Why a NC Leader Just DESTROYED Charlotte's Future Plans for Transit | Does He Have a Point?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- NC Politician Tim Moore just completely dismissed Charlotte's 2040 Future Transportation Plan for its heavy focus on transit over roadways. Does he make some valid points or is he completely wrong? We'll find out...
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Sources and Additional Info:
Charlotte 2040 Transportation Plan: www.cltfuture2040plan.com
South End Growth: www.charlotteobserver.com/new...
Charlotte 2050 Population Projections: charlotteregion.com/blog/2020....
WFAE Article on Transit Ridership: www.wfae.org/business/2022-05...
WFAE Article on Speaker Moore’s Comments: www.wfae.org/politics/2023-01...
Axios Article on Charlotte Transit: charlotte.axios.com/290183/wi...
Time Stamps:
Intro: 0:00
Current Transit Situation: 0:59
Charlotte's 2040 Plan: 3:03
House Speaker's Comments: 6:04
Does He Have a Point: 7:34
Thoughts and Conclusion: 8:34
Outro: 11:19
I’m on team Charlotte/team transit. The simple truth is that Charlotte, and other big cities, need transit. When your city gets to a certain size, it becomes impractical, and frankly impossible, for everyone to be able to drive everywhere in a timely manner. Transit is a necessity for large cities.
And I say this as someone who drives everywhere myself. I live in a hilly, suburban neighborhood in Austin, TX, where currently, the nearest bus stop is about a 2-mile walk away. So personally taking transit isn’t realistic for a person like me. But I’m glad that transit exists, for the people who *do* live near it, and, of course, for the people who *do* need to use it in order to get places.
As someone who enjoys driving, I also greatly support building transit - in part because the building of transit is what keeps the roads from getting too clogged up, thereby benefitting drivers like myself.
I have the same thought on this too.
adding another lane will just cause more gridlocks. And just because 95% of people own a car, doesn't mean that they all want to drive to work in that traffic. In fact, most would be happier to drive 5 minutes down the road to the nearest light rail station or Bus Stop and do a quick park & ride by catching the Light Rail or Bus Rapid Transit for the remainder of their journey into Downtown. Even though i own a car, i would rather take public transport to work as it avoids most of the heavy traffic and also means that when i eventually arrive into Downtown, I don't need to search for a Parking Spot. Oh and its much easier and cheaper to park at a mall or parking lot in the suburbs near a Light Rail Station or bus stop as oppose to parking in the city. I have been to many other places in my life, from LA to New York and even Brisbane, Australia for 5 years and this is what i have always done. Driven to my nearest train station or bus stop or Subway stop or whatever and then catching the public transport into the city from there.
Nobody wants to begin their workday with a 2 mile walk to a bus that will likely take an hour to get them downtown!
As an NC resident who's ridden on the Lynx line a few times, 9 billion is a complete waste of my tax dollars for a project that will never give a return on it's investment. The Lynx line should be expanded, but not at that price. The entire NCDOT budget for the state for an entire year is under $5 billion. There are other more pressing social issues that need that money
@@autumnmoonfire3944 What about 2 miles to rail, 300 yards to bus?
As a conservative, it's extremely frustrating to see a fellow conservative make such a stupid conclusion. With Charlotte expected to double in population, you cannot expect to build roads indefinitely and expect traffic to stay the same. If you build a city outwards, people are still going to need to get across town and there is only so much space available. Leaving people with only one choice to get around their community is not a "libertarian" view of transportation
Thank you unfortunately this mentality won't change in my lifetime but hopefully the next generation wise up
But it has worked, especially in the North of the city I would take me 20+ minutes to get to the interstate from my house during rush hour, now it less 4 minutes. I-485 has been a tremendous help in this area. I can get from University City to Matthews in half the time it took in the 90s going down Harris Blvd.
When I think about what he said, it wasn't really from an anti transit perspective. I think he was being "practical" in that he knows that most people will continue to use their cars regardless of what's built. It will be hard to change old habits.
Road stacking. Horribly expensive, impractical, but adds throughput without wrecking houses
@@TheBaldr until the suburbs densify further, then it's back to city clock traffic jams
I invite him to take a look at a larger nearby city: Atlanta. You can't build enough lanes. You have to improve transit and walking/bike infrastructure to the point fewer people have to drive and want to drive.
Atlanta is in the spot it's in because suburbs like Marietta don't want MARTA expansion and don't want a new beltway to take strain off of I285
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv No one wants MARTA because everywhere it goes, crime goes with it. Get on in west Atlanta cruise up to north east, rob a few home's or people and get back in time for supper.
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv I suspect there is a similar dynamic in CLT
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv IIRC, the Northern Arc was mostly killed by Forsyth not Cobb. Also, Marta is a dumpster fire within Fulton and DeKalb. Zero expansion since 2000 and they want to spend a god-awful amount on BRT lanes in Clayton after promising rail.
Plus, Atlanta’s street grid within I-285… or the LACK THEREOF… can’t help matters at all whenever one of only so many freeways gets completely blocked to to a bad enough crash.
As I understand it on satellite maps, more than a handful of what appears to still be fairly MAJOR arterials appear to be 2 total lanes wide; with quite a few of the 4 lane arterials appearing to be lacking of plentiful turn lanes.
If MARTA is going all in on BRT foreseeably, then hopefully they improve significant improvements to said arterials they run down on. Up to & including alternative intersection designs such as Michigan Left’s, Continuous Flow/Displaced Left intersections or other designs proven to move traffic through a cramped area with well below 4 directions per light phase (to which appears standard everywhere but horrifyingly inefficient if handling even a moderate amount of traffic volume at once).
How broken American politics must be for one state legislator to torpedo a city's project
they all support car dependancy.
Politicians are the least of your issues building a new rail/tram line in USA, NIMBYs are the true pain in the ass complaining when you build anything in their neighborhood.
@@AssBlasster yet they would rather have a freeway destroy their suburb
@@electro_sykes not even that; some of the very same folks from around 50 years ago that got a questionably planned/designed freeway COMPLETELY CANCELLED successfully will completely cancel MARKET RATE studio/1 Br APARTMENTS within any part of their city limits simply “coz it’ll ruin the small town charm” even if/when homelessness is increasingly a noticeable problem within the very same immediate area.
