Map Wars, toll roads, and train votes (08-12-2025--Hour1)

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 of the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendarshow 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. All Right, so Tuesday at noon we always talk to Andrew Dunn. He is the publisher of long Leaf Politics. Longleafpol dot com is the website. He's also a contributing columnist to The Charlotte Observer. Andrew, how are you. I'm good, great to be back. Yes, and I was listening to your appearance on the Do Politics Better podcast. Good job over there. I enjoy the conversation. Yeah. So, all right, a couple of things to get to with you today, because you are a prolific producer of content. So let's start over at your or your website, long Leaf Politics. You write about the map wars in North Carolina. You and I have covered redistricting for probably like twenty years and it's like virtually NonStop, about every other year, it seems like we're we're covering court cases and map redraws and everything else. You court battles, emergency maps and secret files. You write. While it was never something the average voter really cared about, it was a great political tool. So explain how is it a great political tool? The redistricting fights. Right, Well, for fifteen years there for Democrats, you know, it was a rallying cry. You know, Republicans have stacked the deck, They've rigged the elections through drawing unfair maps and different political figures. You know, Jeff Jackson being a big one, you know, made that a big part of their pitch is you know, I'm finding back against Republicans and against jerrymandering. But now with Texas and California about to touch off the jerry mandering arms race, there seems to be a renewed appreciation for districts drawn by politicians. So the energy around it is going to be completely gone in North Carolina. Yeah, you're right that the California Texas fight is bringing the nation towards a redistricting army rate arms race. The quote fair maps issue is toast and I've been saying this for years, which is when Democrats say fair maps, what they mean are maps that benefit them more than Republicans or than more than they otherwise would. And so I've never bought this line. And you write about what's happening in Texas and in California may take this issue completely out of the hands of North Carolina Democrats. So why do you say that? Right? So, yeah, I'm against engineering outcomes when it comes to political redistricting. You know, when you look at what the Democrats were asking for in the last round of court cases, what they wanted, you know, their whole argument was North Carolina is a fifty to fifty state, more or less, so the congressional district should have fifty to fifty outcomes. It should be seven seats for Republicans, seven seats for Democrats. And that's what the court actually mandated. And I want to say it was twenty twenty two or twenty three. And you know that's just a gerrymander. That's just as significant as anything that the Republicans did. You know, I would I would classify any plan that is trying to engineer the outcomes as a jerrymander. So I'm in favor of some reforms to this whole process. I don't think it should be taken out of the hands of the legislature, but we could put some more guardrails around it that basically tries to keep geographic areas together as much as possible. I think that's what the you know, the intention is for districts is for them to represent a cohesive area of the state. Yeah, in North Carolina has rules, right the Democrats refer to them as the clusters, but refer to them as the groupings, right, Like, there are a good amount of rules for the legislative races that they have to adhere to keeping counties whole. You can't cut up as you know, a lot of counties. You can't split precincts and like that sort of thing. So and you've got like these groupings of counties that belong together because of their you know, historical similarities and such. So there are some rules, but they don't really apply right at the federal level as I understand it. Yeah, that's right. And the other big thing is, you know, those rules basically lock in seventy five percent of the district. There's nothing that the General Assembly could do about it. But you know, on the margins, especially in urban suburban exurban areas, there's some wiggle room that I think we could tighten it up a little bit. Yeah. So, yeah, the argument that we heard, as you mentioned, this proportional argument that you know, well, we got fifty percent of the votes, so we should get fifty percent of the seats. But that like, but the candidates matter and the offices matter, and that's why that proportional argument to your point, like, yeah, you're trying to fix the outcome based on some past election. You know, are you using presidential races, are you using voter registration, are you using governor's races. It's so I always found that to be just a most convenient argument for whatever the time was that they were trying to make the argument. And now that's all blown up. I agree with you, it's all blown up there. This fair proportional argument doesn't really hold water when we compare you know, what's going on in Democrat controlled states, which ironically are the states that the Texas Democrats fled to in order to prove that jerrymandering is bad, which is kind of a oh. Yeah, I mean some of those Illinois districts. Yeah