Month: January 2009

County commissioners’ meeting is only 50 minutes late starting. When they filed in, Bill James was mobbed by a TV camera and 2 or 3 other press types. So I wandered over, and asked if he had used his recorder-disguised-as-pen that he got at a “spy store” to tape the closed session, which he’s been threatening to do. He swears he didn’t. (A bad cellphone photo is above.) Let me just say Mont Blanc it isn’t.

CATS honcho John Muth gave a presentation to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission on Monday, detailing the most recent projections for budget cuts by the Charlotte Area Transit System. Here’s a link to a pdf version of his PowerPoint.

If you went to the December Metropolitan Transit Commission meeting (of course you did, and it was the highlight of your holiday season) you’ve already seen Muth’s PowerPoint presentation. But for the rest of us it was a good summation of what they’re looking at.

Note in particular the graph on slide 3, showing the old 10-year projections of transit sales tax income, and the new 10-year projection, based on the most recent few months. Ouch!

Note also, on slide 7, that CATS has submitted $295 million in requests for funding from the Obama stimulus bill. Muth pointed out it’s highly unlikely CATS will get $295 million. But if you never ask …

If you’ll recall, on Dec. 16 in “What University City needs,” I referred to a study by the UNC Charlotte Center for Real Estate about housing and real estate in the University City area. University City Partners commissioned the study.

I’ve finally got a link to the report, if you’ve got a yen to burrow in. Here’s the link. The study says it “evaluates the need for greater diversity across product types in the University City housing market. It also explores ways to encourage the production of higher–end housing through collaboration between the public and private sectors.”

Here’s one interesting tidbit about what homebuyers are seeking: “Interestingly, proximity to UNC Charlotte was identified as an amenity only for employees of the university. Athletic, cultural, and educational opportunities available at the university were rarely cited on their own as important factors to homebuyers.”

Also pay attention to the sections on pages 8 and 9 about knowledge-based workers, a.k.a. the creative class. They prefer mixed-use, urban neighborhoods over homogenous suburbia, and tend to shun newly developed mixed-use neighborhoods because they feel contrived and lack “authenticity.”

That doesn’t bode well for U.C.’s hopes to attract the creative class. The area is total suburbia. Even if its new development is on a more urban pattern — stores and homes not separated, apartments aren’t sequestered from single-family houses and everything is closer than in conventional suburbia — it isn’t going to be “organic” for decades.

Quick disclaimer: I haven’t read the whole report. It IS a workday, after all, and my regular job (editorial board member, op-ed columnist, etc.) nips at my heels. But I wanted to offer the full report to those interested.

Aaron Houck, in the January Charlotte Viewpoint (online magazine) asks: Does rapid transit subsidize sprawl? He concludes it does, sort of. (Also in this issue, Mark Peres — dubbed one of Seven to Watch by the Observer’s Local Desk late last year– muses about business ethics.)

I’ll give you my thought on the matter later, but here’s the headline: Whatever transit might be doing to subsidize sprawl, the outerbelt is doing to the 10th degree. Building the outerbelt AND building a transit system was a truly schizophrenic approach to transportation planning.