[QUOTE=ninerID;248467]
When light rail is built, we will still need more lanes, more roads, more infrastructure. You need roads to get you to the stations, you need roads to get you from the other stations. And you need roads for growth, and light rail only dents that. Look at Atlanta, they are always building more roads, and Marta is a relatively successful project. Also 85 N of atlanta is 8 lanes for 15 miles, the same cannot be said for Charlotte.[/QUOTE]
correct.
btw, ever seen how sweet I-77 is once you get to SC? Even we have 8 lanes for about 10 miles from the state line to below Rock Hill and its drains like a champ with a special layer of stone on the top overlay. I actually “bottleneck” when I go north to the stateline because Charlotte has less lanes than Fort Mill.
If you have links post them, or just PM them to me, I find this stuff interesting.
But my question with that argument is: Why do Syfert, McCrory, Mumford, Tober, Hartgen, Hauser, John Locke Foundation, Jim Puckett, SCAT, Keith Larson, etc. NEVER talk about this part of it. I have heard you mention this before, and neither side pro or anti transit tax, ever mention it, or maybe I am missing it.
Me and you debate tranist tax in plenty of threads, what are your thoughts on the allegations of Dubois/UNCC possibly skewing the results with the study?
You can read about it if you go to the EPA’s website. I assume you could look up Ozone Nonattainment Areas and see how the penalties work.
I asked Ron Tober about it last time I saw him. He said they never talk about it because no one understands it. As a professional that sits on a regional transportation planning committee, I can tell you that I don’t even totally understand the modeling, regional identification, etc.
Basically, if everyone could pickthe most complicated part of their job and try to explain it to a layman, you would understand why no one tries to explain ozone nonattainment areas and penalties of not implementing a transit plan.
As for the study, I read it. I didn’t see anything that was biased about it. It seemed like a well-formed, though elementary, paper. I am sure he had to dumb it down because the audience is the general public. We’ll see what they find out, though.
I think its funny when people in SC get so up in arms about this. SC people contribute nothing to the road building in NC so they have no right to complain. If it were up to me, I’d put up toll booths at the state border on every major road into the Charlotte area. Let them help pay for the roads they use.
[QUOTE=RWORKMAN09;248488]I think its funny when people in SC get so up in arms about this. SC people contribute nothing to the road building in NC so they have no right to complain. If it were up to me, I’d put up toll booths at the state border on every major road into the Charlotte area. Let them help pay for the roads they use.[/QUOTE]
Thats a pretty inaccurate statement. Are some federal dollars not spent on Interstate systems (I-77, 85)? Also CATS operates in Fort Mill and Rock Hill.
If anything, Charlotte should have to pay a tax to surrounding outlying municipalities, becasue the growth problems, traffiic, and crime spreading outward based off political and business decisions made in Charlotte. It works both ways.
they receive some funding from the feds, but they are built, owned, operated, and mostly funded from the states in which they reside.
Charlotte doesn’t owe outlying municipalities anything because they have the power to stop growth if they want to. They’re the ones that have approved tens of thousands of housing units and strip mall after strip mall.
[QUOTE=RWORKMAN09;248497]they receive some funding from the feds, but they are built, owned, operated, and mostly funded from the states in which they reside.
Charlotte doesn’t owe outlying municipalities anything because they have the power to stop growth if they want to. They’re the ones that have approved tens of thousands of housing units and strip mall after strip mall.[/QUOTE]
you cannot deny Charlotte’s traffic, pollution, and crime does not effect outlying municipalities. I know of 3 bank robberies alone here in Fort Mill the last 6 months that were Charlotte thugs and apprehended in NC after the crime.
furthermore, your theory would be horrible for NC business (hence why it has never happened). I would wager 30-50% of the economy in Pineville is from SC consumer spending. 200,000 people live in York County alone. You want those people coming across the stateline for dinner, shopping trips, etc.
