NC: Security gates are unlikely for Charlotte light rail line. Here are the facts
Charlotte designed its light rail system to be open so passengers can easily hop-on and hop-off without pausing to verify they’ve paid for a ride each time they board.
That design came under fire following the fatal stabbing of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on the Lynx Blue Line light rail in August. The suspect boarded without paying for a ticket, according to transit officials.
Leaders with the Charlotte Area Transit System pledged to crack down on fare evasion by hiring more security staff and increasing their presence on public transit. But some critics have suggested that’s not enough, and Charlotte should consider converting its transit system to a closed design — one that uses barriers like gates or turnstiles to enforce fare payment.
City officials are skeptical. A change of that scale would be a massive, costly and seldom-attempted undertaking.
St. Louis is the only American city that interim CATS CEO Brent Cagle is aware has tried to shift from an open system to a closed one, he said. The yearslong $52 million project is still underway and would install fare collection gates and fencing at all St. Louis MetroLink stations, according to Mass Transit, a magazine covering the public transportation industry.
Speaking at an Oct. 3 press conference, Cagle said the possibility of adding turnstiles at Charlotte’s Blue Line stations has “come up frequently.” CATS hadn’t officially looked into the matter but would continue to have discussions about it, he said.
In an updated statement provided to The Charlotte Observer on Monday, CATS said a closed system “is not feasible.”
“Any future conversations about implementing a closed system on the Blue Line would have to come at the direction from (the Metropolitan Transit Commission),” the statement said.
Why Charlotte chose not to install turnstiles at light rail stations
The Blue Line became Charlotte’s first light rail in 2007.
The city followed the design standard for stations across the country in the early 2000s, said Ron Tober, the first CEO of CATS who served from 1999 until shortly after the rail opened. Rail systems with higher passenger traffic typically use controlled access platforms. That includes cities such as New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
An open design was appropriate given Charlotte’s projected passenger volume and would reduce construction and operation costs, Tober previously told the Observer.
“Providing an enclosed platform environment means putting up a lot of barriers and walls and, in some cases, grade separations to control getting into the station,” Tober previously said. “There’s a lot of tradeoffs that are embedded in this kind of analysis and decision making.”
The city also faced practical limitations: There was no room for gates, said Pat McCrory, who was mayor when the light rail opened.
“We retrofitted the light rail line into this South Boulevard corridor. We didn’t own land all around it,” McCrory previously said. “And it wasn’t like a subway where you couldn’t walk around it. We didn’t want barbed wire fence everywhere. People could’ve just walked up the tracks anyway, then jumped in.”
Subways versus light rails
Critics often point to other cities that use closed systems, but Cagle said there’s an important difference between Charlotte and major metros such as Atlanta and Boston: “We don’t have a subway. We have a light rail system.”
“Subways, light rails, street cars, all of those are very different, and they have different operating characteristics,” Cagle said.
Most of Charlotte’s stations are at street level. The light rail is integrated into “the fabric” of the communities it passes through, Cagle said.
“There are pros and cons to that. But what I would say is, when you have an open system like we have, like we chose to have, it does not mean that you can’t enforce fares,” Cagle said. “It means that you enforce fares differently.”
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