Regional planning maps like this are among the task force’s results. Click for a larger image. Links to other maps below.

The four-town Mayors Transportation Task Force has sent area town boards a final report that calls for improved cooperation on transportation issues, specifically by creating a new Lake Norman regional transportation commission. The report also suggests sources of revenue, which could include an automobile registration fee, a quarter-cent sales tax for roads (in Mecklenburg) or a one-cent addition to property taxes.

Task force chair and former Davidson Mayor Randy Kincaid will be making presentations to area town boards in the coming days and weeks to outline the task force’s findings, address concerns and ask the towns to move ahead. Mr. Kincaid hopes the task force can draft an interlocal agreement – a formal contract among the towns – that would set up and fund the new regional organization.

“We’re looking for instructions back to the task force to produce an interlocal agreement and a first-year plan of work,” Mr. Kincaid said Wednesday. “The way I see it working is that the towns would simply give us that mandate and then we would divide the task force into the major areas of the mandate. And those committees, supplemented by a number of other people, would then work for a month and produce the language that we need for the interlocal (agreement) and also produce the list of things to do – the grocery shopping list for the first year.”

A new regional transportation and planning group could be modeled after the Metropolitan Transit Commission in Charlotte, with one vote per town and financial contributions from all, the report says.

Mr. Kincaid said it would need its own source of funding, and an executive director working at least part time. It would rely on towns’ contributions of staff time as well.

David Carol, the North Corridor Commuter Rail Project manager for CATS (Charlotte Area Transit System), thinks a new regional group could help the towns. “It has the potential to be a very powerful and effective group for advocating regional transportation needs that sometimes get lost between Statesville and Charlotte,” Mr. Carol said in an email Thursday.

FOUR MONTH EFFORT

The report and town board presentations are the culmination of an effort that began after the election last November with discussions among mayors Jill Swain of Huntersville, Jeff Tarte of Cornelius, John Woods of Davidson and Bill Thunberg of Mooresville. They talked about how they might improve roads and transit in the north Mecklenburg and south Iredell area, where growth and transportation problems have expanded quickly.

On Dec. 14, the mayors held a press conference at a commuter parking lot in Huntersville to announce formation of the Mayors Transportation Task Force, with an ambitious 12-week schedule of fact-finding and discussions. (See the schedule, read reports from the meetings and see documents on DavidsonNews.net’s task force news page.)

The task force membership included town staffers, businesspeople and elected officials. It was chaired by Mr. Kincaid, with co-chair Gary Knox, a former Cornelius mayor; Mooresville commissioner Mitch Abraham; Chris Ahearn, of Lowe’s, which is headquartered in Mount Mourne; Cornelius commissioner Jim Bensman; Huntersville commissioner Charlie Jeter; Davidson commissioner Brian Jenest; former Charlotte Chamber president Carroll Gray, of Cornelius; and Davidson resident Lawrence Kimbrough, the former CEO of First Charter Corp. Cornelius supplied staff for the task force, including assistant town manager Andrew Grant as the director, town planner Karen Floyd as secretary and Lori Pearson as administrative assistant.

CONSENSUS?

At meetings, members debated both the problems and solutions to regional transportation, including the need for improvements in roads and intersections, the widening of I-77, land-use and how to speed up progress on a proposed North Corridor Commuter Rail Line.

Mr. Jeter was one of the more outspoken skeptics, wondering how the towns could pay for transportation projects or even agree. But after one mid-February discussion of potential rail line funding, even he acknowledged the towns might be able to accomplish something.

“I have never been an overwhelming supporter of this rail line,” Mr. Jeter said Feb. 13. “However on the financing model that we were showed last week, I was amazed at how the financing works out. I hope that we can get the state and the county … to play ball. I was really amazed by how financially do-able it was.”

The sense of shared responsibility and power may be one of the lasting legacies of the task force, regardless of how far the towns get in the coming weeks. Said Mr. Kincaid: “We started our meetings with a good deal of skepticism on the part of committee members. And we ended our 12 weeks with an amazing consensus that we will not accomplish our major transportation goals separately, but that we have a good chance to accomplish them together.”

Another important result has simply taking the time to look at planning issues from a regional perspective. Town planners in the four towns already talk to one another regularly, at least one-on-one, and they have begun engaging in more regional efforts. Through the task force, elected officials joined the discussions.

In fact-finding meetings early in the year, the planners presented spreadsheets of information compiled from the four towns and maps overlaying data for a variety of planning topics, from regional transportation plans to land use to greenways. (See maps on DavidsonNews.net’s task force news page.)

The report concludes by urging the towns to take action. Mr. Kincaid has said previously he hoped the Task Force’s work would lay the groundwork for regional solutions, and not sit around in a file somewhere.

Says the report: “With a genuine spirit of cooperation in our group and a further expectation that this spirit will extend to the four governments, we ask our towns to come together to tackle transportation problems. The end result will make our communities better places to live.”

LINKS AND DOCUMENTS

Read more about the task force’s work, find documents including the final report and see a schedule of meetings on our task force news page, CLICK HERE>