The pro-sales tax op-ed penned by Wachovia economist Mark Vitner contains a serious error of fact.

“Charlotte may never again be so fortunate in attracting federal government support, which is paying a substantial portion of the cost of the project,” Vitner writes in today’s Uptown paper of record.

The Federal Transit Administration paid almost $200 million of the cost of the $463 million South Blvd. light rail line. However, the financing plan approved by the Metropolitan Transit Commission in July assumes no FTA money for the North line commuter rail project.

No federal money for a project with a total public cost of $470 million is not a “substantial portion.” Even non-economists understand that.

The South line is a done deal. Repeal is not about the South line, something former Charlotte mayor Richard Vinroot also had trouble wrapping his head around on the Keith Larson show yesterday on WBT.

Repeal is about stopping future train building, trains the half-cent — by definition — cannot afford to build and operate. If the MTC refuses to do the responsible thing then voters have no choice but to step in and take the money away.

It is also interesting to contrast Vitner’s arguments for the $9 billion transit plan today with his views on Charlotte in 2030 penned back in 2004, when there was no need to justify the transit tax to local residents.

Today he lauds transit big projects’ ability to attract and shape land development in a city. In 2004, Vitner pointed to limitations of trying to stuff development in Center City Charlotte.

When asked [by city officials] if I saw businesses continuing to migrate to the suburbs, I could only answer yes. Furthermore, noted that efforts to lure these firms Uptown would likely be only partially successful. If we make it more difficult for firms to locate in suburban Charlotte, these firms will simply locate to the suburbs of Atlanta, Richmond or Raleigh. …

Can we possibly get to 90,000 workers in the Center City by 2030 and 15,000 residents, as the transit plan currently hopes? The employment numbers look to be a stretch. The odds of the Center City repeating the success of the last decade seem a bit remote today. Development remains in high gear, but it is much more oriented to public projects. The population numbers look a bit low.

Vitner’s comments led directly to CATS CEO Ron Tober telling the local power structure in early 2006 that it needed to re-double efforts to get more jobs Uptown for what was then a $6 billion transit plan to be a success.

As the Charlotte Business Journal reported in January 2006:

The city’s top transit executive is telling local business leaders an accelerated growth rate for uptown jobs — almost double the level of the past two decades — must be reached within 20 years to make the light-rail system worth its multibillion-dollar public investment.

This, of course, immediately involved talk of public subsidies for corporate recruiting efforts, which bought us back to the question of why are we spending billions to build trains if they require millions more in subsidies to work?

Here’s Jim Puckett in February 2006 reacting to Tober’s plea for more jobs to make transit a success: “I’d hope at this point, smarter heads will prevail and realize that maybe we should cap this off at the South Corridor rail line (now under construction), and we should wait a while and see what happens.”

So Vitner’s skepticism about CATS’ assumptions about job growth was a factor which led directly to the repeal effort he now opposes.

What changed?

Well, for one, last month I cited Vitner’s 2004 comments during the Transit Debate at the Government Center. One of my opponents that day was Wachovia’s Pat Mumford.

Bonus Observation: Vitner also lauds Atlanta’s MARTA system for its ability to improve the city’s “quality of life.” Just the other night at the U-PAC forum I noted that the single biggest recent improvement to MARTA was the Georgia legislature’s decision in 2005 to order a state audit of MARTA. A state audit of CATS is exactly what we need right now.

Bonus Bonus Observation: Listen to the very telling Vinroot-Larson exchange here.