On our website we have a section about CATS and Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. Most other major cities utilize public transportation in some way to transport school students to and from school. If just 20% of the students who currently ride buses switched to public transportation, Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools could SAVE over $8.5 million dollars every school year in transportation costs. CATS would also earn an additional $7 million in revenue from monthly pass sales to students. Are you willing to support this change to save the jobs of hundreds of teachers? This would be a permanent source of new revenue for CMS, and could be used for many years in the future. Of course, it would be VOLUNTARY and students would have to elect to participate. Most high school students would rather not ride on those big yellow buses, but we have found that many parents actually escort their elementary and middle school students to school while they are commuting to work on the bus, so this proposal could be made available to ALL students within the CMS network. Please post your comments about allowing VOLUNTARY access to public transportation for our school students.

A number of people have made comments in recent public meetings about the honor system for paying fares on the LYNX Blue Line that is operated by CATS. Does everyone actually buy tickets before riding the train? Have you seen mass numbers of people board the train without paying for a ticket? Do you think the current fare inspectors are doing their job in making sure that everyone has a ticket to ride the Light Rail? Please let us know if the current honor system is working the way that it is suppose to work. Tell us if you have seen major abuses or if the fare isnpectors are doing their job and getting everyone to pay for their ride.

We have proposed that The Plaza bus (Route 3) be changed so that it will travel the whole length of The Plaza to Commonwealth Ave., turning right on Commonwealth, left on Pecan Ave., continuing across 7th St. along Caswell between both CMC-Mercy and Presbyterian Hospitals, then turning right on 4th St. and on to the UPTOWN transit Center, returning to The Plaza in reverse from Uptown. The bus currently does not travel this route, but actually duplicates Route 23 (Shamrock Dr.) from 36th St. along Davidson to Uptown. Would this change benefit you? Would you use this bus to travel to the Plaza-Midwood business district or to the hospitals along the new proposed route? Please post your comments here.

Now that the Independence Bus (Route 17 Commonwealth Ave.) has been extended to the Independence Pointe Park and Ride across from Windsor Square Shopping Center in Matthews, we would like to have your comments on how this will affect you. Please let us know how this change affects you.

Please post to our blog so that your comments can be passed on to CATS.

We need to look at the whole CATS system and make things easier for Riders to get around town. Some changes are simply good old COMMON SENSE. Other changes need to be made to stop buses from running duplicate routes. We also need to start building transit centers all over the county to link buses without having to go downtown to catch another bus.