(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- This week, on Unspun Charlotte's transit future.

CATS is planning new train service to North Meck and the Coliseum and the airport, but they can't build new tracks without a new tax.

So are local voters willing to pay if Raleigh gives the okay, or will politics get in the way?

We'll also talk about the tug of war between towns over who gets light rail and who doesn't.

Plus this week's top five, what's needed to make transit successful?

In today's America, welcome to the Spin Game.

Believe me, I know.

I'm Pat McCrory.

When I was Governor and Mayor, I played the spin game.

I was played by the spin game.

But aren't we all done being spun?

Let's take the spin out of the world in, here on Unspun.

(news music) Good evening, I'm Pat McCrory and welcome to Unspun, the show that tells you what politicians are thinking but not saying.

You know, last week I was invited to speak to a group of Charlotte builders, developers, and real estate pros about how light rail can transform urban areas, including Charlotte.

We were on the 14th floor of a new high-rise office tower in the south end where you can see that transformation all around you.

We wanted Charlotte to be the best of Mayberry and Metropolis in which we had big city opportunities, but we also had small town environment, quality of life.

I wanted the best of both worlds and I said, we're gonna take it where the numbers work, where we can get federal matching funds and where we can get ridership.

Yeah, it was a battle.

Neither the Republicans or Democrats in Raleigh want to touch it and they called it, the McCrory line and that wasn't a compliment.

And we put a campaign together and we didn't think it had a chance in hell and it passed 68%.

And we sold it as not solving our traffic problem.

We sold it as an alternative to our traffic problem.

I said 25 years from now, the light rail line will always be a 15 minute ride.

I also predicted that we'd have 2 to $3 billion of new investment along this corridor, and I thought I was exaggerating.

And now more to 14 billion.

When you're having a vision, what will it look like 25 years from now if you do nothing?

And what will it look like 25 years if you implement a plan and compare the two pictures because doing nothing is still doing something.

Well, today's Charlotte is again at a crossroad after 25 years of light rail success.

Can we do it again?

Can CATS repeat that success over the next 25 years with new light rail lines to new neighborhoods?

That's the $25 billion question that voters could face this fall.

And local lawmakers are now facing right now in their political districts.

Their answers will shape the Charlotte region for decades, for better or for worse.

Joining us here in Unspun this week to talk about Charlotte's Transit future is Ron Tober.

He was the first CEO of CATS who worked with me as mayor to create Charlotte's original transit blueprint back in the 1990s.

Ron oversaw the building of the blue line from south end to UNC Charlotte, the planning for the gold line streetcar service, and Ron first recommended the red line to North Meck that we're all still waiting for.

Ron, it's great to have you on Unspun and to see you again.

- Well, it's good to see you too, Mayor.

Okay.

That's how I know you.

- I'm honored to be called Mayor.

- As governor, but as mayor, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about my favorite subject.

- Well, and looking back in the 1990s and throughout the two thousands when we worked together and implementing a vision, a 2025 vision, we're in 2025 now.

- I know.

- What did we get right?

And then what did we get wrong, on transit?

- Well, what we got right was to plan the transit system in conjunction with land use.

Okay.

The land use planning, which was an underpinning of the original, excuse me, the original transit plan, and that was what we did right.

Okay.

And we can see some of the results of that along the south corridor.

- And you're talking about high density along the rail line?

- Yes.

- And along certain bus lines and then less density in between those lines.

- In the corridor.

I mean, density in the corridors, not so, not the density and the wedges in between the corridors,.

That's what we did right.

And I think that it's gonna pay off, continue to pay off in the long term.

What I think we didn't do right is provide for some additional land use or let's say land purchases associated with the stations and with the lines.

We had tough budget issues that we had to deal with, but we should have tried to acquire more property around these stations for use and for actually generating revenue for the transit system.

That was a mistake.

Okay.

And it's unfortunate.

There were some things that we did when we were trying to stay on budget that I think were mistakes too.

Okay.

The last thing we cut out about the budget was the walkway across the 277 freeway next to the- - That was my, that was one of our dreams was connect downtown by a walk by the trail and get it to downtown.