insane, Yeah. Yeah, it's just nuts, all right. So let's talk let me shift gears, and let's talk transportation. First up is toll roads. You got a piece of the Charlotte Observer talking about how we used to be called the good Road State. I think when I started as a reporter back in like two thousand, I would hear that, Moniker, But I don't think i've heard it in about fifteen years. And so I will admit I'm sort of in the camp mostly of the user fee as a as a way to fund roads, right Like, it's a user fee. If you're going to use this lane, you're going to use these roads, you pay extra. But you say in this piece that, and I think you're correct that there should be a different approach depending on the kind of road and the history of the road. In essence, is it a long time main road in a city. Rather, you shouldn't be slapping tolls on those existing. Roads, right you know. And the biggest example was actually up in Raleigh Capital Boulevard, which is a main route into downtown Raleigh. There is a plan to slap a toll on that as part of a renovation project. No new lanes or anything, just putting a toll on that. And the argument against it is, you know, people build their whole lives around how they're going to get to and from work, and you know they make choices about where to live based on those arrangements. And if you're going to all of a sudden start tolling somebody for that, you know, it pulls the rug out from under them. Yeah, new highway, you could make a case for that because it's a new highway and it's when it comes online, it's going to be a toll road or have toll lanes in it, So that's more of a defensible position, I would say. But I do, yeah, I do tend to agree, like with the example you've given, Like, that's that's not cool because people, like you said, they've bought a house, they've got a commute time, they built all of that in to where they were going to live versus where they work, and now they're going to have to pay additional money just on the commute to get to this job that they took based on, you know, a salary calculation with no tolls, and that all changes if you slap a new toll on it. Exactly and the Monroe Expressway is a good example of, you know, a new highway construction with a toll that nobody seems to have a big problem with. I in fact, I really like taking it. The tolls are too bad and I get where I'm going really quick. Yes, it's probably my favorite toll road. I completely agree on the Monroe Bypass. Let me also, I need to point out NCDOT, as you write, is taking public comment on its long range plan, So if people want to weigh in on this, they can do that on the North Carolina dot website. So that's important information to relay to people. Also, we have the Transit plan. It's going to be on the November ballot. The proposal is to add a one cent sales tax for transit roads and buses. It has brought, you say, the political edges together, not just in support, just not in suppor rather, yeah, because i've seen you know, conservatives oppose this plan and you got action and see people on the left they're opposing this plan. But you make the point that if the referendum fails, chances are we're not going to get another plan for a very long time. That's exactly right. I mean it was a pretty herculean task to get this on the ballot to begin with. You know, Representative Tricia Costam really had an impossible job and was able to get it over the finish line. Now, just you know the fact that this is a one time deal, which it is, this is our one shot for it. That in and of itself is not to me a compelling argument to vote for it, but because the plan has gotten to a point where I think it's worthy of the voters of Charlotte to support. You know, the big one for me is the red line. I mean, the law requires that the red line gets started before anything else happened. I mean, that's been a broken promise to the people who live up Lake Norman for gosh, going on thirty years now. You know, that should have been done twenty thirty years ago, and now it's finally going to get done. But for me, the bigger thing is, you know, you look at where growth is coming in North Carolina. It's happening all around the city of Charlotte. You know, we talked a couple of weeks ago about albumar Al being one of the top growing places in the in the country and for the city of Charlotte. For the region of Charlotte to continue to grow the way we want it to so that we can have jobs and opportunities, there's got to be a better way to get people in and out of the center of Charlotte. And just looking at how much highway projects cost these days, it makes rail and other transit a lot more appealing. What of the argument that this increase. The Charlotte Observer did a story on this. They crunched them. Oh no, sorry. The Charlotte Ledger did a story. They crunched the numbers, I believe, and they said that this is going to be a larger increase a tax increase basically through your purchases on this sales tax. It's a larger increase than the last city and county property tax increases of the last two years combined. So all at once, the average taxpayer is going to be spending probably about two hundred and eighty bucks between two fifty two eighty a year, and that's more than they would be paying than they are paying in the additional property tax increases. So how do you address that argument? Yeah, I mean it's a decent argument, and there's you know, like we were saying