Articles About Transportation

The pandemic has transformed so much about the world, including how we work, where we work, and how we commute. As a result of these shifts, Charlotte area transit use has fallen to less than 50% of pre-pandemic levels. And while debates continue on whether these effects are permanent or temporary, city planners are pushing […]

This story was originally published in the Transit Time newsletter, which is produced in partnership between the Charlotte Urban Institute, the Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. Find out more and subscribe here. As Charlotte prepares to invest billions more into building new light rail, local planners are also betting big on another, more humble transit technology: […]

This story is part of the Transit Time newsletter, a partnership between the Urban Institute, the Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. Find out more and subscribe here. Charlotte plans to spend billions of dollars over the next two decades building new rail lines, a better bus system, greenways and roads. But in an age of self-driving […]

Charlotte-area leaders released their preliminary recommendations Thursday for how to build the region’s first unified transit system, but they’ll keep wrestling with what could be the thorniest issue: How to pay for it. The Connect Beyond initiative, a joint project between the Charlotte Area Transit System and the Centralina Regional Council, is recommending a comprehensive, […]

After the City Council narrowly approved the 2040 plan, Charlotte leaders are turning from questions of how we grow to another key part of the city’s future: how we move around. Ambitious transit plans that call for a new sales tax funding the Silver Line east-west light rail, the stalled Red Line to the north, […]

This story is part of Transit Time, a joint production of The Charlotte Ledger, UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute, and WFAE. Learn more here, and subscribe to get weekly updates on how the Charlotte region moves. With smaller employers returning to the office and the big banks bringing most of their workers back over the next […]

Does where you live — and what jobs you have access to — influence whether you work, and how much you earn? The long-held “spatial mismatch” theory posits that inner city unemployment and poverty has been driven in large part by the increasing physical separation of inner city residents from job opportunities, as suburbs boomed […]

This story is part of the Transit Time newsletter, a partnership between the Urban Institute, the Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. Find out more and subscribe here. If you want to know what the future of a regional transit system for Charlotte and the surrounding counties looks like, think tires, not rails. Despite plans for the […]

This story is part of the Transit Time newsletter, a partnership between the Urban Institute, the Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. Find out more and subscribe here. For six months, commuters and residents near Central Avenue in east Charlotte faced an unfamiliar sight: “BUS ONLY” emblazoned on one general-purpose lane in each direction, in the city’s […]

When it comes to transportation and transit needs, people usually think of increasing the supply: Adding more lanes, building more rail lines, buying more buses. What about lowering or shifting demand, instead? That was the topic Wednesday for a group focused on regional transportation needs and expanding transit choices. “The term ‘transportation demand management’ simply […]

In Charlotte’s new transit and mobility plans, multibillion-dollar light rail lines tend to get most of the attention. But the delay in a planned 1-cent sales tax referendum is having a big effect on another, less flashy part of the system that actually carries many more riders: Buses. The Charlotte Area Transit System has been […]

It’s increasingly dangerous for people to walk in the Charlotte area, according to a new, annual report – a trend that’s mirrored in almost every city nationwide. “Dangerous by Design,” published by Smart Growth America, uses federal data to rank metro areas by pedestrian fatalities. The Charlotte region ranked as the 34th most dangerous metro […]