A Day on the Charlotte Line in the year 2015


It's dawn on Monday, July 12, 2015. You can tell already that it's going to be one of those warm and muggy, but not downright oppressive, Rochester summer days. RTS Motorman Jerry D'Agostino eagerly steps out of the crew room in the RTS light rail shops and yard facility on Oak Street into one of five light rail vehicles. It's the start of another work day, and after a week's vacation Jerry is anxious to get back in the cab of an LRV. After performing the daily checks, Jerry gets the clearance to pull out of the enclosed LRV storage facility.


With an electric hum, the LRV quietly slips out of the facility to make its dead-head run to Main and Clinton, where Jerry will wait to begin the first revenue run. After passing by the Kodak Office/ Frontier Field station, Jerry taps on the horn as he dips into the Brown Street portal of the Broad Street subway. The LRV glides through the Times Square station, then enters the Broad Street Aqueduct, with the morning sun filtering through the bridge's arches. With another tap on the horn, Jerry ramps up through the East Broad Portal onto the surface of East Broad Street. With the traffic signals at Broad and Clinton automatically changing in his favor, the LRV curves north onto Clinton Avenue to the Main and Clinton Station.


In the morning, most passengers head into downtown, but quite a few get off of RTS bus routes at Main and Clinton to transfer to the new LRT line, which is officially RTS route #25. Some people call it the Green Line, after the color of the transit line on the RTS Route Maps. And others call it the Charlotte Line, after the name of the area at the end of the line. The LRT is a fast way for people throughout the city to reach some of the industrial sites in northwest Rochester, including Kodak Park. Jerry opens the doors to let the waiting passengers onto the LRV, then leaves the cab, locks the door and walks to the cab on the other end of the LRV. Unlike old-style trolleys which required track loops to turn around the trolley at the end of its run, LRVs have cabs on both ends, which allows the driver to stop at the end of the line and then reverse direction.


The RTS operations center on East Main Street sends out a signal marking that it is time to begin the run. Jerry closes the doors, and the LRV glides south on Clinton Avenue. The LRT lane is separated from the traffic lanes by a curb, allowing the LRV to operate free of interference from autos, and allowing the LRV to go against the flow of traffic. The traffic signals at Broad and Clinton again change automatically to allow him to pass through without pause. Jerry lets out a "clang-clang" from the trolley-style gong as he curves westward through the intersection.


The LRV now stops at the Towers station on Broad Street between Clinton Square and the B&L tower. A number of people, probably Park & Ride bus riders transferring from the P&R terminal on the south side of Midtown Plaza, get on board. The train is almost half full now. After passing through downtown swiftly through the Broad Street subway, the LRV stops at the Kodak Office/Frontier Field station, and a number of people get off to go to work at Kodak Office and some of the industries that have sprung up in the Erie Canal Industrial Park.


The train swerves north, passes the LRT facility, then pulls west onto the remnant of the old Falls Road Branch railroad bed. More light industrial buildings are going up on the north end of the Erie Canal Industrial Park because of the light rail line, and a new station will be added next year to serve them. The train stops at the Child/Whitney station to pick up a few passengers, who likely have walked to the station and are headed for industries along the LRT line. Near Hague Street, the tracks swerve north onto the Conrail Charlotte Secondary, and the train pauses at the Lyell Avenue station, which is fairly busy even in the reverse commute direction. Passengers waiting here include transfers from the #3 bus, people who have parked at the Park and Ride lot on the site of the former lumber yard, and walk-ins from surrounding streets.


At the Otis, Emerson and Driving Park/Lexington stations, more passengers get off to go to work, and more passengers from the surrounding neighborhoods get on. The train is about 1/3 full. A circulator bus that replaced the Lyell/Lee loop extension of the #3 bus helps to feed passengers to the Emerson and Lexington stations and bring LRT passengers to industries as far out as Lee Road. When the train reaches the Kodak Park station at Rand Street, most of the remaining passengers get off to walk to their jobs at the Park or transfer to the Kodak Park shuttle bus to reach more remote parts of the Park. At the end of the run, Jerry arrives on time at the Barnard station at Dewey Avenue.


Because the LRT line is so punctual and passengers can rely on its schedule, many passengers are now just arriving at the station. The Dewey Avenue bus is letting off its passengers. A major portion of eastern Greece has access to the LRT line through feeder buses, including two circulator buses, that are timed to meet the LRT with a minimum wait. A number of cars are pulling into the modest Park and Ride lot, which is located between the LRT tracks (on the Conrail side) and the Rochester and Southern Railroad tracks. With three large apartment/townhouse complexes immediately adjacent to the station, and lots of residential side streets nearby, the Barnard station gets lots of walk-in ridership. At this early hour, many of the riders are destined for industries along the line; the riders on the next few runs are primarily downtown office workers. It's the downtown office market that makes up the bulk of the LRT's commuter ridership.


