TRANSPORTATION

The future of transportation has arrived in Charlotte — but the future comes with a few asterisks. This year has already seen a slew of announcements about futuristic transportation options in the Charlotte region (to say nothing of a new robot security guard uptown and bots writing local media stories). It feels like we’re nearing […]

John Holmes III was a budding urbanist in Charlotte, reading books like “Street Fight” and wondering why we built our cities to drive everywhere. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran working at Chick-fil-A, Holmes was trying to reconcile his workplace’s busy drive-thru with his own ideas about building better cities. When he posted his opinion online […]

Charlotte’s $13.5 billion transit and transportation plans might be on hold, but plans for how to build the signature Silver Line light rail are still pushing ahead. Officials from the Charlotte Area Transit System reviewed a new study about how to facilitate transit-oriented development around each of the Silver Line’s 31 planned stops. The 29-mile […]

How do you make a sprawling city that came of age in the automobile era less car-dependent? One approach: Don’t devote so much space to cars. That’s the thinking behind the Joinery, a new, 83-unit apartment complex that’s opening just north of the Parkwood station on the Blue Line light rail. The six-story building has […]

This story was originally published in Transit Time, a collaborative newsletter published by The Charlotte Ledger, WFAE and the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. Like a lot of roads in the Charlotte region, Matthews Township Parkway (N.C. 51) is becoming more congested. Apartments, office buildings and shopping centers are cropping up nearby. Downtown Matthews is becoming […]

Charlotte is planning to ask voters this year to approve more than $100 million worth of new transportation bonds — an amount that would allow the city to make progress on goals like building more sidewalks but still fall short of covering many crucial needs. Municipal bonds aren’t quite as sexy as a multibillion-dollar new […]

This story was originally published in Transit Time, a collaboration between the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, WFAE and the Charlotte Ledger. A new report from outside consultants says Charlotte transit leaders should consider changing the planned Silver Line light rail route through uptown, in order to attract enough passengers to have a better chance of […]

Pam Murray sees Charlotte through different eyes — and from a different seat — than most people as she moves about the city. Murray, one of the biggest bicycle advocates in Charlotte, uses her bike for everything from getting groceries to hauling furniture. She bikes somewhere around 20 miles a day on average, only using […]

Charlotte Douglas International Airport is one of the busiest hubs in the world, despite the city of Charlotte’s modest size. That disproportionate air service is usually cited as one of the city’s biggest economic advantages, making the airport one of our most important economic engines. But COVID-19 impacted the air travel industry in a profound […]

After almost two years of pandemic-related challenges, the Charlotte Area Transit System is trying to balance the need to restore service and lure back riders with the need to grow and meet the challenges of a growing region. And CATS chief executive John Lewis has a simple message: Charlotte’s transit system needs more money if […]