The Streetcar Named Disaster
I could not let this propaganda from the Uptown Crowd’s disinformation arm go unanswered. Instead of using quotes, the verbatim text directly from the Observer editorial is unbracketed; and is copyright by the Charlotte Observer! My responses and comments to this are in [blue brackets].
The title of the Observer editorial was “Streetcar is sound strategy, not silly frill” Rejecting the project wouldn’t help ailing schools, libraries.” [I am utterly unsurprised by this editorial. This shameless newspaper never questions any scheme that the “Charlotte Center City Partners,” etc. ever comes up with! (The publisher is a member of the “Partners!”) Whatever happened to the idea of the free press being a spokesman for the people in contrast to the establishment? This project is not strategy, it’s an needless extravagance to fluff the egos of the mayor and his party members in the Charlotte City Council, and to benefit their well-established friends who will gain financially at the expense of the taxpayers. Why ultimately waste almost $500 million when buses are doing the job now? CATS doesn’t even have the money to operate this streetcar!]
Charlotte’s plans to build 1.4 miles of a 10-mile streetcar project with a $25 million federal grant and $12 million in city money has plenty of folks wondering if City Hall’s gone mad. As Mayor Anthony Foxx said, with some understatement, “I know it’s not without controversy.” [I actually came to this conclusion about Charlotte’s government long ago regarding their surfeit of overpriced white elephant projects that always come in at well over the claimed cost! However, the mayor did get it right here in observing that it would not be without controversy!]
A lot of thinking goes like this: In a recession, why spend millions on a silly uptown frill when they’re laying off teachers and closing libraries? [There are good reasons that a lot of thinking goes like this! But, also, why on earth spend millions on silly uptown frills even when there is no recession? In fact, did not projects like this contribute to Charlotte and Mecklenburg county’s particularly worse economy because of our high taxes, etc., in the first place? How much better off would we be if the governments did not squander billions on these glittering monuments to their glorious rule?]
It’s easy to understand such a reaction. But government budgets make things more complex. Further, viewing a streetcar as just a people-mover uptown misses the bigger picture. It’s a growth and development strategy. It’s fiscally prudent in the long term and will have its most positive effect in areas outside uptown. [Obviously, our city budget too much for any of us ignorant commoners to comprehend! This latest scheme is a “…growth and development strategy…?” Well, CANCER is “growth” and tumors “develop as well! It’s lower taxes and government regulations on their own that WILL reverse our downward spiral and promote growth and development in our region! In fact, every big project that the Charlotte Center City Partners and their flunkies in the city council have promoted has been called fiscally prudent! However, essentially every project has cost far more money than even their experts have claimed, and every one has wound up being a fiscal loser! The Whitewater Center cannot even meet their debt service and the taxpayers subsidize Lynx Light rides to the tune of over $15 per ride! If the local governments actually did what was “fiscally prudent,” we (city and county) would not be in the fiscal mess we are in now! The only real fiscal “prudence” here is in the probably financial support for political campaigns from the developers who actually benefit from taxpayer money!]
Let’s start with teachers, libraries and other cuts. Recession-induced shortfalls have meant closed libraries and hundreds of school layoffs. Obviously, $12 million would ease that pain. And if the $12 million could be spent to pay teachers, we’d push for that. [Do we REALLY believe that? Anyone up there on Char-Meck’s very own Mt. Olympia ever even “think” about forcing CMS to cut back on the multitude of Gorman’s “educrats,” obscenely expensive and unnecessary student bussing only for the sake of “diversity,”or cutting off the money for “Gorman TV?” How about a serious audit of the DSS?]
But the $12 million is in the city’s capital budget. It can’t help other governments with continuing costs. If the city rejected the $25 million grant and pocketed its $12 million, the federal millions wouldn’t even ease the federal deficit but would go to another city. Not a penny of the $12 million would go to hire teachers – a state and county expense – or help county-funded libraries or parks. [Fatuous flapdoodle! Is the “budget” an immutable divine mandate from Heaven?]
The city’s long-term strategy is for a 10-mile streetcar from Beatties Ford Road out Central Avenue. The vision is to lure valuable development to west and east Charlotte, which have seen precious little of it recently. That, in turn, improves tax values in those areas – which long-term adds tax revenue to city and county budgets, thus helping schools and libraries. [Is Central Avenue really going to be further “developed” by this streetcar? The east end of this route is the now defunct Eastland Mall that went to hell because of the city boss’s “long term strategy” that shortchanged law enforcement, downgraded neighborhoods, and made this once pleasant area go to pot! In fact, development would come on its own without any artificial meddling by the local government! It was local government interference and bumbling that caused the degradation of the area in the first place! Improves tax values, etc.? Claptrap! What good does all this really do with residents and businesses bailing out of this overtaxed and overregulated county and moving to less expensive and greener pastures, and where government schools are not a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare engaged in “social reengineering!” Besides, if, in fact, this project produced more income from taxes, the local governments will only find a way to squander it. It will never be used to reduce taxes for everyone else!]
