bus help (Charlotte, Indian Trail, Tryon: apartment complex, leases, house)

[joanchris2000]

Hi all,
My husband is starting work in Charlotte (about where S Tryon and N Tryon meet) next month. He has put me in charge of finding him an apartment til we can get a house during the summer. I have found some good apartment links for short term leases, however he would like to be near a bus line in case he has trouble parking and such in the beginning. I found the transportation website, where is shows the bus routes etc. (It's very hard to read ). However, growing up in the suburbs in Connecticut I've never ridden public transportation. Do the buses only stop where it's marked on the transport maps or do they stop at other stops along the way and are just showing major stops? How reliable are the buses? How safe are the park and ride lots?
Any info would be helpful, thanks a bunch!
By the way, my husband is from Detroit, MI, he should be able to handle transfers and suchif needed, I'm the one who's confused here!
Joan

[flyingscotsman]

May I suggest you go back to the CATS site and use the trip planner.

enter in the address of the apartment complex and the uptown address and it will tell you walking time to the bus stop etc.

Failing that PM me where you are looking and I will do it for you.

I used CATS for 8 months, the only reason I do not now is my wife works a couple of miles from uptown and it works that we drive in.

[lovesMountains]

Originally Posted by joanchris2000

Hi all,
My husband is starting work in Charlotte (about where S Tryon and N Tryon meet) next month. He has put me in charge of finding him an apartment til we can get a house during the summer. I have found some good apartment links for short term leases, however he would like to be near a bus line in case he has trouble parking and such in the beginning. I found the transportation website, where is shows the bus routes etc. (It's very hard to read ). However, growing up in the suburbs in Connecticut I've never ridden public transportation. Do the buses only stop where it's marked on the transport maps or do they stop at other stops along the way and are just showing major stops? How reliable are the buses? How safe are the park and ride lots?
Any info would be helpful, thanks a bunch!
Joan

Joan, the buses are very reliable, very much on time. They are also safe, as is the park and ride lots. My husband says to tell you it's not you, that website IS confusing. Yes, they do stop at many other places. Those marked on the map are only "time point" stops. Basically those are stops where if the bus is early it stops at that site even if no one is at it to wait for the right minute to then drive off again in case anyone shows up. Hope this helps

[joanchris2000]

Thanks a bunch for the replies!
I went back and found the trip planner, still a pain as it doesn't recognize most of the addresses I plug in, so I go to mapquest and find the nearest main street......
Thanks also for the reassurance that it's not me, but the website. I'm darn good on the computer, can find almost anything---heck I was on the internet before most of my friends had computers, way back in the dark ages
At this point I'll kill my husband if he doesn't end up taking the darn bus!
I should be cleaning my house to get it ready to go on the market, yet here I sit--and the "perfect" house for us (or so it seems on paper) just got listed in Indian Trail. We can't go ahead and make any offers at least til our house is listed..........
Thanks again
Joan

[DawnW]

My DH won't even consider the CATS. DARN! He has projects at work so he often has to stay late and the CATS system is too rigid in its times!

Hope it works for your DH.

Dawn