Charlotte welcomes 100,000 free riders
Normal daily service started today on Charlotte's new light rail line after topping 100,000 rides over the free inaugural weekend. You may recall reading about Charlotte's transit drama here and in The Star, primarily as a cautionary tale about cost overruns and anti-transit politics. Now it appears all of that has melted away — at least temporarily — over the holiday weekend as residents experience the new line not just out of curiousity, but out of necessity (significant bus route changes to feed the route also take effect today). Here's what advice others are offering the light rail newbies.
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100,000 rides doubles the weekly ridership of the entirety of all KCATA bus lines combined…
i’m pretty sure the ATA averages 50K each weekday… but yeah, it’s a big number and undoubtedly a massive amount of *new* riders.
it was good timing on CATS’ part to coincide with a panthers home game since their arena is [*cough*cough*] downtown. i guess our spine’s opening could coincide with garth brooks’ third post-retirement tour at the sprint center, circa 2017.
Our transit system here in Charlotte has to revamp schedules for events. We have two pro teams playing downtown, the Bobcats and Panthers, and a minor league hockey team also plays in the Bobcats Arena and averages 6000 attendance per game. On event days, ridership is 22-25k. On non-event days, ridership is estimated at 12k per day, exceeding the 9100 prediction. We also have a lot of concerts, the CIAA tournament, now the ACC football championship, several theatres, soon to be the Nascar Hall of Fame. Many people also work uptown obviously. There is also much to do along the tracks in South End, which is where the trolley generated much interest in light rail. Though I now live just outside of Charlotte in SC, the rail has been great for us.