 National Association of Counties * Washington, D.C. Vol. 31, No. 17 * September 13, 1999 Previous story | Table of Contents | Next story
Transit Secret: Promise Less, Deliver More By Neal R. Peirce
(Neal Peirce is a syndicated columnist who writes about local government issues. His columns do not reflect the opinion of County News or NACo.) Can a quality public transit system be shoehorned into a sprawling, traffic-plagued Sunbelt region? Is there any point in trying? Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County leaders think so. So do Mecklenburg’s voters. By a 58 percent margin last November, they approved adding a half-cent onto the local sales tax to make it possible. With the new cash ($1 billion over 25 years), the region’s getting ready to build five major new rail and busway lines, running on exclusive rights-of-way that parallel today’s clogged interstates and major arterials. Just as important as the transit lines, charlotte has identified smarter land use – more compactness, less sprawl – as its key to 21st century competitiveness and quality of life. Why all this bother? The Charlotte region has the fourth fastest-growing traffic congestion rate among American regions. Even with programmed road improvements, some of its major commuting corridors could deteriorate to virtual gridlock in coming years. The pattern’s a familiar one, echoed across America – low density, dispersed, scattershot development creates ever-greater driving distances between the places people live, work, shop and play. The reason’s obvious enough: decades of letting developers and traffic engineers call all the shots, creating a mess of isolated land uses and “cul-de-saced” subdivisions feeding onto ever-more-clogged connecting roads. “It’s the downfall of Sunbelt cities – only one way in and one way out,” says Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. “If you have a friend in the next neighborhood – you gotta take a car, no way to walk there. Have to drive out to the main road, left turn to get out, and then left turn in.” Charlotte’s goal for years has been to focus growth close to the major transportation corridors heading out to the region’s ring cities. But while 60 percent of the region’s jobs are now close to the corridors, only a quarter of proposed new commercial development is targeted along them. The fear: Congestion triggered by ever-lengthening drives might choke off Charlotte’s hitherto-remarkable prosperity. For Charlotte, the town that used moxie and smarts to come from obscurity to a major national banking center, the idea of losing its future to traffic jams is just plain unacceptable. Not that its traffic worries are anything new. In the mid-90s it tried a blue-ribbon transportation committee to define future needs. The group did some heavy-duty thinking about future needs and costs. But it cratered when politicos saw the price tag. Then Charlotte-Mecklenburg political waters were roiled by a rise of conservative new politicians, Republican McCrory included. Did that doom transit ideas? No way. With traffic worsening yearly, several of the new conservatives, McCrory included, saw that new answers, transit included, were needed. So what makes the Charlotte approach special? Maybe that it does not promise dramatic reduction of cars on the road, or to be a cure for congestion. What is promised, for city dwellers and suburbanites alike, is a future with expanded choices of where to live, how to get to work or to other critical destinations. By offering choice rather than dictating, proponents deftly avoided the “social engineering” charge that’s so often thrown at people who question today’s forms of suburban development. A second point of modesty: opting for exclusive busways rather than rapid rail on three of the five major new transit corridors. Buses are less “sexy” than light rail. They have to be rescued from the political stigma that they’re just for low-income people. But a busway is much cheaper, and faster to build, than light rail. And more flexible: Buses can pick up riders on neighborhood streets, then move onto the exclusive lanes for long hauls, and then onto downtown or employment center streets. What’s more, an exclusive busway can always be converted to light rail. What’s really critical is the quality of the buses and reliability of the service. In one way, Charlotte’s plan is bold. It’s a huge step toward transportation mobility in a highly urban county, Mecklenburg. But it’s also modest. It purposely avoids damning cars or promising to end congestion. Instead it offers choices – convenient busways and rail lines for people who want them, a land use pattern of convenient villages and office centers at transit stops in which almost everyone can find some advantage. Coping with America’s thorniest traffic quandaries, this is not a bad way to get rolling. ( c ) 1999, Washington Post Writers Group |
