In the Spring of 2009, an effort was made to get CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG SCHOOLS and CATS to come together and see if there was any way to put public school students on regular CATS buses. This actually made quite a bit of sense, as it is common for school systems in other areas of the country to use the public transit system in their areas to transport students. At this time, there is no program in Charlotte for students to utilize CATS for transportation to and from school with any cost paid for by CMS.

Our proposal is very simple. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) receives on average $77.50 per month to cover the transportation costs for each student. CMS provides those big yellow school buses for students to ride. However, over the course of the year, and especially with high school students, many CMS students find other ways to get to school and CMS must return the monies for the students who don't utilize CMS transportation services.

When the school year begins, over 100,000 students are authorized to ride CMS Transportation. Currently, all 100,000 have service provided by CMS. We propose the CMS offer a CATS monthly pass at the student rate, which for the coming school year would be $35.00 per month. This pass program would be completely VOLUNTARY. Students would have to apply for the PASS Program before they could utilize public transportation instead of riding CMS transportation. CATS would receive the $35.00 per student to provide transportation services AT ANY TIME. This means that if a student has extra-curricular activities, sports practice or want to go to a school event at any time during the month, the student would have fully funded transportation. In addition, the students would be able to utilize the pass for UNLIMITED RIDES anywhere within the CATS system for the month that the pass is valid, allowing them to go anywhere that they want within the CATS system.

Since CMS receives $77.50 per month during the school year, that would be a savings of $42.50 per month per student. If just 20% of the students in the CMS system that are qualified to ride the bus choose the CATS Bus Pass, this would give CMS a savings of about $8.5 million dollars per year. How many jobs would $8.5 million dollars help save. This would be a permenant amount each year, and would probably increase in the years ahead as more and more students see the benefit of using a Bus Pass to get to school and provide for their transportation needs each month. How many parents would wish that they didn't have to shuttle their teens to where they want to go? Or, how many students would love to go to school events but have no way to get there? If these students had an unlimited Bus Pass, they would have the option of telling their teens to take the bus. 

And, transportation on CATS would be safer than a school bus. Students would most likely be waiting at a bus stop with other regular bus riders. And, each CATS bus has eight (8) cameras that record everything that happens on the bus. The security is much better than any security on a CMS school bus.

Of course, CATS would greatly benefit by the students using public transportation. The Bus Passes that CMS would purchase would generate an additional $7 million in NEW REVENUE to CATS. This is nearly THREE (3) TIMES the amount that the new fare increase will generate for CATS each year.

This proposal to use CATS would be most beneficial to high school students, many of whom would do anything not to have to ride that big yellow school bus to their high schools. And, by utilizing public transportation, it would teach our students that public transportation is a viable transportation solution and they could continue to use public transportation once they graduate and enter the real world. However, it could also be made available to middle school and elementary students on an OPTIONAL basis. If you are a regular bus rider, I'm sure you have seen that many parents accompany their children on the city bus to their school while the parents are also commuting to work.

Of course, the talks failed miserably in 2009, because the current SPOKE system does not offer the ability for students to fully utilize public transportation. The SPOKE system requires that nearly every passenger travel UPTOWN to the Charlotte Transportation Center (CTC) and transfer buses to get to their school. The SPOKE system requires all bus riders to spend one to two hours commuting each way to reach their destination if they have to transfer buses at the CTC. However, if the entire CATS system is restructured to a HUB system, cross town buses could let students ride city buses and get to their destinations in as little as 20 to 30 minutes.

Here is an example: The Cotswold area is currently in the MYERS PARK High School district. One of the only two crosstown buses (Route 29) currently serves COTSWOLD, but the first bus doesn't even run until well after 8 AM. This is too late for students to utilize this bus to get to MYERS PARK. Earlier bus times would need to be added to accommodate the use by students. While Route 29 states that it terminates at SOUTHPARK MALL, it actually continues on as the other crosstown bus and becomes ROUTE 30, which then continues from SOUTHPARK to the Barclay Downs/Runnymede Lane intersection, which is the entrance to Myers Park High School. In addition, we have targeted the Eastway Bus (Route 39) to become a crosstown bus, which would travel from the IKEA on City Blvd. in the University Area along North Tryon to Eastway Drive. Then, instead of the Eastway Bus turning onto Central and following the Central Ave. bus, the Eastway bus would continue along Eastway Drive, crossing Independence Blvd. and continue along Wendover Rd. to the Southpark area via Runnymede Lane and Colony Rd. This would allow students to travel directly from the Cotswold/Randolph Rd. area to MYERS PARK High School in as little as 15 to 20 minutes.

