CONNECT Beyond Online Meeting

Welcome to the first online meeting and community survey for CONNECT Beyond!

Help Us Shape the Future of Transit and Mobility in Our Region!

As you answer the questions below, please think about your travel needs prior to COVID-19. We will ask questions later to understand how your travel patterns have changed.

As rapid growth continues in our region, we want to make it easy to move within our towns and cities, and across county lines, using public transportation, connecting you and others to jobs, education, medical facilities, services, entertainment, sporting events, culture, and more.

Access to reliable, efficient, and well-connected transportation options is one of the most important factors to ensure our communities remain economically competitive and that everyone can benefit. CONNECT Beyond is working to identify gaps in current public transit services available and create a regional transit vision outlining opportunities to increase access and encourage use of public transit services and other mobility options.

Project Priorities

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  Increase Economic Competitiveness

  Keeping the momentum of regional job growth and economic expansion

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  Improve Transportation Choice

  Investing in transportation options beyond highways and roads as a means of expanding travel choices

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  Enhance Public Transit

  Growing services to meet current and future needs, improving connections between systems, and increasing mobility options

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  Promote Sustainable Regional Growth

  Supporting growth patterns that create efficiencies in infrastructure and services, support making stronger communities and downtowns, and safeguard our natural environment

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  Advance Social Equity

  Providing access to education, jobs, and housing to increase economic and social mobility

• 

  Encourage Environmental Sustainability

  Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving energy

The project study area includes Anson, Cabarrus, Cleveland, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Rowan, Stanly and Union Counties in North Carolina, and the urbanized areas of Lancaster and York Counties in South Carolina. The project study area includes rural communities, small towns, suburban areas, regional cities and an urban hub – the City of Charlotte.

Chances are that you or your next-door neighbor lives in one of the communities noted above and makes up that 50% statistic of living in one county and work in another. In addition, through your commutes you may have noted that each of these geography types has unique transportation challenge and need. Understanding and helping address those challenges is a key purpose of this study to develop our regional vision.

Imagine being able to travel from Anson County to Cleveland County without needing to own a car, imagine having access to more educational institutions via transit, imagine being able to reach more jobs, taking a power nap on the way to / from work, and having the luxury of keeping up with your favorite website or app during the commute?

Project Study Area

We will develop our regional vision in four steps

What is a Total Mobility Network?

Transportation choice describes the variety of transportation options, such as driving a car, taking public transit, riding a bike, walking, or using a ride share service, available to residents and visitors within a region.​ Every person has different transportation needs and often combine several transportation options to accomplish a trip throughout a day. A total mobility network looks at a host of mode choice combinations, for example, a user may take a ride-share service to reach a park-and-ride lot and then take commuter rail to reach their destination.

To improve mobility in our region, we need to develop a seamless multimodal transportation system, a system that considers the simplest mobility mode (walking), to the largest mobility modes (commuter rail, light rail, bus rapid transit, etc.).

For the purposes of this initiative, the CONNECT Beyond process is starting with understanding the potential for the largest mobility modes and will work towards the simplest mobility modes. We are starting with high capacity transit corridors and will build onto this network with supportive transit and transportation options.

High capacity transit describes transit modes that have more capacity than traditional buses and provide speedy transportation services, such as light rail, bus rapid transit, express bus or commuter rail.

Commuter Rail	Light Rail	Bus Rapid Transit	Express Bus
Service Area Regional Urban Intended for Long-Distance Commuters from Suburbs into a Central City	Service Area Regional Urban Intended for a Variety of Trips from Regional to Local	Service Area Regional Suburban Urban Intended for a Variety of Trips from Regional to Local	Service Area Regional Suburban Urban Intended for Daily Commuters from Park-and-Ride Locations to Employment Centers
Frequency Peak and Limited Off Peak Services 20/30 Min.	Frequency 4 AM To 1 AM 10/20 Min.	Frequency 4 AM To 1 AM 10/20 Min.	Frequency Peak and Limited Off Peak Services 20/30 Min
Avg. Corridor Length 20+ Miles	Avg. Corridor Length 10 - 20 Miles	Avg. Corridor Length 10 - 25 Miles	Avg. Corridor Length 15 - 20 Miles
Avg. Distance Between Station / Stops 2-5 Miles	Avg. Distance Between Station / Stops 1 Mile	Avg. Distance Between Station / Stops 0.5 - 2 Miles	Avg. Distance Between Station / Stops Regional Service = 5 Miles Urban Area = > 1 Mile

Interactive Map

The CONNECT Beyond team has been analyzing transportation and transit plans from communities across our region, previous public input, current and future travel patterns, population and employment growth trends, regional growth initiatives, future land use, and other data, to develop or refine draft high capacity transit corridors.

We want to hear from you! On the next several slides, you can zoom in to specific counties and share your views on the corridors most related to where you want to travel.

Tell us how you feel about the candidate high capacity transit corridors in Cabarrus and Rowan Counties.

Your response has been submitted. Thank you!

Tell us how you feel about the candidate high capacity transit corridors in Gaston, Cleveland, and Lincoln Counties.

Your response has been submitted. Thank you!

Tell us how you feel about the candidate high capacity transit corridors in Mecklenburg, Iredell, and Union Counties.

Your response has been submitted. Thank you!

Tell us how you feel about the candidate high capacity transit corridors in Anson, Stanly, and Eastern Union Counties.

Your response has been submitted. Thank you!

Tell us how you feel about the candidate high capacity transit corridors in E. York and N. Lancaster Counties.

Your response has been submitted. Thank you!