Envision My Ride: Bus Priority Study

Part of the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS)’s network redesign, the Envision My Ride Bus Priority Study is a planning initiative focused on bus priority treatments that will create a bold vision for a holistic network of 19 bus corridors throughout the region. Seeking to increase reliability on its high-frequency bus network, CATS sought help to prioritize which corridors to advance, define priority treatments, and develop a bus stop typology and guidelines to apply across the priority network.

Foursquare ITP helped establish project goals, objectives, and evaluation criteria and played a key role in assessing and prioritizing the corridors and developing a highly visual, 3D-rendered comprehensive bus stop typology guide and improvement plan with associated cost estimates. Our team also assessed the new proposed underground downtown transfer facility design to identify future capacity issues. Finally, Foursquare ITP created a visionary regionwide microtransit service plan and identified the top three priority areas for implementation.

The prioritization of bus priority treatments throughout the region gave the client guidance on where to invest first, and the detailed bus stop guidance and prioritization methodology will help set the stage for future upgrades at bus stop facilities and mobility hubs throughout the system.

CATS can immediately apply the bus stop typology guide to assess bus stops along the bus priority corridors for the appropriate amenities and bus stop balancing considerations to create a more efficient network. The detailed renderings that Foursquare ITP developed of the various proposed bus stop typologies–that apply not only along priority corridors but throughout the entire CATS system–provide CATS with a powerful tool in conducting outreach to the communities where bus stop changes will be made.