June 20. [Opinion] Tripling local transit sales taxes from 0.5% to 1.5% to build a 1970s style railroad to begin operating, possibly, by the 2030s? That’s the definition of a boondoggle.
If you want to see a physical manifestation of the thinking behind the proposed Red Line, take the Gold Line streetcar for a ride, disembark, and walk back to where you started. Your ride time and your walk time will probably be similar. Then, drive a car over the same route. Was the Gold Line worth it?
Fifty years from now driving will remain the fastest means of local transport for nearly every trip. Given driving’s obvious and persistent advantages in the Charlotte area, why are our elected leaders asking voters to pay triple for 1970s style commuter rail?
Farnsworth
Boondoggles like the proposed heavy commuter rail can be defeated. Taxpayers in Nashville formed a group called No Tax 4 Trax and defeated a 1% sales tax partially earmarked for rail. In response, local elected officials dropped the rail earmarks and reduced the proposed tax increase to 0.5%. Voters then approved the 0.5% tax increase once rail was stripped out of the proposal.
Does a 1970s style commuter railroad justify tripling local transit taxes? No. Taxpayers will be tripling their costs without tripling their benefits. Hopefully, future local transportation proposals will be more targeted at improving regional transportation for how most people actually get around.
—Josh Farnsworth
Cornelius
Amen Josh. This area has been paying a half cent sales tax for over 25 years for a promised rail line, now the elected leaders in our three town and Mecklenburg county think stealing more money for a proposed ancient technology is a good deal for all.
I know the residents of North Mecklenburg are smart enough to vote this down. I hope the rest of Mecklenburg County does the same.
I agree 100% and spent 16 years on the Cornelius Town Board making the same points. In 2012, we brought a national transportation expert to Cornelius Town Hall to provide a detailed and comprehensive perspective on how point-to-point rail (actually 1800s technology) makes no sense whatsoever as we move to flexible, self-driving cars and rapid bus networks. The obscene cost is almost beside the point since rail just cannot meet the needs of the vast majority of people trying to get where they need to go each day.
Well to no one’s surprise, I agree 100% with Farnsworth, Sisson & Gilroy’s comments. Old technology with limited available trips will not solve out traffic problems. In addition, the density that will come from the potential of commuter rail is already happening. Please travel to South End in Charlotte to see what our future could be! Bus Rapid transit will provide citizens the means to get into Charlotte much more efficiently. Few citizens from the West side of I-77 will drive across 77, park, wait for a train and spend 30-50 minutes on a train to get to Charlotte. Please note that the 5 years preceding the Pandemic, Blue line ridership went down despite the thousands of apartments build along the Blueline! My suggestion is for each town to go to the legislature and ask for a dedicated infrastructure sales tax not one that will get diluted at the County level like so many other taxes!!
Total waste of billions. Could give free or half priced Uber cards to everyone with Medicaid for a tiny fraction of the cost. And do the right thing and not charge any toll as well.
It appears our elected leaders may be blinded by the promise of cash for road projects as a side benefit of the red line. Ask the Mayor of Matthews about promises as his train line has turned into bus service. We need to look forward for transportation solutions not backwards to 1900’s technology!
Very well said and I couldn’t agree more.
What other North-South transportation options are there for this area? The toll rd contract made sure the roads couldn’t be expanded.
I’d be fine with leaving in light-rail funding for the city but stripping out the Red Line. A slow moving diesel locomotive is not the future. Strip out the Red Line, reduce the tax and it will get my vote.
My hope is that the $0.01 sales tax is defeated and that a half cent increase that provides additional funding to the existing infrastructure (including light rail, roads and buses) is instead put on the ballot.
The Red Line like the Gold Line is too expensive. The government should be forced to find a cheaper way to achieve the same results. Approving a 300% increase in local transit taxes is almost like giving the government a blank check.
The closure of one foam plant should not be the catalyst for tripling the transit tax. A freight railroad’s loss of a customer does not justify this massive tax hike.
The cost of the rail corridor is only $93 million, but the proposed cost of the commuter rail is over a billion dollars. Surely Charlotte can buy and use the rail corridor in a manner that costs less money than building a passenger railroad that will have to compete with faster public transit already using the express lanes on I-77. Those express buses are faster and cheaper. The government should tax people less and use what is more effective.
Charlotte needs to plan for growth, but it needs to do so in a fiscally responsible and sustainable way. Tripling transit taxes at one election to logroll every local transportation dream? That’s a boondoggle the voters should not and hopefully cannot support.
If voters in the NC Senate or in Mecklenburg County kill the proposal to triple the local transit tax, maybe that will be the mechanism that forces local transit planners to prioritize projects rather than seeking funding for everything they can imagine.
Why do you claim that the closure of the foam factory is the catalyst for this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Southern_O-Line
Afer FXI closed, Norfolk Southern reached out to the city to discuss a different use of the rail line.
What’s great about this country is freedom of speech. No matter how idiotic or ridiculous your opinions are – you have the ability to share them publicly, with everyone. Thankfully, Josh Farnsworth has taken that freedom to heart and drafted his thoughts so everyone could see idiocy on display.
Congrats to Josh who wrote this article, attached his photo, and then sat back and thought “yeah this is my best work.”
Look forward to the next one!
Thank you for engaging on this important topic.
Why is it necessary to earmark 40 percent of new transit revenue for rail? Why should the red line receive special priority even though bus rapid transit on the I-77 toll lanes will be faster, cheaper, and more flexible than heavy rail?