Well the state would be expected to pay for ~50% of this project and the state can’t even afford to widen i77 south of the city
Charlotte is basically trying to design the city like how some cities in the Netherlands designed some years ago.
The last thing the oligarchs and corporations is make the U.S. into Europe. They're against any policies that effects their bottom-line.
But republicans block it
A lot of cities are getting so big it’s impossible to truly “fix traffic”. The best you can do is give people different options from busses to rail. It is true a lot of these roads bulldozed lower income communities that could benefit financially from investment in rail and other modes of transportation. “Inner cities” that aren’t far away enough to be suburbs but not close enough to be in the “downtown” what you can do is expand the urban core while still building out but give people options to get around. Not every city needs to end up like Houston with ring roads galore. This is coming from a Republican who’s tired of handing the auto industry the keys to the city. Australia is a good model for this type of expansion, their rail network is fantastic. Only thing I want to see it be safe and not milked by unions. Worst example is the Rail in Hawaii which is completely and utterly corrupt or the rail in Seattle which is dangerous and not worth riding.
Or NYC where you can't ever take capacity offline not even in the middle of the night if you want to get something patched up (and there are a lot of patch up in a century old system)
It’s incredible just how strong the stigma is in America against mass transit, buses in particular as you point out. It is going to take years to shift that thinking, but I’m optimistic! Send those bus routes through college towns/neighborhoods! Get the young folk converted to mass transit while they’re still young 😈
It's even worse when the few big cities with decent transit are exorbitantly expensive to live in.
He's dead wrong about the bike lanes. People prefer bikes for trips under 5 min. He doesn't see any bikes because the infrastructure hasn't been built yet. Basically saying "no one is using the bike lanes we haven't built yet so we shouldn't build then" Atlanta 2.0
What's the saying, we don't judge the demand for a bridge by the number of people swimming.
If it doesn't exist or it exists in an abysmal state then its lack of use isn't an argument against it, just evidence that in its current form its bad. They have 1 rail line, and it had major economic benefits, so why not build a second line roughly perpendicular to the first and passing through downtown. That will start network effects where someone can then transfer from 1 line to the other to reach more destinations, keep doing it and eventually the entire city is reachable by rail.
I don't want to ride a bike for 30 seconds let alone 5 minutes. So, no, I do not prefer that.
God, this is a terrible take from the speaker. What he's saying is like looking at a town with nothing but burger joints and saying "Well we can't open an italian restaurant here because clearly the demand is for burgers- after all, everybody eating out is only eating burgers!"
When all you build is roads and free parking, everybody drives. That does not mean everybody wants to drive and own a car, nor does it means the only thing you should build is more roads and free parking.
I believe the City's Proposal should be implemented. This area is growing so rapidly that adding more lanes its not the best solution. Providing different options and that will encourage people to ride. The Speaker is looking to fix the problem with what the most direct solution there is which always to add more roads or add lanes to existing roads.
in looking at the starting point in population count and the end, I see an almost 400% increase in population in less than a hundred years. That is some growth. Yet you still have politicians that think think the growing entity only needs bigger clothes (more lanes) and not better nutrition (expanded transportation systems).
8:10 the Q4 2020 report says theres 27,700 weekday riders for the blue line
the reason why transit sucks is
1. priority given to cars
2. light rail runs every 15 minutes which is a complete embarrassment. ive been to places where INTERCITY trains run on the same frequency.
Phoenix has similar issues. What’s worse in the case of Phoenix is that in 2019, weekday service was every 12 minutes, and the line already connects to the airport, though the stop for the airport (44th Street/Washington) is only the 5th busiest stop on the line. Shortly after the February schedule changes, the light rail seemed to be less delayed, but the delay problems are starting to creep back in. Of course, cities in Arizona seem to be able to levy their own sales taxes to fund infrastructure projects, and in 2015, it was passed for Proposition 104, which is primarily for light rail, though funding also goes to BRT, normal bus service, bike infrastructure, and generic road improvements.
And even so, 27k is not an insignificant number for a single light rain line running through lower density areas, people will use rail if it's good and it serves them conveniently, so an expansion definitely needs to happen
Public transit was declared the enemy of auto manufacturers decades ago. Trollies were taken out of service, parking meters and garages put up. I think in a fairly mild climate, people could walk a mile or so to public transit, and be healthier for it.
I used to live in Charlotte and it was so easy to walk everywhere or to catch transit to get to and from places. Now I live in Texas and everything is car dependent, going to the store is not as simple as it used to be.
The enemy of GM is ironically the Volkswagen Group and Toyota, not transit.
@@sm3675 Nah, those came to the US market after public tranportation became unpleasant.
The problem with that in most suburban areas is lack of sidewalks and safe crossing areas.
Thank the rockefellers, they also infected our medical system, which is corrupt
Charlotte traffic is a nightmare. It's the main reason I avoid going there if at all possible. Here in Greensboro, the last leg of our urban loop has opened, and I'm already spoiled to how much easier it is to get around. Grew up in Boston and wouldn't want to go back to that traffic either.
I read about the loop opening up. Greensboro traffic was pretty decent already but that should keep things smooth for a long time to come.
I don’t like driving in Charlotte neither only like the outer part never the inner to cluttered alot of bus stops causing cars to slow down to change lanes etc unfortunately
Watch out, Charlotte is not too far from asking for 'Son of Big Dig' after they've wasted 2 billion dollars on whatever this nightmare morphs into!
One of my favorite TH-camrs lived in Greensboro until recently, he would occasionally document the progress of the beltway from 2014 up until its recent completion. I might go back and rewatch his "before" video from when construction officially began and compare it to now.
@@GregBrownsWorldORacingis Son of Big Dig a reference to Son of Beast?
I get that people may not use the public transit options nearly as much, but when the option to fund it is only one percent added to sales tax I don't see why not. It would be nice to build out and expand the city. And people would catch on to it more in the future especially if public attitudes towards public transit changed. Many of the people with a negative view on it have never rode it.
