Friday Gripe: Charlotte's transportation system stinks (08-08-2025--Hour2)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Mecklenburg County Commissioners gave the green light for a referendum to be put to us we the voters, on whether we would like to raise the sales tax by one percent to take it from seven and a quarter to eight and a quarter. It'll raise billions of dollars over decades, and it will be used for Forty percent of it will be used for roads, but that includes sidewalks and street lights, forty percent for rail, and another twenty percent for other transit related things like micro transit, which is basically government run Uber. I have concerns about that because now you are going to be putting Uber out of business. Lift out of business, right, like, why would people pay the full cost of those rides when they can get gov code to come to. However, chances are the micro transit government service probably won't be as efficient and probably won't be running all of the regular hours that Uber and Lyft do. I don't know, We'll see how it works. Look, I'm a I would prefer there be micro transit versus buses seriously, because like the cost per rider is probably cheaper. You got buses that ride around, they have very few people on them, Like, get rid of that bus service and just run taxis or something. But I would say, do it as a voucher program. Give people a card, you know, do so it means testing, So you get a preloaded card and you could use that, or you can buy cards and then use those cards for your Uber and Lyft drivers. I would say that's a better way to do it as a voucherized kind of a program. But what do I know. I mentioned also that there was a presentation made like twenty years ago talking about how a lot of our roads have been designed and you know, particularly here in the in the southeast where you know, we have a long there's a long history, you know, two hundred plus years, well three hundred, four hundred years, and how did these roads come about? A lot of them were built based on animal paths, because the hunters followed the animals, and then the trading paths. There was already a path here, so let's go ahead and follow this path, and then it takes you to this town. And so then when you know, the automobile comes along, they just pave those roads. And so a lot of the you know, road planning quote unquote was done by animals, and Dave wanted to know if he can read more about that history. Look, I just remember the story that was told to me during this presentation, this discussion about road planning twenty years ago. So I know I do not have a source for you on that. I also heard that, like, for example, why are our roads as wide as they are? Because you go overseas, you go to other countries and they've got different sized roads, like real like you know, cities that have been around for thousands of years whatever, they got these tiny little roads and all of that right, because they built up before the automobile. But why does the automobile, Why is it as wide as it is, which dictates how wide you build the roads? How did that come about? Well, Initially you had the roads built to the horse and carriage. You see where this is going, right, So how wide is a horse And that's how wide you built the road because the ruts would dig it in and so you knew where the road was. Right. So then when you come in and you're finally going to put cobblestone down or pavement down, you do it over this existing road. And that's based on literally the width of a horse's ass. That's so there you go. That's how we ended up. Anyway, Now, one of the problems in any of these types of projects, or because by the way, part of the other deal is the state legislation that allowed for this vote. It also creates a transit authority. This is part of the Pave Act. It does not specifically carve out seats for public transit users, which is what a lot of the people who were speaking at the County commission meeting were demanding. They want they want riders, users of the system to have a voice on the governing authority, the transit authority. This is going to be this According to a story WBTV by Naomi Coles, the specifics of how to spend a large portion of the funding would be decided by a tightly controlled twenty seven person group. I don't know what the tightly controlled adjective refers to, because it's appointed. You get appointments by Again, this is twenty seven total seats. You have two that are appointed by the General Assembly, one appointed by the governor, twelve appointed by the City of Charlotte, six appointed by the County Commission, and then another six appointed by each of these six quote unquote small towns. The other municipalities in Mecklenburg County Huntersville, Cornelius, Matthews, Minhill, Davidson, Pineville. So that's the makeup of this authority, right. They're all appointments, but there's twenty seven members on the body. They cannot be current elected officials, they cannot be lobbyists. Two appointments, one from the Charlotte designation and one from the Mecklenburg County designation, would be reserved for quote otherwise qualified people who are also active users of cats. But if you can't find anybody qualified to fill those seats, then it releases the commission of that requirement. And that's not enough. According to Robert Dawkins of Action and See, which has been opposed to this plan. They're not opposed to mass transit, they're just opposed to this plan. And what Dawkins said is what I see as an unhealthy alliance for six spots which will always make you able to run the board. So I don't know who those six spots are. He says, that's the three people that will get