Has Charlotte’s $13.5 billion transit plan reached the end of the line?

CHARLOTTE — Charlotte’s $13.5 billion mobility plan is stalled. To say the least.

Three years after it was unveiled by city leaders, the plan currently has the unequivocal support of five of 11 Charlotte City Council members and Mayor Vi Lyles. Four council members told CBJ they do not support the plan; two more say they support it if adjustments can be made to the mix of projects, which would in the end be a different plan.

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All agree there’s little chance of advancing its key funding mechanism — an additional 1 cent sales tax that requires state legislative approval — until the city gets its existing transit system in order.

That is where the consensus ends.

“The old plan that we’ve slapped new coats of paint on and rebranded for the last 20 years is the same thing that’s brought us to this nonstarter moment that we’re in. … The underlying issue is you need a new plan that is roads first,” Council Republican Tariq Bokhari said. “It doesn’t mean you can’t look at light rail and stuff like that.”

While Bokhari is deeply skeptical of Charlotte making enough changes to the $13.5 billion blueprint to win over state lawmakers, several of his colleagues see formidable but solvable differences of opinion with the N.C. General Assembly.

Even Lyles sees need for changes. “One of my hopes is that, while we’re doing this, we do a little bit more work on the idea of where people live and where they work and do some of that data analysis so that we continue to work on the plan and fine-tune it,” she told CBJ.

Ed Driggs, one of the council’s two Republicans, leads the city’s transportation committee. He said that up-or-down questions about spending $13.5 billion with more than half the total amount going to a new light-rail line skews the discussion and leaves little room for negotiation. His approach has been to begin establishing a starting point for conversations on transportation with state leaders that emphasizes mutual interests.

As an example, Driggs noted that neither roads nor transit projects alone can solve congestion and mobility needs; part of the compromise, he believes, lies within the sequencing of when projects are built. Light-rail lines, with many required incremental steps for design and engineering, can share the stage, so to speak, with adding roads or expanding them, which could be done sooner.

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And that is the viewpoint of one of the council members who CBJ counted as a yes to supporting the current mobility plan. Read the full story here to see which council members still back the plan, what issues they’re concerned about and where changes might be made.