But what happened?

- Well, we unfortunately had to cut it out and we also had to cut out three car platforms and we had to cut out some power system improvements that are gonna have to be put in at some point in time.

And I know that they're, they're talking about that at CATS and it's gonna cost a lot more than what we saved back in the early two thousands.

- But we cut it out because we were outta money.

In fact, we were over budget and you and I were taking a lot of grief for that.

In fact, the price of steel from China was going up.

And I remember us having to redesign the Woodlawn Bridge and the Tyvola Bridge because we couldn't afford the steel.

- That's right but you know, Pat, or Mayor, excuse me, that we were only 6% over budget.

Now some of these projects nowadays are a hundred percent over budget, but we brought it in 6% over budget.

Still would've been nice if we could have stayed within budget, but we were not that far over.

- Now, one thing we didn't also do, and it wasn't really our choice, it was the city of Pineville's choice.

We wanted to have the final stop in Pineville - Right.

- And build the bridge across 485.

But at that time, the Pineville leaders didn't want to change the zoning plans to require more density.

And to tell you the truth, I recall us being outta money anyway.

We didn't really have money for the bridge.

But in long run, was that the best decision or a bad decision?

- Well, you know, I haven't been in Pineville for a while, so I can't tell you what's going on in downtown Pineville.

I know that there there is- - They're doing some good work.

- Yeah, there is.

- But the mall is hurting.

- The mall is hurting and that might have accelerated the mall hurting if we had taken it over.

We did save $30 million.

By not going at that extra distance across 485 in the, into downtown Pineville.

So that did help us as far as the budgets that was concerned.

- So let's talk about the future and the current politics.

First of all, what's the strength of the new plan and what are the weaknesses from your perspective of the new plan?

This is a show where we tell people what politicians and people like you are thinking, but not saying out loud.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current expansion of light rail?

- Well, the current, the strengths are that they are including investments in all of the corridors, that are part of the regional transportation plan.

The corridors, that are in the transit plan are all in the regional transportation plan.

That's important if we want to be in a position to compete for federal funds in the future.

We have to have plans that are linked together appropriately.

So that's a strength of it.

The question is what is the best selection of modes in those corridors?

And CATS is right now going through a public hearing or let's say a public feedback process, a community feedback process where they're out trying to get people to comment on what are, what the plans are right now, the different alternatives that they have put together.

And that is going to be, I think, very important to have support for someday going to the voters to approve additional funding for the transit system.

I do regret that we have that the, there was controversy over how much money would go to transit rail, how much money would go to this mode and roadways.

Yeah.

Okay.

So actually that to me is probably a strength of this plan is that it is a multimodal plan.

Not just a transit plan, but it's got investments in roads and things related to roads like, you know, bike lanes and things of that nature.

More sidewalks and so on.

- So 25 years ago, you and I had to deal with the politics.

Me as the Mayor, you as the transit CATS Director had to deal with the politics of where do we put the first line?

The business community wanted it at the airport and were furious with me that it wasn't going to the airport.

North Meck, of course wanted it up toward Lake Norman.

The Speedway wanted it toward the speedway beyond UNC Charlotte.

east Charlotte wanted it through Matthews.

The same fights are occurring today.

We did it based upon data.

- That's right.

- We didn't do it based upon politics.

And when you told me the South Boulevard, it was gonna be the best on data.

I remember going, are you kidding me?

I might have used different language at the time, but I went with the data because that's what we promised.

- Well that's what we promised and that's what we did.

Okay.

And it largely, it was because at that time, back in those days, and it may still be the case, the southern leg of Interstate 77 was the highest volume roadway in the, in the overall roadway network around Charlotte.

So we were paralleling that, providing some relief to that with the construction of the light rail line.

The other factor, which was not so much data but of opportunity is that the city had already acquired some right of way okay.

Through the downtown into the south corridor.

And that gave us, saved us money for not having to buy it, but it also gave us an opportunity.

So it was the right choice.

Ridership, our initial ridership was almost double what we had originally projected for.

