lynx first opened in late November, the deck was one-third full on most days.

It was very different Wednesday morning.

"I never had so much trouble getting a space before," said Dave Lavoie, a weekly rider who was on a 10:15 a.m. inbound train Wednesday morning. "I had to circle around, and I think I found the last space in the deck."

Lavoie said that earlier this year, he could park on the first row.

The next station to the north after I-485/South Boulevard -- Sharon Road West -- is also often full. It has 188 spaces. The other five park-and-ride lots still have plenty of room.

The number of cars at Lynx park-and-rides has more than tripled since its November opening, from about 500 cars to roughly 1,600, according to several sample counts by the Observer on weekday mornings. It's unclear whether the trend will continue this summer.

Transit ridership sometimes decreases in the summer as people take vacations, said Jean Leier, a CATS spokeswoman. However, some analysts have projected that gas prices could approach $4 a gallon this summer, which might push more people to public transportation.

Parker said CATS won't charge people to park, as some transit systems do.

"To create another barrier is not something we want to do at this point," he said.

Lynx ridership has so far exceeded the projections of 9,100 average weekday trips in its first year. The Lynx has drawn big crowds for special events uptown, but the increasing number of cars at park-and-ride lots suggests more people are making the train part of their routine.

CATS, in theory, could build a new parking deck at the I-485/South Boulevard station with revenue from the half-cent sales tax for transit. But that would require shifting resources.

Parker said he's hesitant to change the budget because other areas of the county have been promised capital improvements.

"I want to make sure we're balancing that with other needs throughout the county," he said.

The contract for the I-485 deck was $22 million. After Hurricane Katrina, bids came in higher than expected and CATS cut 300 spaces from the project to save money.

Parker said he's also negotiating with the German firm Siemens to get more rail cars. CATS often alternates between one and two-car trains, and Parker said CATS needs more two-car trains.

"We run two-car trains as often as we can," Parker said. "We need three or four more vehicles to run two-car trains in all of rush hour."

If CATS does operate two-car trains for the entire day, it won't be able to expand again to three-car trains. The station platforms were originally designed for three cars, but were shortened during the design process to save money so the Lynx could secure federal funding.

I-77 widening is the
'elephant in the room'

Project would cost at least $1 billion, but no funds are budgeted yet

STEVE HARRISON
In Charlotte's long-range transportation plans, one project has always been seen as so big and so expensive that planners have preferred not to think about it.

Widening Interstate 77 in south Charlotte, from uptown to I-485, would cost at least $1 billion -- twice the price of building the 9.6-mile Lynx Blue Line.
There isn't any money budgeted for the project, and it isn't in the N.C. Department of Transportation's Traffic Improvement Plan. That plans runs through 2015.

But Barry Moose, the N.C. DOT division engineer who oversees Charlotte, said it's now time to think about the "elephant in the room." He's asking his bosses in Raleigh for approval to hire a consultant, who will help decide how the road should be widened. He's hoping to have someone hired later this year.

"We need to do some feasibility work," Moose said. "Needless to say, it's going to be down the road. But you have to start the process."

There are several reasons that rebuilding I-77 will be so daunting.

Almost every bridge over the expressway must be rebuilt if the road is widened. There isn't much room for widening it, and when I-77 approaches uptown, there are steep drop-offs on both sides of the shoulder. The state may have to buy commercial land for right-of-way, driving up the price even higher.

Another hurdle is that I-77 is already the busiest stretch of highway in the state, carrying 160,000 cars a day.

Moose said the study will look at the best way to widen the road. Should it be expanded from six to eight lanes, or should the state blow the project out and make it 10 lanes?

One possibility, he said, is that the footprint of the road stay the same. Instead of widening I-77, the state would double-deck the road by building an elevated section in the median of four lanes.

That wouldn't be cheap, but if the elevated section were high enough, the state wouldn't have to rebuild bridges at Tyvola, Woodlawn and other east-west crossings.

The state and the city of Charlotte are also discussing expressways that would be good candidates for high-occupancy vehicle toll lanes, or HOT lanes. These lanes would be reserved for car-poolers and single drivers willing to pay to drive there.

A consultant, PB Americas, earlier this year said I-77 in north Mecklenburg was an ideal candidate for an HOT lane because it already has a car-pool lane.

[CATS may get $18 million for light rail
By Steve Harrison
The Charlotte Area Transit System could receive $18 million from Congress to help for a light rail extension – $8 million more than the transit agency requested.

If ultimately approved, the money would help pay for a $30 million engineering and design contract that's laying the groundwork for extending the Lynx Blue Line from uptown to the University City area.

The ability to get extra money is a sign that the success of the city's light-rail line has been recognized in Washington, Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory said. It also suggests that gas at $4 a gallon is changing congressional views on the merits of rapid transit projects, possibly making it easier to receive federal matching funds.

The 11.5-mile extension is at the beginning of a long and complicated process.

Engineering work began earlier this year, and CATS expects to assess whether the project is still viable next spring.

By the summer of 2010, CATS expects to have much of the final design ready, and then will wait to see if the Federal Transit Administration will help pay for construction.

The FTA paid for half the construction of the $462.7 million Lynx, which opened in November.

The extension is expected to cost at least $800 million. It would be extremely difficult to build without federal and state assistance.

The federal money would free up cash now slated for the engineering study to help pay for rising fuel costs for its buses, or could be used it for capital projects.

CATS also is considering building a commuter rail line to the Lake Norman area and a streetcar through central Charlotte.

McCrory, a Republican who is running for governor, has championed the city's transit plans.

He credited Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr for helping get the money from the Senate Appropriations Committee for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
/quote]


Yes, even in the stodgy halls of Congress, the winds of change are blowing.  If only that would happen at the St. James building.