Anthony Foxx wants you to know that he will not raise property taxes to pay for the $500m. streetcar. So then he supports the $30 a year car registration fee hike? Foxx says he “supports” the streetcar so the money has to come from somewhere.

John Lassiter correctly notes that Charlotte is “a high-taxed city in a high-taxed state” but has hailed the supposed economic development benefits of a $500m. streetcar and refuses to completely rule out the city the building one.

Guys you are doing it wrong. The right way is not even that hard, as Pat McCrory showed. Once upon a time the McCrory standard on train building was somewhat sane and defensible — if the train could qualify for federal funding of its construction and local revenue for the project was limited to that raised by the half-cent transit tax, McCrory was for it. Unfortunately, Pat could not or would not maintain that position as the reality of the $9.5b. transit plan overtook the spin and gloss.

First the North line’s low ridership projection made it very unlikely the feds would fund it. The gap in funding was to be covered with tax increment financing of at least $70m. Yet McCrory never opposed the line, effectively sliding off the McCrory Standard. From there it was a short hop for McCrory to stand by as the $500m. streetcar was taken away from CATS — and the half-cent — and handed over to the city. By definition then, the city proposed to build the line with General Fund revenues, somehow. This brings us up to the present day, with Foxx and Lassiter essentially squabbling over which General Fund revenue to spend when on the damn streetcar. There are some distinctions in there, but not a whole lot of difference.

Here are the three coherent positions city candidates can take on the streetcar:

  1. Oppose the streetcar — It is a fantastically expensive economic development gambit that will not improve congestion or air quality one bit.
  2. Apply the McCrory Standard to the streetcar — If the feds will help build it, and the half-cent will support it, the streetcar was in the 2030 transit plan.
  3. Support the streetcar — This subsumes all “vision” and “concept” qualifiers. It is what it is, a $500m. project city staff badly wants and was promised to West side voters in exchange for their support for the half-cent transit tax in 2007.

Funcationally Lassiter is somewhere in between #2 and #3 and Foxx is firmly in #3 giving voters not a whole helluva lot to choose from. Besides, as we just saw with the veto override of the $4.5m. streetcar study, unless the mayor is hair-on-fire opposed to something the official powers of the office do not count for much.

In sum, by narrowly focusing on the property tax hike angle, the candidates are ducking the larger question of the wisdom of building a $500m. streetcar now, soon, or ever. Period.