Jerry walks to the cab on the other end of the LRV and waits about four minutes until he gets the signal to make the run south back to downtown. The next stop is at McCall Road, which also has several nearby apartment complexes and a park and ride lot between the railroad tracks. Next is Uptonville at West Ridge Road, where passengers transfer to and from the Ridge Road crosstown bus. The Uptonville station features a large park and ride lot located to the northeast of the station platform. All of the stations outside of downtown consist of a low concrete platform covered by a canopy, with glass-enclosed shelters that protect passengers during Rochester's harsh winters.


Next is the Kodak Park station, where passengers going to the Park get off, and passengers from the Ramona Park apartments and surrounding side streets get on. The Ridgeway station, like McCall and Barnard, has a modest park and ride lot between the two sets of railroad tracks. This space between the trackbeds had been an unusable space that was full of weeds, trash and old railroad ties. With the new LRT line in place, the parking lot and station areas are neat and attractively landscaped. Even though the LRT line passes through developed areas, the view from the cab on the northern half of the line is a bucolic one, since trees have lined the railroad right of way for decades.


At the Electric Avenue station, the train nearly fills. On the west side of the tracks is the large Crescent Gardens apartment complex. The existing density of housing in this corridor was one of the primary reasons why this was selected as the first light rail line in Rochester. This LRT line was built as a pilot project to demonstrate to skeptics that LRT can work in Rochester and that it can bring economic development to the Rochester area. The LRT line has been such an unconditional success, that officials have now dedicated to extend the line north to the tip of Charlotte and to construct two new lines out to the airport and RIT.


The neighborhoods along the northern end of the line look just as they did before the line opened, since they were fully developed, stable, middle-class neighborhoods. In the middle portion of the line, the LRT is encouraging new development and redevelopment in the areas around the Otis, Lyell and Child/Whitney stations. Because the LRT line brings rapid access to downtown and industries along the line, property values along the line have risen quite a bit.


After several runs back and forth between downtown and Barnard, the ridership slackens off with less commuters. During the midday period, trains run every 20 minutes; during rush hours they run every 10 minutes. At the 10:40 AM run out of downtown, Jerry sees a number of business-suited gentlemen get on at the Towers station. Since they then get off at the new Kline Technologies plant in the former DuPont plant at Driving Park Avenue, Jerry guesses that they are Kline execs traveling between Kline's headquarters in the Bausch & Lomb building and the Kline plant. Several companies have now seen the advantage of having front offices downtown and factories along the light rail corridor.


During the 11:00 run into downtown, Jerry spots some familiar patrons standing on the Emerson platform. Sandy Bullock and five other secretaries from Emerson Tool and Die hop the LRT during their lunch hours almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to go downtown. With the LRT line, Midtown Plaza is only 8 minutes away, without the hassles of driving or finding a spot to park. More and more people are now discovering the opportunities for making lunch trips to Midtown on the LRT. Sandy and her "lunch bunch" always sit in the front of the LRV behind the cab and shoot the breeze with Jerry. In order to give an extra sense of security, the wall between the cab and the passengers is transparent, and passengers can talk to the operator through a perforated disk in the wall. A sign on the cab wall curtly instructs passengers not to unnecessarily disturb the motorman. Jerry doesn't mind bending the rules a bit with friendly passengers like Sandy.


During the afternoon rush hours, most passengers are headed out of downtown and the factories back home. During the 5:10 run out of downtown, Doug Randall steps on board at the Times Square station in the Broad Street subway and stops for a second to talk to Jerry. Doug is planning on taking the kids to see the Red Wings game at Frontier Field on Saturday. Like a lot of others in Greece and northwest Rochester, the LRT line is the easiest way to get to the ballgame. There's no need to wait in traffic once the game lets out, and the kids always love it when they ride the "trolley".


Jerry's shift ends after the evening rush hour, but the LRVs keep on rolling until the last LRV pulls into the yard around 1 AM. A single car shuttles back and forth on a 45 minute headway during the off-peak periods.


Jerry has been an RTS driver for 15 years. The day that Jerry was selected for the first class of light rail motormen was the happiest day of his career. Like a lot of other bus drivers, becoming an LRT motorman is considered a coveted promotion. The new light rail line has sparked a new sense of pride throughout RTS. With new economic development following in its wake, the whole Rochester area is proud of its new LRT line. There's no doubt about it now: Rochester is on the move again.