The last vote the Metropolitan Transit Commission will ever take rewrote how Charlotte pays for transit.
At its final meeting on May 27, the commission adopted an amended fare policy implementing the CATS Fare Modernization Program — the end of a process that, by CATS's own account, had been running for roughly two years. Mayor Vi Lyles moved to approve; the motion was seconded and carried on a show of hands. The changes will be phased in over 2027 and 2028.
"I think this will be your last time to hear this, and I will make it short," Elizabeth Presutti, the CATS official who has presented the item repeatedly, told the commission. "I know you've heard much of this many times before."
What changes
The policy does three things, in CATS's framing: it modernizes how riders pay, it simplifies the fare structure, and it widens eligibility for reduced fares.
On payment, the system moves to contactless "tap-and-go" options, smart cards, and the existing CATS-Pass mobile app, with electronic fare validation across the entire network. On structure, it introduces electronic two-hour passes — without the directionality restrictions the old paper system imposed — expands fare capping, adds a fare on the Gold Line streetcar, and sets age-based youth eligibility. On access, it expands and simplifies the reduced-fare program and creates partner portals so community organizations can distribute passes directly.
Cash will continue to be accepted. CATS also said it will increase fare inspections on the rail system.
The rollout is deliberately slow. "Over the next couple of years, CATS will begin introducing fare improvements," Presutti said, adding that the agency would explore piloting some changes sooner under a phased implementation, with public education throughout.
The process behind it
The record shows a long runway. CATS held a public engagement period from late January through February, then a formal public comment period through April, then a public hearing at the commission's May 7 meeting. Presutti said a cross-departmental staff working group had met weekly for two years to keep the project moving.
She characterized the public response as supportive — of new payment technology, of the simplified structure, of the two-hour pass, of expanded fare capping, of the streetcar fare, and of age-based youth eligibility. She also acknowledged the concern that has shadowed the program throughout: its impact on cash customers.
The question that didn't get answered
That concern has a name attached to it in the public record. At the March 11 MPTA business meeting and again at the May 7 MTC hearing, rider Carson Cohn raised the same point: whether eliminating paper transfers would force cash riders — including refugees and unbanked residents — to pay a second full fare to transfer. At the May 7 hearing, Cohn told the commission that CATS had promised him an answer more than a month earlier on whether the new system could accommodate an alternative, and that he had not received one.
On Wednesday, Presutti addressed the equity question at the level the federal government requires, not at the level Cohn had pressed. CATS conducted a Title VI fare-equity analysis — mandated by the Federal Transit Administration to assess effects on minority and low-income populations — examining both the average fare paid by different populations and their access to the retail network where fares are sold. "No mitigations were necessary to implement the proposed fare changes," she said.
That finding is the agency's. Whether the new system resolves the specific cash-transfer problem Cohn described was not answered on the record at the meeting where the policy was adopted. CATS named International House and Roof Above among the organizations it intends to keep working with "to ensure everyone has a way to pay for transit."
What happens next
The policy is now adopted, but riders will not see the changes immediately. CATS has said the fare improvements will be available in 2027 and 2028, with public-outreach events ahead of the launch. The agency that implements them will not be the one that approved them: the MTC dissolves July 1, and the Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority takes over CATS the same day the new one-cent transit sales tax takes effect.
The cash-transfer question goes with it.