appointed by the folks in the General Assembly. But that's not true. Only two are actually coming from the General Assembly. One is from the governor, but he counts that as three for some reason. And then the three corporate appointments and then two small business people. Okay, because that is they laid out like you got to have some small business representation, corporate representation, that sort of thing. So okay. But even if I take mister dawkins math at face value and say, okay, you have six members on that body, and you think he says, you put them all together and they're going to always be able to run the board. But I'm at a loss to understand how six members control twenty seven or twenty one others. How does six members of a twenty seven member board control that board? So look piece of Advice to Action n C and Robert Dawkins, I think you have to come up with some better arguments because this does this one doesn't make any sense. One of the biggest issues has always been whether it's consolidation of the local government. You know, because I've heard you know, this has been debated for decades. Get rid of the County Commission, there's no need for them anymore, and just consolidate into Charlotte. Right. Of course, the county won't do that because they don't want to give up their power and whatever. So the other problem, though, is that whenever you comprise a body and you're looking at the six small towns and then you're looking at the City of Charlotte, you have seven municipalities. Charlotte has way more people. So any kind of way that you design these boards or authorities or commissions, you're you're always running the risk of creating a perpetual majority vote for either the City of Charlotte if you do it by population or square mileage or something, or amount of money being confiscated through taxes and diverted into the commission or agency. So if you were to wait it in some way per capita or something, Charlotte's going to have the run of the roost, right, they're going to be able to veto or vote against anything else that comes from the small towns. So the small towns never want to be a part of that because they're then abdicating power and control. Okay, well, if you go the other direction, can we find a way to make like the empower the small towns. Well, then the city of Charlotte won't go in on that because they're like, we have more people, we spend more money, whatever, So they don't want to abdicate control and power either. It's always a problem with these types of things. And so this twenty seven member authority is, you know, the intent is to try to get at that balancing between the towns, the city, the county, with some input from the state. The idea is you have basically a team of rivals. It sounds like, so I'm not really sure if this is the best argument for action, and see to oppose it. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Alrighty, this is from David. Let me get to the text line. David writes in Hi, Pete, this is David from Matthews. Why trust the people that run the trains? Remember a couple of years ago when the trains were jumping the rails because they hadn't done the proper monthly maintenance to the cars, and it was oversight and abuse and neglect. Yeah right, that's like that's the problem here is like you guys have been running a system that has had a whole bunch of problems already, and now maybe with the new transit authority, you create this transit authority and now maybe some of this stuff gets fixed now. I also, you know, I got a little bit of PTSD coming out of you know, New York Low those many years ago. I mean, I've been down in the Carolina since nineteen ninety two. But there's always problems with these transit authorities and eventually, like the one up there, I forget what it's called. I think it's just the MTA. I think they call it. It's Jersey, New York. Maybe Connecticut is in there, and it's like the Port Authority or something like that. I don't even remember. But like it's basically it's it's its own, like unaccountable government. I don't want that. David also adds Lama, You're welcome regarding the sales tax for light rail. Here's another Texter. Get the federal money first, then come to the voters. For the one sent sales tax. I am sixty three years old. I don't have thirty years to pay that penny. If I was thirty three, I still wouldn't have thirty years to pay that penny. So you can't get the federal money because it's a match. You can't get the grant until you lock down state and local funding sources. That's that's my recollection of how the process works. Roger says, Pete, give our city officials some credit. They have a proven record with properly spending on our money on the light rail repairs and bulletproof vests for bus drivers. Yes, that's right. How do I get? Harry wants to know how he gets a supervisor's job with the city. I don't know. And then, uh wait, hang over this thing. Sorry the text line. I'm reading this thing and it bounces, so I'll start reading something and then it bounces out of my screen. So I'm sorry, So where was I here? Don't forget the new v A t AKA the tariffs on imports, says Jefferson, and Kevin says, when I just tuned in, at first, I thought you were talking about the new US tariffs. I fear those are going to do the same thing. The Meckelberg tax increase will do drive up cost on all products, even those coming from inside the US are going to go up because companies are going to raise the prices to increase profit. It's not a matter of increasing their profits, Kevin. It's a matter of maintaining their profit margin. Okay, they're not going to raise It's not that you raise the prices to make more