And we had originally projected 9,000 people a day and we were up with 15, 16,000 a day within a year's time.

So it was the right choice.

That data was used to select it.

And data is very important.

And from what I understand, CATS is doing that with these corridors and what they're doing- - And it transformed South Boulevard.

- It certainly has.

- Which wasn't called the South End at the time.

We had no term called the South End.

I think Tony Presley and a few other developers came up with that.

And I said, yeah, put it on the water tower.

That's fine.

We need to rebrand everything.

One small thing.

By the way.

Real quick in the remaining minute.

I didn't want advertising on the trains because I wanted to keep the brand clean.

You and I agreed on that.

- Absolutely.

- They reversed our decision for a little bit of money, but I still think it clutters.

- Yeah.

So do I.

- Do we still agree on that?

- Yes, absolutely.

I think it undermined, it really, it hurt the identification of it.

And I don't know exactly how much money they're getting, but I don't, I think it's not very much in comparison to the overall operating budget.

- All right the remaining 30 seconds, I think the best decision you and I kind of made together, I have one story on it.

I don't know what the truth is anymore.

I've repeated it, was the walkway, the trail they now call it The Trail.

And I love it.

- The Rail Trail.

- The Rail Trail.

And I went on it the other day and to see the young people, but you and I were worried there was gonna be no development in between the stops.

And I said, well we gotta, we gotta put a trail there, a walkway for the bikes that you and said we're gonna put bike racks.

I said, there's no place to put the bikes to ride the bikes.

They're gonna ride on South Boulevard.

To me that might be even better than the light rail line.

- Oh, I don't know about that.

Okay.

I think it was a good decision.

We had the ability to do that.

It was a modest and cost factor.

- We kinda slid it in.

You slid it in there.

- Yeah, we did.

- If I recall - We did.

- But we found the money and I still think that pedestrian friendly addition made a difference.

Ron, there's nothing named after you on the transit line, but there should be because you made a difference and I know it, you know it.

And I just wanna say thank you for your leadership.

- Well I appreciate that it was a work of, of love of my work.

Okay.

I mean I really enjoyed what I did.

I had a great staff and great support from you and other people, you know, on the consulate and in the business community.

- Next up, PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier takes Unspun on the street asking transit riders and taxpayers what they think of plans for new light rail.

- Yeah there's a lot of debate over where CATS should build it's next to light rail lines here in the Charlotte region.

Including here in the town of Matthews.

Should Matthews get light rail?

- I would be very interested to see light rail coming back.

Yes.

- I would say no.

I feel like the town is small.

The town is charming the way it is.

I think having light rail would probably make it too busy and sort of ruin the feel with having more people.

Growth would be nice.

But light rail I think might be a bit too much.

- You afraid of the growth that light rail could bring like we've seen along the South Boulevard?

- No.

- Why not?

- Because I mean the city should grow.

North Carolina should grow.

I mean it's good for the economy, it is good for the people.

- Should they bring the blue line to Ballantyne?

Do you favor that?

- I Do.

- Why is that?

- I think that as Charlotte grows, it allows for easier commute.

I mean, I think we could benefit from it.

I know many of the employees that use it for work and it's one of their only ways to get, you know, affordable transportation into the areas that we currently work in.

- And then it becomes uptown.

Right?

And that's why we moved away from those kind of areas, you know, so that's why I like it as it is, you know, it's building up a little bit, but not too much.

- So how about expanding the gold line?

Should we spend $800 billion more on a train that doesn't carry many passengers?

- I say they should expand it because if it went a little further, you may get more people to ride it.

- It's really crowded when you try to commute, taking a car, you know, driving and then finding the parking.

We can't find, you know, parking in uptown anymore.

As long as it comes on time, yeah it's fine.

But if they don't come on time then you know, it's not really good.

- Yeah, lots of light rail options for CATS to choose from.

Billions of dollars in federal money at stake and one big decision to make for Charlotte area taxpayers eventually, Pat.

- That's great feedback, Jeff.

So what do you think about the issue?

Email us your thoughts on Charlotte's Transit Future to unspun@WTVI.org.

