June 2012 – The Naked City Blog

Streetcar update: Killed, but not dead yet

Charlotte City Council just voted 6-4 for a budget that doesn’t include a $119 million expansion of the city’s streetcar project. (See my earlier post here.)

Then Mayor Anthony Foxx vetoed that vote. What happens next? The council reconsiders the veto at its next meeting – 6:30 p.m. today. It takes 7 votes to override a veto. Council member James Mitchell is not here but he has been a streetcar supporter. Unless something changes (always possible) the streetcar is not dead yet.

Must go now; Patrick Cannon is finally saying something. He’s been quiet so far.

Is a streetcar speedy? And other red herrings

Courtesy Charlotte Area Transit System

Here’s the thing about the proposed Charlotte streetcar expansion, the one the City Council today is probably going to pitch from the city’s five-year capital improvements plan. A streetcar is not only about speedy transportation. To judge it from that point of view is to miss the point almost entirely.

A streetcar is about economic development and trying to buttress the city’s tax base. Which, let me point out, grew only about 7 percent overall 2003-2011, with a frighteningly high proportion of the city’s acreage seeing declining home property values, not rising ones. (See map at end.)

That point seems to be lost amid debate about streetcar speed and the fact that it stops at traffic lights. Even my former colleagues at the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board seem to be assessing the streetcar’s value by whether it’s faster than driving, as in Sunday’s editorial, “Now is not the time to take streetcar ride,” which pooh-poohs the proposed 2.2-mile extension of the streetcar’s Phase I, a 1.5-mile segment due to start construction at the end of the year. The streetcar, it says, “would operate on regular streets, stopping for red lights and traffic congestion. It wouldn’t be faster than a bus. It would merely be a very expensive, but very pretty, bus. What the city is buying is an aesthetic.”

But lost in that analysis, and in remarks by some that a streetcar is just a toy, is this: Development reacts to streetcars very differently from the way it reacts to bus routes.

Cities all over the country have built or are building streetcars and seeing them lure development. These are not all big places like Seattle, which has seen revitalization along its South Lake Union streetcar. They’re places like Little Rock, Ark., where North Little Rock has benefited from streetcar-induced development.

If streetcars are just silly aesthetics, then a whole lot of cities are being scammed, including Tampa, Dallas, Denver, Tucson, Philadelphia and, yes, Little Rock, all of which have streetcars operating. Cities with streetcar lines under construction include Atlanta, Cincinnati and expansions in Seattle, Tucson, New Orleans and Portland, Ore.

Cities with streetcars planned but not yet built (although in some cases already funded) include Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Antonio and Fort Lauderdale.

Illogical though it may seem, people are more willing to ride public transportation on rails than city buses. I know people who’ll drive 10 or 15 minutes to park and ride the Lynx light rail to uptown Charlotte, driving past multiple bus stops on the way.

And not just riders are lured. Rail transportation brings development in a way buses don’t. After all, city buses ran regularly up and down South Boulevard for years, and still do, but development didn’t blossom in what’s South End until the nonprofit Charlotte Trolley ran a demonstration project along the rail line that today holds the Lynx.

Johnson C. Smith University president Ron Carter got it right in his piece in today’s Observer,
Streetcar would bring critical development to westside.

So love it or hate it, the streetcar should be debated based on what it would do for development, not as if its only role is to convey people along a city street. We could debate the value of trying to catalyze development along Beatties Ford Road versus other city areas, such as uptown (where the city just offered up almost $8 million in public money for a baseball stadium and the county some $28 million in similar subsidies). Others may simply think now is not the time to build a streetcar, or they may not like the way it’s funded. Those are legitimate debate points.

Would Charlotte see the development other cities have? Why or why not? How would today’s development climate affect things? Is the long-term streetcar route, planned before the death of Eastland Mall, still appropriate? For a map, click here. Is the funding City Manager Curt Walton proposed, paying for the streetcar the way the city pays for its street and road projects, appropriate? Some cities have used a combination of funding tools, such as public-private partnerships, municipal parking deck revenues and special tax districts.

Legitimate questions. Too bad so many people are focused, instead, on stoplights and speed.