earlier. Everybody can pull their own numbers to justify their position, but the reality is, I mean, this is the only mechanism we have for funding transit projects right now. There's not really many other options. I mean, I guess conceivably we could try to get a bond, a statewide bonds reference. I mean, that's never going to happen, So, you know, like it or not, this is the way. This is the funding that we have for transit, so I think we should take advantage of it. You also make recommendation that the transit authority that would be newly created under this bill if it passes, that the plan would include this transit authority, and that if they're smart, you say, they will fill this transit authority with Republicans and business leaders who have credibility with state lawmakers. And yeah, I don't see that happening. No, it's I mean, it's a long shot, but I feel like I need to fight the good sight on this. I mean, if Charlotte wants any tweaks down the line, if it wants any flexibility on how it's going to use all this transit money, you know, if the referendum are to pass, they're going to need to have messengers who have credibility with the General Assembly. You know, we've seen with what Auditor Dave Bullock's been doing with the DMB that the General Assembly is willing to work with folks and open the purse strings if the message that they're getting is reasonable and fact based. And so it would behoove the City of Charlot the County of Mecklenburg to put real, credible, smart transportation minded people on this authority so that we can make sure that we get the best transit possible over the next twenty thirty years. Andrew Donn you can read his work at not only The Charlotte Observer, where he is a contributing columnist, but also his website long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com. Andrew always going to talk with you, Sarah, Thank you. Thank you. I take care. 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 and Minhill, 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 prime 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. We'll go over to the phone lines and chat with Craig. Hello, Craig, Welcome to the show. Hello. Hey, So, like, I know someone who writes public transportation regularly and they have to catch multiple buses and sometimes use a transit center with the light rail, and they said that essentially people are just riding this for free because enforcement, especially on buses, enforcement of payment can result in assault of the bus driver. Yeah, so they were pretty much. And I'll a lot of these bus routes are just carrying homeless and just other drug addicts around the city to give them something to do during the day. It's a massive, massive waste to even have a bus system. Honestly, the light roll makes a little more sense, but they're still not pulling in money. I mean, you don't even have to buy a ticket. You can just sit there with your phone open and if somebody, if the police board the strengths the center, you can just purchase the ticket immediately and show it to them. So you can get away with like a month or more without even buying a ticket. So they need to really start enforcing that and make these people pay their fair share for their transportation costs, and that way we won't have people paying the equivalent of one or two streaming subscriptions extra each month to pay for basically people who don't contribute much to society to move around. Well. I don't know about I mean, you're saying contribute much to society or painting with a very broad brush. So I'm not going to get into like personal generalizations about people. But the I think the more successful rails systems. That you have have that kind of enforcement. I mean, you look at the train system in New York, the subways, and they've got you know, those the turnstiles, right, and they you know, throughout history, they kind of they slack off on enforcement, and they step it up for the fair jumpers, right, because you have to enforce the fairs in order to at the point of entry, and our system doesn't really have that. You know, you can walk, like you said, you can walk right up to the platforms and get on the train and not even pay for a ticket. And if you don't get caught by somebody walking around, then yeah, you're gonna ride for free. So yeah, I think there's a problem with our system, with the with the enforcement side and to prevent the fair jumpers. I appreciate the call. Craig. 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 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. Pete. I drive a car that looks like it's gray, but the proper color term when I bought. It was called lunar missed. Yeah that's still gray, Okay anything if it's yeah, that's gray, Like yeah, I understand they name the different paint colors and all of that. I think mine was like pearls something or other because it's kind of white. But here's the key is that when it rains, you're supposed to put your headlights on because it's more difficult to see the vehicles. And this is actually a law. But there's what I can only surmise is some sort of a gray car code where anybody when you buy the gray car, maybe in the glove box, there's a code in there that you have to like take you got to take an oath or something that once you purchase the gray car, now you will ignore that law. Because gray cars are like the most difficult vehicle to see in a rainstorm, and so whenever it