CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Thousands of people count on the bus and light rail system to get to work, doctor appointments or to run errands. As Charlotte continues to grow, city leaders work to make the region more pedestrian friendly.
However, following several issues with the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), rebuilding trust with the public and increasing ridership is top of mind.
“Public trust is fragile when it is damaged -- it is hard to fix,” said Charlotte city councilman Ed Driggs.
CATS has been in the spotlight for months; from staff shortages and call-outs to city leaders kept in the dark about a 2022 partial derailment to bus operators’ safety concerns.
Driggs is the Transportation, Planning, and Development Committee chairman and is also heading up a new group to address issues at cats.
“The working group has identified two issues. Remediation is one - the things we need to do to fix everything - and two is communication," he said. "People were upset that the news about the derailment didn’t come out for a year."
Reliable public transportation is important to riders who depend on it to get from point A to point B.
“I live a couple of blocks away and don’t have a car and it is just easier for me to take this than to have a car,” said Deshawn Harris, a rider.
“I use the rail line more than the bus because the bus doesn’t come on time -- but the rail does,” said Dishan Williams, another rider. “It comes every 15 mins, back to back to back.”
Driggs said buses generally run on schedule during the week, but improvements are needed on the weekend. The agency is actively recruiting to get more people behind the wheel.
Meanwhile, the entire light rail fleet is expected to be repaired to prevent future derailments.
“We ask the public to have confidence in the train, ride the trains. If they weren’t safe, NCDOT would not let us operate them and we would not operate them."
As the Queen City continues to grow, expanding the transit system is a big part of the mobility plan.
“It’s a large-scale effort to build out more rails, more sidewalks, more bike paths, and the idea is to get people out of their cars,” said Driggs.
Driggs said there are active efforts to get the agency back on track
“We are very committed to staying on this until the situation at CATS is fully rectified.”
Contact Jesse Pierre at jpierrepet@wcnc.com or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.