money. It's that you raise the prices to offset your losses that you're now incurring. As long as they are cheaper than the foreign goods, that's all that matters to consumers. Somebody wants to know what the name of the Oh, did you already answer them? On the bumper music? Somebody did? I think having Charlotte spend the money as it's supposed to because I'm reading the feed. I'm not reading that other screen. Having Charlotte spend the money as it is supposed to and not being able to divert money is what Braxton Winston was referring to having their hands tied. I did not hear this from Rodney. I did not hear Winston's comments. Former Mayor pro ten Braxton Winston he's part of the action and see opposition to this plan. I did not hear the comment that Rodney's referring to. Aaron says, let us know the let us know that weather also plays a big part in road construction. If things are too cool or too hot, things can happen. The weather has to be like in between. Basically, oh, let him know. That was to the caller Tony who called in at the end of the last hour complaining about, you know, the length of time it takes to do the road projects, which a lot of that is also regulatory, but also shifting of cruise around, you know, working on different projects. Scott, I'll see there it goes. It just bounced out on my screen again. Scott says, why don't the items that are causing the issue get charged? The tax cars? Well, they are, they are charged, but actually the cars aren't causing the issue. The people are calling causing the issue. I always say this, people complain about traffic. You are traffic. You okay, me, we are traffic. Those cars aren't driving around on their own, even if they were autonomous, they still got people in them, right, Those are people in those cars. So that's why you tax the people, one of my And by the way, this goes to something that former Governor Jim Martin told me years ago, which was this old saying, see that man behind the tree, go tax him, don't tax me. And that is the driving philosophy on like all of this stuff, which is I don't want to pay any more taxes, but I want this stuff, so go tax them. One of my customers is large. This is from Kevin again, one of my customers, large enough to handle anything the city needs. But he has said Mecklenburg and the City of Charlotte is miserable to work with. He stays away from them specifically. Lots of other cities and municipalities are much easier to work with. Well, get this, there is no cap on the amount of comments and recomments and recomments that the city can do four projects. So if I'm building a project and I go to the city for my permits and they make a bunch of notes, They're like, you got to do this, do that, correct this, change that, and I do all of the things that they said, I then have to resubmit for the permit. And then instead of just going through and saying, okay, we listed four things, you did all those four things you're approved, they do they do a whole different review, a whole new review. So you address the four things they asked for, and then they find other stuff, and then you got to you got to take it back, you got to re review, You bring it back to them again, and that process can go. You can go back and forth with the city forever. There's no limit on how many times they can re review, which is kind of nuts, right, Like if I submit a project, here are my plans, and you approve them, except or you say you got to do these four changes. I make those changes, that would tell me now I'm proved. I don't think you should be able to then go back and say, Okay, good job on those four things. Here's five more. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. 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Turn down the radio, Jerry, okay, okay, okay, Pete, I'm Okay, are you okay? Yeah, good, I'm good. Thank you, yeah, thank you had great show as usually, Thanks sir, Hey Pete. The city is a mess. It is more dangerous than ever. And I know this isn't news, but I just think we need to talk about it more. My goodness. Well, I mean, I think the CMPD put out their crime stats that showed the crime was down. They were touting it. I forget if it was a specific was it murder that was down a little bit or something, but they were touting their crime stats a couple of weeks ago saying that it was lower. And I mean, this is one of the things like like, yes, there is crime in Uptown. Absolutely. My wife works in Uptown. I go up there pretty regularly to you know, meet her at the office and that sort of thing. I'm in uptown. My doctor's in Uptown. So I am uptown enough to see what has become of Uptown. And it's way more, you know, busier, a lot more people than you know, twenty five years ago. No doubt, crime is definitely, you know, worse than than it was in recent years. But historically speaking, and this is the case across America, violent crime has been declining for decades. Did you know that? Yeah, the thing that you know, I know, there were several restaurants, several I think there was a half a dozen or so restaurants that they came out this week said that, you know, business just wasn't there. Yeah. I'm in the food service business, and and I just feel like people are afraid to go uptown. I well, yes, you are correct. So therein lies the conundrum is that if there is a perception that it's dangerous that keeps people away. You're absolutely right, and that perception is driven by high profile, you know, violent acts, that sort of thing, but it's also driven by the large vagrancy problem, the homeless problem. And absolutely right. And so when people see and look again, Christy works up there every day, and I