Marc Moore prepares to board Route 9. It’s not his usual bus; during the week, he commutes to work in uptown from South Tryon near Olde Whitehall on Route 16.
“I ride all the time pretty much. I don’t own a car,” Moore said.
In general, Moore said he likes the bus. He commutes to work and church, so having reliable service seven days a week is important to him.
“I may be a transit nerd, but I also have narcolepsy,” Moore said. “So, I can’t actually drive — like, transit is my option.”
He rode the bus with City Council member Marjorie Molina and Mayor Pro Tem Dante Anderson. Nonprofit Sustain Charlotte organized the bus ride with the council members to educate folks on how to ride using the CATS app.
The educational ride happened just over a week before the city council was due to vote on a new one-cent sales tax to raise money for transportation infrastructure.
The event also gave commuters like Moore an opportunity to talk about what’s working and what isn’t.
“It’s hard to fully rely on [the bus] when it’s as infrequent as it is. Especially some of the lines that got cut, like 16, as heavily as they did,” Moore said.
In 2022, CATS reduced the frequency of Route 16 and other high-use routes due to staffing shortages. Moore’s bus started coming half as often as it used to.
Sustain Charlotte volunteers walked around the bus stop, helping people download the app and purchase a ticket. Moore boarded the bus and scanned the ticket on his phone.
Moore has to ride the bus unless he wants to take a more expensive Uber or Lyft. He’s what transit planners sometimes call a “captive rider.” However, if the city aims to meet its carbon pollution reduction goals by 2050, many more car commuters will need to choose to ride the bus.
Unfortunately, issues with public transit are pushing some commuters away from that option, according to Michelle Zuñiga, an assistant professor of urban and community planning at UNC Charlotte. She interviewed 15 commuters from east Charlotte, mostly Hispanic, many of whom didn’t have access to a car.
“That was their ultimate goal: to get a car,” Zuñiga said, “because of all of the issues that they were experiencing riding public transit.”
Those issues included unpredictability, exposure to extreme heat or downpours while waiting at unsheltered bus stops, and feeling unsafe crossing dangerous roads to access the bus.
During last week’s city council meeting, councilwoman LaWana Mayfield echoed that last concern while discussing new bus rapid transit routes.
“This new bus, even though it's running down its own private lane with concrete on the sides, you’re playing Frogger to try to get across Independence, which people do every day,” Mayfield said.
The folks Zuñiga spoke with said these issues have limited their employment options, since many jobs require a punctuality that CATS buses aren’t always delivering.
“Many of them expressed that they would just break out crying a frustration because of not knowing how to manage this system,” Zuñiga said. “So, they shifted to using Google Maps, and they found that to be super helpful.”
Zuñiga said commuter education workshops, like the one Sustain Charlotte hosted in Plaza Midwood, could help neighborhoods like Albemarle in east Charlotte. Especially if Spanish-speaking volunteers participate.
The proposed sales tax would fund investments in Mecklenburg County roads, rails and buses. The tax would raise $19.4 billion over 30 years, and at least one-fifth of that money would fund buses.
Bus funding would increase by 50% to $69 million a year. However, that money won’t just go toward paying drivers and improving bus stops.
The city has proposed creating 18 microtransit areas, including parts of east Charlotte, Ballantyne, University City and Westerly Hills.
Charlotte’s Strategic Mobility Plan calls for on-demand or fixed-interval transportation in the form of shuttles or vans that operate in those microtransit areas. Think sort of like a geographically limited, low-cost Uber. These smaller passenger vehicles would connect lower-density neighborhoods to the main bus and rail lines.
The sales tax would also fund the city’s Better Bus plan, which would improve frequency, add connections between routes, and make bus stops safer.
Mayor Pro Tem Anderson says CATS CEO Brent Cagle has already improved bus punctuality and functionality since he started in 2023, which Anderson says will increase ridership over time. She said Cagle “eradicat[ed] the notion of ghost buses.”
To Anderson’s point, when I asked daily bus commuter Marc Moore about his experience with ghost buses — scheduled trips that never appear — he said CATS had improved. However, when I asked when the last time a bus didn’t show up, he said it happened earlier that week. He still encountered ghost buses “once or twice every two weeks.”
For Moore, ghost buses are far from eradicated. His bus stop also lacks a shelter, something he said can be a challenge for older riders, especially when it’s hot outside.
“As a rider, I know it can be frustrating to be in that spot of [CATS] working on it,” Moore said. “A lot of people kind of need it now. But I recognize that they’re trying, they’re making progress, and I’m confident it’s getting better.”
Charlotte City Council will vote Tuesday night on whether to send the proposed one-cent sales tax to Raleigh for a vote in the General Assembly. If approved, Mecklenburg County residents could see the referendum on the ballot next fall.
