To kill off the only option — beyond city property taxes — for operating a strong transit system would be nothing less than a form of civic suicide.
As it often does, The Charlotte Observer has managed to stumble right past the truth in service of supporting the status quo. “Civic suicide” is exactly the unhappy end supporters of the half-cent repeal seek to avoid for this community.
From the outset, repeal backers have said CATS’ plan is too expensive, that we cannot afford a $9 billion plan that will throw off $300 to $350 million in annual costs when it is done. Pursuing such a plan can only lead to massive tax hikes or cuts in vital government services like public safety. Better to re-tool our transit plan right now with something cost-effective, more efficient, and focused on reducing congestion.
Official Observer response: There go the white male Republican haters of mass transit again.
But on Monday night at the city council meeting, something extraordinary happened.
Charlotte officialdom agreed that the current transit plan is unworkable. Sure, they do not realize that — they just think they were trotting out the same “back to basics” and “public safety” rhetoric that has worked in the recent past to cover tax property hikes and secure dubious spending priorities like the Wachovia Arts Tower.
However, contemplating the removal of $70 to $80 million a year transit tax revenue from a $1.5 billion city budget should not induce the conniptions Charlotte saw at the Government Center. Were everything healthy in Charlotte city finances a 5 percent cut should not go anywhere near universally held high priorities like police and fire. Yet, even correcting for a good bit of cynicism and demagoguery on the part of a city staff unaccustomed to having to justify their actions, here we are.
In essence, the financial crisis that just months ago backers of the repeal forecast in five, 10, 20 years hence is already upon us — so says the city of Charlotte. The current CATS transit plan — really a “means to an end” of enacting the “place making” schemes of the city’s planning staff — is a whisker away from competing with basic city services for funding.
This state of affairs was telegraphed weeks ago in the city’s odd decision to trumpet CATS spending 70 percent of half-cent tax revenue on the current bus system as an argument for the current plan. What then will pay for the future rail lines?
Property taxes, of course. Future property taxes are the linchpin of the $358 North line financial plan the Metropolitan Transit Commission will warmly receive from CATS in Cornelius in a few hours. Town property taxes. City property taxes. County property taxes. All are already in the CATS funding matrix with the half-cent still in place.
Again, it is June 2007 and the crisis is upon us.
Current transit plans will eat up billions of dollars while doing virtually nothing to improve mobility and reduce traffic congestion in what it rapidly becoming one of the America’s most congested cities. There is no more “free” federal money to help build trains and even money from Raleigh is not a given. Yet we persist with plans to forge ahead this summer and build two more train lines at a cost of more than $1 billion at the same moment the city of Charlotte claims the loss of less then one-tenth that amount will be catastrophic to city services.
Suicide? Looks like a murder plot. And an inside job at that.
The crisis is upon us. We need a new plan.