I don’t think many of the “thugs” get in their cars and decide to drive 30 minutes away to commit a crime. They go somewhere that they can quickly get back to a place to hide out. The further you drive, the higher the chance you have of being caught.
First of all, what I said wasn’t a theory, it was a fact. Towns have the ability to stop growth if they want to, the majority have just chosen not to. If outlying areas did not allow growth, the people who move here because of work would simply have to live inside the city/county. Plentiful land and few boundaries to development allow sprawl to continue at an alarming rate. It is only recently that it is finally starting to be noticed. Union county will not approve any new housing developments unless they can provide their own water. Since Union county doesn’t have its own water supply, this effectively ends any new housing developments being announced. Those already approved can be built, but no other ones will be approved. We will see a lot more of this in the future as Charlotte’s limited water supply must be stretched to accommodate more and more people. The Charlotte area would still have grown at a considerable pace whether the suburbs were open to development or not, so local businesses really wouldn’t have noticed a difference. If not for Charlotte, York, Lancaster, and Chester counties would still be rural landscapes with vast areas of nothingness.
[QUOTE=metro;248501]you cannot deny Charlotte’s traffic, pollution, and crime does not effect outlying municipalities. I know of 3 bank robberies alone here in Fort Mill the last 6 months that were Charlotte thugs and apprehended in NC after the crime.
furthermore, your theory would be horrible for NC business (hence why it has never happened). I would wager 30-50% of the economy in Pineville is from SC consumer spending. 200,000 people live in York County alone. You want those people coming across the stateline for dinner, shopping trips, etc.[/QUOTE]
I seriously doubt that NC business would be hurt by a toll. Charlotte supplies the demand for jobs, shopping, restaurants, and enterntainment that people in those areas need and want. It would tick some SC folks off, but ultimately would not stop most of them provided the toll was not too steep. What would you do Metro? Look for work in Fort Mill or Chester instead?
[QUOTE=mineshaft;248505]I seriously doubt that NC business would be hurt by a toll. Charlotte supplies the demand for jobs, shopping, restaurants, and enterntainment that people in those areas need and want. It would tick some SC folks off, but ultimately would not stop most of them provided the toll was not too steep. What would you do Metro? Look for work in Fort Mill or Chester instead?[/QUOTE]
the work part, yes you would have to pay the toll. But Rock Hill has great shopping now and people would stay put in the county instead of “tolling” into NC to shop and Charlotte business would suffer. All that adds up. Why do you think NC and SC battle over the “no tax day” for back to school??? Or alchohol sales? lottery? you are restricting trade.
name a place this has been implemented. Its a silly suggestion. Pineville business owners would revolt.
also, it would not work, people would just use other roads to enter NC. You cant put a toll booth at EVERY road entering NC, now that would cost a fortune.
btw, I am not anti toll road, I just think the notion of doing it at the stateline is incredibly short sided. What has been considered is the way paychecks are taxed for SC workers in Charlotte, that may make more sense.
Regardless as to whether you are a light rail proponent or not, everyone can see how this whole mess is really bad publicity for the university. The email trail looks really fishy/suspicious. The university is definitely doing the right thing by launching an investigation. Was the investigation initiated by Bowles or Dubois? I hope it was Dubois.
this could start another thread to itself...but what about the illegals that are drunk killing US citizens? Are you saying the Observer agenda is [B][I]HIDE[/I][/B] the fact that there are illegals who kill our citizens routinely, or are you saying they [B][I]BLAME[/I][/B] too many illegals for too many dui crashes?
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]You are correct, should be a separate board but…
When you have a story open something like this, which is not an actual story but more like a good example of many that I have read. “”““Mrs.___ and one of her two children were killed in a head on collision while driving on I485 Saturday morning. The accident occurred when Juan Guzman Ramirez Jimenez was traveling the wrong way on a I485 exit ramp. Alcohol was believed to a factor.””“”
If alcohol is mentioned, how about legal status? 99% of the time, the Observer covers for the illegal alien problem. I also believe that referring illegal’s as any type of immigrant is an insult to everyone who has immigrated into this country to become legal citizens. Just an opinion.
