Author: marynewsom

Transit update from the Triangle

Interesting e-mail exchange a few days ago with Brad Schulz, communications officer for Triangle Transit, about what happens next in the places that won permission from the General Assembly to hold votes on adding a sales tax for transit. Schulz was a longtime broadcast journalist in Charlotte, mostly for WBT radio, who left to work for CATS 2000-2003 and joined Triangle Transit in the Research Triangle Park in 2003.

The new law says large counties can put a half-cent sales tax to a vote of the people; smaller ones get the option for a vote on a quarter-cent sales tax. County commissioners would have to decide to put the issue on the county ballot. And I haven’t met a politician yet who thinks this year is a good one to take such a question before the voters – especially after the legislature recently popped a 1-cent sales tax increase on us to balance the state budget. But longer term, who knows?

Schulz wrote me, “It’ll be up to commissioners in Wake, Orange and Durham counties to call for a referend(um) (a) when they feel the time is right economically and when each county has a transit plan they feel adequate to answer future needs. … Triangle Transit is assisting the counties with financial modeling right now on what sales taxes could be raised with a ½ cent and what the counties could provide in ramped-up bus service (much like CATS did) as it planned for light rail.

“The sales taxes would go for bus and rail improvements in the 2015-2025-2030 time frame for construction/completion (remember if you’re going in the federal queue [for funding] it usually takes 10-12 years from plan/design/construct/opening.

“BTW… it doesn’t take all three counties moving in tandem to begin bus and rail improvements. If one or two said yes and the other/others said no, we could still move forward with planning for that county.

But, one caveat is that all of the county plans should also fold into a rational regional transit plan that would one day allow us to connect Chapel Hill with North Raleigh with 51 miles of rail. Light rail is the preferred mode, instead of the diesel units we looked at before, for energy/fossil fuel/environmental-sustainability reasons.

A 29-member citizens commission reported out last spring that the region should be ready to go it alone if there were no federal funds available. The bill as passed … would allow for 25% state funding – with that precedent set by NCDOT with the CATS Lynx South Corridor Project.

” … Chances are that the Chambers (of Commerce) would be leading the charge for the ½ cent sales tax along with the business community. BTW… the owners and tenants association of the Research Triangle Park also agreed to raise their taxes in the park to help pay for transit improvements. “

‘Kudzu Jesus’ – De-Vine?

I was all set to write about the plans for a transit-tax referendum in the Triangle (stay tuned, I’ll get to that later today) when, upon researching the News & Observer’s stories on transit I found, instead, the story about Raleigh’s Kudzu Jesus.

What can I say? It’s August. We live in Kudzu Country, the South. Here’s a link to the article, and you can check out the photo, by reporter Josh Shaffer, above.

It’s a spot where the kudzu has climbed across a wire. Says reporter Shaffer, “From the rear, he looks like Christ the Redeemer, the 100-foot statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro from a pointed mountaintop.” It’s just off Raleigh’s Boylan Avenue bridge.

Random act of nature? A message from on high? Your call.

Let’s talk window shopping

The Caldwell Street item sparked some interesting back-and-forth (here’s a link) about whether one-way or two-way makes much of a difference for pedestrian comfort.

One commenter points out that the newly reconfigured intersection of Stonewall and Caldwell is so wide that it isn’t pedestrian friendly (or bicycle friendly or even motorist friendly) at all. Others say sidewalk width and street-level retail are more important.
Here’s my take: They’re all important.

If the sidewalk is narrow (one commenter mentions Seventh Street uptown between Seventh Street Station parking deck and Tryon) pedestrians will be turned off.

If there’s nothing interesting to look at – that is, if you’re walking on a wide sidewalk but you’re going past a vacant corporate plaza, a surface parking lot, a parking deck, a blank office wall, or even windows into office buildings – pedestrians will be turned off.

And if the cars are zooming past, as they tend to do on one – way streets when the lights are timed to let you cruise at 35 and hit them all green – then pedestrians will be turned off.

So reverting one-way to two-way is a good first step but if it’s the only step it may be a waste of time. I continue to maintain that street-level retail shopping (or as the late jeweler and City Council member Al Rousso used to cry, “Window-shopping! We need window-shopping!”) is what’s key for uptown, and it’s going to be incredibly difficult to achieve because:

• We’ve spent two decades demolishing storefront buildings until the few that remain are too far from each other to create any retail synergy.

• The city’s uptown zoning still allows new development without street-front retail. It requires ground-floor retail, not street-front. Thus we get Founder’s Hall and the shops inside office towers. To window-shop requires leaving the sidewalks and streets entirely. Unless you’re in an urban scene as dense with stores and lively sidewalks as, say, New York or Paris, that’s anti-urban.

