Just to be perfectly clear about what is going on right now in Charlotte, the city is choosing trains over streets. Repeatedly.
CATS is reducing bus and train service in order to preserve cash for another $1.5 b. worth of trains while the city of Charlotte is rushing to find a way to use property tax dollars to build $400m. worth of streetcars. At the same moment, the city cannot find the revenue to move ahead with the $217m. worth of street and neighborhood improvement projects voters approved last November.
You know what comes next, don’t you? Tax hikes. Residents will be told the city is tapped out and if you really, really want the things you voted for, you are going have to pony up more cash. Oh, they won’t put it that way — too crude for the prideful Uptown crowd.
Here’s another little looming secret: We know that CATS is $652m. short for the 2030 transit plan as written. They’ve admitted that in word and deed. But the actual number will be more like $1b. once we move from fantasy numbers. The solution there will be the same — taxpayers’ pockets.
