"So simple:" What Charlotte could've been if its '90s transit plans had stuck
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Courtesy of Michael Gallis
If Charlotte's transit plans from the 1990s had gone accordingly, today the city could've had five light rails traveling from Uptown to the suburbs.
Why it matters: More than a quarter-century after the ideas were put to paper, and just months from when many were envisioned to be complete, planners are still overhauling designs for the Red Line, Silver Line and other transit projects.
Flashback: A 1990s "Regional Sourcebook" identified five potential futures for the city.
- Of the five, the preferred option mapped out five corridors connecting center city to outlying jurisdictions: Rock Hill, Gastonia, Mooresville, Concord and Monroe.
- The expectation was for developers to build dense housing along the corridors, similar to what's happened along South Boulevard because of the Blue Line light rail. Single-family housing would fill the wedges.
- Michael Gallis, the transportation planner who advised the city all those years ago, says the goal was "so simple."
"It was supposed to be five light rail lines, converge in the center, where you can transfer and go anywhere in the region," Gallis says. "What happened?"
Reality check: It would be incredibly expensive to build four more light rails today, on top of established plans to extend the Blue Line with five stations toward Ballantyne.
- Charlotte is already scraping plans for the portion of the Silver Line light rail from Uptown to Matthews. Instead, it's considering bus rapid transit. Albeit stigmatized, BRT is cheaper to build, seemingly easier to fund and more flexible than fixed rail.
- Plus, city leaders have not secured an additional revenue source to build out its dreamed-of transit system in the modern day.
Context: Charlotte finalized its "2025 Integrated Transit/Land-Use Plan" in 1998 using Gallis' work. But that plan wasn't just for light rail. Different transit methods were decided on for each corridor, like bus rapid transit along Independence Boulevard and rail to Lake Norman.
- The promise of a "$1 billion rapid-transit system" was used to garner support for Mecklenburg County's half-cent sales tax for transit. Voters passed it in 1998.
- Ron Tober, Charlotte Area Transit System's first CEO from 1999 to 2007, recalls thinking there was "no question" the city would get it all done by 2025.
Yes, but: The Great Recession in the late 2000s hurt CATS sales tax revenue, setting back planned projects.
- "Time is money, particularly in construction projects," Tober says.
- Plus, rail operator Norfolk Southern halted negotiations to allow Charlotte to use its tracks for the Red Line. The two are now back at the table for a potential acquisition.
- Priorities also shifted when CATS set its sights on the Gold Line. The streetcar would replace the popular bus routes along Central Avenue and Beatties Ford Road and cut labor costs, leaders thought at the time. In 2006 the streetcar was officially added to the city's transit vision.
- And of course, politics and differing planning perspectives influenced the plan over the years.
The big picture: CATS distanced itself from having one central transit hub where all the lines meet. The Red Line and Silver Line are currently planned to go to the future Charlotte Gateway Station, but they won't intersect with the Blue Line, which runs through Charlotte Transportation Center. It's also been heavily debated whether the Silver Line would go through Uptown or wrap around it.
- Tober says all major cities have two nodes.
- But Gallis points to Boston as an example of a city that's divided itself by establishing two stations: North and South.
Driving the news: In 2020, the city meshed all these transit plans, dating back to the '90s, into a $13.5 billion transportation proposal. However, it has failed to obtain a necessary penny-cent sales tax to execute the vision.
- Charlotte and neighboring jurisdictions are now discussing a new regional strategy, says Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones. Those efforts will likely prioritize cars over the longtime rail ambitions, largely because of Republican state lawmakers' desire for road improvements.
- "I think we're at the place now that we can begin to align these various plans," Jones told reporters recently during a luncheon. He called the city's newly circulated Strategic Mobility Plan — which "bundles" roads and sidewalk projects so they're done in one swoop — the best in the country.
- "It's the right way to do it," he says.
- Charlotte will pay for some projects with property taxes and a transportation bond until a sales tax increase is passed.
The bottom line: Charlotte has done a lot of planning. But if you ask Gallis which of the five futures from the '90s sourcebook describes what's happening today, he'll flip the pages to the first:
- "Unplanned."
