Former mayor Pat McCrory took time off from running for governor to head south and talk up light rail. You tell me if this comports with reality:
Two speakers during Wednesday morning’s Metro Atlanta Northern Crescent Transit Summit — one a light rail system CEO and another a former mayor and current political hopeful — said economic development will happen if plans for a light-rail system through Cobb and Gwinnett counties becomes a reality. …
…Pat McCrory, a former Charlotte, N.C., mayor and a candidate to be the next governor of that state, said a once blighted and crime-ridden area of Charlotte has now become a highly frequented arts district nicknamed “Noda” with increased housing prices. …
…McCrory said the rail system has specifically increased spending by Charlotte residents in their 20s and 30s, as the downtown area became an entertainment center with the development of the transit system.
“You go there at one or two in the morning, Wednesday through Saturday night, and it’s packed. The streets are more crowded than New Orleans, and a lot of those people are getting on the bus line,” McCrory said.
Charlotte’s transit system, called Charlotte Area Transit System, includes a bus network that McCrory said he and other officials made sure was just as clean, safe and evenly marketed as the light-rail system, LYNX, which became operational in late 2007.
And he believes a transit system in metro Atlanta would work.
“If you do it right,” McCrory said. “You can learn lessons from yours and other people’s mistakes and also from what was done right. It’s a process of many steps, just as building roads is a process. Many roads are built correctly and many are built incorrectly. But if you get roads and transit working together, it’s a good investment.”
McCrory would not say whether the availability of a transit system was the “nail in the coffin” for many businesses to locate to or stay in Charlotte, but he did say it became a major recruitment tool.
“We could use it to show that we were doing something in anticipation of growth,” McCrory said. “If you wait to react to growth when it happens, you’ve waited too long. But I never apply one thing to jobs and companies coming or going. Transit was just a part of the package, but a very important part. When we competed against cities such as Jacksonville, Houston, L.A. for industry, I would bring out our transit plan. Even for companies that weren’t looking to locate near the transit line, I would still show them the plan, and they would say: ‘We like this a lot even though we wouldn’t be on the transit line because we see you’re planning for the future.’ It helps as a recruitment tool, I can guarantee you that.”
McCrory likened the battle to get public support for a light rail system to a business trying to sell a product, and said that if Atlanta does nothing, competitors such as Charlotte and Phoenix will begin to win jobs and companies.
When asked what he felt Charlotte would look like today had the transit system not been built, McCrory said: “We’d have some corridors that would be much more blighted, and we wouldn’t have a choice but to do something.”
Think that pretty much speaks for itself. If North Carolina Republicans nominate this guy again they’ll deserve everything they get.
30
2011 At 6:37 pm, Logic Connection Said:
“The streets are more crowded than New Orleans??” Well, to be fair, he didn’t specify when our streets were more crowded than the streets in New Orleans. If he’s referring to New Orleans on a random Monday night at 4:15am in August, he might be right.
30
2011 At 6:52 pm, LNBruno Said:
McCrory’s a Republican like I’m a Martian.
30
2011 At 10:57 pm, musicmax Said:
Can McCrory be excommunicated from the NCGOP? From the human race?
What a f$@king LIAR.
01
2011 At 7:09 am, Jeff A. Taylor Said:
I initially left out the money quote. Now it is up in bold. Doh!
01
2011 At 7:09 am, bruce Said:
” If North Carolina Republicans nominate this guy again they’ll deserve everything they get.”
Already true across the board.
01
2011 At 8:52 am, Skyler the Weird Said:
He was looking at pictures of Bourbon Street the morning after Katrina. I’d stay away from any crowds I saw Uptown at 2 AM. Anyway I thought Metro Atlanta had a transit system already? I thought they modeled the McCheese Line on MARTA?
02
2011 At 7:33 am, JustMe Said:
Just another RINO vying for our votes? Lord PLEASE let someone else run for Governor, otherwise we will have another 4 years of the same rather it is Bev or Pat….
03
2011 At 9:53 am, FKA_Cato Said:
Two things about NoDa:
1) There have been at least dozens of mid-sized cities around the country that have seen that kind of revitalization into old commercial building stock – and the gentrification that follows. If Hizzoner and the rest of our ruling-class rubes had been paying attention to anything other than their own press releases over the past fifteen years, they’d know that.
2) One of the reasons that NoDa took off like it did is that it was ignored by TPTB. Rather, it was cheap rents. Not being shackled with having to produce some Pam Syfert-approved urban experience, people took risks and actually made the place kind of cool (though the ostensible draw, the art, was mostly kinda crappy). The Babbitts only became interested after all the risk-taking had been done.