Another drab on the $400 million Beatties Ford streetcar. First, Mayor Pat McCrory is growing bold in abandoning his previous position not to go beyond the half-cent transit tax as a funding source for train lines. The $70 million for the North line commuter rail is drop in the bucket compared using tax increment financing to build an entire streetcar line.

Yet McCrory is clearly opening the door to just such a thing:

McCrory said it’s too early to say if he would be comfortable with possibly using property tax money a second time to build the streetcar. “We have to see the numbers first,” McCrory said.

What that refers to is another cooked-books “study” on the “economic impact” of streetcars which will doubtless show that they — altogether now — “pay for themselves.” You know, like the consultants’ study of the North corridor which magically found $555 million more property development value associated with train line than the towns’ themselves project.

The difference is that the streetcar would be a Charlotte-only production — no hope of any dissent with the Uptown crowd firmly in control. No pesky Huntersville to stand up and wonder if draining its General Fund to pay for trains is a good idea. The Uptown crowd is not even faking it any more — draining Charlotte’s General Fund to pay for trains makes them giddy.

In fact, it is clear that the streetcar has moved in front the North line on the Uptown priority wish-list. Nevermind the we are building a $50 million Gateway Station Uptown (where else) that is supposed to have the North line run into it as part of a grand transit melange of modes. The path of least resistance is thru West Charlotte.

And that should come us no surprise. Dwayne Collins of the Black Political Caucus is basically doing backflips as he claims credit for speeding up the streetcar as a form of payback for helping to defeat the transit tax repeal last fall. To recap, that is a $400 million streetcar project for West Charlotte paid for with future property tax dollars.

Don’t remember that being on the ballot? It was.