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The light rail experiment

20071127LightRail.jpg
Long lines of first time riders.NC's largest city, Charlotte, has embarked upon a new light rail system that many mid-size cities around the country will no doubt be watching. Cutting from whole cloth, Charlotte has created a system, complete with TOD condo developments and neighborhood groups up in arms. The opening day saw huge crowds of curious life-long suburbanites and fans on their way to the Carolina Panthers football game. The crowds the second day were much more in keeping with the transit system estimates. It will be interesting to see how people use the system once the novelty has worn off.

 

Posted on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 11:23AM by Registered Commentertherevitalist in | Comments1 Comment | References2 References

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I was there on Saturday, it was crazy. Police said that there were up to 2,000 people waiting in line at either end of the 9.7mi rail line. I joked that my upper-middle-class family was getting all decked out to go experience public transportation (like waiting in line to ride one of the early elevators, I suppose). Ha. City workers were saying that people were waiting 2 hours at either end to hitch a ride. We waited more like 45 min. The paper said later that over 100,000 people rode over the weekend while the rides were free. Crazy.

Anyway, a few days before it opened, while I was on T-giving break, I rode up the line and took pictures at some of the stations, etc.
http://flickr.com/photos/samuelspence/sets/72157603258578258/
It's a good looking setup, I know that it will really open up options for those living along the rail corridor, and will be a great experiment for how much urbanism Charlotte can really take. There are plans to move North and Southeast of the city with other branches of the line in the distant future (the current line runs along South Blvd. in Southwest Charlotte).

Glad to have stumbled on this site/post!
December 2, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterSam S.

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