A Trip on the Light Rail

We had a chance to try out the Lynx Blue Line this weekend. We parked at the South Blvd station and road all the way to 7th Street in Center City, by Imaginon. There were bumps and glitches, with long lines, ticketing machines that didn’t work and a couple of unexplained (and very sudden) stops between stations. I never did figure out why the train doors closed, and opened, and closed again at the 7th Street station. But I was glad they did, since that meant we were able to make the train versus waiting for the next one (which was coming 20 minutes later).

But overall, we really enjoyed it. It seems promising, although for us, it’s not yet a practical mode of transportation. We only travel to Center City on weekends, and in the time it takes us to drive to the nearest station, we could almost have driven the full distance to uptown in our car. If there was a station closer, we would probably use it only occasionally for weekend ventures. But for someone who happens to live relatively close to a station, and works somewhere along the designated stops, I could see a practical application. Like I said, this was all new for me.

In our case, it was a fun weekend activity – a novelty. But for serious riders that are using it as a regular mode of transportation there are still kinks to work out. The machines will accept credit cards in the future, which will hopefully help those long lines at the machines (having them all actually giving correct change would help too). From my “newbie” perspective, it’s a pretty cool weekend mini-adventure. But to really be practical and make any kind of impact on traffic throughout Charlotte, there would have to be more lines, which of course are in the planning stages now. I suppose time will tell how much the light rail impacts Charlotte. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in going, you can check out the CATS site for information about fares and schedules. Happy riding!