Things are moving fast, try to keep up.
First, in the letters section of the Uptown paper of record, we have Paul Steiger arguing that light rail will be great for Charlotte because it does not rely on oil. If you agree, you can join Steiger at the next People for Car-Free Cities Meetup.
Yep, it is just our imagination that the car-haters love trains.
Moving on to Ronnie Bryant, Ronnie tries to move the ball for the pro-train crowd, but stumbles quite a bit. Bryant, head of the government-supported Charlotte Regional Partnership, evidently did not get the memo not to talk about how other communities have dedicated road-building taxes. Charlotte, alas, does not.
We do have two — two — dedicated CATS taxes in the half-cent and in 5 percent hike in car rental tax approved last year.
Why Bryant opted to remind Mecklenburg County voters that York County has a dedicated 1 percent sales tax for roads, I have no idea. The York County tax is not on the ballot.
Just as puzzling is his emphasis on the need for a good road network in Charlotte to support our massive — and very undervalued — trucking and logistics industry.
“Equally important are the crisscrossing interstates — I-77, I-85 and I-40, along with connecting arteries — that have made this area a trucking hub. More than 450 trucking companies carry freight from Charlotte USA around the country,” Bryant writes. Yes, yes exactly.
Building $9 billion worth of trains does not help that. And as Wachovia economist Mark Vitner has noted, continuing to try to ramp-up density in order to support light rail may just result in driving our trucking industry — or any other industry that prefers a suburban, road-oriented landscape — to Memphis or Atlanta.
Finally, Bryant winds up with this tepid endorsement of CATS’ current plan:
One of the questions they ask is about our mass transportation system. The answer doesn’t take long. But there is an answer, one that would be a lot shorter if we didn’t have the half-cent tax that helps to underwrite the Charlotte Area Transit System.
I’m not going to get into whether the contractors are spending the money wisely or if surveys should have been commissioned or if the light rail lines are going to the areas that need it most.
I want to look at the big picture. To thrive, our region needs a good airport, a good rail line and good roads. And we need a good mass transit system. The half-cent tax to help fund it is small potatoes compared to the cost we’d pay without it.
Wow. Without that last sentence, we’d be in complete agreement on the big picture. The problem is that instead of helping us run a “good mass transit system” the half-cent prevents that — at least that is what the last 10 years tell us.
The tax enables CATS to spend insane amounts of money on projects that will not help move people around. We have an expensive mass transit system, not a good one. Repeal is the first step in fixing that.
Bonus Observation: Did you catch that the city is already talking up a streetcar for West Morehead? It is buried in this glowing praise for the new $250 million Bryant Park development.
And Doug Smith unintentionally connected some dots for me. Recall that when the Chamber of Commerce did its poll on the half-cent and transit, it tested the name IDs of several local leaders in preparation for forming a save the tax committee. One was name Shirley Fulton. That didn’t add up. What did the former judge have to do with trains? Now it makes sense.
The Charlotte School of Law will be the first tenant of the Bryant Park development. The dean of law school?
Shirley Fulton. All aboard!