In early 2010, we went to a meeting of the Northeast Coalition and Dan Murrey, one of our County Commissioners, was there to speak. After the meeting, we mentioned that CMS and CATS had failed miserably in 2009 to put public transportation to work, but that we felt that with our efforts, we could steer the talks and get them back on track. We had gathered quite a bit of information and had found that there may need to be a few state laws changed to make this work. Dan Murrey put us in touch with one the the county staff members with Charlotte Mecklenburg, who listened to our proposals and said he thought these were good ideas and that maybe we could get CMS and CATS together within a renewed effort.

We arranged for CATS and CMS to agree to meet, and were fully involved and ready to continue the talks. But, CATS felt that they didn't need our help and banned us from the meeting. Of course, CATS knows nothing about the research we had already done and that we would need to get our state legislators involved to make this happen. I spoke with the Governor's office and was assured that they would try to make sure we got the proper information to the right people to make this happen, but we're not able to do anything until CATS let's us back into the talks.

CATS is a City of Charlotte agency and our Charlotte City Council members are responsible for providing the transportation needs of all people in the Charlotte area through CATS. However, if something isn't done quickly, the state legislature in Raleigh will adjourn and we will have no chance to saves the hundreds of teachers jobs that this effort could provide.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! First, we need you to forward this information to everyone you know that would benefit by saving hundreds of our teachers jobs here in Charlotte. Second, we have arranged for a WALK TO CITY HALL (Government Center) on Monday afternoon to let our City Leaders know that we have major support for this effort. Then, on Monday night at the City Council meeting, we are scheduled to speak about a number of issues with CATS, but most importantly about saving the jobs of HUNDREDS OF CMS TEACHERS for the coming year. Also, your posts to our new Blog will be read by City Leaders and CATS officials. Please feel free to click on our blog on the sidebar and make your comments. Simply click on the comment link under each topic. And, we would love to hear from you with your concerns. You can e-mail us at WeRideTheBus@msn.com

You are invited to participate in our WALK TO CITY HALL on Monday afternoon, May 24th, 2010. We will be meeting UPTOWN at The Square (the corner of Trade and Tryon Streets) in front of Founders Hall at 5 PM. Please take 15 minutes out of your day to join us in the four block walk to CITY HALL (Government Center) and let our leaders know that we need cooperation between CMS and CATS to make this change happen and save the hundreds of teachers jobs with the $8.5 million dollars that this change could create. Your participation will do more than you know to help our city leaders understand that change is necessary and that we need to make this change NOW! And, most Express Bus Routes go right by the Government Center and you can board an Express Bus right on Fourth Street to get home. If you would like to stay for the Charlotte City Council meeting that night, you are invited to stay. The meeting begins at 6 PM on Monday, May 24th, 2010 and is held in the Council Chambers on the lower level of the Government Center (the Triangle Building) at 601 East Fourth St. in Charlotte.

If you can't make the WALK TO CITY HALL on Monday, May 24th and you drive within the Charlotte/Metrolina region, please show your support by turning on your car headlights between 5 and 5:30 PM on Monday. Encourage everyone you know to turn on their headlights if they are in their cars.

Also, our website is totally supported by donations from concerned citizens. Any amount that you can contribute, whether large or small, will help us to continue to spread the word and make our efforts to IMPROVE CATS NOW reach as many people as possible. Simply click on the DONATE HERE link on the home page sidebar. Credit cards or checks can be done online. If you prefer, you can send a check to WeRideTheBus.com, P O Box 18523, Charlotte, NC 28218. Every dollar we collect is used to help in our efforts to put our transit system back on a FAST TRACK and IMPROVE CATS NOW.

All of your efforts are greatly appreciated. Let's work together to build CATS into a WORLD CLASS transportation system that we can be proud to tell people about.