NBA Playoffs (of transit): Charlotte vs Orlando
Posted on 22 Apr 2010 by James Willamor
Los Angeles transit website MetroRiderLA recently created a bracket of NBA playoff teams based on their home city transit systems. The first round matches Charlotte against Orlando. Will CATS fare better than the Bobcats have so far?
The most interesting angle to this first-round contest is that it is between two cities with feline-themed transit systems. Orlando, home of the NBA’s second-bets team of the 2009–2010 season, has its transit service operated by the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority. The public refers to it as the Lynx.
Charlotte, home of the Bobcats, its second NBA team, is also home to Charlotte Area Transit System — CATS. The centerpiece of its system is a light rail line known as LYNX. So, we have two teams that both can lay claim to the Lynx name. So, there’s some measure of pride on the line in this game, too. It’s probably a more interesting rivalry than the one Atlanta and Milwaukee had over their diagonally striped buses. The winner of this contest goes on to face Atlanta in the semi-finals.
Read the full post at MetroRiderLA.
I assume we’ll lose this in the first round. Surely there isn’t another major city in America with worse public transportation than Charlotte.
Sirshanno, if you read the rest of the series on MetroRiderLA, you’d be glad you didn’t live in Oklahoma City.
Also, based upon the criteria I used for ranking the transit systems — bus and urban rail connections specifically to the team’s venue — Charlotte is one of the more formidable teams in the NBA Playoffs 2010 (of Transit). It was a very good move to put the downtown transit center and the Time Warner Cable Arena as next-door neighbors.
And thanks again to the CLT Blog staff for the link.