Eastern

Dealing with urban matters is above Moore's and Berger's skill set, so they hide behind the one size fits all notion that only building more roads will solve traffic problems.

Moore claims Charlotte is not dense enough for rail. All of Charlotte isn't , so you start building from the areas that are high density now and build out. He mentions the blue line and it's success so he should know that can work. The city could run a line from Midtown through the Pearl district to the airport with a grand link at the blue line junction, then extend eastward from Midtown as neighborhoods get denser. Atlanta has wider interstates than Charlotte and still has worse bottlenecks, so does Houston and a lot of cities with plenty of miles of interstate. He should know we can't solve traffic issues by building highways alone.

It's not a guaranteed win for him if a candidate can pin the fate of the Red Line on him. After over 12 years of saying no, Norfolk and Southern is finally willing to negotiate and now Moore is snatching that opportunity away from the people in North Meck instead of letting them determine if they want a rail line in the near future. That election has to be framed so that it becomes the issue a candidate doesn't want to be on the wrong side of the affected constituents, just like when Pat McCrory was running for governor and wouldn't stand against making I-77 in North Meck a toll road. He lost in a close election. Moore's opponent, people in the district and others with something to gain by winning it need to raise the stink level of being denied the Red line, because if there's no 1 cent tax referendum, the line is dead. And if the Red line is dead, so is any chance of the Silver line going into Gaston county, so it affects people there too. If there is a will there's a way.

Those "folks" he's talking about would suddenly find those "things" real easy to figure out if urban counties withheld their sales tax revenue and let them have to get along without it. BTW Moore is running for congress in the new 14th district which includes part of Mecklenburg County. Here's to voting for his opponent for all the angst he has cause this county.

All's not lost on the referendum. Isn't he running for US House district 14 which includes part of Northern Mecklenburg County? People there have a chance to send him back home with a loss in November.

A few years ago the state gave counties the option to have a referendum to have a 1/4th cent sales tax increase. Did Mecklenburg County ever do that? If not, it could be a small source of revenue for the rail lines. Add this to some other creative options and they may generate enough revenue to start the Red line, some road improvements and maybe a short piece of the Silver line. Another piece of legislation, Senate bill 696 titled Local Option Sales Tax Flexibility was considered in the 2023 session. It would give some counties the option of adding an additional 1/4 or 1/2 cent sales tax by referendum. Last I could find, it was referred to a committee on Rules and Operations of the Senate. It needs to be resurrected. In a related matter that is critical, the NC speaker of the House who is from Cleveland Co, a man who has stood in the way of Mecklenburg County and Charlotte getting the 1 cent sales tax referendum approval in that branch, as you know is running for the congressional seat in the newly redrawn 14th district. This district now includes part of North Mecklenburg County and Lake Norman towns and cities. While this district was designed to lean red, this guy has been the poster child of the rural urban divide, and of despising the urban areas to the fullest extent possible to provide for rural areas. He is not a person who will or should champion the urban needs of Gaston, Lincoln, Mecklenburg and the other rapidly urbanizing areas of the 14th. His vile actions against urban areas should be blasted across the district to the point that he either loses or will have to cut a deal ie approve or compromise on the 1 cent tax and support a referendum to get elected. He needs the support of the Northern Mecklenburg cities and towns, but unless he can find more state money, the 1 cent tax referendum needs to be approved by the NCGA to fund a Red Line which now may cost up to a couple of billions. Trying to get the favor of the voters is the reason he found a few crumbs for improvements on the I85-485 interchange. He needs to painfully learn that is not enough to buy this district or be elected to represent people he has in the past treated like they were his enemies.

Thanks for the explanation on the train station. The city could use the resources available to extend the blue line. It has the 1/4th cent sales tax, taxes on rental cars, property taxes and add a special tax on areas that would be within a certain distance of a train station. If the city used a combination of these it would seem they could still apply for federal funding without needing to bother with the NCGA.

Please excuse me. I am new to this and still trying to get my bearings.

Why are the Charlotte mayor and city council not advocating for money from the fed? Are they asleep, dead? Money like this may not be available again for decades. They could at least try to get some to start on the uptown train station, extend the blue line north and south.

He says "we don't have a shortage of dollars", Charlotte and Mecklenburg county leaders need to take him up on that and go get this money that the state has. Call his bluff.

Davidclt gave multiple reasons why the GOP in NC is horrible and you just ignored it. The economy is only one issue that falls under the bigger issue of quality of life. Health care here could be a lot better. The life expectancy is decreasing and is worst than the national average. NC's Infant mortality rate is worst than Cuba's. The maternal mortality rates are terrible also. Many small towns are dying, while too many no longer have a dr living there. There are lots of areas in the state that are healthcare deserts and people have to drive 50 miles or more to find a trauma level hospital. NC education standards are low and the GOP wants even lower HS graduation requirements. Our teachers are leaving in droves and fewer are left who can inspire students to become leaders, while hundreds of millions are being poured into charter schools that have few measures of accountability. This year's GOP overlords in the NCGA had a chance to deal with two central issues that could have drastically improved the quality of life for many of their constituents, the childcare crisis and Medicaid expansion. Childcare is a costly item for many households and the industry is hurting from a lack of employees. Childcare costs are high, but wages for employees are abysmal and people are leaving for better wages. Little if anything was done to help solve the crisis though they were begged to address it. Instead of increasing the child tax credit, they gave a tax cut to industry. Secondly, the Medicaid expansion glitches were resolved early on but the GOP's leaders dragged their feet for months, keeping over half a million people waiting, many in need of better healthcare while they bickered trying to get gambling approved. Gambling, something that's tiny in importance. The GOP is about aggregating power and money. They don't want a well educated, healthy, confident citizenry because they would be hard to control. Your GOP (the very ones who claim to dislike big government) has run on social issues, gerrymandering, limiting accountability through public records access, so that they can broaden their control while threatening and denying home rule on the city and county level. The job recruitment is a joint effort of the GOP and governor and gov. Cooper is doing a great job on that. Toyota's decision to add 3,000 jobs to its battery plant under construction came after his visit to Japan. NC may be a top ranked company for recruiting industry but if you can't keep providing a skilled, healthy workforce, and a good quality of life, the companies you are recruiting are going elsewhere because it takes more than just tax cuts to run a successful company.

Charlotte and Mecklenburg county should cut a secret deal to be annexed by SC in exchange for being given the right to have a Pennies for Progress program like the one in York County but with the 1 cent sales tax dedicated to transit and have no sunset clause. See more on the program in York County here https://www.cn2.com/pennies-for-progress-program-update/ Losing the big chunk of revenue that the rogue republican dictatorship at the NCGA gets from Charlotte and Mecklenburg County would cripple the state for decades and wake up even their most hardened anti-urban supporters to the value of this county and its needs.

Elections are coming soon in Charlotte. Its time to get visionaries into office. Not just seat warmers with smiling faces. Sweep all of the do nothings out of office from the mayor down and get a new city manager who knows the power of good logistics. Vote and take two people to the poles with you.

Tim Moore is clueless about the urban needs of the state's largest cities. If he thinks you can pave your way out of traffic congestion, he needs to cough up the billions of dollars needed.

The bottleneck where westbound lanes are merging from 485 onto 85 is horrendous. It goes from 4 lanes down to one. There was a similar problem in the Triangle where 2 westbound lanes off 540 merged into one lane to get on 40 but not as bad. NCDOT fixed that a few years ago. You need to stay on them hard until they fix it. That traffic gridlock unacceptable.