Thing with rail is the longer you wait to build it, the more it will cost as people move into Charlotte and density increases. You build rail where you think the density will be. Having one single line doesn't give you a lot of choice in destination location. The Silver Line going to the airport seems like an obvious destination type location. An airport that size not having a rail connection is pretty small town (for a city that want's to think it can play at the adult table with Atlanta). Rail to the airport would be a high ridership line. I'm going to take a wild guess and say the NC Speaker has absolutely no background in regional planning, because anyone knows (if you even have room to build) that increasing lanes doesn't solve car congestion. I don't think eminent domain in going to go over well either for new roads. What you have is a republican talkin' out his backside because you know...the ungrateful poor.
Charlotte needs transit. Not everyone can drive. The elderly, disabled, and students should get a more viable way to get around which would be economically advantageous for the region to allow that mobility. Of course, a quality transit system does take cars off the road too. I know this from experience, I own a car but live in Philadelphia and use it as a ride share because I can't justify the maintenance and upkeep on a vehicle I now only use three or four times a month. Public transit is pretty much door-to-door for me and when I do have to walk, the neighborhoods are pedestrian friendly. Charlotte deserves better than to be stuck in the mid 20th century.
I live in Charlotte. One of my least favorite aspects is that in the vast majority of neighborhoods, you need a car to get pretty much anywhere. The few where this isn't the case tend to be quite expensive. Neighborhoods are disconnected from each other by design. In addition, a big driver of the decline in bus ridership is that the system is unreliable--few routes with long waits and busses that never show up. A few ideas:
1. Connect the disconnected neighborhoods with short "connector" bike paths--increases mobility options without increasing cut-through car traffic.
2. Build in interconnected network of multi-use paths.
3. Increase the number of bus routes and frequency of service--possibly with dedicated bus lanes in areas where busses frequently get stuck in traffic.
4. Alert zoning such that it's easier to build more than just single-family homes or large apartment buildings. Think duplexes and triplexes.
5. Build more rail lines. Expensive, yes. So is building more roads that will only be filled with more cars and provide no congestion relief over the long term.
As for the "social engineering" commentary around 10-minute cities, building our city such that you pretty much have to own and operate a car is also social engineering. Owning and operating a car is not financially prudent for many people, yet we're so dependent on them that they feel they have no choice, hence the proliferation of buy-here-pay-here car dealerships.
The thing about buses is the stigma that you mentioned but buses use the same congested streets as cars and are slowed by multiple stops--so people probably don't see the advantage. I wonder if BRT's (Bus Rapid Transit) could be the solution. You have dedicated lanes/roadways with less stops and speedier service at the fraction of the cost of a light rail line. That could be a compromise that if successful, could lead to a future upgrade to light rail.
Yeah the BRT thing is an interesting idea. I know they tested it out on Central Ave but it didn’t fare too well so I’m not sure where it stands with the city now. I know Raleigh is taking that route over light rail because it’s cheaper.
For BRT, you have to make sure it is fully featured, as you said there has to be dedicated lanes/roadways for the vast majority of the route, off board fare collection for faster boarding, etc. however too many cities compromise on this and have their BRT lines on large sections in mixed traffic, which defeats the point of BRT.
Down in Homestead-Miami, they use a dedicated lane just for the bus, you're not allowed to use that road if you're a car. It uses the old Dixie Highway. It appears so much faster than US 1 which has oodles of lights and generally parallels the route.
The thing about BRT is that the temptation is way too high to let it run in some parts of mixed traffic to reduce costlier parts. I've seen it happen way too many times. They are talking about a BRT line in Atlanta that suddenly is 97% in it's own ROW not 100%. It's a slippery slope that leads to the same buses in the same traffic.
BRT is great in theory but stakeholders in the US always seem to reduce it to being a glorified express bus at best since they don't want to actually keep it in a dedicated lane
Charlotte has such great potential to develop into a city thats relatively walkable and otherwise easy to get around. Will be sad if it just follows in the direction of every other major southern city that has endless sprawl and traffic issues. Anyone suggesting 'just one more lane' in 2023 should not be taken seriously.
Hopefully Charlotte still have plans for transit
Nah. If you live big metropolitan areas or growing ones, you'll know, the politicians are going to implement some watered-down infrastructure bill.
Moore has solid points about ridership and the cost of these projects (expanding an existing highway is cheaper than expanding a railway), but there absolutely needs to be more modes of transit.
The biggest problem is with zoning restrictions in many US cities; most neighborhoods contain only houses or only business, but few are mixed-use.
Charlotte has effectively rezoned the whole city. They're getting the land use right, it needed the accompanying transit
Moore supports car dependancy
Urban highways are more expensive than everything but overbuilt subways .
It's also worth noting that a light rail line has far higher capacity than a couple of extra freeway lanes. Light rail trains can run every 2 minutes, and each train can comfortably carry 300 people. Also, expanding freeways won't do anything to relieve congestion on local streets, which can't be expanded. Charlotte truly needs a heavy rail metro system, however, and those things can carry tens of thousands of people per direction. It doesn't cost that much more to build a metro line compared to a light rail line if you're using a dedicated right of way, and it will create badly needed capacity. Also Charlotte's downtown was completely wrecked by freeways, and some of them definitely need to be capped or even torn down.
also you can link up 2 or more light rail trains which would double your capacity.
If you don't have waking and cycling infrastructure plus rail and bus infrastructure then people aren't going to do those things
Maybe some day we'll get those rail lines built in Charlotte. Not holding out much hope. It's taken over 20 years to get the Blue line as far as it goes. But there's always something getting in the way as the costs go up and up with time.
Don't get me wrong, we could still use some road improvements. But we need to be smart about it.
The bus system I find is so unreliable and costly. If they made it only a dollar or even a dollar 50 and a bus would actually show up when the app tells me I would take it more often.
We desperately need more public transit in North Carolina. We’ll easily waste billions of dollars on massive roads and leave public transit horribly underfunded, and because of that we have cities filled with traffic 🤦♂️
Well I'll tell you I've just moved to Charlotte about a year ago from G Rapids Mi but the thing is Charlotte is going to have to do something either expand the freeways I think if they going to do the right rail expansion they definitely need to have a station at the airport most major cities have some type of Subway or light rail at their airports if and when they do expanding light rail they need to elevate those train I don't understand why they put train tracks on ground level and build a whole lot of traffic lights to accommodate the trains coming through do like they do with other cities like Atlanta Chicago or Charlotte can take a method like Denver and Minneapolis did both of them got light rail
I don’t know the details but if I had to guess it was probably a money issue being the choice to put it on the ground.
