As we’ve been telling you for weeks now, Train Envy has dictated that CATS and Mecklenburg County are officially moving ahead with two more choo-choo lines Combined cost: At least $1 billion.
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| Billions more? |
Better still, the new revised grand plan for light rail has a new price tag: Nine billion dollars. That’s right, up from the already outrageous $6 billion total. Moreover, the system’s proposed six lines would not be completed until 2030, instead of 2025, pushing any supposed benefit from this dubious “investment” even further into the future.
This new plan constitutes iron-clad proof that the elected leaders of the county cannot exercise any fiscal restraint or meaningful control over transportation policy in the county. As a result, bankruptcy and gridlock loom in Charlotte’s near future. The only alternative to this bad policy is to take away the funding mechanism for the train building, the half-cent sales tax passed in 1998 by county voters.
That levy is now throwing off $65 million a year. Were most of that money re-directed to road building and actual innovative transportation solutions, we could avoid gridlock and money-pit rail projects. But as the MTC showed last night, that option is not on the table.
Time to change tables then. Taxpayers are playing a rigged game so long as CATS is playing with house money. Repeal of the half-cent tax is the only way to stop CATS and the MTC.
Bonus observation: Atlanta is looking at a transportation future that does not depend on choo-choos. Think Charlotte might want to as well? or should we just stay 30 years behind the curve?
