WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC-Cover Story: Light Rail - Northeast

Cover Story: Light Rail - Northeast

Eight months in business Charlotte's south corridor light rail is now on a pace to reach its 2025 ridership goal in a year or two.  Now where Charlotte goes next.

Right now this is where the trains stop 7th Street - Center City just north of the Arena and Transit Center.

Where they want to take them is here, Interstate 485 - northeast Charlotte.

11 miles, a dozen stations from Center City to University City.

It'll be CATS most ambitious project and its most expensive.

Danny Rogers is the project manager.  He says, "People are wanting to know when we can do it. What we're doing. They feel like it's real now."

Unlike the south corridor where there was a existing railroad bed, the northeast line will follow along North Carolina Railroad's tracks only for couple dozen blocks about as far as Sugar Creek Road.

From there trains will go down the median of North Tryon Street.

Travel through the UNC Charlotte campus.

And terminate at I-485 at a park and ride deck similar to what's on South Boulevard near Pineville.

The project got a big thumbs up this month when the U.S. Senate committed $18 million to engineering and design.

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory says, "There is a lot of competition for limited dollars at the federal level. This is a very positive signal in which the feds like the way Charlotte does mass transit."

Gauging from two community meetings this month, interest in light rail among neighbors in the northeast is high.

Express bus ridership from University City is among the highest in the system.

Project manager Danny Rogers says construction on the LYNX Blue Line Extension is still four years away.. at the earliest.

There are a lot of hoops to jump through before the feds will write a check for 50-percent of the costs.

He says ,"We have to have them as partners. We can't fund this by ourselves. They have to see that Charlotte makes sense for light rail.. and we have a good project on the ground that they're touting as a model. So that's really helping us."

The city is building a transit line, but it's also hoping to bring economic development to the area.

If they get the green light, city leaders hope the northeast line will revitalize North Tryon like the south corridor did for South Boulevard.

It's not a done deal yet.

CATS has to nail down ridership numbers and a better price tag.  Right now it's $741 million.  It's expected to be higher than that.  Transit officials will go to the City Council next spring to see whether to move forward.

Construction could start 2012 with a completion day in late 2015.