asthasr

Of course their suburbs extend far beyond their borders... and, to some extent, their transit systems do, too. However, the numbers aren't irrelevant because in order to make financial sense the lines must generate more economic opportunity than they cost. To take an example, Gastonia is 20 miles away from Trade and Tryon. SEPTA--which is a pretty good transportation system, although underfunded as always--has as its furthest point Norristown, which is 15 miles from Broad & Market. The end of the orange line from Washington (the one that runs through Arlington, which I include because I view it as a poster child for the potential for TOD) is only 12 miles from the White House. I may be an idealist, but I would like to see sustainable infrastructure, lines that are going to be maintainable simply based on the opportunity they generate. I could care less about traffic from far-flung suburbs as long as we aren't building more roads to try to service it (which doesn't work anyway; see SoCal and Atlanta). In the long run, anything we do must be maintainable, or we simply will end up doing the same thing with our commuter rail that we do with our aging highway infrastructure: wring our hands when it needs repair and wait for it to fall down and kill someone. Specific to us, we need a line to the airport because it is the gateway that businesses see; the potential for development along the neglected Wilkinson corridor is quite large. We need a line to SouthPark, because it is an emergent "second center." A line to Eastland (and a transformative development there) would be great because it would provide opportunity in a neglected area. Then, fundamentally, we need better local service (i.e. buses and/or low-overhead trolleybuses). In my opinion, commuter rail is a nice to have, but separating it from politics or pretending that an MSA is anything other than a descriptive statistical tool is self-defeating in the long run.

I actually do think that TOD in our outlying counties would be awesome... but it won't work without the prioritization of in-town transit first. Let's say, for example, that they build a 20 mile rail line to Gastonia. Great! They could put ten stops along the way, and lease the land in order to capture rents to help pay for the lines. Here's the problem, though: jobs won't exist for everyone in those TOD zones in center city Charlotte, and everything else is unreachable. Some significant percentage of the people who move there will end up working in Ballantyne, or Rock Hill, or University City. All of those people, despite being in TOD zones, will simply contribute to more congestion. Looking to make commuter-oriented pockets of density before we have a functional way to go to South Park or Ballantyne just won't work. Given that, when people look at houses in the outlying cities, even with commuter rail the logical thing to do will not be to buy in the TOD areas, because they don't do a lot for you. Change jobs, or have the company relocate within the city, and your 30 year mortgage is a bad thing. I also understand that the majority of our MSA is suburban. Heck, most of Mecklenburg is suburban. The expense of serving those suburban counties with transit will be much greater than the expense of serving in-town neighborhoods, though, because of their lack of density--with the ever-present risk of turning out like Atlanta (MARTA should be our "under no circumstances" anti-model). Fundamentally, also, I think that it's a mistake to think that our economic fortunes are intertwined. They aren't, except insofar as "as goes Charlotte, so goes the region." Charlotte is not significantly affected by Lincoln county or Gaston county employment; we are actually harmed by York County employment. Charlotte is nearly ten times larger than the second largest city of the MSA (Concord at 85k), and Mecklenburg is four times larger than the second largest county (York at 250k). I'd like to see a light rail or streetcar to the airport before we branch out more... then some lines with trolleybuses because, yes, our system needs to be more than a T or +.

I'm a native of the western foothills. It's possible I'm misjudging the region -- I didn't grow up in Gastonia, and I'm not as familiar with its politics as I am with the politics further west. Still, I am leery of commuter rail outside the county; first, because Charlotte/Mecklenburg are already huge (Mecklenburg is 525 square miles; for comparison, Philadelphia County in Pennsylvania is 134, Washington DC is about 60, Arlington VA is 25, Denver CO is 150). We have so many needs internally that developing to outlying regions seems unnecessary. Gastonia is about 15 miles away, but would involve crossing the Catawba and South Fork Catawba. If we develop out that way, we'll sell suburban houses for commuters in another county, and the line will then compete for state funding with transit plans that need to be built inside the city. Second, the cost will be borne, at least partially, by Charlotte/Mecklenburg, and there will be fewer stations inside the county than there would be with another light rail or even BRT lines. Keep in mind, too, that in NC there are no regional taxes; anyone who moved into commuting distance of a hypothetical Western Line would be paying Gaston, Cleveland, or Lincoln county taxes.

Politically speaking, I don't think the western corridor will ever align with Charlotte. Gastonia, Kings Mountain, Shelby, and so on are all extremely conservative. Most of the cities don't even see themselves as being connected to the Charlotte MSA. Given the large swaths of Mecklenburg that aren't served by transit yet, worrying about pulling reluctant little siblings along seems premature.

Looks like it replaces only one (the one on the corner).

Mid-rises succeed in more than just D.C. If you go to Asian cities, almost all of their land area is dedicated to what I would call 'private mid-rises'; small (5m wide) lots with a house above (usually 3-4 floors in Vietnam) and retail below. That gives you, roughly, 500 or 600 square feet of retail per 5m of street frontage, and the sensation of walking on the street is unmatched in the US. Not all of the retail uses are particularly great (I am thinking about a portion of Saigon that consists of used power tools and bits needed for them), but if you're in one of the inner districts, you definitely never feel the lack of highrises. Near my in-laws' house, there are six coffee shops, three department stores, four bubble tea places, and probably two dozen restaurants in walking distance. Not to mention a few banks, jewelry stores, pharmacies, book stores, paper stores, two plastic surgeons (?!), ... It's the abundance of street life that makes a place feel urban. I wouldn't call it a beautiful city, in most respects, but in terms of street life we could learn a thing or two from Saigon: (It's also a case study for how ugly it is when you don't bury utilities in a dense city... another lesson Charlotte could learn.)

