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| Driver Danny McQueen on Tuesday, awaiting a carload of dignitaries to launch Charlotte's streetcar. The historic replica streetcars now in use would be replaced during the expansion phase with modern streetcars. Photo: Mary Newsom |
Before Tuesday morning's ribbon-cutting that launched
Charlotte’s new streetcar, it seemed appropriate to check in with Ron Tober. It
was Tober who originally proposed adding the streetcar to the larger transit
plan for Charlotte. One might even dub him the godfather of the streetcar idea.
Tober was the Charlotte Area Transit System CEO from 1999 to
2007 – the longest-serving CATS chief to date.
The original transit plan, crafted before the 1998 voter referendum that
OK’d a transit sales tax, did not include a streetcar. It roughly sketched five
corridors: South (now the Lynx Blue Line), North (the still unfunded commuter
rail to Mooresville), Northeast (being built as the Blue Line Extension),
Southeast (envisioned running roughly down Independence Boulevard), and West possibly
to the airport and possibly not.
Other than the South corridor, where the city already owned rail right of way, and the proposed extension to the northeast, it was left unclear in those early days which corridors would get bus rapid transit and which would get light rail. That did not sit well with east and
west Charlotte neighborhood champions, who clamored for rail service, not bus rapid transit.
In 2004, Tober proposed a streetcar to connect east and west
Charlotte. It would run in rails along Beatties Ford Road, through uptown, and out
Central Avenue to Eastland Mall, which at that time was open, he reminded me Tuesday morning. The streetcar idea was adopted into the 2006 transit plan update.
Some background: The newly opened 1.5-mile streetcar segment
is not funded with the county’s half-cent sales tax for transit. That money
goes to the Blue Line, the Blue Line Extension and to run the bus system. Not
enough revenue has come in to pay to build more of the 2030 transit plan. (See New CATS chief faces funding questions.) The first streetcar leg was built with a $25
million federal grant and $17 million in funds from the city of
Charlotte. A hoped-for 2.5-mile expansion would cost
$150 million, paid with $75 million in federal dollars and the rest from city
money.
My conversation with Tober:
Me: What made you
think “streetcar”?
Tober described a process in which CATS planners were
studying major investments, and looked at the bus routes with highest ridership:
the No. 9 on Central Avenue and the No. 7 on Beatties Ford topped the list, he
said. “So why aren’t we doing something
up in there? That was a big question mark for me.” At a 2002 transit conference he saw a presentation
on the then-new Portland, Ore., streetcar. He saw that a streetcar could spur
development, potentially reduce operating expenses because it carries more
riders per trip, and create connectivity between east and west Charlotte. “That
was the rationale.”
Me: Why’d it take so
long to build the streetcar?
Tober: “Money.”
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| Art at the streetcar shelters along East Trade Street. |
Me: Did you suspect the sales tax should have
been higher?
Tober: “I really thought the half-cent would be
enough.” The 2009 economic downturn was
more severe than anyone projected, he said. That threw off the revenue
projections for years.
Me: Compare operating
expenses – not cost to build – between buses and a streetcar. (Streetcars run
in the street, with traffic, unlike light rail which has its own dedicated lane
or rail path.)
Tober: Because a streetcar has higher capacity you can
reduce the frequency, which saves labor costs for drivers. Seventy percent of CATS’
budget is labor. But CATS wouldn’t notice
any big changes in operating costs until it could convert all of bus route 7
and 9 to streetcar. That would also
eliminate the layover time at the transportation center uptown.
We walked over to the Transportation Center on East Trade
Street, where the roar of the bus engines and hissing of brakes made for a gritty
– and noisy – series of speeches by dignitaries, including U.S. Transportation
Secretary Anthony Foxx, who as Charlotte mayor had championed the still-controversial
streetcar. Tuesday, even some streetcar skeptics
and opponents were on hand for the celebration. Tober stood quietly, almost
unnoticed, in the crowd.
