[Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion]

I find that to be pretty disappointing. $120M should have been spent in building better transit to the Airport. With just some creative thinking this money could have been leveraged with federal and state funds to go ahead and build some kind of passenger rail to downtown.

Would Charlotte residents really take a connecting train to the airport when parking is only $3 a day? No way would I (living in South Charlotte), lug my family/luggage/etc on a train from South Charlotte to the airport. Takes me 20 minutes door to parking lot via 485 using the "back door" at Wilkinson.

I think a rail to downtown would be a great idea...for business people arriving in Charlotte with downtown as thier final destination. Until parking in Charlotte costs $15+/day (like ALT/PHL), people will continue to drive for thier outgoing flights.

[Good New Restaurants]

They are adding a new bar in the back of Roosters and a bakery. Keep and eye out for another Roosters in the area around next Christmas but I can't say where. It is not uptown though.

Maybe in Dee Dee's hole? Jim Noble was said to be opening a brand of restuarant there.

I have seen construction vehicles onsite...no wait, that was in 2003!!!

[Eastland Mall Redevelopment]

You can't move a minor league baseball team that is struggling to get fans to thier remote suburban location into a "crime ridden" area and hope it is going to be a success. I don't care how great a urban plan it is, nobody is taking on that venture at the Eastland location.

If the Knights were already a overwhelming success, or if the city was lacking summer time things to do, that may work. You could put the New York Yankees in a sheep pasture in northern Ireland and it would still get 35,000 people.

[UNC Charlotte Football]

Well.... before you chatise me over jumping to conclusions, this is what the supporters of the vote are saying.

As the administration moves forward in the consideration of adding a college football team to the Charlotte 49er Athletic Department, the results of this poll will be held as the definitive opinion of the student body for 2007.

You should send them a letter stating they are making a statistical fallacy. If you judge me for my conclusions on this vote, I would hope you would hold them to the same standard. That is what I am doing.

If people didn't want to pay for football...don't you think they would have voted against it? Just because 1/2 of the students didn't vote, doesn't mean they don't support it. If they didn't support it or didn't want to pay the fees, they could have voted against it.

All that it means when 1/2 of the student population didn't vote is...that 1/2 of the student population didn't vote. You can't make assumptions of what you believe non-voting people think.

[SouthPark Mall]

Enough said. Like I said above, it's especially sad in the SouthPark case because of the amount of investment that has taken place there. Eastland at least has the excuse of 20 years of neglect.

You are never going to get people to walk from their million dollar gated communites to Nieman Marcus. It defeats the point of thier 'Benz. Most of the neighborhoods within a 15 mintue walk of the mall are very ritzy and these people wouldn't be caught dead walking to get their mail, let alone the mall!

I work across the street (carnegie blvd) from the mall I the only people is regularly see walking the sidewalks are the folks from the projects. Really there are not that many residences THAT close to the mall to encourage walking. It is improving with Piedmont town center, the residence, and the Earth Fare project (and the many proposed developments) being built as these residences are not the millionaire homes.

Another thing people talk about is SouthPark traffic. Honestly, it isn't bad at all. I drive through it 4 times a day and it isn't bad. Until traffic (and parking) becomes a nightmare like around Phipps and Lenox, people will continue to drive 'cause it is easy!

[Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion]

I have found that getting baggage in Charlotte is most often slower than about any other large airport that I have been in. It doesn't seem to have improved much over the years.

I have to take the total opposite side of this one. Charlotte has regularly been one of, if not the fastest baggage claim area of any "large" city I have been to...and this is coming from 6 years of flying every week. Certainly haven't been to every big city airport, but charlotte is faster on average than most.

I do agree that the signage is terrible and many times are not updated until about 2 minutes before the luggage starts flowing. Those red LED lights annoy they heck out of me and most first timers to the airport don't even see the tv screens pointing you to your zone.