____________________________

Map of city single-family property valuations 2003-2011, is below:
(For a slightly larger view, click on the image.)

And click here to see my interview this morning on Fox News Rising, discussing the streetcar.

Was light rail at root of odd council budget vote?

A source with good Charlotte City Council information tells me this morning it’s highly likely the bizarre 6-5 City Council vote Monday night to spike the proposed city budget (but proposing no other budget, either) was related to an attempt in the N.C. Senate to kill any state funding for Charlotte’s Blue Line Extension project. (Click here for more on the council’s budget vote.)

The proposed Senate budget, released Monday, as reported by the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, would cut the state’s transit programs by “eliminating the New Starts Program and transferring the $28.9 million to the General Maintenance Reserve. The Charlotte light rail Blue Line Extension is the only project in the New Starts Program. The budget bill specifically says public transportation appropriations shall not be expended on any fixed guideway project in Mecklenburg County. There is an additional provision that says fixed guideway projects can compete for Highway Trust Fund dollars under the equity formula.”

What’s the connection to the city budget? My source believes the issue is Republican opposition to the city’s proposed streetcar project, which would have cost $119 million, part of the almost $1 billion, multiyear capital projects budget City Manager Curt Walton proposed. The capital program is what would have required a property tax increase of 3.6 cents per $100 in property value.

Council member Michael Barnes, a strong supporter of the BLE, which would run through his district, asked several questions during the council meeting to make Charlotte Area Transit System chief Carolyn Flowers specify publicly that the 30-year CATS plan, funded with a countywide sales tax, does not include money for the proposed streetcar project, which would come from city money only.

My source speculates that the four council members who raised barely a peep against the budget through months of council discussion and who were part of a 9-2 straw vote for it May 30, but then voted against it Monday – Barnes and at-large members Patrick Cannon, Claire Fallon and Beth Pickering – will try to get the streetcar removed from the capital budget. Why? Because influential Republicans at the state level don’t like it, and may be using the BLE as a bargaining chip. I won’t identify whom my source named as behind it until I can get that person’s comments.

And I’m seeking comment from some of those council members. Will update this when I have more information.

A new look for South Tryon Street

It’s little things like this project that will add up, over time, into a much more pleasant experience for people walking into and out of uptown Charlotte from South End and Morehead Street. Here’s a photo of the newly widened sidewalk on South Tryon Street on the bridge over the I-277 freeway.

It used to be a stark, back-of-curb concrete sidewalk where you had to choose whether to get uncomfortably close to traffic or uncomfortably close to the railing where you could look down and see where your body would splat if you leaned too far. (Technically, the railing would have protected you from falling, but the place still felt dangerous.)

The city of Charlotte oversaw a project to shrink the number of travel lanes, widen the sidewalks from 5 feet to 12 feet and add bike lanes. A few cosmetic improvements include changing the railing and adding pedestrian-scale street lights.

The project cost, including design, was $2 million. The bridge over I-277 is state-owned, so the Charlotte Department of Transportation worked with the state DOT, which had to approve the changes.

Here’s a piece I did in 2010 about the project. You can decide for yourself whether the reality looks like the drawing that envisioned the project then.

A ribbon-cutting will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday (June 19).

Photo: Courtesy of City of Charlotte

What’s next for new greenway? Consider this …

I popped in Tuesday to the public workshop on possible changes to the Interstate 77-Interstate 277 uptown freeway loop. (See “Changes ahead for uptown Charlotte freeway.”) As I looked over the maps and nosily read other folks’ comments on various sticky notes, I spotted this scrawled on a large flip chart set up for written comments:

“PLEASE put greenway connecting under Independence to connect new CPCC expansion w/Cordelia Park.”

A few feet away, I spotted Gwen Cook, the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department’s greenway planner. I asked if that was her suggestion, I asked. She chuckled and confessed..

The issue is a thorny one. You can walk on the greenway all the way from behind Park Road Shopping Center through Freedom Park, past Central Piedmont Community College and up to East Seventh Street. There, the greenway is halted by a tangle of freeway ramps going under-over-around-and-through, as I-277 meets with U.S. 74 (Independence Boulevard), forcing both Seventh Street and Central Avenue onto bridges over the freeway traffic. From the Seventh Street bridge you can see Little Sugar Creek far below, except where it’s been forced into culverts.