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[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]While I have respect for lots of DOT employees, I think the NCDOT whole system is flawed and corrupted. The NCDOT is kind of like CHARMECK, too large to function efficiently. Some examples:
-I 485 south charlotte (2 lanes?)
-I77 HOV experiment that causes a bottle neck from I85 south that was not there before the HOV?
-I77 HOV experiment that does NOTHING to relieve traffic problems, but does increase the amount of pollution caused by others creeping in the adjacent full lanes
-Raleigh on 2nd beltway and Charlotte cannot complete first and is about 20 years behind schedule at completion?
-I could go on.
Here is the kicker. Why is the last leg of 485 delayed? Well here is the most significant reason: The design groups that were doing I77 widening , 485 interchange and the 485 beltway were separate. What resulted? Well, if the 485 was completed on schedule, you would have had a potential of 12 lanes merging into 2 lanes of 77 north. No rocket science needed there? UH HUH. They had to rush in a last minute third lane addition to relieve some of the future congestion from the other 485 leg, which will still be a mess.
I77 was widened to 4 lanes which narrowed to 2 less than a mile from the new 485/77 junction. Combine that with 485 from east and west, and you have a disaster. There were no funds to provide a permanent solution to the I77 north bottleneck embarrassment, because it is a complicated cluster*&%&. In order to take the heat off of the state, they have claimed that there are no funds to finish the last leg of 485. In reality, there are not enough funds to cover up their screw-up.
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Thats a pretty inaccurate statement. Are some federal dollars not spent on Interstate systems (I-77, 85)? Also CATS operates in Fort Mill and Rock Hill.
If anything, Charlotte should have to pay a tax to surrounding outlying municipalities, becasue the growth problems, traffiic, and crime spreading outward based off political and business decisions made in Charlotte. It works both ways.
Metro,
I am usually with you on your posts, but not this one.
[QUOTE=MeanJoeGreen;248535][FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]While I have respect for lots of DOT employees, I think the NCDOT whole system is flawed and corrupted. The NCDOT is kind of like CHARMECK, too large to function efficiently.[/SIZE][/FONT][/QUOTE]
It was their districts engineers who screwed up; it was their district who chose those paving contractors; it was their district engineers who didn’t supervise the project; YET the ENTIRE state has to pay for that district’s mistake? Anybody knows that if the Charlotte District of the DOT messed up with the paving on I-485, you better believe Charlotte would take a hit in its DOT budget, not the entire state.
From the article…“Pulling all $21 million out of Division 5 could have delayed projects like the I-85 overhaul through Henderson and the next leg of Wake Forest’s N.C. 98 Bypass.” Whew! Didn’t know Henderson is so overcongested with their commute…those folks from Oxford and Middleburg must be excited about new asphalt. And why would anybody think Charlotte needed to finish their outer loop? Wake Forest sure needs a bypass first!
I am usually with you on your posts, but not this one.[/QUOTE]
I should of posted a (tongue in cheek) smiley, but I was not 100% serious about the tax thing. I was just pointing out that tolling SC residents on I-77 because they are such a “strain” on NC roads is a tad silly. As I stated in my example, Charlotte problems (crime, traffic, pollution) hamstring SC far more than our road usage.
Regardless as to whether you are a light rail proponent or not, everyone can see how this whole mess is really bad publicity for the university. The email trail looks really fishy/suspicious. The university is definitely doing the right thing by launching an investigation. Was the investigation initiated by Bowles or Dubois? I hope it was Dubois.
The internet and FoIA will make politicians and public institutions double check the way they do business.
The paper trail would not have been caught a decade ago.
Amen...here's another example of the DOT corruption:
[URL=http://www.wral.com/traffic/story/1573411/]http://www.wral.com/traffic/story/1573411/[/URL]
It was their districts engineers who screwed up; it was their district who chose those paving contractors; it was their district engineers who didn’t supervise the project; YET the ENTIRE state has to pay for that district’s mistake? Anybody knows that if the Charlotte District of the DOT messed up with the paving on I-485, you better believe Charlotte would take a hit in its DOT budget, not the entire state.
