Matthew.Brendan

God Bless Capitalism! Long live the Free Market!

They must have toured Denver Union Station underground and been impressed with it to decide it was perfect model for Charlotte.

Nina Simone - Baltimore -1978 Beat-up little seagull On a marble stair Tryna find the ocean Lookin' everywhere Hard times in the city In a hard town by the sea Ain't nowhere to run to There ain't nothin' here for free Hooker on the corner Waiting for a train Drunk, lying on the sidewalk Sleeping in the rain And the people hide their faces And they hide their eyes 'Cause the city's dyin' And they don't know why Oh, Baltimore Ain't it hard just to live? Oh, Baltimore Ain't it hard just to live? Just to live Get my sister Sandy And my little brother Ray Buy a big old wagon To haul us all away Live out in the country Where the mountain's high Never gonna come back here 'Til the day I die Oh, Baltimore Ain't it hard just to live? Oh, Baltimore Ain't it hard just to live? Just to live

FDIC probably knows more than I do about these things. I don’t even know how to properly contextualize this information. but that’s the beauty of raw numbers and charts. even I can see that certain things are way out of wack. The point being we are in “uncharted territory” to use a cliche phrase when it comes to the economy. There’s lots of moving parts beyond just the interest rate / housing market at play.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/blackrock-recession-warning-stock-market-analysis-2023-economic-outlook-2022-12

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-boring-company-tunnel-traffic-11669658396 another good read on the subject

Fewer 4-5 floor stick apartments and more of this please and thanks.

Dunno but I am happily celebrating 3 years WFH come March. This is my soundtrack:

Really highlights just what a travesty these freeways are. Car sewers indeed.

A real shame it has to come down, but understandable when land is so scarce along N. Tryon

Well if they can build a 1428’ tower on 0.145 acres they can probably manage a hotel on 0.7