@@MileageMike485 hey bro I definitely get it but I don't think it's going to save them any more money if they build it on ground they going to come out they pockets one way or another the problem that I got is that it's inconvenience to me cuz now I have to wait on the train at a traffic light instead of there train going above the streets and I don't even have to deal with the train
I've lived in Charlotte for over 20 years. It's a mystery to me why we still don't have a rail line going out by the airport.
The Silver line was supposed to have a stop at the airport
As someone who lives in Charlotte, the Blue Line is awesome! I see a lot of value in connecting the neighborhoods around uptown as a way to reduce traffic. However, I do question the value that the proposed silver and red lines would add. I don't know if the culture of the Charlotte suburbs would mesh with people taking the the train into the city for work. Suburbanites that move out to Cornelius or Matthews aren't going to start taking the train to work. I feel like the city would be better served by extending rail access to areas like Park Road and Providence Road to bolster the communities in those areas like the Blue line has helped NoDa and Southend. A direct train to the airport would be nice though. The bus from uptown to the airport is solid, but it isn't very frequent.
I’m sure if you follow the money you will find the real reason behind Tim Moore’s comments.
We will never build enough lanes to solve congestion as it’s designed into road hierarchy.
One of Charlotte’s main obstacles is the number of state controlled and maintained roads that run through the city. Many of which you mentioned in your video. Most are poorly designed and only add to impediments to improving other mobility options.
Ron Tober should have secured the rights to the rail lines to the northern towns when the railroad was inclined to allow passenger usage but now with the express toll lanes a better option would be to upgrade the bus services and use the already build infrastructure as commuter service was the main driver for service to those towns.
Silver line was always a challenge. I would have liked to see an option using the existing rail tracks with Stadler FLIRT’s to connect to the airport and Matthews and expand the streetcar network to fill in the gaps.
There is a lot more to be said about how we plan for the future growth and at some point Tim Moore will move on and at that point Charlotte will be ready to be move forward with their plans to support the growth of the city.
Aww man as an ATL resident k can definitely agree 02:50 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I moved from the Charlotte area 18 years ago. They were dealing with transportation issues then and it appears that they’re STILL dealing with it. Charlotte area traffic when I left was nothing short of dreadful. This comes from a person who lives in the Metro NYC area now and makes frequent visits back to her hometown of Atlanta.
I sure hope Charlotte figures something good out!
Charlotte is trying to build for the city it wants to be. One where all people have good mobility, regardless of age, income level or AVAILABILITY of fuels and capital to maintain the unsustainable. As you pointed out, there is not the physical space to accommodate private 4 wheel vehicles for a city of millions. Outside of a few wealthy enclaves, the bulk of america's urban fabric is degraded in subservience to the car and social isolation it brings. Your channel will be a huge hit. I watch all the main transit and urbanist ones and I love your smooth voice, absence of canned music and smug actors in stock footage. i hope you won't need to beg for Patreons and all that. We do need channels that educate us open minded geeks about the larger issues surrounding resource scarcity, empire, lack of citizen participation and environmental threats.
I find it weird that you think Mike has a smooth voice, but I am from somewhere else, and I don’t like his voice as much.
Sounds like you need to be educated on how to not be brainwashed by the mainstream media.
The house speaker is completely out of line. The city knows what it needs.
Mileage Mike, thanks for your response to my thoughts about Interstate 87. A few thoughts about this video.
1. When I came to Davidson College in 1977, as I have mentioned, the area between the newly built 77 and 85 junction and Mooresville was all farmland.
2. The NC Speaker is nuts. If you build more lanes, traffic and the number of cars exponentially increase.
3. The mass transit proposition seems reasonable. The light rail expansion in particular will help Belmont, Monroe and all the east and west points between.
4. You are correct about the lack of areas for road expansion. This also goes for the interstates. It was a long, tough slog to build out 277 and the Independence Freeway. There is simply no room.
5. One thing that seems to be ignored by the plan is the absence of projects in the wards of the north and near northwest side, which are largely African American. These wards need to have these services provided in such a way that will keep the neighborhood intact, rather than create another "gentrification" resulting in a mini Black diaspora.....Does that make sense?
Overall, Charlotte, like Nashville, has grown too far, too fast.....and too much. Every city in the South wants to be the next Atlanta, Dallas or Houston, but they don't realize that when those cities--Atlanta, Dallas and Houston--became Atlanta, Dallas and Houston, they absolutely failed to anticipate the growing pains they would have.
I think neighborhoods should have more walking access. Every neighborhood should have parks and designated walking paths with a couple convenience stores mixed in. Something to entice people go outside. I think it’s a good idea to expand road and highway networks too. One of the problem with big city road networks is that they usually crunch all the traffic down into a handful, or maybe 1 or 2 roadways. It doesn’t work, there should be upgrades and more viable alternative routes wherever possible. To take an example from my state, if you live east of lake Washington, you must drive all the way around the lake or take a highway if you’re going to Seattle. No wonder they’re so busy.
I was raised in the Chicago area. W/o rail, quality of life there would be horrible. It is already bad enough where it takes 30 min to drive to the grocery store 3 miles away due to congestion, but without rail, it would not be livable. The reliable rail provides predictable & fast transport for many people into and out of congested areas. I do not think NC folk know what is coming. Quality of life in a car-only metro area where road congestion has become a problem is truly devastating. Having to leave the home each morning at 5:00am to go to work or suffer a 90+ min one way commute is no way to live. Hopping on a train to zip you into the business district and to use for entertainment events is WAY better. The blue line was an investment in the quality of life of future citizens. It is not heavily used currently. It will be when road congestion becomes an issue and additional lines are for sure the answer to making Charlotte a livable metro area 5mil+. Thx for the vid. I enjoyed watching.