This Monday: Caldwell goes two-way


More back to the future: Several uptown streets are being converted from one-way to two-way.

This is, by and large, a good thing. One-way streets encourage driving fast, which is fine for highways but inside cities is A) More dangerous for pedestrians, B) More dangerous for drivers and C) Makes city streets feel like roads instead of city streets.

Below is a snippet from last week’s memo to City Council, saying that Caldwell Street, from Fourth Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (formerly Second Street) switches to two-way traffic by noon Monday.

Brevard Street is due for similar treatment, from Stonewall to Trade streets. Update: the section of Brevard from Stonewall to MLK Boulevard will convert in May 2010, and the segment from MLK to Trade will switch in 2011 – some right-of-way issues will delay that segment, says CDOT Chief Danny Pleasant.

Here’s the memo:

Beginning Monday, August 17, traffic patterns will change on South Caldwell Street between Fourth Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Starting at 9:00 a.m., crews will begin changing Caldwell Street from a one-way street to a two-way street. The conversion is expected to be complete by noon.
This conversion to two-way traffic is part of the Center City Transportation Plan adopted by the City Council in 2006, and has been implemented as part of the interchange and street modifications associated with the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Later phases will also convert Brevard Street between Stonewall and Trade to two-way traffic. The changes will improve traffic circulation in the area and improve accessibility and safety for pedestrians.

Bigger than Charlotte, bigger than Atlanta …

Megaregions.

If you haven’t heard the term before, you’ll be hearing it more. I wrote about the idea briefly last March. (Link is here.)

Yesterday and today a group of mayors – including Charlotte’s Pat McCrory and Atlanta’s Shirley Franklin – plus academics, business executives and others from the Char-Lanta corridor gathered to talk about whether this giant region should start looking at itself as one connected whole, rather than disconnected municipalities and states. Not surprisingly, they agreed to keep talking.

Mega-region is a somewhat new term for the idea that U.S. metro areas are clumped in larger multi-state regions, each operating in many ways as one economic entity, and that addressing environmental, transportation and economic issues requires looking beyond municipal and state boundaries. The so-called Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion stretches from Birmingham to Raleigh (I-20 and I-85 are key connecting threads) and, they say, should be viewed as one large urban region.

Mayors at this meeting were McCrory, Franklin, Jennie Stultz of Gastonia and Robert Reichert of Macon.

Several action items emerged from the meetings (journalists were not allowed in to cover the discussion sessions):

1. The mayors agreed to short-term lobbying to press Washington for money for high-speed rail through the corridor as well as money to replace the Yadkin River bridge on I-85.

2. They’ll meet again in October, probably in Greenville-Spartanburg.

3. They’ll launch scenario planning to try to glimpse what the megaregion would look like with or without a large-scale regional vision.

4. They’ll look to UNC Charlotte, Clemson and Georgia Tech to help develop an organizational structure to keep the group intact.

Look for more coverage from the Observer’s Bruce Henderson, but here are a few quick tidbits from a noon press conference today:

– The day’s best quote came from Catherine Ross of Georgia Tech’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development and author of “Megaregions: Planning for Global Competitiveness.” Ross was one of the architects of the event. “My grandma said, ‘You have to put it on the ground where the chickens can get it.’ ” In other words, it’s a complicated concept and to help people understand it you have to put it out for them so they can start to learn it.

– Mayor Robert Reichert of Macon declared with enthusiasm: “You’re catching a glimpse of the future.” He noted, however, that “if you think Atlanta and Charlotte are gonna have a lovefest and not compete from now on … ” well, he said, that won’t happen. But cooperation and competition can co-exist.

Several times, the mayors said that in their view, mayors are better positioned than governors to work together on such urban issues. In an interview Tuesday, Georgia Tech’s Harry West said, “Georgia’s governor right now is like a one-armed paper hanger.” In other words, busy with multiple priorities.

Interested in learning more? Here are some links:
– Georgia Tech’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development’s megaregions research page.
-Urban Land Magazine’s “Think Global, Act Megaregional” (July 2006) by William Hudnut.
– “Think Locally, Act Regionally” from the Brookings Institution.

About that ‘new’ transit tax …

You’ll remember the taken-out-of-context flap earlier this year about whether the N.C. legislature should add Mecklenburg to a bill that would let all the other N.C. counties ask their voters whether they wanted to levy a small sales tax to support transit.

Plenty of local blowhards both in local news media and elsewhere acted as if the request to be included was the same as actually imposing a higher tax. That, of course, was either deliberate mischaracterization or, to be kinder, incredibly sloppy reporting. The bill lets voters (in other counties) decide whether to tax themselves.

