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Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line


dubone

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I could live without that project too... I think Bojangles serves its purpose now. A venue where someone couldn't fill up TWC Arena, but too big for a place like the Fillmore or Amos'.

Right.

And as for amateur sports, you have great facilities on the UNC Charlotte campus. Charlotte is generally very welcoming to camps and sporting events because it brings people to campus and helps spread their brand. It's also a great recruiting tool. Alcohol generally isn't sold at HS/amateur sporting events anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem.

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Didnt the state pull this stunt last year by leaving LRT design funds out of the budget then adding them a few weeks later. The state did sign a FFGA which usually binds the state to pay, whether they want to or not, isnt the purpose of this agreement to legally require the state to pay the money they agreed to pay. I think the biggest hurdle is receiving FTA funding. It also sounds like the city council will work it out in a fairly timely manner, or at least I hope they will.

Edited by ajfunder
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This is so upsetting. I really hope they do not screw up the federal funding. We have clearly voted to support this line in local funding and votes and are on the cusp of getting federal investment. Why does GOP hate rail transit so much?

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So what else would need to be cut then? What's the magic number, so to speak?

The original CIP total is $926 million with a 3.6-cent tax rate increase. Since the County is lowering their rate by 2.44 cents, you would need to cut the CIP by roughly one-third or $306 million to achieve only a City tax rate increase of 2.44 cents. Streetcar totals $119 million, which is less than half of the $306 million in cuts needed to avoid any net increase in taxes.

Linked below is the City's CIP summary brochure. Feel free to play with the list and see how you could cut $306 million.

http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/Budget/CIP%20Docs/CIP%20Summary%20Brochure.pdf

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A large part of the increase was to reinvest in the city and revitalize certain areas of the city. Although I would prefer the LYNX extension, the streetcar is the best project on the list to spark new development. I really wish we could come up with a concrete plan to build multiple transit projects. I sit here and watch Charlotte to build 1 light rail line, meanwhile Denver is building a 2 billion dollar commuter rail line and a 500 million LRT line as we speak. Portland is building a 10 mile LRT extension and they already have a few LRT lines and a streetcar line. Seattle is building a 2 billion dollar 3 mile underground LRT extension

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A large part of the increase was to reinvest in the city and revitalize certain areas of the city. Although I would prefer the LYNX extension, the streetcar is the best project on the reinvestment project list to spark new development. I really wish we could come up with a concrete plan to build multiple transit projects. We have the Red Line, shovel ready but no funding, Silver Line, Airport line and the streetcar all sitting on the back burner. I sit here and watch Charlotte struggle to build 1 light rail line, meanwhile Denver is building a 2 billion dollar commuter rail line and a 500 million LRT line as we speak. Portland is building a 10 mile LRT extension and they already have a few LRT lines and a streetcar line. Seattle is building a 2 billion dollar 3 mile underground LRT extension. Salt Lake City, a city 1/3 the size of Charlotte, is also rapidly building LRT and commuter rail. So my question is, what on earth is Charlotte doing that makes it do difficult to build LRT, while so many similar sized cities are rapidly expanding there mass transit networks?

Edited by ajfunder
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A large part of the increase was to reinvest in the city and revitalize certain areas of the city. Although I would prefer the LYNX extension, the streetcar is the best project on the reinvestment project list to spark new development. I really wish we could come up with a concrete plan to build multiple transit projects. We have the Red Line, shovel ready but no funding, Silver Line, Airport line and the streetcar all sitting on the back burner. I sit here and watch Charlotte struggle to build 1 light rail line, meanwhile Denver is building a 2 billion dollar commuter rail line and a 500 million LRT line as we speak. Portland is building a 10 mile LRT extension and they already have a few LRT lines and a streetcar line. Seattle is building a 2 billion dollar 3 mile underground LRT extension. Salt Lake City, a city 1/3 the size of Charlotte, is also rapidly building LRT and commuter rail. So my question is, what on earth is Charlotte doing that makes it do difficult to build LRT, while so many similar sized cities are rapidly expanding there mass transit networks?

Voting people into officer there are against or are not strong supports of transit would be Charlotte's folly, I think. Plus Charlotte is not as large as the above mentioned cities, so transit is not as much of a concern in our politician's minds.

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Mary Newsome has done a good job of digging into the streetcar / BLE budget issues here: http://nakedcityblog...dd-council.html

In short it sounds like the transit hating arm of the right in Raleigh figured they could eliminate streetcar expansion by holding their BLE dollars hostage. While Mary does a decent job explaining these machinations no one has yet addressed the issue of the signed FFGA, is the state legally bound to provide its share of the BLE cost or not? If we end up loosing out of streetcar expansion due to a legal slight-of-hand (the folks in Raleigh making empty threats by pretending like the FFGA does not exist) I'll be genuninely ticked off.

Silly me, I thought there was a reason to keep the political workings of city and state seperate....

Edited by kermit
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Mary Newsome's blog article was an interesting read. Honestly, nothing surprises me in politics. Does it not seem fishy that council members kept mum on any opposition they would have had for the project, and then turned around voted no? there is a driving force behind this that is influencing the not-so-sure council members. I know the republicans have been fighting hard to not spend dollars on transit while Mayor Foxx has not been lobbying other council members, thinking they had made up their minds to vote yes. I hate politics

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In short it sounds like the transit hating arm of the right in Raleigh figured they could eliminate streetcar expansion by holding their BLE dollars hostage.

