Close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades, so the saying goes. But Mary Newsom gets tantalizingly close to a core problem with transportation policy in Mecklenburg County: A dysfunctional Metropolitan Transit Commission.
The MTC is designed to serve trains and buses, not people. There is no way to “tinker” with the MTC and make it better. We need to blow it up and start over, possibly with members directly elected to the commission county-wide.
Meanwhile, Charlotte city council members complaining about the MTC’s actions have no one to blame but themselves. They’ve had ample opportunity to directly reign in City Manager-Until-June Pam Syfert and CATS chief Ron Tober and opted to punt each and every time.
And although Mary may doubt East Charlotte angst about CATS and the MTC, let me report it has been a slow boil for some time. I spent some time talking an an East side activist at Keith Larson’s little Bryant Park fest Friday (great fun, great job fellas) and some folks are out for blood.
The East Side feels that, by rights, it should have been next for a transit line. That potential ridership, the McCrory Crap Test, and previous half-assed work on Hwy. 74 all marked the corridor as the next natural line after the South line.
Instead, CATS counted votes on the MTC, knew the the Northern mayors would be all over an I-77 commuter line despite low ridership (not to mention more efficient HOT possibilities) and knew that the entire UNCC establishment along with dubious assumptions about forcing college kids to ride a train up-and-down Tryon to class would argue for the Northeast line.
That added up to a big “Die in a Fire, East side.” Or at least some think so.
We’ll know soon enough.
