As far back as 2006 it was obvious that CATS could not afford a $9b. transit plan.

That reality, of course, is what drove the transit tax-repeal campaign of 2007. By October 2007, with the Uptown status quo crowd insincerely braying for alt-plans, one part was obvious: Forget about running the McCrory Line all the way to UNCC, run it to NoDa and stop.

Since then, we’ve repeatedly suggested that option as a potential part of a sane, affordable transit system. Last night CATS finally told the Charlotte city council the same thing. The details:

The transit system’s problem is that the half-cent sales tax is generating far less money than projected. Because of the recession, the tax will likely give CATS roughly $60 million this year. That’s about how much money the tax produced five years ago.

CATS had projected the tax would grow by nearly 5.75 percent annually for 30 years. It now estimates the tax will generate roughly $300 million less over the next decade than it projected.

In 2006, CATS said it could build the full extension by 2013. In 2008 it began pushing that projected opening back, and last year said it was unlikely the extension would open before 2019.

CATS said Monday night during a presentation to City Council that even 2019 is uncertain. … If CATS built the extension in phases, the Sugar Creek station is the most likely terminus because it’s the first park-and-ride lot on the way to uptown, [CATS project manager Danny] Rogers said.

The current light-rail line ends at 7th Street. The plan calls for new stations at 9th Street, Parkwood, 25th Street, 36th Street and Sugar Creek, and for the line to run in the median of North Tryon Street to UNCC, and then to I-485.

Rogers said he didn’t know how much an extension to Sugar Creek would cost. That segment would be four to five miles from uptown, and could cost between $350 and $400 million.

Now check that last number. At a time when bids for finishing 485 are coming in 13 to 25 percent under expectations — $140m. to 162m. instead of $185m. — the per mile cost of extending the South Line along the same existing railbed it followed from Pineville has somehow jumped from $50m. per mile to $75m. to $100m. per mile.

Something is not right. Or more precisely, we are being lied to. Again.

There is feather-bedding afoot in these numbers. CATS cannot admit that it might only cost $200m. to $250m. to run up through NoDa because it then makes the case for spending at least $100m. per mile to run the seven miles to UNCC that much harder to make. There was never any transportation justification for running to UNCC — it was all about politics and re-development.

Now — about five years too late and three years removed from a shameful civic conspiracy to bury the truth, gleefully funded by special interest largess — we are finally having a real cost-benefit discussion on the Northeast line.

Welcome to reality. How long do you plan to stay?