Save 8th Street uptown

Yes, I’m a dweeb. I’m sitting here watching the City Council meeting on TV. Just watched Mayor Pat McCrory veto a proposal for the city to buy a small convenience store in the Belmont neighborhood.

Lotta council discussion, and much of it reasonably intelligent, even when the members disagreed with each other. McCrory’s veto was the right thing to do. I wrote a column on this issue last year. I can’t link to it tonight, but will try to add a link tomorrow. Headline: The Belmont neighborhood — thanks to strategic city investments and other good efforts — is on the upswing. The private marketplace is slowly regenerating it, and those old retail buildings will help add character and a home for small business entrepreneurs. If there’s a crime problem (and with some of the old stores, there is) the solution is policing, not the buildings. The city’s money is needed in other, more desperate neighborhoods.

But here’s what inspired me to crank out this posting. They’re talking about a plan for the First Ward section of uptown, and for a park. It’s a complicated land-swap deal, and will involve a park, underground parking, a UNC Charlotte building and other good things.

BUT, and it’s a big but, council member Nancy Carter is spot on with her resistance to the proposal to close Eighth Street for the park. Uptown’s traffic can be so congested that the last thing it needs is to close off even more of its grid. And as its development continues it is going to get even more congested. The city can’t keep chipping away at connectivity uptown. Plenty of excellent parks have a small-scale street running through them, and this one could be one of them.