Lynx Ridership Tumbling Off Track
With half-cent sales tax revenue to run shiny choo-choos all over town plunging like a wounded duck, and likely triggering cuts to bus service and/or higher bus fares, now comes news that ridership for the $521-million Lynx Blue Line is on a steady decline.
Transportation and transit guru David Hartgen has the data and Jeff Taylor lays out some of the implications.
In a nutshell: Average daily ridership on Charlotte’s lone Lynx is down 20 percent from the giddy days and record highs of July 2008, with January’s ridership dipping to just north of 13,000, down 7.3 percent from just last January. That decline mirrors similar slips in overall CATS ridership, which is also down about 20 percent, sliding in at about 75,000 riders a day compared to highs of 95,000 in 2008.
So, naturally, Charlotte is moving full steam ahead with plans to build two more train lines, with a new streetcar line thrown in for good measure.
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