When I went to UNC Charlotte, I rode the bus my first two semesters and then I got a car. I hated riding the bus because it was always late, something up to 30 minutes, and it required an extensive knowledge of where all the buses went. Also, I had a guy throw up next to me. He tried to hold in in but it came out through his nose.
Charlotte like other cities, needs a variety of transportation options. As the city approaches 1 million people, congestion on street will only get worse while also making it more difficult to have vibrant neighborhoods and commercial districts.
Here in Idaho, we have a similar problem. Far less people, Boise the capitol has only 275k but the Boise Metro Area is 795k. Boise has a reasonable bus system within city. But had to cut back the lines that extended into the "Bedroom" cities due to poor ridership. They have reverted into a taxi like service. Using smaller busses and a Smartphone app to schedule rides. Effective for the poor and disabled.
There has been talk many times over the last 20 years about a passenger rail service in between the 3 major cities. But the capital costs are always the major sticking point. And for a "Metro" area where the median household income is 37k. The most that gets done is more roads and bike lanes.
I feel like NC has been doomed with this whole idea of expanding highways. You can see many expansions happening in the Queen City, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, and the Research Triangle area where it’s all about expanding highways to keep up with the many people moving to NC. There’s no way to live in NC without a car tbh.
It's not just cost. Wealthy donors living in Ballantyne and Huntersville/Davidson don't want the "inner city people" to have easy access to their nice, white neighborhoods.
True. That's usually a factor whenever transit is proposed.
Yes, with as great as the DC metro line is, there are just some places by design where the train does not stop.
Would you?
Can you blame them? Look at the shooting in Uptown
Coming from NYC and neighboring counties in NJ, I can honestly say people from the suburbs drive to areas that have access to a subway, express buses, lightrails and commuter trains to avoid traffic into and out of the city.
As the saying goes, if you build it they will come. Especially if certain major roads cannot be expanded.
The train transit plan and I-77 south definitely needs to happen. Steele Creek 160/ 485 is grid lock everyday. 485 needs major lighting and better
visible lane markings. What could Charlotteans do to address the issues on 485? Overall this needs approval fast.
I love how you explain points on both sides of this debate, a lot of other TH-camrs don't do that when explaining a controversial topic such as this. I also agree that rail plus road expansion is a good choice. I live in the Chicago metro and we have rail that runs in the median of interstates, which is a good mix of both options.
I live in Charlotte and take the streetcar to work twice a week. The LRT is great for commuting and getting people to Uptown for special events, but I have to drive for all other trip purposes. We need more transit, but the cost of building the Silver Line would greatly outweigh the benefits. I think the city would be better served by commuter rail lines to major suburbs like Matthews, Fort Mill, Gastonia, etc. More road capacity needs to come in the form of managed lanes on highways and better connectivity through out the surface streets. Charlotte is growing too fast to solve congestion simply by building more lanes.
Traffic is a real 🤬 in Charlotte, but expanding roads alone isn't going to solve the problem. The Queen City is being gentrified like hell and those newcomers want more transportation options. The only thing I don't like about light rail is that it appears to serve only affluent areas.
New Orleans has a good bus and streetcar system, although the streetcar lines could be expanded.
Charlotte is in the right here. People drive everywhere because there is no walkability and other modes of transportation. Everytime a road or highway is expanded traffic just gets worse because the solution to congestion is not road widening, but getting people to use other modes of transportation. Car transportation is the least efficient way of moving a lot of people as it takes to much space. Charlotte also has a problem with its road design as its streets and roads are way too wide to welcome predestrican traffic. Some of the roads you mentioned in the video are horrendous for having businesses and homes while having a high speed limit. streets have businesses and homes, roads move people quickly from one place to another, and the monstrosities that charlotte has built accomplish neither, and are an eyesore for what could be an amazing city.
American Car dependency needs to come to an end. Cars will still have a place for people, but cities need to accomodate the people living in them and not be built for the car.
Induced demand works for transit too. Make it convenient, and people will consider it. Run more buses and trains, people will do it.
There was me thinking about moving to Charlotte for its decent transit system (by Sun Belt standards at least).
Only if you live and work along the current Blue Line currently.
11:19 Because the best solution to traffic congestion (if not the only solution) is to even out the transportation modes by providing alternatives to driving. (Inside a city's downtown area, anyways.)
As someone that will be moving to the area soon, I think the major problem is related to the quality of the expressways and the lack of proper lighting at night; which also applies to much of the streets within and surrounding the city. It is very hard to see at night in my opinion, which I think may lend itself to other safety concerns when walking or riding bicycles.
I think the Speaker is being very short sighted. It's my belief that the more asphalt that a city puts down, the more it invites people to drive. The more people drive, the more congested traffic gets. It is a vicious cycle that has to be broken. That means bike ways, buses, light rail , and any other means to get people out of their cars. It also means it is going to take time for people to break old habits, but given time, high gas prices, and patience from politicians it will happen. It has to.
Induced demand is just one anti highway person's theory. It is far from proven fact. That said the speaker is way off base and mass transit has to be part of the solution. I think bike lanes are not solution to traffic. Though I think they are nice for quality of life and should be considered.
I would love to use the transit available here in Houston but when I do I get harassed for money and just nasty ppl on the bus or light rail. I think the problem with transit in the us is it seems to be used as a home for some and no one wants their young kids or wife being harassed for money. Fix that issue and that will help ridership some
At Europe the city centers are closed for cars so we use the metro or the bus , rich or poor and the life goes on...😊
I would like to hear you make more comment about the speaker's assertions about bike lanes. Personally I like to ride my bike (but not for commuting) and would love to see more bike lanes. But even though I think the speaker is idiotic being so against mass transit I wonder if he has a minor point about bike lanes. I love to see them and if a new neighborhood is being designed I think they should be added in. But I also agree I often see them barely being used and going in at the cost of taking out a car lane on a road that is already congested.
So Moore thinks children will be driving to see their friends whose parents moved the family across town... this is not his only tunnel vision but hey, let's all be forced to own cars, and when we can not afford to get ours fixed or buy a new one... this wonderful bureaucratic thought child wants us to walk?
Better than being forced to stay in your 15 min city with fines for leaving like in Oxford in the UK
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv Implying it's one or the other. There's a plethora of transit cities that are great to live in without being reliant on a car.