Honestly, the best outcome for Charlotte is that we start to add jobs organically (local startups, entrepreneurship, and so on). That doesn't tend to lead to big job announcements, but it leads to rising local prosperity. Let's be happy that, in the absence of big job announcements, our city is still growing quickly and our unemployment rate is still < 5%.

Houston felt like one big freeway while I was there. It was grotesque. Far worse than Atlanta, which was bad enough.

The street car was a complete mistake. The city should have been focusing on improving bus service, implementing (real) BRT to more distant areas, and advocating commuter rail. The problem is that people go to San Francisco, see the streetcars, and think "we want that, too!"

A big issue is rent. A commercial space like that is going to be very expensive for a local entrepreneur to rent; chains can afford some overhead, whereas people who are just getting their feet wet need cheaper space. This is why Charlotte's downtown tends to be chain-oriented overall; we don't have much older stock to support new businesses, so we get the folks who can afford to pay a lot of rent. It would probably be smart for some of these buildings' owners to partner with the city to offer incentives to local entrepreneurs (reduced rents, tax breaks) to start businesses in the new retail spaces. Eventually the "real" rent will start to decline and the area will be "seeded" with enough energy to sustain itself. (Of course, I think that even city involvement should be unnecessary. It seems obvious that a building owner should take cheap rent over no rent; but they usually seem reluctant to do that.)

Agreed. I think the problem is that was the original intent of "Business 74" and "Bypass 74" -- but local leaders and developers were greedy, so they glued everything they could onto the "Bypass 74" strip. The new bypass essentially takes it out of local hands.

Well, locally I think it's going to be a terrible thing for Shelby. All of the service-oriented businesses in town are on the US 74 strip, starting at Ingles (US-226 and US-74) and going to the nearly-dead mall (US-74 and BUS 74). Many of those will die, and the town has very little in the way of employment alternatives. However, in the larger (regional) context, the bypass is sorely needed, as the development was horribly managed and it takes forever to get through there at any busy period. To add insult to injury, the slowness also means that the roads are in terrible condition; the semi-trucks traveling US-74 end up getting jammed at the Shelby stop lights and destroy the asphalt when accelerating. For my money, it's the worst part of US-74 between Asheville and Wilmington, followed closely by the Monroe area.

Browsing this topic I noticed a question about why the northern routing was chosen for the Shelby bypass. This is a bit of ancient history (both the post and the bypass routing), of course, but the bypass was originally going to take the southern route; they discovered some sort of unique plant in that route.

You'd think more developers would offer detached garages, or rear-entry garages.

Usually, if you see "ford" in the name of a road, it indicates that it is aligned with a traditional river crossing, so they are usually quite historically important. Here is an interesting article on Nations Ford from the Catawba Riverkeeper site.

I think Levine might move soon because his window is closing. I think he counted on the 277 loop being a real barrier to urbanization in Charlotte, but with the center of gravity shifting to the south side (SouthEnd/"Midtown"), and NoDa developing independent of the "gap" in Levineland, he might see a future in which Charlotte has absorbed another round of development without his getting anything from his massive parcel.

I am building a house in Pineville. I am doing this not because I don't like cities -- we were considering a move to Philadelphia at one point -- but the practicalities (specifically available space for me, wife, 2 kids, in-laws, dog) are just all in favor of the suburbs. Not my preference, but what currently passes for urban living is dodging some questions of schools and large families. You just can't buy a two-bedroom townhouse and make it work; and when you factor in the cost of private schools, it becomes impossible.

At this point in time, you have to remember that older peoples' lives overlapped with the period of the greatest suburbanization and disinvestment in our cities... to someone who is 60 or 70, the city represents only failure and crime (because they remember 1965-1990 better than any other time period), and most of them don't understand taxes very well, and certainly don't understand what attracts people to a city. (I currently live in Winston-Salem; there are people who live outside the city limits who I have heard complaining about the W-S city bonds. They don't affect you. Shut up.)

Well, I will clarify and say that I live in Winston-Salem and do like other areas of the city... but there aren't many areas that are interesting from an urban perspective. Maybe West End?

Yes, I'm going to actually be in Pineville soon, primarily because that's the closest place where we can get enough space and good enough schools without breaking the bank. (My budget is quite a bit lower than ScottCLT.) It's hard finding even 3 BR at a reasonable price in the inner ring of Charlotte; and, if you do, you can guarantee that the schools are going to be garbage, so you're going to pay an extra "tax" for private schools.

If you're interested in seeing what Charlotte was like before the scourge of urban renewal, I recommend visiting Winston-Salem. Downtown (4th Street, primarily) has a lot of older mid-rise buildings that feel very dense. Trade street has low-rise buildings with a more NoDa-ish feel. Unfortunately, those are pretty much the only interesting areas of the city...

Urgh. Nice pic, but I hate seeing 525 North Tryon. Hate that building, for some reason...

I think that's kind of misplaced. Eastway was pretty much standard strip mall and "garden apartments" developments... that never leads to a good sense of place.

Yeah, I'll take even ugly buildings as long as they increase the potential for interesting places and interactions. In great cities you don't even notice the ugly buildings... and there are plenty of them, even in NYC/SF. For every Rockefeller Center or row of "painted ladies," there are three dozen featureless 19th-century brick tenements or a hundred undistinguished vinyl-sided row houses.