(news music) Alright, tonight on our Unspun Countdown, the top five things we all need to do to make transit successful in the future.

Let's start out with number five.

Number five, we need to base future routes based upon the data not the politics.

25 years ago, I want to go visit Miami and Denver and Atlanta.

And I found out the routes that didn't work were the ones that the politicians chose, not what the data showed working.

The same rule applies 25 years later as we pick the new routes for the future.

Number four, job services education must be on the routes.

One of the mistakes I think I made 25 years ago, I wanted to convince the board of education to put more of our K through 12 schools on the light rail line.

They didn't do it, but I think we need to do that more often.

Put the jobs, put the education, put the services, including medical services right there on the light rail lines of the future.

Number three, a dedicated tax plus ridership fares.

In other words, the tax needs to help pay for it, but the fact of the matter is the rider also need to help pay for it.

The worst thing we can do is to make this thing free or people try to ride on light rail for free.

That is not a confidence builder for the entire region of tax payers who don't ride light rail.

Everyone must participate in paying for it.

Number two, pedestrian friendly connectivity.

Listen, when you get off the light rail stops, you've gotta be able to walk somewhere or ride your bike somewhere.

That's what we did with the Charlotte Trail.

We didn't do it to UNC Charlotte.

I hope if we build a future line to Huntersville or Cornelius or to Matthews, we also make it walkable along the line.

And number one, I think the number one first priority is passenger safety.

It must be safe to ride and public safety must be the priority regarding any crime.

We can't afford to have crime on the light rail lines or at the stops.

(epic music) PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier joins me now for Unspun a one-on-one.

- By the way, it was great to see Ron Tober sharp as a attack still man.

- First time I've seen him in a long time, but he still gets it.

- Yeah, he sure does.

- He understands the past and he knows what we need in the future.

- Well let's talk about the future right now.

First question, 40% of the money is gonna go to transit, 40% of the money is gonna go to roads if this- - The sales tax money.

- Yeah, the sales tax money.

If it passes.

Is a 40/40 split enough to get support from Raleigh and will voters buy it?

- You know, that's a great question.

I don't think the thing that's been discussed is, is the road money gonna be on city roads or and city roads not just in Charlotte, but Huntersville, Matthews, Cornelius and so forth.

Or will it go for state roads, which is the state's responsibilities?

The main corridors are all state roads.

If it goes to city roads, I think it has a great chance to pass.

If it goes to state roads, some people might question, wait a minute, isn't that the state's responsibility with the taxes I pay every year for state?

And before we agree to that, what do we get in return for paying for some of the state roads?

That's what I'd be asking as a mayor of Charlotte or some of the surrounding towns if I was mayor, knowing the state pretty well as a former governor.

- Is that a deal worth making in order to get the transit money if you're not gonna get transit money on ours?

- You know, we've tried these big bundles before.

I don't remember in the past we tried the arena and the baseball and the arts and we put 'em all together and it failed miserably.

Sometimes when you to try to do too much with a tax it creates more competition internally and it fails.

So that is a political dynamic that someone thinks will work at a local referendum or they think will work in getting the votes needed to have approval for the referendum out of Raleigh.

- You talked about the towns a moment ago and the roads.

And you mentioned earlier with Ron about branding.

How do you turn the image of CATS, Charlotte Area Transit from a city operation to a regional operation?

'Cause don't you need those towns and surrounding counties to make this work?

- Absolutely.

You need them.

But you have to also realize, and one of the reasons we even sold South Boulevard was because a lot of the people in the towns and even beyond the towns and other counties like Gaston County and Kebers County and Lincoln County and so forth, they commute to Charlotte.

So if we can give an alternative to get people off the roads, it might make their commute even easier.

So it benefits everyone regarding, especially this is a countywide tax, so it helps the entire county, not just the city.

But you're right, the first line was the south rail line and then to UNC Charlotte, it's all within the Charlotte City limits.

Although you've gotta remember back in 1995, the UNC Charlotte was outside the Charlotte City limits.

But it wasn't in any of the towns.

So yeah, there is a little bit of ownership and that's an issue that we have to deal with.

