Ridership on Charlotte’s new $1.1 billion (actually closer to $1.2 billion) light-rail line is well below expectations. But that’s okay, says the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), because they expected it to be below expectations.
The line was projected to carry an average of 18,900 weekday trips in its opening year. When combined with the existing light-rail line, which carried about 15,750 weekday trips in 2016, the total should have been more than 33,500. In fact, it carried just 24,544 weekday trips in May, two months after its March opening.
According to CATS, the shortfall is entirely due to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte ending its Spring semester. “You go from a 28,000- or 29,000-student campus down to 4,000,” said CATS spokesman Olaf Kinard. “For us to have over 24,500 riders [in May] — that’s strong.” Students get free transit passes, so CATS is essentially depending on free riders to justify its expenditure of more than a billion dollars. Continue reading
