What did we tell you yesterday? Something about a transit plan “completely at odds with stated financial benchmarks and constraints.”
What does the Uptown paper headline read today? Light rail to U-City might be delayed. The lede:
The 11-mile Lynx Blue Line extension to University City might not be finished until 2019 – six years later than the Charlotte Area Transit System planned two years ago.
The project may be delayed to give the transit system more time to pay for it.
CATS had projected the half-cent transit sales tax would generate $76 million in fiscal year 2009. Instead, it only produced $62 million. … If sales tax revenue recovers, the line could open in 2016.
Allow me to translate: The line to UNCC will be delayed three-years to 2016, possibly six-years to 2019. The latter is a strong possibility as sales tax revenue will not recover in 2010. Meanwhile, costs will continue to escalate. This is not rocket science. The half-cent transit tax can only throw off so much revenue.
This is why we will continue to hear about finding additional sources of dedicated revenue for CATS, now in order to “save” the NE line. Of course, one rational approach would be to simply follow the existing rail bed to NoDa and declare victory. But Charlotte’s train-building zealots will have none of that.
