Defining ‘Mobility Hubs,’ a Key Component of Charlotte’s Transit Plan – WFAE 90.7
By Ely Portillo
If you follow transit news with any regularity, you’re used to the jargon: CATS, CRTPO, MTC, headways, first mile/last mile, revenue passenger service, etc. And if you follow Charlotte’s transit plans, you’ve probably heard one of the newer terms: mobility hubs.
Local transit planners have talked up mobility hubs for the past few years. They’re a key part of Charlotte’s vision for a comprehensive transit system that’s able to lure people out of their cars and onto buses and trains. But it still feels kind of hard to pin down what exactly … they are.
“We are very guilty in the planning world, and in the technical space, of throwing out words and expecting people to pick up on it,” said Jason Lawrence, the Charlotte Area Transit System’s chief planning officer. Even visual depictions of a new concept like “mobility hubs” can end up looking like “an image salad,” Lawrence said.
So we’ve decided to devote our main story in this Transit Time newsletter to the simple question: What is a mobility hub?