copied from the Charlotte Urbanists subreddit: Charlotte’s Bicycle Advisory Committee - Meeting Updates for Oct. 25th & Nov. 15th. Hello Charlotte, The previous Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting on October 25th was relatively uneventful, hence why I did not post anything on it. The only thing of note that happened was we voted on whether to approve the minutes of a prior meeting and then we were given a presentation from Keith Bryant, an engineer within Charlotte D.O.T., that highlighted some upcoming projects in the city’s bicycle program. The twenty-eight questions that the community has fielded to me were pushed off to the next meeting. That being said, this meeting was much more lively and carried with it some weight. Let’s discuss the highlights. 1. The Transportation Bonds Passed - What Next? Hannah Bromberger, the Strategic Mobility Division Manager of Charlotte D.O.T., mentioned that the Transportation Bond that the City of Charlotte put forth on this year’s election ballot passed. There still needs to be some processing of the votes, but the bonds should be approved soon and subsequently the bicycle program will have funds available in early 2023. The total allocation of funds for the bicycle program will be $8 million over two fiscal years (2023-2024), which is double the previous allocation. Charlotteans can expect to see their city add more bike lanes in the coming years, though it should be noted that bike paths are also being incorporated through the use of road improvement funds, maintenance funds, and coordination with developers - so that money can stretch out a lot further than you’d think. 2. The Joint Meeting between Transit Services Advisory Committee & Bicycle Advisory Committee A joint meeting is ready and happening soon between the TSAC and BAC on Thursday, December 8th at 4PM. We agreed as a committee to attend, or at the very least, send representatives to attend - I volunteered to be one of the representatives since I was one of only two members that has used my bicycle with both the bus and our train systems here in Charlotte. The goal of this joint committee is to discuss bike parking near transit stations - what that should look like, how we should implement them, if it makes sense to have bike parking in certain areas, etc. The other item is using this time to make our city workers aware of some of the deficiencies in their transit combinations - specifically the state of disrepair that some of the buses’ bike racks are in. There have been two notable incidents where I had been unable to secure my bicycle to one of the racks because of the state of disrepair the bike rack was in. The other item is the limited capacity of the bike racks - even the #9 bus, which carries 1/10th of the city’s ridership population, only has room for two bicycles, with some people having to wait for the next bus entirely in order to transport their bike. 3. What happened to the community questions y’all gave me? This one has been a source of frustration - the prior meeting was supposed to have a segment of time dedicated to answering the twenty-eight questions the community gave me about cycling in Charlotte and some repeated issues. Today, we were supposed to have another segment of time - the staff had the list of questions and I was under the impression that since the agenda allocated specifically that these items would be discussed, that we would get answers. This was not the case, however. One of the members of the committee, during the plans for drafting next year’s goals, stated that we should use this list of questions as a resource. I was then “put on the spot” and told to consult the list of twenty-eight questions and highlight which ones were worth incorporating into the agenda. I stressed that I’d be happy to do that but that I had only fielded one of these questions and that the others were the result of twenty-seven different inquiries from Charlotteans, thus stating that they should be taken into consideration and have the time taken for them. I’m still going to try and get these questions answered wholesale and can at least answer some partially in a follow-up post based on my experience when I am fully recovered from COVID, but would like to stress that I am going to keep pressing this issue. You guys deserve to have your questions considered. That being said, here are some of the community items that the BAC has decided to prioritize going forward. 4. Future Priority Item: Parking in the Bike Lane With the issue of cars parking in the bike lane, Vice Chair Dustin Branham brought up that currently, cars can legally park in any bike lane so long as there are no “No Parking” signs beside the lane. The solution proposed was that either the city creates an amendment of the current laws to state outright that parking in a bike lane is prohibited or the city shells out the money for no parking signs along all of its bike lanes. The idea of bike lane bounties was brought up, but the chair reminded the committee that we were in the phase of highlighting issues, not necessarily discussing how to solve them just yet, so we opted to make it a priority and save the solutions for another day. 5. Future Priority Item: The CLT+ App (also known as 311) As for the CLT+ App, there are two issues I spoke on before we placed it on the list of priorities. One is that there is no clear means for a cyclist to report an obstruction in the bike lane - for that, Bromberger stated that depending on what is obstructing the bike lane, the request needs to be filtered out to either the Waste Department, Charlotte DOT, CMPD’s Animal Control, or some other miscellaneous department. Bromberger recognized that this could be improved in the app and would be looked into. The other issue with the CLT+ App is due to an item that I wanted to investigate first-hand. One of my peers at UNC Charlotte’s Masters in Public Administration program did a research study using Mecklenburg County’s Quality of Life dataset to see if there was any statistical relationship between neighborhoods with large African American and Hispanic populations and the usage of the 311 service. My peer found out that there was a strong, negative relationship between both of these demographics. This begged the question: do these populations simply not use the app or is there something else at play? I’ve talked to a lot of people throughout the city and one thing I’ve noticed is that my wealthier peers in better neighborhoods have a lot of great things to say about the city’s response time for various 311 requests, some of them stating that these issues would be fixed within the next day. Living in East Charlotte, I wanted to test this idea and so over the last two weeks, if I saw an obstruction