I moved to Ballantyne area of Charlotte a couple of years back, and there is literally a single transit route within walking distance from my apartment. Being forced to drive everywhere sucks. Groceries, work, gym, hell if I want to go for a walk with my dog I have to drive to a park.
One of the primary reasons I moved out of state away from Charlotte after graduating from UNCC was primarily because I hated road traffic so damn much.
I don't give a damn about CATS buses, but expansion of the light rail as critical especially expanding it up the I-77N cooridor into Iredell county.
Republican voices from the non-urban areas in NC are severely overrepresented in North Carolina's state government, and they have been proven to be hostile to the state's largest cities and to anything that moves in a direction that they either don't experience/want or don't want others to experience or have.
What a surprise; people are in cars because we have put nearly all of our money into car infrastructure for over a 100 years. Cities like Charlotte face a Los Angeles type of future of gridlock if we just keep building roads to "solve" our transportation problems. No action is taken until it's too late and more expensive, which is then used as the excuse to not take action on transit again.
IMO, growing cities should not wait on this political gridlock. They should build more walkable dense mixed use nodes within their cities to lessen dependency on cars for everything & everyone, and do what they can to reduce demand on their roads.
I work in south carolina and live in north Charlotte. Even if I could bike to work in this humid death trap, I might end up driving anyway. We do need expanded light rail. When charlotte is packed full I bet folks start riding the train.
For Tim Moore, history began in 1960 after people switched to driving cars. He forgets that cars were a new or different form of transportation where cities and other governments implemented programs to make it easier to drive.
Mike another interesting video. As I said I lived Charlotte too. I think that the plan could be trimmed down some. Federal and State funds are never guaranteed. Sure they will get some for infrastructure. The Silver Line is the line that would carry the most people thru the most populated sections of the Greater Charlotte area. The Extension to Ballentyne could be postponed. Real Estate property went up due to the rail stations. (Like all "Subway"). As you said a few roads could be expanded. Its dense thru UpTown. A multi pronged approach is best but a smaller budget might be better. I do think if the light rail system was fast, SAFE, and efficient I think it would be best for the CLT Area.
I believe in a balanced transportation system. It's completely ignorant on the states part to concluded that because everyone one drives we need to just build more roads. Everyone drives because they have to drive. When you only build roads and no other form of transportation. You have a unbalanced system. So of course people have to drive because there's no other option. I want to take the train. I don't like driving.
It is absolutely maddening the car-centric, car-brained attitudes that people like Tim Moore have that think that public transit should be an afterthought, and that the automobile is the end-all, be-all of transportation and mobility. Car dependent solutions to transit woes is the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
As someone who uses the buses, I fully support Julie Eiselt, @10:20, making buses run more frequently definitely will increase ridership especially on the CATS Express Buses, like the 77X (the one I use) and the 63X that serves North Mecklenburg commuter towns. These buses have been a phenomenal success in reducing VMT and getting suburbanites to use transit more, surprisingly enough. And what's even more surprising is that the majority of the riders are white collar, higher income professionals. Living proof that public transit is not "just for poor people."
For those who are turned off by the cost of mass transit expansion, believe me, that cost is NOTHING compared to the long term costs of roadway expansion. Road and highway expansion costs infinitely more especially in the long run, as well as being much more environmentally hazardous, not to mention induced demand, and that it does nothing but create more traffic. So it totally defeats the purpose, meaning road expansion doesn't do its job in improving transportation and especially mobility, while transit, and especially transit oriented development, will be a juicy economic opportunity to the city as well as giving the people alternatives.
The problem isn't bike lanes, its state preemption.
Regarding Charlotte, I think the absolute ONLY freeway expansions that should happen within I-485… notably excluding US 74 & perhaps NC 16 for the most part should be tolled express lanes only… both directions too and actually including substantial redesign of all of the piss poor 1960s era interchange/ramp designs with more modern and compact but still high capacity.
But Downtown Charlotte should completely remove the southern half of I-277, convert to a 6 lane at-grade boulevard that primarily acts as one great big on/offramp for ALL I-77, I-85 & US 74 traffic instead of COUNTLESS weaving ramps within a 2-3 square mile area. Regardless of lane counts, such weaving in a place I trust is increasingly congested AROUND THE CLOCK will quickly break down traffic flow within moments at the right times…
And mass transit investment in general if planned/designed accordingly could be key… not even remotely to save the planet, increase equity, or whatever buzzwords that will QUICKLY turn off your average suburbanite, but rather to GET AND KEEP AS MANY BAD & STUPID DRIVERS AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE from hogging up any precious & expensive road real estate. In recent years I got to thinking that plentiful of the absolute worst & dumbest drivers are clearly disinterested in driving to the point where they might take literally any other reliable option if it ever existed. You think the obese people in base level crossovers either hogging the left lane and/or cutting EVERYONE off whenever entering/exiting among other things is interested in driving? Or do you think they’ve about had it getting high beamed, honked, yelled at, or flipped off on a presumably routine basis?
I don't even know where to start with that guy's comment, but I'll just say that transportation and land-use are intrinsically linked. If you only build single-family homes everywhere of course everyone is going to drive because those neighborhoods were designed for everyone to drive everywhere. The reason you have congested roads is because everyone drives! That can not be solved with more road construction, especially if those roads all lead to the same point. (Downtown) It can only be solved with alternatives to driving, which requires a change in land-use. NC, like most of the US, suffers from the suburban experiment, a phrase that was coined by Strong Towns that describes the pattern of North American development after WWII. Car-centric suburbs spread out infrastructure too far for their maintenance to be covered by residential property taxes so cities and towns take on debt to make repairs. This has been slowly bankrupting municipalities for decades. So when politicians think that bike lanes and transit are too expensive and we should instead be using that money on roads, they clearly have no idea the financial costs of car-centric development. The reality is Charlotte can not afford to not implement transit, and bike lanes as long as they change land-use in the city along with it. Ideally they would not take on debt or use federal funds to pay for this, but do something like a tax-investment fund to allocate some of the revenue from new city development to transit that connects one financially productive area to another. If you want more info on any of this I would suggest strongtowns.org or the Not Just Bikes TH-cam channel.
when i moved to charlotte this past year from gastonia, i picked my apartment out for being close to the light rail line. i have a car but when i want to go to events and out on weekends, i want to just take the train. i hope to even find a job that is also near the train line or walking distance soon. i'd love to see some sort of express lines as well, to cut down travel time.
