Riders on Beatties Ford Road would get a bus every 15 minutes between Uptown and Sunset Road starting Feb. 1. The Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) plans to get there by splitting Route 7 in two. Bruce Jones, CATS manager of service planning, laid out the plan Thursday for the Public Transit Advisory Committee, the riders' panel.
Route 7 split and new Route 37
Route 7 now has two branches that each run every 40 minutes, according to CATS slides in the Operations and Safety Committee's Oct. 21 meeting packet. Route 7 would keep the Northlake branch. A new Route 37 would replace the branch to Sunset Road and Harris Corners and would also connect to Northlake. Each would run every 30 minutes. Together they would give riders a bus every 15 minutes along Beatties Ford Road and from Uptown to Northlake, Jones said.
Route 16, express buses and microtransit
Route 16 on South Tryon Street is to get 15-minute service on weekdays, with buses every 20 minutes on weekends, according to the same slides. CATS will also add trips and longer hours on the 40X and 46X express routes, Jones said, without saying how many.
A new microtransit zone, a shared-van service that riders book by app or phone, as in the West Boulevard zone that opened Oct. 5, is to open in North End on Feb. 1. Its connections include Camp North End, Optimist Hall and the Blue Line's Parkwood Station.
A rider who takes the 40X in from Mint Hill thinks it should skip Albemarle Road stops that other bus lines already serve, committee member Juan Contreras Juarez told Jones. Jones said CATS will review stops on the 40X and other express routes and report back to the Transit Riders Advisory Committee that is to replace the current panel. He gave no date.
Fare ambassadors on the Blue Line
Fare ambassadors, who check that riders have paid and answer their questions, began Oct. 30 on the Blue Line. Since then they have made 30,000 fare inspections, and 1,100 of them found no valid fare, Vincent Rodriguez, CATS customer service manager, told the committee. "We've turned a lot of those into customer assistance interactions," he said. He did not say how many riders were cited. The ambassadors are not security officers, according to the committee co-chair's report in the Oct. 21 packet.
CATS-Pass app sales were up 12 percent over the weeks before, Rodriguez said, calling it "a good indicator," though it was "still too early to tell what that's going to mean in the long term." Fare ambassadors are to move to buses next, then the Gold Line. He gave no start dates.
Last meeting for the riders' panel
It was the last scheduled meeting for the committee, known as PTAC, the panel the Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority folded into its structure when it took over CATS, as we reported in June. Members voted to cancel their Dec. 10 meeting. No one objected. Staff proposed it because the authority's board is to recognize PTAC members Dec. 9.
Two new panels, the Transit Riders Advisory Committee and the Mobility Access Committee, are to succeed it, according to the board's Nov. 4 meeting packet. CATS special projects manager Rachel Stark said board Chair David L. Howard made the appointments on Wednesday, Nov. 4.
A CATS transit planner said the agency hopes to start a pilot by spring to help blind and visually impaired riders find bus stops by phone. Staff are weighing four vendors, with yearly estimates for three from about $25,000 to $60,000.