on the sidewalk, a parked car in the bike lane, a broken sidewalk, a pothole, etc., I would immediately stop what I was doing, take a picture, and submit a full report via the 311 app, even if it was the same issue encountered before. Ultimately, I made 8 requests to address sidewalk obstruction (7 of these were cars parked on the sidewalk, 1 was a row of trash cans left on the sidewalk), 2 requests to remove a DOT Road Work Sign that was blocking the entire sidewalk, and another 2 requests to fix a sidewalk that is in such a poor state that foliage is starting to sprout from it. Out of all these submissions to the CLT+ App, I ultimately got back two phone calls. The first phone call was to say that the DOT sign apparently belonged to NCDOT and that Charlotte DOT “would remove [the sign] by Monday” (which should have been November 7th) - as of today, it is November 17th and the sign is still perched quietly on a segment of Lawyer Road’s sidewalk. The second phone call was to tell me that Charlotte DOT couldn’t actually do anything about cars parked on the sidewalk and to call CMPD about this - the representative for this case was unaware that the property in question was within a 3 minute walk of a CMPD headquarters, however. With this aspect, I stressed to the other committee members and to the Charlotte DOT staff that whatever improvements we made to the CLT+ App would ultimately be null if the requests ultimately went unanswered. That’s something I cannot stress enough - if we provide a new feature to report an issue, what good will it do if it ultimately falls of deaf ears? 6. Future Priority Item: Equity for Bicycle Facilities in East and West Charlotte This part of the conversation was somewhat spicy. A number of the comments I had received from the public highlighted how some of the painted (read: unprotected) bike lanes were inadequate and even hazardous, and if there were plans to upgrade them into protected bike lanes at some point. While that question hasn’t received a solid response yet, it did lead to a conversation about the poor facilities in West and East Charlotte, what few there are. I highlighted the need for a better bike lane on Central Avenue and one of the BAC members challenged me on this, asking if anyone even cycles on Central Avenue and if that route wouldn’t be better served by removing the lane and creating another bike lane that is simply parallel to that road. Those of you that live in East Charlotte and routinely travel on Central Avenue know that there isn’t a grid system on that roadway and that many cyclists already currently use it primarily because a lot of cyclists live and work on Central Avenue - the issue is that these cyclists do not fit the typical stereotype of a white, middle-to-upper class worker commuting into Uptown Charlotte with panniers on their commuter bike - they are often working low-wages, riding a second-hand mountain bike, African American and Hispanic, and (if they are carrying anything on their bike) use a backpack or plastic bags draped over the ends of the handlebars. Speaking frankly, I was furious about this suggestion - it seemed appalling that someone would recommend removing an incremental step in the right direction for our community, especially if they themselves hadn’t biked on that segment, and it reminded me of the importance of having a diverse committee. The vast majority of Central Avenue already meets the city’s criteria of being a Fifteen Minute City, as do segments of Albemarle Road, and I’ve routinely encountered cyclists on these routes - why do they not deserve a nice amenity and should instead be forced to take alternate routes? This led to a conversation among the committee and eventually we concluded that one issue to focus on was equity in the bike lane allocation - my hope is that with this being one of the priorities for the coming year, I can use this continually to push City Council and Charlotte D.O.T. into building more and better bike lanes in both West and East Charlotte, as both communities are lacking in these connections. Bonus: A Special Guest from BikeWalkNC Terry Lansdell, the director of BikeWalkNC, paid the BAC a visit during this meeting and had a lot of insightful things to say. When we discussed the issue of equity and bike lanes, Mr. Lansdell was quick to pose this question: “Are you a destination cyclist or are you a thru-cyclist? If you’re a destination cyclist, you need that … bike lane that gets you to your job. If you’re a thru-cyclist, you complain about that facility.” If you want to build an equitable bike lane, you need to make sure that these bike lanes get people to the places they need to go. Lastly, Mr. Lansdell highlighted that one of the key barriers toward making roadways safer and more accommodating to both pedestrians and cyclists here in Charlotte is state legislation. Currently, it is illegal for NCDOT to spend any money on bicycle & pedestrian facilities that are not already part of an existing road project. While a change to this legislation has been proposed for the last two years, something peculiar seems to happen. The proposal will pass the states’ house, senate, budget office, and even the governor himself, but always ends up being killed off by four state Republicans in the last 72 hours of the proposal. This is a potential item for advocacy that should be stressed further - I’ll work to get the names of these senators in the interim.

If you prefer fantasy land try here https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=323 (except that is reality, for cities that aren't Charlotte)

Super talls are 1000’ + Austin is the only remotely close to “peer city” of Charlotte to have a super tall. They also have at least 8 residential buildings 600’ or greater built and/or under construction.

It's literally trying to manifest "out of sight, out of mind" If you take all the problems, real and perceived, of the current CTC and think that putting them literally underground is somehow going to make things..... better? oh man.

Ehhh not really. Apple is a "true believer" in renewable energy and has undertaken its efforts simply because it's the right thing to do, not because of some Greenpeace activists. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/04/apple-now-globally-powered-by-100-percent-renewable-energy/

Found posted on the Charlotte reddit page. Purported to be 1988

Try this: https://polaris3g.mecklenburgcountync.gov/

That is the real salt in the wound, we end up with some stick apartments half the height. Truly boggles the mind.

Speaks for itself really.

CATS must have upgraded to maglev 300/kph trains while we weren't looking!

Yeah I'll have to get some pics next time I'm up that way, the mill renovation is looking great!