Emailed to the outgoing editor of the Uptown paper of record’s editorial page:
Ed:
Neal Peirce’s column yesterday contained a factual error. “Charlotte is celebrating 13,000-passengers-a-day patronage” on the South Blvd. light rail line Peirce wrote. This is incorrect.
CATS claims an average of 13,000 to 14,000 rides a day, not riders. Were all the rides made by one-way passengers, then Peirce could equate the two numbers. But that is doubtless not the case. For example, the 1200 space Pineville lot fills on weekday mornings and empties at night, indicating round-trip passengers. This alone accounts for 2400 rides on the system.
In fact, it is safe to assume the vast majority of rides on the system are legs of round-trips, meaning that the number of passengers using it on average per day is less than 10,000. Only a ridership audit of the system by a third-party would provide the detailed ridership info that CATS does not collect. Perhaps McClatchy would consider hiring an independent audit firm to do this as a public service.
Incidentally, how much will McClatchy pay Peirce’s Citistates Group for the new report on regional development and growth you plan to publish next month? How much is UNCC’s contributing to the report?
Thanks
Needless to say, I don’t expect much in return.
