More live blogging from the forum on North Carolina: Good Growth State, in Raleigh, put on by the N.C. State Institute for Emerging Issues.
Spotted in the audience or lobby: Rep. Ruth Samuelson, R-Mecklenburg, Charlotte DOT Chief Danny Pleasant, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute has several folks, including its director, Jeff Michael.
Keith Parker, CEO of the Charlotte Area Transit System, told me the biggest take-away for him, hearing the ex-mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, came when Livingstone described how London added lots of bus service between 2000 and 2004 and was able to attract millions more transit riders. The city targeted the middle-income workers, to try to lure them out of their cars.
Parker's heading back to Charlotte to give a presentation to the City Council this evening about
whether the city can or should fast track the proposed streetcar project that would run from Beatties Ford Road to Eastland Mall.
Monday, February 09, 2009
What CATS chief learned from London
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16 comments:
Where is the MONEY going to COME FROM?
I don't belive that our city will suffer if low income earners and public assistance recipients from Beatties Ford Road can't get to the Mall to spend their welfare checks on baggy pants and acrylic nails!!
More ignorant comments. Although I agree about the one about money. In this economy where will they get money from. CATS and LYNX specifically is good but I believe that other services should come first.
The moron who posted about people going to the mall may be true for some. But he is also forgetting that many of the people who live in that area must also get to WORK and they may not have a car. Tired of redneck, racist posts on here.
I'm also tired of seeing what that gentelman was talking about. Bravo for saying what we are all thinking. We need to work on a rail line to the lake to erlive congestion on I-77 so the hardworking, tax-paying citizens get some relief from 2 hour commutes. The people who pay the taxes should benefit first.
Most of the above posts only prove that charlotte is and always will be a status-quo, backwater big-city wanna be. "New south?" "Metropolis?" Now that's truly laughable. An instant skyline doesn't make a city (and it's not really that impressive compared with many other US cities, actually.) And it doesn't matter how many banks you people gain and lose, lol. Business signs in CHINESE or SPANISH? OMG, somebody call the English-only police. Thank god I live in california.
Yea, we don't need you California freaks here. Eating seaweed and kissing other boys. Nascar and Budweiser Baby..!! That's all we need.
And quit reading our news if you don't like it here. Go back to your gang fights, forest fires, mud slides and earthquakes.
So, increase bus service; scrap any more rail lines.
Done.
That sounds dandy to add more buses, but keep in mind that London also charges a toll per car and truck that goes into its city center. So I'm not surprised that they were able to capture more of there target audiance.
It is an idea, but I don't think London's model is a one-size-fits-all.
Agreed. London's model should not be followed literally. They also have 7 million plus people to deal with.
Adding buses though BEFORE we expand any rail lines is a smarter 1st step.
We need big tolls on I-77, I-85, and I-485. Let the drivers pay for those asphalt boondoggles.
No city will be successful in the long run if the urban poor, those that need transportation the most, do not have access to it.
It is a human right.
The most successful cities in the world have one thing in common - they are easy to get around without a car (poor and rich alike)
Whats wrong with $6,000 cars?
Toll...sure, as long as the money was used for roads only; no robbing it to pay for light rail.
I'd pay a toll also if they reduced the gas tax.
The asphalt boondoggle keeps you alive, my friend. Unless you are blogging from your own farm...
Mancunian,
Who does not have access to a bus right now?
Well Timmy seems like you know what low income earners and public assistance recipients spend their money on at the mall, but what about the big assistance recipients like BoFA and WF, what do they spend their welfare checks on. Hum lets see, Las Vegas vacations, spa treatments oh and lets not forget that little check to their Porche dealer. There are some very ignorant people in this city. I've been in low income housing and i have never seen anyone with a 60,000 car, you know why? That car would last about 2 minutes before it would be gone. This is not Malibu's Most Wanted, this is Queen City's Streets.
Instead of expensive trains for the BoFA and WF employee why not just simple buses...some people just think they are too good to ride buses. One train track, 465 million dollars to move 5,000 people a day...just don't add up
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