But as the crow flies it’s just a few hundred yards (well, maybe a little more) to where the greenway picks up again at 12th Street and heads north to Cordelia Park at North Davidson Street and Parkwood Avenue. (Here’s a link to the park department’s greenways page, with maps.)

From what Ive been told, there’s no official plan at this point for how to connect the segments. So, I asked Cook, what would you really like to see? Her idea: Build an iconic bridge that would weave over and under the highway ramps and lanes.

I can almost see it now – a visually splendid bridge soaring and swooping across the chasm of highway, with bright colors and sharp design. Other cities have found donors or tourism tax dollars to build one-of-a-kind bridges. (Click here to see the Greenville, S.C., pedestrian bridge) Below is the Santiago Calatrava-designed Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay in Redding, Calif., built with help from a local foundation. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

No TOD for you!

Have you noticed that huge lot being cleared and graded on Woodlawn Road between Old Pineville Road and Interstate 77, about a half-mile from the light rail stop? Curious whether that part of the city is finally going to see some true-to-the-plan development designed with transit in mind, I asked city planner Kent Main what was up

Main led the Woodlawn Transit Station Area Plan process that resulted in this document, adopted in October 2008. The plan calls for “Transit-Oriented Development-Employment” for much of the area in the so-called Transit Station. It says: “New development within the Transit Station Area should have uses, intensity, site and facade design, and transportation elements that are consistent with the Transit Station Area Principles outlined in the Introduction to South Corridor Station Area Plans.” Here’s a link to that document.

The station area principles document says: “Transit Station Areas are higher density areas within a 1/2 mile walk of an existing or planned rapid transit station. They typically provide a mixture of pedestrian-oriented housing, employment and retail services designed to promote travel to and from them on transit.”

On page 11 it goes into even more detail. Among other things, it says, development in the station areas should “disallow automobile-dependent uses, such as automobile sales lots, car washes and drive-thru windows.” Further, it says, transit-oriented development in these areas should:

– Orient buildings to front on public streets or open spaces.
– Minimize setbacks and locate parking to the rear.
– Provide windows and doors at street level and minimize walking distance to entrances.

Buildings designed and situated in those ways make an area easier and more attractive to navigate on foot. That helps make it possible for people to live near a station, walk to nearby shopping, take light rail to work or to get uptown. In other words, in the long run people who live in those areas don’t need to drive as much – saving them money and helping ease the upward trajectory of the city’s traffic congestion.

So what is being built at that cleared lot? I was hoping for a good example of new, transit-oriented design, given the adopted plans and existing conditions on that part of Woodlawn. Nearby are: a Bojangles with drive-through window, some vintage ’70s office park developments, deteriorating old chain restaurant buildings, a few motels, a handful of comparatively thriving restaurants including Azteca and Carolina Prime and three or four gas station/convenience stores. It’s predictable highway-oriented commercial development circa 1980.

Kent Main told me the property is going to be … wait for it … a gas station/convenience store.

The site was never rezoned to TOD zoning but remains zoned B-2 General Business, which allows gas stations/convenience stores. Thus the new gas station not only isn’t transit-oriented development but it didn’t even have to go through a rezoning. Main didn’t say this, but Charlotte’s B-2 zoning is not only not transit-oriented, but it’s suburbanized city planning standards from the disco era, nothing that most of today’s planners would be recommending for such a location.

In an email, Main explained: “We did not rezone these station areas, relying on the carrot of higher density if and when TOD does become a viable opportunity.”

He noted, “The Woodlawn Transit Station Area Plan does indeed show the site as appropriate for Transit Oriented Development. In practice, given the heavy traffic on Woodlawn, the proximity of the I-77 ramps, and remoteness from the actual transit station, that is a hard sell there.”

I realize it isn’t always a good idea for the city to pro-actively rezone land in its transit station areas, and that if developers aren’t interested in (or able to get financing for) developing land, simply rezoning it may not solve that problem. I also realize sometimes you have to decide whether some development is better than no development, that those decisions may not be easy. But yet another gas station/convenience store inside a transit station area? That isn’t at all what the plans envision.