hear stories virtually every day, people passed out on the sidewalk, screaming at each other, screaming at passers by, screaming at nobody. You know, it's just it. It does not feel safe, even if the crime stats don't show that. Pete, you obviously have some concerns because your wife lives up there. I'm sure, I mean because your wife works up there. Yeah, I mean through throughout the day. You probably think about that from time to time. I'm sure, yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah. You know, I just thought of something. I'm giving my my daughter some football tickets to go to the game tonight. But there's no way I would let her go up there with with a girlfriend. She's going up there with her with her boyfriend. There's no way I would let her go up there with another gal. There's no way. I just wouldn't do it. Yeah. Again, that's the perception of the perception of not being safe. And how does the city combat that. I would say, you probably need more police presence on the streets so people feel safer. How about how about a police chief that that, uh, maybe we had a better that maybe had a little better persona than what he's projected. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, you know, it comes from the top. So yeah, I mean, like all of these things are choices and priorities that local leaders have made, and you know, voters will suffer it as long as they continue putting the same people back into office. Jerry, I appreciate the call, Buddy, good to hear from you. Thank you all right, man, have a great weekend. Let me get back to the text line. Here because it's kind of blowing up. One of my customers is large enough to handle anything the city needs. Oh, I already wrote that. I read that one. Here's another one. I'm fifty seven years old. I grew up in Atlanta, moved to Charlotte in my late twenties. When Marta expanded in Atlanta, there was a correlated spike in crime along the new routes that largely never dissipated. This drove a lot of families even further out into the new suburbs away from the rail system. Ultimately it makes drive times even longer. Oh and Atlanta's projections from Marta never panned out either. Yeah, that's another thing too. Here the ridership numbers, you know, like that's the project on the cost they never meet the what is sold. In fact, I got a story in here also about the NASCAR Hall of Fame. I remember when that whole thing got built. Those visitor projections are way off, and people like me back then said this is probably not going to be an accurate prediction. This is from Brian who says, I'm a degreed engineer that has worked on large capital projects for the past thirty years. That last caller said there was an abundance of design engineers and he was wrong. Not the last caller, but in the last hour caller Tony said that it was infinite and you are correct. There are only a few firms in the US that could handle the design and construction of a light rail system. This is from Rodney. Tony apparently doesn't that's caller Tony doesn't understand. The firm has to have the money to do the work because the state will not give you an advanced payment. There's also a list of on tractors the state picks from, and you have to meet certain qualifications. Bucky says, before any more spending on light rail, is the existing system repaired? Is it running at full speed? I do not know. It's a good question. Remember they had to they had to reduce all of the train speeds because the failure to maintain the trucks underneath the wheelbase, you know there. They were like, if you go too fast, like the thing could fall off and derail. With regard to rail, it'd be a great idea to do a deep financial dive into the Chicago system and how much waste and abuse in that system versus ridership actually using the system. Steve says, what happened to the good old days when private business donated to pay for these things for a tax? Right? Well, they can still do that if they want to. I'd say, what happened to the days when the private sector actually operated this stuff? But oh no, you can't do that, because when someone built a toll road, everybody lost their minds. Right, arena deal taxes, ask Glenn Wheeler. George says, Lynn Wheeler passed away, So you mentioned the pay of engineers. I've always loved Chu Choo trains. Ever been to tweet see, says Joey? I have not. When will the residents of South Charlotte, who rarely receive any positive impact from these initiatives, rebel and vote against these items? We pay tons of taxes but a very little, if any transit service in our part of town in this case, throwing Matthews in Minhill as well, since they're on the short end of the stick regarding not getting light rail. Now that's a fair point too. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. The Texter before the break said, when will the residents of South Charlotte rebel? There was actually an attempt about twenty years ago to create a new town in Balentine, not balant They wouldn't call it Valentine. I think it was pitched as Providence because there is no Providence North Carolina, and that idea got kicked around from the local movers and shakers down in that part of the city. They wanted to secede out of the City of Charlotte and become their own town. It did not go anywhere, but it has been discussed in the past. One Texter says, I enjoy the show. My question is what keeps Raleigh from keeping more of our money since we are going to create our own local fund. So Raleigh much just might just say, hey, they got it covered. I'm not sure I follow Usually with these deals, you get a chunk of money from Dot, a chunk of money from the local, and then a chunk of money from the Feds. So another Texter says, I can't afford this county anymore. They increased my city tax, they increased my county tax, They almost tripled my property value so they could get more revenue on those taxes, and now they're increasing the sales tax again. It's unaffordable and unlivable. Another one asks what happened to the violence interrupters? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they have been interrupting violence. I'm not sure. Maybe they haven't. Yeah, Kirk says, talking about all this transit stuff reminds me of Keith Larsen's likening the subject to the Wizard of Oz. The traffic, congestion, pollution. Oh my, he used to say that because those were always the arguments why we needed to build the trains. Steve in China Grove, whoa whoa China Grove. Decades ago, when light rail was in its infancy, insinuations were made the project could actually pay for itself. Hasn't been long enough to turn profits? No, I thought that argument was some people tried to make that argument that I believe, if memory serves correctly, I think I did a whole package of stories about no interviewed different cities. It never pays for itself. Never, It's always subsidized. It does not make a profit. Couldn't those profits finance the newly proposed project, saving Mecklenburg citizens a lifetime of added taxes? Double rim shot? Please, I don't know if you get a double. I don't even know if you get won for that, Steve. They mentioned the runaway Texas Democo that during the news break. Okay, I'm not going to that's off topic. Thirty years ago I got married. You would not be caught dead uptown, No pun intended after five o'clock because of safety issues. Then it became a great place to go. And now it feels like it's back to what it was thirty to thirty five years ago. Yeah. Look, as one who has been here now long enough to have seen the arc of growth and dynamism and excitement and people getting lured back to Uptown, restaurants opening, it's all activated. There's stuff going on. But also keep in mind that a lot of people don't like that. They don't want to live in the city. They don't care about living in an urban environment, but that a lot of people do. But cities are expensive, and they are noisy, and they are crowded. That is what cities are. So I worked up Town for the better part of thirty years. Always felt safe until recently. A friend and I used to walk and one time a homeless man threatened us and told us I'm gonna kill somebody. I'm just warning you, I'm gonna kill somebody. Another time, my grandson and I were leaving Discovery Place and we didn't hardly get out the door before a homeless guy approached me asking for money. I felt very vulnerable, especially since I had a child with me, so I gave him five dollars just to get him off my case. But I shouldn't have. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's perception of insecurity, and like, the only way to change that is to make people feel more safe. So how do you do that? You remove the things that are making people feel unsafe. And the main thing that makes people feel unsafe, well two number one random mass shootings and parks at major events. Right, you got a bunch of people together, and so you get gang beefs that come from other neighborhoods. They bring it into Rome or beard In Park and they start fighting each other. Like that's a big one obviously, But the main one is the vagrancy problem. That's the big one that is contributing to the perception of insecurity in uptown. I mentioned the NASCAR Hall of Fame. They're asking for more money twenty five million from the City of Charlotte. Attendance and revenue are both on the rise, they say, but it's still nowhere near what it was projected to be when it originally opened. The Hall of Fame started facing attendance and revenue problems soon after opening in twenty ten. According to Mary Ramsey's piece at the Charlotte Observer, officials back then projected eight hundred thousand visitors in the first year, four hundred thousand in the second year. Actual attendance two seventy two two hundred and seventy two thousand in the first year, which then dropped to one hundred and ninety seven thousand. Look, I've been to the NASCAR Hall of Fame twice, once to actually, you know, go through it, and then another time there was an event there and it's cool, but it I don't know if it has the replayability, you know what I mean, Like, unless you are really into NASCAR history. Once you drive the simulated car, once you walk along the the you know, the the racetrack tarmac, which is cool, when you visit the gift shop, maybe you change you do one of the pit crew drills where you change a flat tire kind of thing. Like once you do those things, everything else is kind of like, Oh, here's Fireball Roberts, you know, fire suit or whatever. And I like, again, for a NASCAR fan, that's probably great, but I'd also don't know, like, what is it that keeps them coming back? Right? What keeps them coming back to that Hall of fame when they're in town for the Coca Cola six hundred or something or the All Star Race. Revenue is up and exceeds expenses now according to the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which is good. That's good, but it is nowhere near what it was originally intended to attract, much like you know, much like these transit systems. And I will say though, that this is paid for with the two percent tax on hotel motel, the occupancy tax, so at least this isn't like a sales tax hit or a property tax hit for us. This is generated by the hotel motel, you know, the occupancy tax. So at least there's that. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.