I retired here from DC 5 years ago. The traffic in Charlotte on its worst day doesn’t come close to average DC traffic. However there is congestion which the HOT lanes helped but different eliminate. To expand rail you won’t take many drivers off the road. But the benefit comes from allowing poor people find work outside of the downtown. Bike lanes are nice but again, if you work in an office, riding a bike in super hot and humid Charlotte means bringing clothes to work and finding some place to shower. Perhaps the financial companies should try more remote work. Finally, I’ve never seen a city where so many semis are transiting on secondary roads and through downtown. The state should ban transit trucks from secondary roads and close the outside lane on the interstates to them. Trucks are rolling road blocks which lead to unnecessary congestion and accidents.
I’ve lived in or near Charlotte for 40 years and have seen it struggle with the growth. One reason for the decline is the dramatic increase in remote workers since the pandemic. Even the big banks are back to just part time in-office. The big downside for bus usage is the hub and spoke arrangement. Great if going uptown but doesn’t work for cross area needs. I’m for expanded light rail but would rarely use it myself, especially now retired. Only for special events and only if it came up to my Huntersville area. It could make sense once the airport is along the route, to save on parking costs or waiting for an Uber. I agree that expanding the roads more than they are is a challenge. The biggest need is I-77 in south Charlotte and much of that route is land locked.
Bus frequency is one of the 2 key(est) factors of a good bus system, the other is, well, no one is going to take the bus if the bus is stuck in traffic like everyone else. If we are to make people move away from cars, the alternative needs to, of course, be a comprehensive network (rather than the current "network" of bike lanes in Charlotte right now) and, most importantly, be physically separated from cars. It's these 2 together that makes Montréal's Réseau Express Vélo (REV) so successful.
As for buses, I think making a lane for bus only may be enough, and then we'll see if we have to go Latin American style BRT. Anyway, bus only lanes at certain hours, then improve frequency. People will then take the bus.
Reiterating the bus only lanes again because it's literally paint, super easy.
I'd like to see the LYNX Line go from Hickory,NC to Rock Hill, SC via the median of US 321 & i-85 corridors.
Too many jurisdictions involved who are against transit expenditures.
Yeah, let’s go with the expansion of the light rail. Honestly, if it ran in more neighborhoods I think people would be more willing to ride the blue line. Just my opinion.
Hey, did you happen to see Tom Moore's counterpart in the Senate's comment on the same topic? If the NC Senate were to agree to allow the sales tax referendum, I wonder how the negotiations between the Senate and House would go.
While it is true that the roads cannot be expanded, the fact remains that people are driving cars - they're not biking or walking to their destinations. I live near a major city which has installed bike lanes in and near the major downtown thoroughfares: you can virtually picture the tumbleweed blowing in those bike lanes. Building up infrastructure and public transit beyond the niche that it is servicing will always be construed as pork barrel politics and wasting tax dollars. I agree that installing bike lanes will not magically cause people to purchase a bicycle and ride it through the streets (you're back to driving a car in adverse weather conditions but with restricted flow due to an unused bike lane). You cannot change people's behavior in these ways (nor should you force people to change - people must find value in the proposition and want to change voluntarily). Sometimes there will be no easy answers and there will have to be concessions and compromises, and this is one of them.
US 74 southeast of downtown needs to be a freeway, that part of the city does not have a freeway.
I think everything you said is 100%. I love the idea of the silver line but personally I think they should build from the new train station uptown to the airport first and then figure out if going to Matthews is practical. The red line is a great idea but Norfolk southern is being difficult. The city has spent too much money on bike paths and needs to calm down about buses.
"We drive cars. We don't ride bikes and take buses". That's no different than telling people who want to eat healthy that "We eat McDonald's and drink Coke. We don't go to the gym and eat healthy".
NC and SC are brothers we do the same here but we the little brother state...I wish Columbia would build it up like Charlotte but Ft. Jackson base taking up all the F'ing land for yrs
The only thing with public transportation in cities that are largely car dependent, if you build it, the people will still use their cars, and the system will be under utilized. It's a part of their cultural fabric. Older cities like NY, Boston, Philly, Chicago, and even DC to an extent, were already well established before the automobile. Their transit systems predate the car. There are many people who not only don't have cars, they don't have licenses. Public transportation will not work in these types of cities.
Dc’s transit system does not predaate the car.
@@m--avery true. However, DC is a city that was largely already intact.
@@deanchapman1824 another example, LA. They are very car dependent but are building new transit that is somewhat well utilized.
This is an excellent channel. Keep at it! 👏🙌
Buses that don't run at least every 30 minutes shouldn't run. It's a crime that Fayetteville NC still run hourly schedules. And they don't always run on schedule either. So that is the real reason, people choose not to ride them. It is a chore to wait for them sometime in the blaring hot sun.
I think the reason that they run is they tecnically serve people.
6:03: lol @ that scared dog
11:42: Well, first, they have to get me to live there. There used to be a time when I actually lived in Roanoke, Virginia, and that was back when George H.W. Bush was President. Since 1990, when I was 2 years old, I have lived in nearby Franklin County, and while there ARE disadvantages to where I live (Internet, cellphone reception), I highly doubt I'd trade it away to live in a city...especially one where crime is increasing. While he's not quite on the level of Bill de Blasio, that Garcetti guy, or certain infamous state governors (Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, Kathy Hochul), Sherman Lea isn't exactly the greatest mayor of Roanoke right now.
(Also, I was born in Northern Virginia. I supposedly didn't live there for very long, though...)
Living in Charlotte I can say I find the rail projects appealing but they need to make sense. Charlotte building the sliver line is a step in the right direction but I think building/upgrading rail infrastructure along the silver line route might be a better idea over the expensive light rail. As for the Commuter rail route to Mooresville, I believe its unlikely to happen unless the city or state wants to really spend a lot of money to convince Norfolk Southern to let them use the O line. As of right now NS has stated they won't allow commuter train on the corridor which is unlikely to change. As with the silver line routing, if the city wanted to opt for commuter rail (Which could be cheaper) CSX might be more open to negotiations for use of their line to Matthews.
great content,love the detail and especially the maps.your cross bronx expressway video was particularly interesting
Much appreciated!