From the article…“Pulling all $21 million out of Division 5 could have delayed projects like the I-85 overhaul through Henderson and the next leg of Wake Forest’s N.C. 98 Bypass.” Whew! Didn’t know Henderson is so overcongested with their commute…those folks from Oxford and Middleburg must be excited about new asphalt. And why would anybody think Charlotte needed to finish their outer loop? Wake Forest sure needs a bypass first!
We have a saying; You can count on life, death, paying taxes and concrete cracking. I would like to split NC into independent western and eastern sections. Sure, that will never fly, but maybe splitting the DOT and the tax dollars spent would. Most states have their counties constructing many of the local roads. Here, we have city and county throwing good money after bad on a light rail system. What this city needs is a complete, widened beltway, I77 widened to exit 42, I85 widened to Kannapolis and about 4 or more freeways that act as spokes to connect I485, I77 and I85 to the other major Charlotte roads. All of that should cost less than the proposed lightrail system.
We have a saying; You can count on life, death, paying taxes and concrete cracking. I would like to split NC into independent western and eastern sections. Sure, that will never fly, but maybe splitting the DOT and the tax dollars spent would. Most states have their counties constructing many of the local roads. Here, we have city and county throwing good money after bad on a light rail system. What this city needs is a complete, widened beltway, I77 widened to exit 42, I85 widened to Kannapolis and about 4 or more freeways that act as spokes to connect I485, I77 and I85 to the other major Charlotte roads. All of that should cost less than the proposed lightrail system.
Unfortunately, transportation funding from the state is determined by an equal-share funding formula. That means that eastern counties get useless roads while counties in our area don’t even get the roads we NEED. That means that in order to have I-85 widened through Cabarrus, Wake Forest gets their bypass and several other “important” roads projects.
Widening I-85 through Cabarrus and Rowan Counties will be completed using toll roads most likely. That is the only way DOT will be able to fund them because there is no money available in the next 5-6 years.
Finishing the last leg of I-485 was postponed because the people in South Charlotte whined a lot about not having enough lanes there. I wonder how the people who would use the last leg feel about how many lanes THEY have right now. Granted, there are design flaws, but they aren’t what is holding up construction. Rich people in South Charlotte with political connections are holding up construction.
The biggest problem with transportation systems is that too often the changes and fixes are REACTIVE instead of PROACTIVE. The light rail project is PROACTIVE. It is being built in anticipation of growth and the fact that in 15-20 years, it will be needed.
[QUOTE=Noreaster;248568]
Widening I-85 through Cabarrus and Rowan Counties will be completed using toll roads most likely. That is the only way DOT will be able to fund them because there is no money available in the next 5-6 years.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I think I read in the Big O that Cabarrus has to fight for road money with Meck, Union, Gaston…while Rowan gets to compete with Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Yadkin…thats why 85 is like 6 lanes in Rowan and 2 in Cabarrus.
It is only a matter of time before the bridge over the Yadkin River on I-85 becomes dilapidated so much they have to close it, and force traffic on 29/70.
Finishing the last leg of I-485 was postponed because the people in South Charlotte whined a lot about not having enough lanes there. I wonder how the people who would use the last leg feel about how many lanes THEY have right now. Granted, there are design flaws, but they aren’t what is holding up construction. Rich people in South Charlotte with political connections are holding up construction.
[/QUOTE]
those are some real generalizations. can you elaborate or substantiate? the bottleneck at South Blvd/485 is beyond mind boggling and should be “whined” about. It can take 45 minutes from the 77/485 bridge to the mall at 5pm. (keep your fingers crossed there is no wreck that day)
nowhere on 485 (southside) have additional lanes been added. It was repaved this week though. At least the leg by the airport is done right, 3 lanes.