rains, I always tell people, you know, if you got your wipers on, turn your lights on so we can see you, except for the gray cars, because it's the only thing I can surmise given that, like every single gray car that I see on the roads or not burning their headlights, and those are just the ones I can see in the rain. So it's like, I don't understand it, but apparently it's a thing. If you have a gray car, it's like you think the law doesn't apply to you, and you don't want people to see you. If you think it's a better idea to drive around camouflage so people can run into you, I guess I don't know. It seems pretty counterproductive to me. I used to own a great car, but I turned my lights on. I never got an oath, I never saw a code in my glovebox. So I don't know if it's a recent development or something. I think Also, people believe that when their dashboard lights come on, they think then that their headlights are on, and that's not true either, So I don't. I'm at a loss. All right, Dean, Welcome to the program. Hello Dean, how are. You good, Pete, how are you doing. I'm I'm okay, I think. Okay, Yeah, you're very interesting with nothing else. Well, I try to be hey. On this mass transit thing, I'm trying to understand it, and to me, I don't, I don't. I don't ride it. I've written it a few times and all that, and I'm not sure what the costs are. But it seems like that the crux of the matter would be maybe that until the benefits, like from a monetary standpoint, of the conveniences, the value of your time, the flexibility that an auto provides, until mass transit can outweigh those things, it's going to have a very difficult time gaining any traction. Is that correct or. Yeah, there's a number of factors there. In the previous call of Craig mentioned a friend of his who has to make multiple transfers, and that's a big part of it too, if you have to transfer. I'm trying to remember. I think it was I think people will transfer twice. But that's it. Like, there's a people don't want to have to, you know, get on a bus, you know in their neighborhood, if they even have a bus stop nearby. They don't want to get on a bus to then have to make a transfer and then make another transfer, right or they don't want to get on a light rail line and then have to make multiple transfers after that. So if you have too many of those transfers, then yeah, the juice is not worth the squeeze. You might as well just drive your own car because there are conveniences that you have by having your own vehicle. You know, you can leave work whenever you want, you don't have to worry about the schedule. There's also the safety aspect to it, which is people may not feel secure getting on public transportation, right, so they don't want to be in that scenario. There's no enforcement if something were to happen, and so there's a security concern there as well. There's the cost of it, which is low. But none of these mass transit systems in America, and I would venture to guess in the world pay for themselves. None of them pay for themselves right there, because I think the light rail line was somewhere about three or four bucks to ride. So it's cheap, yeah, and you move a lot of people, but it doesn't it's never financially profitable. So okay. So and if you factor out the people that jump the thing and don't pay, and there's a value that I've attached to my security and safety and all that. So so then where you know, is the model really outdated? I mean, was this a was mass transit a thing for when when people didn't have cars and when there weren't the roads there? Sure? Or the accessibility? So sure? Is it really a valid model? Even? Well, that's I think that's the that is the debate. That's the core of the debate is you know, at what point, from a cost benefit analysis, is the benefits uh completely outweighed by the cost And there are intangibles that are attached to that right. So you've got like, for example, on a train line, and this is what Matthews, the town of Matthews is mad about, is that they're not getting a train. And with the train you get fixed stops. Right, you build a train station at these stops, and then you have development that occurs around that that transit stop because people know they have certainty that you know, if I rent an apartment or buy a home near this train station, I will always be able to get on that train. If it's a bus stop that that can be moved, right, they can pick up and move a bus stop willy nilly if they need to, if the ridership numbers aren't there. So that's part of I mean, there's a lot that goes into this equation. Yes, you also have like the old street cars that used to be in Charlotte. I mean we had you go down. Into the uh well yeah, I mean. Particularly if you're into like the Myers Park air area where they've got you know, those big grass medians in the middle of those streets, those that used to be the trolley tracks, and that the whole neighborhood was built with trolley service because that was the first sort of pushing out from the center city core urban area and giving people larger homes. As transit became available, they could then live farther away from where they worked in town, right, and so they didn't have to walk you know, an hour to get into uptown or downtown. As it was called at that time. So yeah, I mean, and that's part of it is that you know, you're limited in space in the urban core. So as we keep moving out and the city keeps getting bigger