Category: York County

About that greener-looking grass in S.C. roads program

In Charlotte, a lot of local officials in the transportation world have cast envious eyes over the state line into South Carolina, where counties can enact sales taxes specifically for road projects. (No, I don’t know whether, for this program, “transportation” includes transit or bike-ped or only pavement for motor vehicles.) York County, just over the line south of Charlotte, almost 20 years ago was the first S.C. county to levy a one-penny sales tax on a program called “Pennies for Progress.” Several other counties have adopted similar taxes with similar names.

Over the years, multiple Charlotte and N.C. business leaders or transportation honchos have said, in essence, “See, if only we could levy a small sales tax for roads we could do what York County does. They get millions to use on highways and roads, and it all works out great.”

Well, maybe not so great.  Turns out there have been major cost overruns, or maybe lowball cost estimates, or both.  A citizen panel found cost overruns totaling more than $100 million and has just warned that unless the program improves it risks losing the fourth round of funding, which requires voter approval and which is set for 2017.  The three previous referendums were in 1997, 2003 and 2011.

Sometimes the green grass over on the other side of the line is a little ragged when you look at it up close.

Watch Cabarrus sprawl! And Catawba too!

OK, I’ll admit my bias. I thought Union County would be the biggest sprawl-zone in the Charlotte region. Turns out the honor may go to Lincoln County. (It depends on how you’re measuring, of course.) Here’s why I say that. As I was adding the link to my post about mountain development, I spotted something interesting on the UNCC Urban Institute website: an interactive set of maps of the counties in the Charlotte region that depict visually the development from 1976 to 2010, and projecting forward.

So I did some exploring. I started with Union County, home to Weddington, Marvin, Indian Trail and numerous other one-time crossroads just over the Mecklenburg line that have become full-fledged towns. Here’s the link. (Click on the option for interactive map.) A county that in 1976 was almost completely undeveloped (shown in green) by 2010 was fully a third covered in development. From 1976 to 2006 its population increased 171 percent, but its land area that was developed increased 878 percent. What that means, of course, is that the land was developed in a low-density pattern. And here we go again, a tidbit for fiscal conservatives: Multiple studies show lower-density, spread-out development makes delivering of government services (police/fire protection, streets, water/sewer lines and so on) far more expensive per person than a more tightly knit developmental form – you know, the way things looked before about 1970.

But then I started looking at some of the other counties in the region. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a Mecklenburg interactive map. That one would have been eye-popping, I expect. (Update 1:55 p.m. Thursday: Thanks for the help, commenters. Here’s the link to the Mecklenburg map, which was working when I checked it at 1:53 p.m. Thursday. And yep, it’s eye-popping. Interesting also, besides seeing the green disappear, to see the “protected lands” increase.)

But of those I checked (Anson, Iredell, Lincoln, Catawba, Cabarrus and York) Catawba probably had the most visibly dramatic change. Cabarrus was dramatic as well.

But this Lincoln County stat blew me away: While its population increased 86.2 percent from 1976 to 2006 its developed land area increased by 1,450 percent.

Watch Cabarrus sprawl! And Catawba too!

OK, I’ll admit my bias. I thought Union County would be the biggest sprawl-zone in the Charlotte region. Turns out the honor may go to Lincoln County. (It depends on how you’re measuring, of course.) Here’s why I say that. As I was adding the link to my post about mountain development, I spotted something interesting on the UNCC Urban Institute website: an interactive set of maps of the counties in the Charlotte region that depict visually the development from 1976 to 2010, and projecting forward.

So I did some exploring. I started with Union County, home to Weddington, Marvin, Indian Trail and numerous other one-time crossroads just over the Mecklenburg line that have become full-fledged towns. Here’s the link. (Click on the option for interactive map.) A county that in 1976 was almost completely undeveloped (shown in green) by 2010 was fully a third covered in development. From 1976 to 2006 its population increased 171 percent, but its land area that was developed increased 878 percent. What that means, of course, is that the land was developed in a low-density pattern. And here we go again, a tidbit for fiscal conservatives: Multiple studies show lower-density, spread-out development makes delivering of government services (police/fire protection, streets, water/sewer lines and so on) far more expensive per person than a more tightly knit developmental form – you know, the way things looked before about 1970.

But then I started looking at some of the other counties in the region. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a Mecklenburg interactive map. That one would have been eye-popping, I expect. (Update 1:55 p.m. Thursday: Thanks for the help, commenters. Here’s the link to the Mecklenburg map, which was working when I checked it at 1:53 p.m. Thursday. And yep, it’s eye-popping. Interesting also, besides seeing the green disappear, to see the “protected lands” increase.)

But of those I checked (Anson, Iredell, Lincoln, Catawba, Cabarrus and York) Catawba probably had the most visibly dramatic change. Cabarrus was dramatic as well.

But this Lincoln County stat blew me away: While its population increased 86.2 percent from 1976 to 2006 its developed land area increased by 1,450 percent.