STATESVILLE — Iredell County Commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday not to help fund a $452 million rail line that was set to run from downtown Charlotte to just a mile over the Iredell County line.
Commissioners said they worried the project would end up costing much more money and wouldn’t create the economic development rail proponents anticipate.
The Red Line would have been the second of five transit routes planned to serve downtown Charlotte. Connecting Huntersville, Cornelius, and Davidson to “uptown” Charlotte, the line would have ended one mile into Iredell County, just short of Mooresville.
“We’re being asked to share the cost on 25 miles, with only one mile benefiting Iredell County,” said Iredell County Commissioner Renee Griffith. “When it comes time to extend the line further into Iredell County, do you think Mecklenburg County’s going to come back and help us pay for it?”
The Red Line is supposed to get 25 percent of its funding from the state, 25 percent from the Charlotte Area Transit System and half from the seven local governments touched by it — Mecklenburg County, Iredell County, Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson, and Mooresville.
Griffith said she has no doubt the line will cost more than projected and believes it will cause blight rather than economic development.
“Historically, no rail project ever finishes on budget, she said. “Every rail project in this country has gone over budget. The average they run over is 104 percent. There is absolutely no data to support that this project would be any different.”
“So when, not if, the project runs over budget what will we do?” Griffith asked. “You either increase taxes or stop the rail where you run out of money, which means the track will never come into Iredell County.”
If that happens, she said, the commissioners will feel obligated to “fork out” the remaining $30, $40 or $50 million to finish it.
“Then we’ll have to increase property taxes all over the county.”
According to the plan, Iredell would cover its portion of the costs by imposing an additional property tax on businesses located near the tracks. Iredell County’s property tax rate now is 48 cents per $100 valuation. Properties located near the Red Line would pay an additional 75 cents.
“We have to give companies incentives to come to Iredell County, not disincentives,” Griffith said.
Commissioners said they would reconsider signing onto the project if their concerns are addressed.
“They need to show us a business plan that works,” Griffith said. “They need to give us the value of the property now and what the value will be after the improvements. There have been no numbers presented. In a business plan, you have numbers.”
Griffith said she also wants a list of companies interested in locating along the rail line. “What industry are they targeting? What commercial developer? What residential developer has committed to come to this area?”
David Hartgen, emeritus professor of Transportation Studies at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said a better use for Iredell and Mecklenburg counties’ money would be to widen Interstate 77, which the Red Line would parallel about a mile to the east.
Most of the area’s development already exists along the interstate and is not within walking distance of the train stops, he said. To expect a second set of businesses to pop up along the rail line is unlikely.
“There are only about 50 parcels of land along the 25-mile corridor, Hartgen said. “The tax on each of those parcels would have had to be huge to generate the $250 million needed.”
The parcels would have to be worth more than $4 billion to generate that tax value, he said. “There’s no way there’s $4 billion worth of property in that corridor, even if there were a demand to develop it.”
Hartgen also is skeptical about the Red Line’s capacity. Because there is only one track, and trains cannot pass each other, only one train can run at a time. This would limit the line’s capacity to carry commercial freight and commuters.
A two-car train can carry only about 150 passengers, removing perhaps 150 cars from the nearly 50,000 that travel the highway during morning rush hour, he said.
“The highway still will be congested,” he said. “What it needs is more lanes, not a rail line right next to it.”
“We can’t continue to throw money at projects that have a track record of failure,” Griffith said. “At some point, somebody has to get off the train and say we have to stop.”
Paul Morris, deputy secretary of transit with the N.C. Department of Transportation, characterized the Iredell County vote as a misunderstanding. “What came out of the meeting was that it was evident they did not benefit from a full presentation of the business plan and the specifics involved, clearly reflecting on a fair amount of misinformation and misunderstanding, and as a result made an abrupt decision to not support the draft in its current form,” Morris told the Huntersville Herald.
Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, who is expected to file for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in late January, could not be reached for comment on the vote. McCrory is a major proponent of light rail in Charlotte and is credited with getting the Blue Line off the ground.
Sara Burrows is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.