Here’s more evidence that CATS is working overtime to combat the transit tax petition drive. Mark Boone reports:
Olaf Kinard, communications manager for CATS, told WCNC it is still not clear how the agency would be impacted by the loss of the tax.
“That’s something we’re looking at,” he said.
I bet they are.
Meanwhile, UNCC transportation expert David Hartgen cuts to the chase:
“The tax people are basically taking the pitchforks to city hall; they’re saying if you won’t do it, we’re going to do it ourselves,” Hartgen said. …
Hartgen said the city should support dedicated bus lanes, which could also serve as public toll roads for drivers. He said the construction of such roads would cost far less than commuter or light rail lines.
CATS officials maintain the trains are a necessary alternative in a city coping with congested roads.
Well then, let’s build some frickin’ roads. What is hard about that?
This gets back to something Davidson Mayor Randall Kincaid said the other day:
Ending long-term plans for linking transit and dense development would be “foolish,” said Davidson Mayor Randall Kincaid, a member of the Metropolitan Transit Commission.
“Repealing the half-cent sales tax then puts us at the mercy of roads, and we have learned painfully that roads cannot do the job of carrying the people for the next century,” he said.
When did we learn this painful lesson? When? Mayor, I demand that you please identify Char-Meck’s great era of road building that utterly failed to reduce traffic congestion.
And while’ll you are at it, please explain how completely remaking development in the county in order to support light rail transit is cheaper and easier than building some damn roads.
Take your time. We’ll be here until November.
