The epidemic of falling ridership has struck no American city as hard as Charlotte, but there's plenty that could be done to recover.
American bus transit is in a bad state, and by the numbers, Charlotte, North Carolina is in the worst shape of any large city in the country. "The current CATS transit network simply isn’t working very well for many of the 75 percent of its riders who use the bus. The average one-way travel time for a CATS passenger who has to transfer between routes is 90 minutes," Shannon Binns argues for the Charlotte Observer.
The city has a plan to redesign and grow its bus network to make it more frequent, walkable, and direct. "A redesigned bus network will not only better serve current riders, but also attract new ones. TransitCenter, a New York-based foundation dedicated to transit reform, identifies growth in the number of people who ride transit often and for multiple purposes as an important indicator of whether transit is serving its function of helping a city meet its “triple bottom line” of economic growth, environmental stability, and social equity," Binns reports.
FULL STORY: The secret to attracting more transit riders in Charlotte
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Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
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Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research