Anyway, it seems the bill (House Bill 148, which does not include Mecklenburg) is about to pass the legislature (it’s on tonight’s calendar), giving counties in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) and the Triad (Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem) a go-ahead, if they wish, to seek voter approval for a half-cent sales tax for transit systems there. All other counties (except Mecklenburg) can seek voter OK for a quarter-cent sales tax increase.

This is mostly good news, although transit supporters in Mecklenburg had wanted to be included. They wanted to have a tool in the toolkit of transit-funding options so they wouldn’t have to expend the time and effort to do what Mecklenburg did in the 1990s: get a special, local bill giving us the authority for a 1998 transit tax referendum. Mecklenburgers still could seek such a special bill from the General Assembly if they wanted to.

The good news is that surrounding counties such as Cabarrus and Iredell are now free to seek local taxing approval if they want to extend the proposed Northeast or North transit corridors beyond Mecklenburg’s borders.

Here’s a summary from Boyd Cauble, the executive assistant to City Manager Curt Walton, sent to City Council last Friday. (I tried for a link to his memo but couldn’t manage it. If anyone can find the thing online, please share the link.)

Intermodal Transit Tax
The House passed a transit funding bill (H148) in April and some questioned whether the bill would be approved by the Senate. Last Wednesday, the Senate voted 37-9 to allow the Triad and the Triangle to have the ½ cent sales tax authority for transit which Mecklenburg currently has. Additionally, H148 allows every other county in N.C., except Mecklenburg, to levy a ¼ cent tax for transit upon voter approval.

The Triangle area did an excellent job of soliciting support from over 100 separate groups and a cross section of bipartisan support in the legislature. Prior to the Senate vote, Senator [Malcolm] Graham and Senator [Charlie] Dannelly [both Mecklenburg Democrats] explored ways to honor the MTC [Metropolitan Transit Commission] and City Council’s request to include Mecklenburg in H148. Unfortunately, adding an additional taxing authority in the bill would have been considered a “material amendment” requiring five additional days for approval. The amendment alternative was abandoned because it would have jeopardized the bill’s passage this session.

Not joining the other 99 counties in getting additional voter authority to fund future transit is very disappointing, but it is comforting to know that now Cabarrus, Iredell, and other adjoining counties have the authority to fund extensions of Mecklenburg’s transit corridors.
Representative [Becky] Carney [Mecklenburg Democrat], H148 primary sponsor, said she has the support of her colleagues to push for Mecklenburg inclusion for additional funding in the future, if local transit supporters and elected officials get behind the movement.

What’s wrong with Wright Avenue?

One more thing, before I head away for a week’s furlough. (Look for Naked City to resume on Aug. 10):

City Council member Susan Burgess had a good quip at Monday’s council transportation committee meeting. They were discussing Wright Avenue, a street where the houses were built and sold with Wright Avenue addresses (see photo above), but that block of Wright Avenue was never built before the developer defaulted. (See “The mysterious case of Charlotte’s missing street.”)
The city is trying to decide what it should do. Among the issues are public safety (can police and firefighters find houses with Wright Avenue addresses when there is no Wright Avenue in front of them?), cost, design of said street, who foots the bill and what kind of precedent to set for any future developers who similarly strand homeowners.
Among the options:

1. Build a street on the taxpayers’ dime.

1.A. Build a street and follow the city’s own connectivity rules and connect the new street to the rest of Wright Avenue. That will cost more, because it involves crossing a creek. This is the option the homeowners prefer, although it will destroy the trees and shrubs separating their property from the adjacent Charlotte Swim & Racquet Club surface parking lot.

1B. Build a street but make like a developer and jettison connectivity in order to save money, and thus build a cul-de-sac instead of crossing the creek. Again, the green buffer vanishes.

2. Enlarge the alley behind the homes to allow emergency vehicles access.

3. Build a sidewalk in front of the houses so the residents can walk to the corner of Lomax Avenue and leave the area in front of them green, like a small park. This is the option the swim club prefers.

No decisions were made. But council member Nancy Carter suggested an inexpensive step to help with the problem of police not being able to find the part of Wright Avenue that doesn’t exist, or if it gets built, that doesn’t connect to the rest of Wright Avenue: Consider renaming that part of the street.

Upon which, council member Susan Burgess muttered, “What about ‘Wrong Avenue’?”

Politics and East Charlotte

Several things were clear at the candidates’ forum in East Charlotte on Tuesday night:

• Most of the candidates, Democrat and Republican alike, had figured out the P.C. answers for this crowd, for instance, “I support the streetcar.”

• Democracy is thriving in the City Council races: 15 candidates (seven Republicans, seven Democrats and one Libertarian) are running for four at-large council seats. In three council districts (1, 2 and 5) Democratic incumbents have Democratic challengers.

