Transit advisory chair: Charlotte bus riders deserve better than this

You may have heard that a shortage of CATS bus drivers is causing delayed and canceled trips in Charlotte. It’s another thing to actually see the impact.

I’m a CATS bus rider and chair of the City of Charlotte’s Transit Services Advisory Committee. I’ve seen the impact firsthand.

People are waiting for buses that never show up to take them to work, doctor’s appointments, even the airport.

Last month, dozens of us waited at the Transportation Center uptown for four consecutive buses that never came. I stood there with a crew of hotel workers still in their uniforms who were trying to go home after a long shift on their feet. There was also a man in a hard hat and reflective vest eager for a shower after a hot day on a construction site.

One woman in a mobility scooter arrived at the transit center after a long trip by bus and the Blue Line. She was waiting to catch another bus home, only to face a 2-hour wait. She told me there was no one who could pick her up, so I paid for a Lyft to get her home because it was unconscionable to strand her at the transit center for hours.

A bus dispatcher told me they were embarrassed to break bad news about bus delays to people, who invariably got angry.

Even in the best of times, city buses seem to get no respect even though they transport more passengers than all other forms of public transit combined, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

We see it here in Charlotte: A pilot bus lane on Central Avenue was defeated by a few angry drivers who would rather clog the road with their mostly-empty cars than dedicate space to the busiest bus corridor in the city.

Miles of missing sidewalks — compounded by a lack of interest from NCDOT, which oversees many of our roads — means many bus stops lack benches and shelters. A group of Charlotteans took matters into their own hands and built their own benches.

Racism and classism are also at play. Numerous people have told me they won’t ride a bus because they don’t want to be near “those” people. Yes, people have actually said that to me.

So how do we make life better for bus riders? CATS and the city have their work cut out for them.

Along with the most pressing issue of hiring more bus drivers, CATS’ real-time app needs to reflect when a bus trip has been canceled because there is no one to drive it.

We need benches and shelters at more bus stops, and sidewalks to get to the stops. We need to continue expanding our bus network through areas of the city with little to no existing transit options. And we need buses to run so frequently that you don’t even need to look at a schedule because a bus is sure to come along in a few minutes.

This requires tweaking our road infrastructure to give buses an edge, hiring even more drivers, and buying more buses.

Many of these suggestions mirror what CATS has proposed in its Envision My Ride Bus Priority Study. While converting ideas on paper to construction on the ground requires money, it first requires public buy-in. To get there, CATS needs to regain the public’s trust by radically increasing transparency into these and other problems and how it plans to solve them.

The city has set an audacious goal: By 2040, half of all trips will be by means other than single-occupancy vehicle. Elected officials wishing and hoping won’t make it happen. It’ll take planning and building so that more Charlotteans will consider trying a new way to get around.

I often think of an older woman I used to see on the bus every morning, lugging a vacuum and a bucket of cleaning supplies. She got off at the transit center and then transferred to another bus. Can we get her a bench, or better yet, a direct bus route?

A stronger bus system will gain new riders by better serving existing ones.

This story was originally published July 18, 2022 at 4:25 PM.