Most other U.S. cities that have built streetcars or other rail transit have seen increasingly valuable development. A Portland, Ore., streetcar open since 2001 lured 4 million square feet of high-density development, a 2005 study found. A Seattle analysis of land values near its new streetcar, opened in 2007, found $68.4 million in increased property value. [IN FACT, this Portland streetcar has proven to be a big fat fiscal sinkhole that diverts money from other government functions! “Studies” can be made to produce any result the proponents want! If you want valid examples,Washington D.C. used to have streetcars and abandoned them for busses…because they created lots of problems, including serious safety issues! We also might note here that the total “carbon footprint” of trolleys and streetcars exceeds hybrid-electric busses such as might be purchased from Charlotte’s own “DesignLine!”! Even more significantly, Charlotte used to have streetcars and abandoned them for buses! The tracks were torn up, at great expense to the taxpayers, long ago!]
Charlotte itself offers a good illustration of how rail transit, as opposed to buses, lures development. That’s because rails offer permanence, which gives developers and lenders confidence to invest. Even before Charlotte’s voters OK’d a transit tax in 1998, a short trolley-ride project along a South Boulevard rail bed inspired redevelopment of Atherton Mill, the Lance Factory and other projects. As of April, development in Lynx station areas totaled more than $247 million. [Helps too when the city uses our tax money to induce (bribe) those same developers with never-ending expensive “subsidies!” How much of this development along the Lynx only happened because of taxpayer-financed subsidies? In fact, if the Light Rail actually did what is claimed, it wouldn’t need these artificial bribes to lure developers!]
Doesn’t Charlotte have better uses for $12 million, such as more police? Again, police pay is a continuing expense. So $12 million in the capital (one-time) expense budget doesn’t help. Also, the city last year added 125 new officers, 50 of them with a three-year federal stimulus grant. Even the police chief didn’t seek more officers in this year’s budget. [Can’t the annual $1.5 million that must be used to subsidize this operation better be spent elsewhere, like paying CMPD officers when the federal funny money it printed runs out? What is the real annual net loss in operating the Lynx Light Rail that must also be borne by the taxpayers at a cost of over $15 per rider? Why not just change the budget and use the $12 million to reduce our debt service or to invest for a rainy day?]
Yes, $12 million is a lot. But transportation projects are expensive. The city’s capital spending plan had a total of $139 million going to roads in the past two budget years. Voters in 2008 OK’d $170 million in street bonds, and $85 million in 2006. [How much could be accomplished without bonds if it were not wasted on frivolous “glitter palaces” like the overrated and under-attended Whitewater Center or NASCAR Hall of Fame, and other fiscal sinkholes? How much would we SAVE if we were not paying interest on these bonds?]
Just one city project – to upgrade Rea Road between Colony Road and N.C. 51, a 1-mile stretch – is budgeted at $22.5 million. [$22.5 million is what the taxpayers are being charged, but what is the actual cost of this project?]
Although the timing of the project, during a recession, makes plenty of voters upset for obvious reasons, the long-term value of the streetcar is significant. Building it in segments is smart, and it’s a strategy that’s worked in other cities, including Portland. [Stupid wasteful spending is not a “strategy!” Portland’s rail system is a big parasitic money pit!]
The city still must find $1.5 million in yearly operating costs. We hope they’ll explore innovative tools in other cities, such as tax districts and parking garage bonds. [Yup, that’s what we really need, more taxes and more borrowing to make more debt service payments! This only shrinks the economy that generates the taxes!]
Long-term, Charlotte’s [distorted] vision must be to lure denser, more cost-effective development to areas with already-built infrastructure. [We don’t have enough “denser, cost-effective development“ in the form of condominiums, etc. sitting unsold and empty already? Do they REALLY think this absurd “lipstick-on-a-pig” trolley line is going to fix the fiscal problems caused by our government’s runaway taxation and regulatory burdens? Char-Meck real estate taxes are currently about $1.40 v. about $0.90 for the Raleigh area. Can the uptown crowd learn anything from this? Do they even want to learn from this? ] Low-density sprawl sucks up large sums of public money to extend sewer lines, roads and public services over wider expanses. [So does annexation, yet the deities on our own Uptown Mt. Olympus don’t have a problem with that! In fact, this low-density “sprawl” is exactly how our own citizens have chosen to live! Who in the hell are these elected officials, so-called “public servants,” to tell us we have to live in high density housing instead?]
The streetcar may look like a frill. It isn’t. It’s a fiscally sound investment, and part of a prudent long-range strategy. [….to hopefully help fill the wallets of the developers and also the financial interest who own property along the trolley line!]
[These trolley line tracks are a hazard to anything on two legs or two wheels. This includes pedestrians who can slip and fall or trip because of the tracks, particularly when wet! Tracks are also a serious risk to runners, viz., on marathon races! They are also a hazard to motorcyclists and bicyclists, which are transportation modes we want to encourage, not discourage! The danger to two-wheelers cannot be overemphasized and are even worse when tracks are wet! When I was in my teens, I actually had an accident on a small motorcycle right in the middle of the street in Washington DC because of the streetcar tracks snagged my front tire. I wound up with a very painful burn on my leg from the exhaust!]
Mel Morganstein
Charlotte, NC
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