Don't Back Down

Over the weekend, the Lynx Blue Line opened for business to a standing-room-only crowd. Well, opened for business isn't completely accurate, since the rides were free, but you get the idea: The trains started running. After nearly a decade since the transit tax was enacted with this end in mind, and some $462 million, Charlotte now has light rail service.

The 9.6 mile route roughly parallels South Boulevard from Seventh Street Station all the way to the I-485 Station at the end of the line. Dual tracks run the length of the line, and Park-and-Ride lots sit at the last seven stations (from Scaleybark through I-485), so that you can park your car and get on the train without having to deal with Uptown traffic. Whether you agreed with the plan or not, the train is here. Let's take a look to see what it was like.

We actually went out on Saturday and promptly decided it wasn't worth it. Some 60,000 others stood in line for hours as the trains ran mostly full throughout the day. We had other things to do, so we went and did them, deciding to come back on Sunday.

To our surprise, the trains were still pretty full. This lead to the first revelation - that even on non-weekdays, there might be a call for trains, but probably only eight days a year. For Panthers home games, that is. At least half of the estimated 40,000 riders on Sunday were apparently going to or from the game (that would make for a total of 20,000 riders). Good call on their part, especially since it was a free ride. Saved them some money and some heartache. I wonder if CATS will allow tailgating in the park-and-ride lots?

It will also be interesting to see if people ride the train to Bobcats games and other events uptown. I suspect that there will be less call for it, since there are so many fewer cars for such events, but it's probably going to get a few riders on board, at least. The real use is going to be people riding uptown t work, and that's what I'm interested to find out about. I imagine that a few folks will park on the line somewhere and catch the train uptown, but I don't imagine it will be many - even the 9000 daily trips will probably be high, but I'll wait and see.

As to the train itself, the only real problem I saw was with the door on one of the trains. For some reason, it wouldn't open at the station, so you had to press the little button to open the door. Thankfully, that worked, otherwise I could have seen people having some real issues. Other than that, it worked pretty well. Most riders got on board at the I-485 station and rode all the way uptown, though a lot of people got off for the game. The ride back wasn't nearly as busy.

The stations were an interesting mix, because there were several railings that looked to be held up by wire, and lots of places barricaded by boards. One seat had a sign saying that it needed to be replaced. Not a good sign for just having opened, but overall everything looked nice. Except for that ugly green plastic station uptown. Who bought that thing?

We timed the trip on the train and in the car, and found out that even on a Sunday afternoon with zero traffic, a car is still faster, by several minutes. In both directions the car took 22 minutes from Seventh Street Station to I-485, with traffic and all. That is to say, there wasn't much traffic. But the train, scheduled to run 25 minutes, took 30 minutes to get uptown and then 27 minutes on the return trip. So if you're looking to save time by leaving the car at home, you probably won't. At least not right now.

If you want to save anything, look to save money - it's just $1.30 for a one-way ride, which is probably going to be cheaper than parking uptown, especially when you consider that the park-and-ride lots are free. But if you carpool, you are talking just over $10 for a group of 4 per day - $10 per day may not be much for parking uptown, and then you have to consider the convenience factor.

Did you ride the train, either on the preview weekend or once it went live? What did you think?

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