and bigger, how do you now allow people to move around? And I said this the other day, like putting an Interstate I seventy seven right through the middle of our center city is a terrible idea because it will always be jammed up. That road will never not be clogged because of where it's located and the amount of exits that you have to get off, you know, understandably so to get off and get into different parts of the city. But like, you would probably be better off with an interstate that's farther away from the city core with roads that take you into the city, and then not having that kind of an interstate in the middle of your downtown. And that's well, say, like the North was built on that. I mean the whole trolley system. I mean every big city in the North that solid grew, and how the suburbs grew and everything. But so I mean and now there's nothing left. I mean it's shown that it isn't working their novelties now, you know, yeah, for the most part. I wouldn't say now. I mean the most successful transit line is still New York City, their subway system. So Dean, I appreciate the call there, look there is. It was good to hear from you, and it's a look. These are important questions that always get brought up in the transit discussion, and a lot of them are intangibles. But I think a lot of the problems that the New York City subway suffers from their low ridership is due to the lack of security. People don't feel safe riding the subway cars. If you improve safety, I think you get more people that use it because, frankly. If you you've been to New York. City, it's a very easy way to get around a very large city. 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 Asheville 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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Somebody asks where did they come up with this one percent sales tax only going to cost twenty dollars a month? That is from the city estimates they say it would be it would cost the average household in Mecklinburg County two hundred and forty dollars additionally a year. Mayor John Higden from Matthews he puts it at like two hundred and ninety dollars a year for the media in Mecklenburg household and for residents in his town, which is wealthier than the county overall, he says it could actually add three hundred and seventy dollars a year. So these are all just estimates, so anywhere from twenty to thirty dollars extra per month. That's what the additional sales tax is estimated to cost people, which again is more than city and county property tax increases over the last two years. Combined, right combined. Steve in Indian Trail says Pete, I ditched the ignore the law notice that I found in my owner's manual for my great car. I am now the few, the proud, the great car driver who turns on wipers in the rain. Thank you, Steve. The word hero is overused, I think in today's society, but in this case, I'll allow it. Anonymous person says, don't most cars headlights automatically turn on when the windshield wipers are on newer cars, yes, mine do not. But I turn my lights on every single time I turn my car on. I run with my lights on all the time. You're just more likely to be seen that way. And I notice the difference, by the way. If I ever forget to turn my lights on, I feel like people are trying to kill me, you know. But when I turn the lights on, I notice then people like don't pull out in front of me so often. So I always put my lights on. But yes, a lot of the newer cars do that, unless they are gray cars, I think, in which case then I think there's like a kill switch that disables that feature on all the cars. It's again, the only thing I can surmise, because when I see the amount of cars on the roads that do not have their lights on in the rain, like ninety percent of them are grey cars. So it's the only thing I can think of. Another anonymous Texter, all this talk over the transit plans in the NCDOT is I will say horse Hockey in Westmec right by the Cataba River, the DOT is already clearing land for the light rail. This is within sight of the bridge that DOT has promised to replace since twenty ten. Now it is planned for twenty twenty eight. The new bridge in twenty eight is now the fourth most frequently repeated lie. I know the bridge you're talking about. I actually drive over that bridge multiple times a week. It is a death trap, that bridge. It is awful. So yes, if they ever do expand that bridge, well it's going to stink for a little while, but then it'll be nice if they do widen that bridge. So I don't know what they're I thought they were clearing that land for the big server farm that was going to get put in there, like the state's biggest server farm that's going to be part of that. I thought Duke was clearing some of that, some of the brush and stuff there too, in order to tap into the transmission wires, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean, this is the problem with the DOT. The state DOT is like their prioritization is all over the place and whatever Pat says, they can build mono rails and flying saucers. I and anyone I know will never use the new improved mass transit. I already pay a half cent sales tax, gas tax as well state income tax. Yeah, this is a what the bleep moment here? Right? Well, I mean that's the thing, like there are people that are paying for this and will never use these systems. That is true. 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.