The writer is a Cornelius town commissioner and member of the Lake Norman Transportation Commission.

By JIM BENSMAN

The Urban Land Institute advisory panel that visited our area last week made some important observations about rail in north Mecklenburg and south Iredell. The Charlotte City Council needs to acknowledge these important points and reconsider the way it has prioritized the streetcar, the North Commuter Rail Line and the Northeast Line.

The ULI panel presented its summary report Friday, Jan. 29. The full report is 4 to 6 weeks away, but here are some of their observations:

Significant economic benefits exist representing 10,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of development.

• The current cost estimate of $350 million to build the North Commuter Rail Line 5 years old and should be revisited as current construction costs are lower.
• Norfolk-Southern should be asked to partner as a way to reduce the $110 million cost of upgrading the line and license fees.
• Three rail stations and the Gateway Station are located in Charlotte benefiting areas that need revitalization.
• Panelists also complemented the Towns for more than a decade of Transit Oriented Development planning.
• The Red Line is 90 percent designed, construction could start in six months and be completed in 2 1/2 years.

Meanwhile, two recent decisions by the federal government will have major impacts on the future of Transit. First, federal officials have changed rail funding rules, putting more emphasis on economic development and less on ridership. This change helps the North Line and could hurt the prospects for Federal funding of the Northeast Line.

Another is the recent announcement of a $500 million investment to improve high speed rail between Raleigh and Charlotte as part of a broader initiative to improve rail transit between DC and Atlanta. In my opinion, NCDOT should make station improvements at the Gateway Station location – and not at the current Amtrak station on North Tryon Street.

The Charlotte City Council needs to acknowledge these important points and reconsider the priorities of the streetcar, the North Commuter Rail Line and the Northeast Line.

The Northeast line is a decade away. Funds are being spent on the Streetcar project when CATS is cutting back service. While proponents of the North Line are not opposing the Northeast Line, the reverse is not true. The money is flowing to the Northeast Line and the Streetcar. At last week’s Metropolitan Transit Commission meeting, the preliminary CATS budget showed over $300 million directed to the Northeast Line over the next several years, and only $150,000 to the North Line.

The North Line goes through the Districts of Charlotte City Council Members Barnes and Mitchell. It is critical to their constituents that they better understand the positive impact the North Line will have in their districts.

GATEWAY STATION

CATS needs to reconsider the disconnect that exists between the existing Lynx Blue Line light rail and the Gateway Station in downtown Charlotte.

Gateway station is to be the bus terminal, the AMTRAK station as well as the terminus of the North Line. CATS maintains that it is too expensive to connect the Blue Line to Gateway so they intend to build a streetcar connection between the two.

That will never work!

Imagine getting on the Blue Line, having to change to a streetcar in order to catch a bus to continue your trip, the upgraded high speed rail line or the North Line train. CATS plans to run buses from both terminals to the airport. Obviously that will cost more than running buses from a single terminal.

CATS was asked months ago to produce a North Line design that would qualify for Federal SmallStarts funding ($25 million). They have not responded to that request.

Charlotte is the major population center, but transit is supposed to represent connectivity for the entire county. The County Transit Tax collections mainly come from Charlotte, but the 3 north Mecklenburg towns account for over $3 million a year in Transit Tax revenues. We get a few X-buses and Village Rider busses in return.

At the last MTC meeting, Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte suggested a complete review of the Transit System design and urged consideration of newer technologies as ways to reduce cost and improve service. His suggestion was met with silence.

Some readers may be opposed to the North Line. The concerns are understandable, and I share many of them. I supported the recall of the Transit Tax because I believed that it was insufficient to fund the Transit System. Turns out I was right. Even if the economy hadn’t fallen in the ditch, the current narrow Transit Tax wasn’t enough to build out the system.

Also, we don’t know what infrastructure the towns would have to fund in order to provide access to and parking at the transit stops. We don’t know if federal funding can be obtained for the North Line either. There are worries that the train will bring crime to Cornelius. It has done so in other cities, but our police chief in Cornelius doubts that would be the case.

Why not build more roads to handle the traffic? I would love that, but the government is not moving in that direction. Consider that Mecklenburg and Union counties receive about $47 million a year from the state for road construction, while the MTC wants to spend well over $2 billion on mass transit in the next decade.

If planned properly and with sound public/private partnerships, the North Line train could work. Time will tell, but we have to work at it. Wednesday, February 10, the Mayors of the four Towns have been invited to the Lake Norman Transportation Commission meeting to discuss a pathway forward.

Jim Bensman is a town commissioner in Cornelius and a member of the Lake Norman Transportation Commission.