72% of riders on Charlotte's light rail system
hadn't used transit before. That is a HUGE number and somewhat surprising to me given that these are all people who have access to a car. Though I have to take issue with the last sentence in the article:
The study didn't ask riders what route they would have taken to work, so it's impossible to determine where the Lynx has provided any congestion relief.
If 72% weren't taking transit before, it seems to me they aren't blocking the road. The big thing still though is the development that has taken place along the corridor. While much of it has occurred in the South End, it just shows the power of transit push the downtown development market a bit further out with easier transportation access.
6 comments:
That's genuinely astonishing. What kind of service was provided along the corridor previously, do you know?
The suggestion in the quote you take issue with is that light rail didn't _really_ get these people onto transit. I find it hard to believe that 72 percent of the riders of Charlotte's LRT spontaneously decided to take transit not because of the light rail coming online, but for other reasons.
If you put the question to the reporter, he would be hard pressed to explain the quote, I would imagine. I'm guessing that he was asked to keep the story "balanced."
i think a lot of this success in both sunbelt LRT ridership and TOD housing are the transplants who want or are accustomed to an urban lifestyle. if one likes urbanity and were to live and work in charlotte for whatever reason, though most likely for banking, you are automatically drawn to this south end area to live. i know i would, because i sure as hell wouldnt live in the auto-centric suburbs of which there is a huge abundance of in charlotte. i think the same can be said for phoenix. all the transplant urbanites that live in phoenix solely there for the jobs are immediately drawn to the housing and neighborhoods along the LRT line. over their dead body would they live the stereotypical phoenix lifestyle of a tract faux-stucco home in suburban phoenix and commute 50 miles each way on the freeways to work.
Jon:
You might be surprised with what folks choose when they move down south or out west. When I was working in a certain larger mid-western city (not Chicago), we had a lot of folks that transferred to my branch from the east coast -- particularly from Washington, DC. All of the twenty or so that did that moved, did so instantly out to what are known to be the doggedly car-centered suburbs.
I know that many of them embraced urban living in Washington. And it's not as if it wasn't to be found in the mid-west; it is really very inexpensive to live in the actually pretty darn nice urban core of that city.
In fact, most of the folks that moved out west did so specifically for the quiet, suburban calm and the lighter freeway traffic there.
I'll never forget a statement made by my own, dear sister (herself an inner-city Boston resident that rides the T to work everyday) in a conversation about the suburbs said "Oh I love the suburbs because you get to drive everywhere there."
I'll repeat it: You get to drive everywhere there. Not have to. Get to.
Some folks are just wired differently. Some people don't mind sitting in bumper to bumper traffic as long as they have AC and Sirius. Some people don't mind having to pay for parking and gas as long as it doesn't literally break the bank. Some people don't mind forcing us into the arms of middle-eastern and African despots as long as they themselves aren't being persecuted by these far-away regimes.
A lot of folks just have a perspective of "Hey, I'm just getting by. I have no time to think about what's really happening when I drive alone to work."
As someone who grew up in Charlotte, the following statement is completely wrong:
"i think a lot of this success in both sunbelt LRT ridership and TOD housing are the transplants who want or are accustomed to an urban lifestyle. if one likes urbanity and were to live and work in charlotte for whatever reason, though most likely for banking, you are automatically drawn to this south end area to live. i know i would, because i sure as hell wouldnt live in the auto-centric suburbs of which there is a huge abundance of in charlotte."
The bankers moved to South Charlotte, in the suburban parts of the city that are mostly car-dependent because they had substantial equity in their houses in higher cost cities and could afford to move into the more expensive southern neighborhoods. Most of these people came to Charlotte with their kids and were not living in South End by any means. It's a joke to suggest otherwise.
Furthermore, it's not inconceivable that 72% of the LRT folks are new riders, but gas prices probably had something to do with it. A lot of these folks weren't taking the bus. It wasn't that there wasn't enough bus service -- in fact there was probably a lot of excess capacity in the bus system.
Post a Comment