monsoon

The head of Division 10 of the NCDOT has said that contractor quotes for performing on the stimulus money projects are coming in low and hence there is more money available for other uses. His theory for the reason for the low quotes is the contractors really need the work so are being more competitive on their bids. He has sent a request to the MPO for recommendations. Regardless of their recommendations, apparently this head gets to make the final decision and it sounds as if he is looking at spending the extra money on the Hwy 73 widening between Hwy 115 and Hwy 21. (Exit 25 in Huntersville) This obviously comes with the support of the local politicians there as it means the town won't have to spend its own money on the project. They also question why this project is 7th on the list when it ought to be first.

Sure. This wasn't front page news as far as I know, and it does say exactly what I said. It isn't CATS fault. CATS is only responsible when ridership goes up, but isn't responsible when it goes down. It's an amazing double standard that goes completely unnoticed by what are otherwise educated sensible people.

Ahh, but wasn't one of their stated goals to get people out of their cars? They never added on, but only if gas prices double. Or are you saying their ridership gains, which were so loudly touted as huge success, were not do to anything that CATS did, but was due to people avoiding high gas prices? i.e. The 2030 Plan continues to fail at the goals put forth as reasons to support it.

You can try to look at the minutes of the Mecklenburg MTC meetings that are on ridetransit.org. Sometimes CATS will present ridership reports that are entered into the record. The APTA publishes ridership reports for the transit agencies, but they tend to lag by at least a quarter and the information is dependent upon reporting by the transit agencies. See http://www.apta.com/research/stats/ridership/ You could also try to contact CATS directly. If ridership goes up, CATS does a lot of press releases to the idiotic press in Charlotte which will report whatever they say without question. If ridership is going down, CATS is usually silent on the issue. My guess is that since we have not heard much about CATS, the numbers are no that flattering.

Would be interesting to see if Purdue would sign the bill. Have not heard one way or the other. There is political risk in doing so given all the other taxes the state is voting in, and little risk to saying no.

^The "I might be wrong comment" was in regards to the $30M earmark, not what is happening to the North line. It would help to try and read what I posted. However it is the inaction of the MTC as to why this line isn't being built now. It's ready, it's designed, the people around it support it, yet it isn't going anywhere, because the MTC is afraid of the Charlotte city council. I do believe however this stalemate might change after the November elections. It will depend on what the people vote in for new members of this organization.

It appears that Purdue has asked the federal government for an additional $300M from the federal government to rebuild the I-85 bridge over the Yadkin river. This is a project often discussed in this topic.

I might be wrong and what isn't being reported, is this is money that CATS has already spent without knowing if they would get the funding or not. The Charlotte city council decided to take the chance on this. If I am correct then of course the local media isn't reporting this part now. The interesting thing to note however in the article about the House turning down the $30M request, is the single line at the bottom of the article that says an internal memo at CATS says it won't have the money to build the North line for at least the next decade. I am not sure how this leaked out, but then again I have contended for a long time that CATS has incompetent and that includes keeping their own secrets, well... secret. However I've also said for a long time they have no intention of building the North line next, no matter what they have indicated, as it's clear they intend to pull all the stops to build that LRT extension. It's why the North line won't be built, why the city of Charlotte is stuck with the streetcar, and why they pushed so hard to keep LRT from being the plan of record for the SE line. While they may be incompetent, even they know the value of a $2B federal funded project. In any case, it will be interesting to see if this funding request survives. If this earmark is approved, it will be, by far, the largest earmark assigned to the state on this go around. The next project even remotely close to this is the dredging of Oregon Inlet.

I never understand corporate decisions, re: building an expansion while attempting to reduce workforce. I think BMW has some issues with the need for this plant. They didn't exactly do it any favors by moving Z4 production back to Europe so now the only thing that is built there is the SUVs. This was always a questionable market for BMW and now that these things have fallen out of favor, even more so. I would be happier if BMW put one of its mainline sedans in there. Preferably something in the 3 series line.

Right now there are only two plans on the books for this station in regards to rail. First it is supposed to be the terminus for the planned North commuter rail line. It is starting to look very unlikely this rail line will be built. The second plan is that it will be the replacement for the old 1960s Amtrak station on N. Tryon. The plan is to move the station to part of GW station. I believe it is actually the NCDOT that is funding this portion mostly due to the activity related to the two state funded train lines, The Carolinian and The Piedmont. I have no idea where this currently stands. The station will also serve as a replacement bus station for Greyhound and possibly CATS will use it for buses too. This part would be built and paid by the entities above in return for Greyhound surrendering the land. There may also be taxi service. So basically this portion depends upon the Amtrak station being built. The city also had plans to construct an office building as part of the station. It would be my guess this part isn't going to be built now. Those plans were announced before we had an economic collapse of real estate. I think that covers it. The station was planned so each portion, office tower, Amtrak platform & Greyhound station, CR platform and office tower, can be built independently from each other. It's assumed if the CLT to DC high speed rail is built, then it would simply use the Amtrak station. It could use the station on N. Tryon so there is no requirement for Gateway station for it to be implemented. Keep in mind the current plan on the books, High Speed means trains that go 110 mph instead of 70 mph.

I don't know how you could get a 163' boat to Charlotte. This thing is literally a ship. I believe this might be the largest boat on Lake Norman and it is less than 90' for comparison purposes.

Some people are doing well from the local economy. This month's Boat USA magazine has Rick Hendrick's brand new 163 ft yacht, called "Wheels" featured on the cover. It is the 37th largest yacht built in the USA. Of course given our location, the ship won't be in Charlotte. There was mention of a NASCAR Yacht Club that had other members from Charlotte.

In fact, according to the local news, there was an altercation between the Huntersville town council and the Huntersville Mayor on this very issue. The town council is unhappy that Swain (mayor) voted with the MTC against town council resolutions. There was apparently a vote by the town council against the 1/2 cent addon transit sales tax that Swain voted for as a member of the MTC. The town had already voted unanimously against this tax increase and Swain went to the MTC and voted for it anyway. (These are all resolutions, the NC legislature is the body that has to approve it) While I don't know that ability the town council has to force her do otherwise, it is an example of the MTC not having the support of the towns of their members. In other words, it is a major defect in the way this has been setup.

These comments remind me that I am really of the opinion the city ought to change its approach to allowable development and make changes to favor land subdivision to small lots so that individuals can develop them as they see fit. There would be a lot more diversity this way. It's the way that it is done in many cities outside the USA.

LOL, CATS arbitraryly raised their projection for ridership, as compared to when the line cost $750M on this line to get the model to predict a better cost effectiveness. There are two problems with this approach. First is ridership doesn't rise when CATS' costs rise. Second, this was explained further below, along with questions concerning CATS methodology, but I am assuming you didn't read that part. They rationalized this, in part,because of the first year ridership numbers which they blew past. It should be noted, as posted above, that ridership has been falling since the first year and has yet to normalize.