McCrory Spins on Statewide Rail
Posted March 3rd, 2008 at 1:32 PM by Jeff A. Taylor
Mayor Pat McCrory is getting a little loose in his claims about “leadership” on rail transit. Here McCrory is trying to pretend he adheres to hard and fast rules about where rail should go:
The Republican gubernatorial candidate told Dome in a recent interview that the Lynx Blue Line in Charlotte has been a success, but he doesn’t think every part of the state needs — or wants — its own rail-based transit.
“It’s not suited for all parts of our state or even all parts of the city,” he said. He would not say whether the Triangle, Greensboro or other North Carolina cities need it, saying that is a local decision.
In Charlotte the local decision has been to change the decision rule in pursuit of $9.5 billion worth of transit projects whenever needed.
Here’s McCrory from a November 2006 city council meeting, reassuring the public on how the city could afford the North line rail project in light of the South Blvd. project’s alarming cost increases:
We have always said we are going to work within the half-cent sales tax and never ask for money above and beyond that half-cent sales tax, and I feel strongly that we need to stay with that commitment.
Except that right now the official North line financing plan includes $70 million in debt secured by future property taxes. And that sum is dwarfed by the $400 million worth of streetcars city staff is at the moment trying to find a way to fund, not with the half-cent as Mayor McCrory said in 2006, but with additional tax increment financed debt.
Also remember that the $350 million North line, unlike the South line, will not receive a penny of Federal Transit Administration money due to much lower ridership projections. The South line, recall, got almost half of its $463 million cost paid by the feds. On the streetcar pipe-dream, recall that not even Portland’s vaunted streetcar operation received federal money for the same high-cost, low-ridership, low mobility improvement reasons.
In the past both McCrory and county commissioner Parks Helms have strongly suggested that lack of federal money for a rail project was also a deal breaker. That was certainly the impression left with many in East Charlotte and Matthews when the Metropolitan Transit Commission selected a cheaper bus rapid transit system for Independence Blvd. instead of rail.
So absolutely on the half-cent affordability front and probably on the federal funding front, McCrory’s positions have migrated to a more anything goes stance as the financial numbers softened. That’s salesmanship, not leadership.
Were McCrory inclined to be dead-bang honest about rail options statewide in light of his Charlotte experience, he’d say something along the lines of, “It depends. It depends what kind of economic re-development numbers you can cook up in order to float the debt. If you can find a bank willing to take your scheme to market, you are home free. Nothing can stop you.”
Certainly not voters.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Please no…not light rail again…something else please…
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Please no…not light rail again…something else please…
We’ll stop talking about light rail when they stop trying to build any more light rail.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
And stop misrepresenting what they said and did on light rail. In fact let’s drill down RIGHT NOW on the remarkable turn around in fortunes in the last 4 months.
The other day the Uptown paper of record’s Steve Harrison reports: “The agency’s long-term transit plan projected the sales tax would generate $85 million in fiscal year 2010; updated projections show slightly less, $82.5 million.”
Back on Nov. 1st of last year, when some of us were raising questions about future revenue, Harrison reported thusly:
“If voters keep the transit tax Nov. 6, CATS has ambitious plans to build more light rail, a commuter train and a streetcar. That’s on top of continuing to grow bus service.
Can the half-cent sales tax pay for all of it?
Transit tax critics believe the Charlotte Area Transit System will either need more money or will cut bus service to pay for it. They question how the transit tax can support a transit plan that’s grown from $1 billion in 1998 to now $8.9 billion.
CATS says it can – so long as the projects are spaced over 30 years. Much of the transit plan’s cost increase is due to CATS projecting expenses and revenues over 30 years, while the original plan was only using 1998 dollars.
“This has all been vetted several times,” said CATS chief executive Ron Tober of the long-range plan approved by the Metropolitan Transit Commission in November 2006. “It’s a very good financial model.”
The most important part of Charlotte’s long-range transit plan is the half-cent sales tax. In forecasting future tax revenues, CATS has been conservative, projecting it will grow at an annual rate smaller than Atlanta’s transit tax has grown over the past three decades.” …and… “David McDonald, a planner with CATS, notes that since the most recent long-term financial forecasts were made, the sales tax here has done better than projected.
Tober said the sales tax projections were scrutinized by Wachovia and Bank of America.”
Turns out they were wrong and we were right. And it further turns out that, instead of living within a smaller half-cent budget, local officials are hell bent on reaching over into property tax revenue to pay for trains.
Do you truly think this no great matter of import? Please convince me it is, because I’m as tired of the issue as you are — probably several times more.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
It all goes to the 70% vote on the half-cent repeal. That gave rail backers a pretty sticky 20% electoral margin to work with before any public skepticism begins to build again to any kind of critical level (and demographic changes within the county will further forestall this). They figure this is their chance to push through everything on the wish list.