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| Plans for Extension of
the South Corridor Into South Carolina At a recent meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) the comment was made that whatever is planed in Charlotte/Mecklenburg should also be planned for York County, SC. The implication was that wherever they link up--Pineville for example--they must be the same mode: light rail, regional rail, busway, etc. CEMT thinks that what is planned in Charlotte/Mecklenburg is not necessarily what should be built in South Carolina, down to Fort Mill and Rock Hill. In fact, it would be much wiser to look at something different in South Carolina. Here are some of our reasons. 1) Light rail has wisely been chosen as the preferred transit mode between Charlotte and Pineville. As light rail requires high density to work well, York will not grow fast enough in the next few years to provide the proper density. 2) Light rail will be making frequent stops between Pineville and Uptown Charlotte. With all of these stops, light rail would not provide a fast commute between Rock Hill/Fort Mill and Uptown Charlotte. If it is not faster than driving, many may not use mass transit. 3) A light rail extension from Rock Hill to Uptown Charlotte would be more expensive than regional rail. It would require costly overhead wire and installation of a separate set of tracks. It is likely that there is not enough right-of-way (ROW) along the entire existing Norfolk Southern (NS) Railroad tracks. To acquire needed ROW will be expensive and time consuming. 4) Light rail into York County could take many more years to complete, even if the money is available. Certainly there are stumbling blocks to getting regional rail running as well. An agreement with the NS Railroad must be negotiated in order to share their tracks. Any agreement will quite rightly call for building additional track capacity and other improvements in order to protect the railroad's freight operation. Even so, it is likely this could be done faster than buying additional ROW and build an expensive, completely separate light rail operation next to the existing NS Rail line. Therefore, regional rail will be a better choice for South Carolina. There must be an regional rail/light rail interconnect in the South Corridor, that is why the favored alignment choice would be bring light rail into downtown Pineville. Traveler/commuters from Rock Hill/Fort Mill could connect with light rail in Pineville if their destination is a stop along the light rail line. While light rail might not follow NS mail line all the way north of Pineville, it is possible at least one more stop that would interconnect light rail and regional rail could be planned. A stop in the Arrowood area would be a good choice, especially since so many office buildings are in the general vicinity. North of Arrowood, regional rail could use the existing NS Columbia/Charlotte mail line for a much faster trip to Uptown to the planned Multi-Modal Transit Center (MMC) on West Trade Street. Regional rail service in York County might start as a rush-hour only service, with express buses filling the mid-day gap, until ridership builds and additional track capacity is added. This could be done with regional rail, while light rail is such a large investment it would be impractical to build if not utilized all day. It is very important that any regional rail service in York County be well coordinated with the regional rail service being planned in the North Corridor up to the Lake Norman area. Whatever type of equipment is used should be uniform. This will save on servicing and make it possible to interchange equipment between corridors. It would be possible to have "run through" trains if deemed advantageous. |