Today's CBJ suggests that Pat McCrory was the source of the BLE / Streetcar hostage plan from Raleigh.

http://www.bizjourna...a=e_ph&page=all

Rumors circulated through council members and the city staff this week that McCrory, the favorite to win the November election to replace Democrat Bev Perdue, encouraged GOP leaders in Raleigh to torpedo light-rail funding in a bid to kill off the streetcar. McCrory has made it clear since leaving office in 2009 that he opposes the streetcar and the notion of funding it outside the half-cent transit tax he backed as mayor.
Edited by kermit
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^How sad if Pat's strategy backfires in actually killing BLE, not Streetcar. Last night, the TV news was reporting Barnes as willing to delay BLE, but Kinsey and Autry as unwilling to delay Streetcar.

Personally, I'm a supporter of Streetcar (I live and work along the line). However, I absolutely believe that now is not the time to risk the BLE's fragile schedule. Any delay to BLE would risk federal funding and end up being an indefinite delay to this crucial project.

Edited by southslider
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Well, because they got what they wanted. The city council has now pretty well indicated that they will cut the streetcar. I wish they could cut the funding in half or something and just do the uptown portion for now and give incentive to try to get some federal matching money. The federal government gave us money for a starter line for the streetcar in a competitive process, so it is clearly something they would consider.

Regardless, the key is to get the blue line squared away. I'm willing to wait on streetcar as long as it keeps the blue line happening. However, the fact that the news articles can point to CATS's refusal to pay for the streetcar as a way to imply that it is a boondoggle or a waste just angers me. CATS came up with the project in the first place to solve real transit needs. The only reason it is lower priority is not because of its worthiness as a transit project, but because of the power of the suburban towns in the structure of the MTC. It set the stage for the relying on the city itself to fund a project that the city will benefit from. If UNELECTED Patty McCheese doesn't like it, too bad. There would have still been a chance for the public to vote on the issue before bonds were issued anyway.

Regardless, it appears that city council will opt for a lesser CIP, which isn't the end of the world. If they do a neutral rate, it is still a decent number of projects happening.

By the way, Bojangles Arena is a city asset that costs us a lot of money when it suffers a loss. If they can invest in it and give it a purpose for existing for the next decade, then we stem our losses and help retain a positive economic driver in the eastern neighborhoods. I would rather that not be cut. However, it would have been nice if we could have funded that with the hotel/motel tourism tax rather than property taxes. In fact, maybe that project can be shifted over to that budget and be part of the cuts down to the 2.44c.

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Didnt the state pull this stunt last year by leaving LRT design funds out of the budget then adding them a few weeks later. The state did sign a FFGA which usually binds the state to pay, whether they want to or not, isnt the purpose of this agreement to legally require the state to pay the money they agreed to pay. I think the biggest hurdle is receiving FTA funding. It also sounds like the city council will work it out in a fairly timely manner, or at least I hope they will.

I asked the CATS marketing and communiations director about the FFGA issue today. He said that the FFGA does obligate the state to pay its share of the BLE. However, (and this is where I get confused) the FFGA does not mandate that the state allocate these funds in a specific budget year. It appears that, if the state wished, they could delay their payments indefinately without breaching the contract.

Having said that, I am sure there is a clause in the FFGA requiring that construction be complete by a specific date (or else the federal contribution must be repaid). Given the timeleness clause I am suspicious about the state budget allocation loophole.

All that aside, he said that CATS is on track for the federal FFGA sigining "sometime in October." He doubted it would be signed before (or at) the DNC.

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Generally speaking, the state knows that the BLE and other transit endeavors are good for the state and will not really block them if they are going to get federal grants. The political hay making is just for show.

I do hope, though, that this year's election reduces some of the toxic influence of the tea party conservatives that snuck in during the 2010 cycle.

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All that aside, he said that CATS is on track for the federal FFGA sigining "sometime in October." He doubted it would be signed before (or at) the DNC.

Looks like a new Transportation Reauthorization will pass just in time (prior to the June 30 expiration of the gas tax). If passed and signed, this latest version of the Act, which is a blend of prior House and Senate Bills, will take effect in October of this year and last for only two years.

While the new funding in the Act is timed well with the FFGA signing (Oct.2012), the opening day window (Dec.2016) usually given for the BLE likely assumes there will be another round of "clean" extensions beyond October 2014, so as to actually finish construction.

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And we're off:

CATS Receives Green Light for Blue Line Extension to Enter Final Design

Immediate Release - July 10, 2012

The Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) has received approval from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to enter Final Design for the 9.3-mile LYNX Blue Line Extension (BLE) light rail project. This allows the project to be developed from the 65 percent to the 100 percent design level and complete preparation of final construction plans, right-of-way acquisition, construction cost estimates, bid dospriteents and utility relocation.

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  • 1 month later...

After spending a few days in Portland riding the streetcar and Lrt I decided their digital boards displaying arrival times for the next two trains are really nice to have. The realtime info is much more helpful than a schedule and they allow you to easily decide if you have time to run to the drugstore (or bar) before the next train arrives. I was surprised by how much this small thing improved the utility of transit. The boards they used for the streetcar were quite small and I suspect they could be implemented at relatively low cost. I know CATS has something similar for smartphones but not everyone (meaning me) has one.

I thought the streetcar was quite useful but many of the locals complained about its very slow speed. Based on looking around the streetcar route it appeared to have catalyzed a huge amount of development -- but cause and effect will forever remain a subject of debate with streetcars.

I am not a fan of runnning LRT through the street like they do in Portland -- its just too damn slow. The more I ride other transit systems the more impressed I am with our small system in terms of routing, ridership, speed and design. I just wish we had more of it.

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I dont think I have ever seen the time to next train on the boards in stations. The announcements are ok, but they are kinda infrequent (3 minutes and 1 minute the one minute announcement is useless since the train is pulling into the station) if you get there 12 minutes before your train you need to wait around a long while before you know what is happening -- time I could spend running over to common market to get a drink.

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