- You also talked about the different corridors that go out and the zoning that's between those corridors,.

I know in that talk that you gave last week to the developers, you talked about how the city council today is changing some of that concept and bringing more density to those areas between the wedges between the corridors.

Bad idea?

Good idea?

- I think it's a terrible idea.

Now I'm giving my political opinion.

25 years ago I sold the transit line along with many others as we'll have high density along the corridors, but we're gonna protect the residential integrity of our neighborhoods in between the spokes.

And several years ago, the Charlotte City Council allowed to convert single family housing to more duplexes.

Regardless of where they were automatically.

I think that's a mistake.

And I think they're regretting that.

And I wouldn't be surprised if it's reversed, have high density like we have along the south line going toward Pineville, have high density toward UNC Charlotte in the future have high density going toward university, I mean toward 77 and Huntersville and Cornelius.

But in between the residential neighborhoods, the single family neighborhoods, I think are an important selling point on why you wanna move to Charlotte.

- Yeah, makes sense.

- And all of the small towns.

- I guess it's, you know, everybody wants to- - By the way, they're no longer small towns.

- Yeah.

They're pretty much cities these days in many ways.

- No doubt about it.

- So you've got routes that you choose because of the ridership potential and you've got routes that you choose because of the development potential.

How do you balance the two and when- when you got to flip a coin, which which way do you go?

Where you go exactly where the development and ridership is today.

Because when you go get federal matching funds, they don't look at the future, which is wrong with the way the formula works in the federal government is will the ridership today meet the criteria of ridership in the future?

They don't look at the future.

I mean, it's crazy, but that's that's one why we picked the South End first, even though we knew other areas of the city were probably going to grow faster.

The South End already had the density along South Boulevard to sell it to the federal government, and it's a 50% match at the federal government.

So if you don't get that support, you don't get light rail.

Last quick question.

Where do busses fit in in the future?

Oh, it's extremely important in busses as part as part of the new referendum, the first money we spent with the first half cent sales tax with on busses, most people thought it was on light rail.

But if you don't have bus connectivity to the light rail lines to fill in the spokes where people might take a bus from South Park to the south line, then into downtown, you won't have a successful light rail line without a successful bus system.

It's a complicated problem that requires complicated answers, I suppose.

No doubt.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(soft music) In the talk I gave last week about the history and the future of transit.

I told the group a story about my old boss at Duke Power.

His name was Bill Lee.

He was a wise man.

And that's why, back in the 90s, when I was first elected mayor, and we first started talking about light rail here in Charlotte, I asked him the same question that everybody was asking me, what do you think?

Should we do this light rail line?

He said, mayor, we can wait until the pain arrives and do it then and it'll be an easy sell.

But but most likely it's too late.

Or you can do it now before the pain arrives of too much traffic congestion and environmental issues.

But if you do it now, Pat, it's going to be one hell of a sell.

As usual, the wisdom of Bill Lee was right.

It was a hard sell, first to lawmakers in Raleigh and then to the voters here in Charlotte.

But in hindsight, it was something worth fighting for.

Creating new transportation alternatives to ease our dependance on roads, and also creating new investment in our city to provide funding for other needs.

Which brings us to today's transit discussion.

The political left wants to stop building all new roads and talk about banning cars and parking in urban areas.

While the political right often is against all transit spending and wants roads only.

Both extremes are appealing to their base voters only, and they're both wrong, at least in my opinion.

There's no one solution to our transportation problems or any of our problems really.

It's complicated.

So let's stop looking for today's easy answers and let's start looking toward the future, whether it's transportation or education, housing or job creation.

Let's honestly figure out what can we really afford and then spend it wisely.

And let's make sure that we don't let today's politics derail tomorrow's vision of a more livable community.

That's good advice.

But don't thank me, thank Bill Lee and many other leaders of the past who made Charlotte what it is today.

And now it's time for today's politicians to follow their lead for future generations to benefit.

Well that's the reality as I see it.

I hope you'll come back next week as we tell you what politicians are thinking, but not saying right here on Unspun.

Goodnight folks.

(news music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.