The two-mile trolley line running between uptown Charlotte proper and the South End district is finally set to start running next week. A single trolley car will traverse the route at first, followed by three more cars later this summer.
By mass-transit standards, the cost overrun was relatively modest. The project started out in 1998 with an estimated cost of about $20 million. It actually cost about $40 million when completed six years later, not counting the $1 million subsidy from taxpayers that will be required each year to finance the operating costs of the trolley (which is projected to generate only $80,000 a year in fares). Some transit projects have ended up costing three times as much or more.
Part of the increased construction cost was associated, reports the Business Journal, with the need to make the trolley infrastructure compatible with a planned regional rail system. I wonder if that additional cost has been reported as part of the total price tag of the regional-rail line?
A main argument advanced in favor of the trolley is that more than $400 million in new development, including both residential and commercial projects, has occurred along the trolley route. But what would really show the $40 million to be spent productively would not be simply to add up investment nearby and then assume it wouldn?t have occurred there, or somewhere else in the city, without the trolley. You’d have to use data from comparable census tracts or cities to try to establish real evidence for the proposition ? a study that must surely be underway by city officials, right?