• Few candidates were willing (or knowledgeable enough?) to offer truly specific proposals on such issues as how you’d bring more economic development to the area.

The forum Tuesday included all the at-large candidates except Republican Jerry Drye, and all the candidates for districts 1, 4, and 5 except District 4 candidate Gail Helms, a Republican.

Because of the huge line-up of at-large candidates, the format didn’t allow much time for extensive answers, which in many ways was a blessing, though it left the audience with precious few specifics from candidates – not that many candidates typically offer them anyway.

Here’s a brief rundown:

• All but Libertarian at-large candidate Travis Wheat said they supported a proposed building code ordinance for nonresidential buildings.

• None supported the idea of requiring affordable housing in all developments as a way to ensure that it’s spread throughout the city. We have too much “affordable” housing already seemed to be the general sentiment.

• Everyone supported the proposed streetcar from Beatties Ford Road to Eastland Mall except Wheat, Bob Williams (D), Darrin Rankin (D), Craig Nannini (R) and Matthew Ridenhour (R).

• The proposed city landlord registry drew mixed responses with several candidates – Dave Howard (D), Edwin Peacock (R) and Jaye Rao (R) – saying “yes but with some work.” Others favored it except for Nannini, Rankin, Ridenhour and Wheat.

• The most fireworks came not from candidates but from the heavens. A torrential thunderstorm briefly knocked out the lights in the Hickory Grove Recreation Center, drawing more gasps from the crowd than any of the politicans’ remarks.

• Best slogan: Jaye Rao, trying to help people pronounce her name correctly (It rhymes with pow): “Vote now for Rao – like, wow!”

• Best schtick: Craig Nannini holding up a photo of his newborn son, who’s now 11 weeks old, as a way to talk about what’s important.

Update on majestic (or not) train station

In last night’s post I noted a friend’s complaint about upkeep at Charlotte’s Amtrak station on North Tryon Street, but I wasn’t sure who was responsible for maintenance. Got this response at 5:19 a.m. from Patrick Simmons, head of the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Rail division:

Norfolk Southern owns the station and Amtrak is the responsible tenant. … Thank you for sharing the rider/reader report. By copy of this e-mail I will pass it along to our Amtrak contacts and ask that they address the issues promptly. … Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

And here’s a note of clarification: The photo I used was of the historic old Seaboard Coast Line station. It’s on North Tryon Street but closer to uptown than the not-so-majestic Amtrak building we now must use. I couldn’t find an Observer file photo showing the current Amtrak station, which is not what you’d call photogenic. The historic old station is now used by the Urban Ministry Center.

I intended for the photo of the historic station to refer to the link I posted to an article about majestic train stations all over the country, many of them demolished years ago, like Charlotte’s Southern Railway station on West Trade Street. I have a drawing over my desk from the late Jack Boyte depicting the old Southern terminal. I couldn’t find a usable photo of it, either.

The majestic (or not) train station

A Raleigh friend called me the other day to tell about his experience driving to Charlotte recently to pick up a friend arriving on Amtrak from the south. The train, if it’s on time, arrives here at 1:38 a.m. He was dismayed at the poor upkeep at the Amtrak station on North Tryon street.

(Above: Historic Seaboard station on North College, now owned by the Urban Ministry Center.)

He reports: Both the TVs on the wall in the waiting room were broken. (How hard is it, he asks, to get on a ladder and remove a broken TV?) There’s a big sign, he said, but it wasn’t lit. And there was no lighting in the parking lot. “I was just amazed,” he reports. After all, it’s a place hundreds of people go through every week. And given the schedule for the Crescent train (southbound arrives at 2:20 a.m. daily, northbound at 1:38 a.m.) that people will be arriving in the middle of the night.

Since it’s after 5, I’ve not been able to ascertain who owns and operates the station, whether the N.C. DOT’s rail division, or Amtrak, although I suspect it’s NCDOT. I’ve e-mailed Patrick Simmons of the N.C. DOT rail division and will update this tomorrow when I hear back from him.

This observation about the bleak conditions at Charlotte’s train station coincides with a recent piece in the Economist about the great passenger rail stations of the past – many of them, like Charlotte’s, demolished in the last half of the 20th century. Follow the link to read it.

It’s in the works for the state to build a new train station on West Trade Street uptown, near Johnson & Wales University, to be used by Amtrak and the proposed commuter rail to north Mecklenburg. Maybe the new station will be more like the grand terminals of old, and less like the squat, dilapidated Amtrak station we’ve had to use for almost 50 years now.

Interesting candidate forum last night in East Charlotte. I’ll offer more thoughts tomorrow, when there’s more time to write.