“I have seen CATS make improvements, sometimes that gets lost in these incidents, but I am encouraged that CATS is moving forward in small and big ways every day,” CATS Interim-CEO Brent Cagle said.
The accusations in the lawsuit raise more questions about how the light rail system is being run and by who, after a previous WBTV Investigation into the General Manager of the Rail Operations Control Center identified safety problems at his previous job.
A CATS light rail vehicle derailed in a Charlotte railyard Wednesday, an NCDOT spokesperson confirmed to WBTV. There were no injuries and NCDOT has not yet determined the cause of the derailment.
Questions about safety, oversight and the failures of CATS former CEO highlighted the evening and relegated other important topics like the Gold Line and the budget to mere side topics.
Three separate audits of CATS completed in the last year identify more than 30 shortcomings the organization is now scrambling to fix, impacting taxpayers and the people who rely on bus and light rail service.
According to the letter, the City of Charlotte is already making contingency plans to make additional service cuts which could result in bus operator layoffs unless the contractor, TMOC/RATP DEV, “can stabilize service levels going forward.”
A WBTV Investigation found that while on average LYNX trains are departing stations on-time, some rush hour trains are between five to eight minutes late.
CATS Interim-CEO Brent Cagle told the Transportation, Planning and Development Committee that CATS light rail division is dealing with a high level of vacancies.
In an interview with WBTV on Tuesday, Republican Councilman Ed Driggs said the city needs to regain the trust of voters after a series of debacles at CATS that raise questions about transparency. Driggs also told WBTV that the Blue Line is safe after one of the cars derailed in May of 2022 but was kept secret from the public for nearly a year.
Records from NCDOT show the failure of the previous CATS regime to complete the ‘overhaul’ maintenance was the root cause of one of the light rail vehicles derailing last year.
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles addressed the recent revelations of problems facing the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) --- and said the ‘shortcomings’ were unknown to City Council and the Metropolitan Transit Commission --- until a report was made public detailing concerns with the system.
Officials from NCDOT who reviewed the report offered blistering critiques of some of CATS’ initial findings and found that failure to immediately perform midlife and truck overhauls of the trains was “not acceptable.”
Although Charlotte city councilmembers only recently learned about the derailment, public records show the “midlife overhaul” plan to prevent this type of derailment from happening, was delayed again and again.
A city spokesperson confirms Allen Smith is no longer the Chief Operating Officer of CATS, making him the third top CATS official to be removed from a post in the last five months.
During a news briefing Friday, city officials said CATS CFO Blanche Sherman resigned but claimed the resignation was unrelated to the assesssment or any other review.
Changes that were coming to CATS are now in question as city leaders gear up for a huge year of important transit decisions that is make or break for many of the city's goals.
Records uncovered by WBTV show CATS’ General Manager of Rail Operations and Facilities Division was facing intense scrutiny for safety decisions and protocols before arriving in Charlotte.
The records show CATS leaders only started demanding more accountability and better bus service after WBTV’s reporting on the problems plaguing the bus system.
Our investigation follows months of bus operators raising safety concerns and claims from CATS CEO John Lewis that CATS buses and transit centers are safe.
His resignation comes after the WBTV Investigates Team has been digging into problems with the city’s bus system for months and revealed buses never arriving to pick up passengers, safety concerns from drivers and riders, and broken buses still making it onto city streets.
CATS operators and drivers tell WBTV the amount of broken buses is so great they often have to wait for a working bus to finish its route before they can start theirs.
Most concerning for city leaders about the WBTV Investigation, is the hiring was made without any serious vetting from CATS leadership, despite contractual obligations that gives the city the ability to interview and approve senior leaders brought in by the company.
CATS buses are missing out on money, possibly millions of dollars, because of broken and malfunctioning fareboxes. A WBTV hidden-camera investigation found roughly half of the fareboxes used to punch tickets and collect money aren’t working properly. The numbers are backed up by riders and drivers who have told WBTV the problem has existed for months without a fix.
The interview comes as focus intensifies on what CATS, the CEO and the private contractor managing day-to-day operations of CATS bus division, is doing to improve the ongoing problems.
The July 17 memo from Jones also mentions the contractor from the WBTV Investigation, RATP Dev, several times and says they will be part of the review process. The city manager told council he directed his staff to prepare a “request for proposals” for the bus operations service contract currently held by RATP Dev.
For weeks, Charlotte's transit service, CATS, has claimed its bus service would be impacted by a high number of unexpected driver absences. But internal CATS records show the actual number of unplanned driver absences are far lower than what the transit service has claimed.
WBTV began investigating the bus system after months of problems plagued CATS operations: two shootings, dozens of daily driver absences, buses that don’t show up on schedule and other trips that are never made at all. The lack of clarity among city leaders on who was controlling the bus system’s operations changed after WBTV started asking questions for this story in June.
Data shows between January 1st and March 31st, CATS buses missed nearly 98 trips per day. The consequnces to riders can be significant but CATS isn’t the only transit organization struggling with providing the service its promised.
Charlotte councilmembers Dimple Ajmera and Julie Eiselt say reliability of the bus system needs to get better before they would ask voters to approve a new sales tax for the mobility plan.
Some of the city’s biggest transit centers, where both drivers and riders meet, currently have no security officers, even in the wake of the shooting that killed driver Ethan Rivera.
Since January 1, Brian Williams says he’s had to find a different way to work at least half a dozen times because of buses not arriving on time or at all.
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