In the middle, esp with all the problems CATS has had. a train derails and no one on city council is informed and the city manager supposedly missed the email. Seems to me we also need a new city manager. My big problem is everything the city plans, they always overbudget the revenue and under budget the costs and everyone keeps thier job. South End has exploded and the rail line had something to do with it, not sure how much. Also there are too many commuters who don't pay to ride. not sure the solution. NODA has changed also. Whether the reason was the areas had cheaper rents that allowed business to get started or rail line I don't know.
One item I don't think the planners took into account is the way UBER/Lyft/ other rideshares have affected the ridership. There needs to be a more balanced formula on how to pay and more realistic expectations on what to fund. 77 is a parking lot at times. Everytime they widen roads there are bridges that need to be rebuilt. Why not spend the money on front end to allow more lanes down the road, Not sure what exactly happened on the Hawthorne bridge on the "trolley", but incompetence seems to run rampant in CATS and DOT.
can you do a commentary video like I-14 I want to see how's that going?
I’m actually planning to go check it out and drive it in the next few weeks. I want to get a first hand feel of it before making the video.
In NC, all the roads are essentially state owned. Back during the civil war, the legislature took away the right of counties to own roads.
Charlotte continues to route transit into the neighborhoods that use transit the least then complain about ridership smh
A route 4 train line would be a better remedy than the current planned addition.
Whats funny is, North Carolina roads are not too bad overall, But i think transit is something to consider anyways as NC is become very populated
I think maybe lower the rate of light rail expansion to more suburban areas and add more park and rides to rail stops.
If you restrict access to downtown by private vehicles it will work.
No need just get rid of parking minimums for new construction.
Im late to the party but have been in the Charlotte area for the past year. While I find the speaker's point overall very flawed, I must say I slightly agree that I do think roadways should take slight precedence. I'm im architecture and took some urban design classes during my school days but still Im just not a fan of public transportation (especially for commuting, only for leisure). I think a large part of the population, especially those that are used to car-centric southern cities (like myself) are just more comfortable driving. No matter what, public transportation just wont be their #1 preference. HOWEVER, not everyone is like that and seeing how the blue line has really transformed the city, I think the benefits of the silver line would far outweigh the cons. Considering many newcomers are moving from northern metros like DC, NYC, and Boston, I think a lot of them would be more acclimated and inclined to use to public transportation. I mean the speaker is from Kings Mountain. Of course public transportation isn't exactly his cup of tea 😂.
7:17 And that's why "the car is the future of transportation" in the United States. It's not that way. If you build for bikes, people WILL bike. Build more bike lanes? More people will bike to work. Cars aren't needed everywhere. Transit might not suit the countryside, but it's fine in the Downtown areas of cities. That politician has it all wrong.
As a disabled person who lives AND works in Charlotte. I have to say that gentleman is wrong.
1 or 2 rail lines that don’t run frequently and don’t offer connections are set up to fail. Adding more lines and more frequency boosted by frequent buses would result in dramatic increases in transit.
First of all, I think they should go with the 10 minute, original plan. But be aware, that budget of 13.9 biljoen will probably go over budget by +/- 35%. It always does, everywhere in the world. In the long run (let's say 30/40 years) it will be worth it, though.
A circular rail route tracking route 4 would be the most effective for connecting current transit routes and boosting daily ridership and not just suburban commuters.
I did park and ride all the time when I worked in uptown Charlotte. Less than half the cost riding the Blue line compared to parking in uptown.
How long ago was that
$2.1 Billion to rebuild I-77? I doubt it. It costs about $1B per interchange to rebuild I-285 around Atlanta and I don't see capacity added in this construction. Assuming that $2.1B does rebuild I-77 and add one or two lanes in each direction, Charlotte will be in an even worse jam than before the "improvement." That is because freeways generate their own traffic. Very rarely do they actually alleviate congestion. Most often, the road that is being "relieved" also gets worse traffic! This is why Washington, DC, and San Francisco killed their inner freeway projects. Tune into the traffic reports sometime in either metro area and the only places discussed are the freeways. You never hear about Van Ness Avenue in San Fran or Connecticut Avenue in DC having clogged traffic. Traffic is always moving at 15 or 20 mph reliably on those thoroughfares. No, it's always the Capital Beltway, recently expanded to 12 lanes, or the Bay Bridge, 10 lanes wide, or the suburban clogs that gridlock traffic. Case in point: the Katy Freeway in Houston, Texas, was "upgraded" in a $10B project to 24 lanes in some points. It now takes an average of 20 minutes longer, not shorter, to do the average commute. If you want to increase freeway capacity for those who must drive, build trains and send them whooshing down the median strips of freeways. I have ridden on BART in the Bay Area, transferred from one train to the other in less than a minute, and spent my 35 minutes on the train going 20 miles watching every freeway frozen by gridlock. That might get people out of their cars, leaving room for others.
The problem with public transit is "the last mile" and the directness of the route. I attempted to use public transit when I had an hour long commute only to find it would take 2 hours (and 3 different buses) to get me from somewhat near my home to somewhat near my work. And then I'd need to figure out the transport between the bus stops and final destinations. Completely impractical.
Thankfully part of the plan is to have most homes withen a 10 minuite walk of transit/
I think there were some terrible comments from the speaker. He is basing what to do on the fact that population remains the same in the city, which it will not. As the city grows, the roads will just keep becoming more congested even if they are widened. He is completely wrong about building more bike lanes not leading to more people riding bikes. It has been shown that there is usually a strong correlation between the quality of the bike infrastructure in a city and the amount of people that drive in the city. At the end he says “You need to build and expand roads because we are driving cars” which basically means “I am forcing everybody to drive a car even if you are unhappy with it." Cars take up a ton of space in cities, and with cities like Charlotte growing so much, the space in the city will not be able to handle the increased amounts of traffic of the cars.