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70 percent of Meck voters approved the transit tax in 2007. And ridership has been consistently above projections.
Hmm, someone here must be drinking the cool aid or works for CATS because that's not what actually is being reported. Down below projections but maybe you belong to the Jim Jones section of cool aid drinkers.
Ridership has been down since its peak in 2008 because of unemployment and layoffs downtown. But it is still beating the original projections. Have you ridden the thing at rush hour, when there's a Panthers game concert or any Saturday night at 8 p.m.? Not an empty seat past Arrowood station.
Hmm, someone here must be drinking the cool aid or works for CATS because that's not what actually is being reported. Down below projections but maybe you belong to the Jim Jones section of cool aid drinkers.
Don't want to belabor the point or take this thread off its original topic, so this will be the last thing I post on this topic. Read the article below. Ridership is down year over year, but Lynx still carries 15,000+ trips per month. Original projections were in the 9,000-10,000 range. If you want to insult me, fine. But don't make up stuff to do it.
CATS ridership rebounds, but 1-way fare increase possible - CharlotteObserver.com (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/04/21/1388695/cats-ridership-rebounds-but-1.html - broken link)
[LEFT]"An Observer analysis of 2009 home sales – a key factor in assessing tax values – shows nearly 40 percent sold significantly above their tax value, making those neighborhoods the most likely to see a tax increase."
[/LEFT]
EEK! I also noted that they did not include foreclosures in their analysis so for the good citizens who are still paying their mortgages and in their homes kind of a double whammy: falling prices due to foreclosures and higher taxes because the foreclosures aren't included in the Observer's analysis. I'd love to have my hands on the data -- you can drown in a lake an average of an inch deep!
It was higher than usual for an off-year, local-only election. The only figures I can find are 40 percent in Mint Hill, 33 percent in Matthews and 44 percent in Pineville, which was about double 2005. But voter turnout is miserable for almost all elections in this country.
But those people who didn't vote had their chance. The people who didn't want it held their little petition and it was overwhelmingly rejected by those motivated enough to get to the polls. If you stayed home, tough.
There are some legitimate gripes about county finances, certainly. But the idea that "no one wanted the light rail" and "ridership hasn't been good" is patently false and I just wanted to point that out.
Oh, I agree with you - I think the comments are exaggerated. Seems the light rail was a great idea to me. My disgruntlement with the project came from the way I felt it was managed - with so many overages on cost. The contract the city had w/ engineers/suppliers should have required that those overages were kept at a lower threshold. So my beef was with how city managers/planners managed the project.
However, I think the light rail was a good concept and I would just like to see it expanded.
I feel there have been ongoing expenditures in the budget that should be of more serious concern than this one project's expense.
I agree with you 100% - folks who didn't vote shouldn't be complaining now.
Voter turnout for the county was 24% for that election.
It was 30% the previous November
It was 20% Nov 2005
Quote:
Originally Posted by coped
It was higher than usual for an off-year, local-only election. The only figures I can find are 40 percent in Mint Hill, 33 percent in Matthews and 44 percent in Pineville, which was about double 2005. But voter turnout is miserable for almost all elections in this country.
But those people who didn't vote had their chance. The people who didn't want it held their little petition and it was overwhelmingly rejected by those motivated enough to get to the polls. If you stayed home, tough.
There are some legitimate gripes about county finances, certainly. But the idea that "no one wanted the light rail" and "ridership hasn't been good" is patently false and I just wanted to point that out.
Okay so the Charlotte Observer spins to make government look good but light rail is a joke and will always be. If light rail isn't stealing taxpayers monies in Mecklenburg County then please tell me what is besides DSS. So everytime you praise light rail you are stealing $20 out of people's pockets who don't have access to light rail. Make you feel proud?
• The operation of Charlotte’s light-rail line is heavily subsidized, even by transit standards, with fares covering only 17 percent of operating costs, compared with 29 percent for the average light-rail line and 53 percent for all transit. Taxpayers lose $20 on every ride taken on the Charlotte line, vs. a national average of $7 for light rail and $4 for all rail.
• Rail hasn’t boosted Charlotte’s transit ridership, which continues to fall. By shifting riders from less-expensive buses to more-expensive rail, the Charlotte line has cost taxpayers dearly with no discernible effect on congestion or air quality.
Okay so the Charlotte Observer spins to make government look good but light rail is a joke and will always be. If light rail isn't stealing taxpayers monies in Mecklenburg County then please tell me what is besides DSS. So everytime you praise light rail you are stealing $20 out of people's pockets who don't have access to light rail. Make you feel proud?
• The operation of Charlotte’s light-rail line is heavily subsidized, even by transit standards, with fares covering only 17 percent of operating costs, compared with 29 percent for the average light-rail line and 53 percent for all transit. Taxpayers lose $20 on every ride taken on the Charlotte line, vs. a national average of $7 for light rail and $4 for all rail.
• Rail hasn’t boosted Charlotte’s transit ridership, which continues to fall. By shifting riders from less-expensive buses to more-expensive rail, the Charlotte line has cost taxpayers dearly with no discernible effect on congestion or air quality.
It's easy to copy and paste stuff from radical anti-transit guru Randy O'Toole (a fitting last name if there ever was one) and pass that off as fact. CATS ridership is down this year for obvious reasons, it has risen quite substantially, though, since the 2000s began.
And the whole, "taxpayers lose $20 every ride." I see a lot of taxpayers crowding that train every morning who are now saving lots of $$ on parking, gas, maintenance. How much do taxpayers lose on roads in terms of all the social costs that come with driving? I'm sorry for the people who don't have access to it. The system should have been built out -- all five spokes -- to begin with, but there was neither the political nor economic capital to pursue such a program at the time.
Anyway, I don't want to derail the thread any further.
70 percent of Meck voters approved the transit tax in 2007. And ridership has been consistently above projections.
There have only ever been two official projections made for the Light Rail, one made for the first 12 months it was open, and the other for ridership in 2020. They beat the first year's estimates of ~9800/day. 2020 ridership was projected to be ~18,000/day. This ridership was based on a projection that 100,000 people would be living in the center city by then. It was a wildly optimistic and/or unrealistic.
I believe ridership has been falling consistantly since it peaked in 2008 and is still headed in the wrong direction.
My guess is that if the tax vote were held today, it would not get voted in.
Some numbers
Budget is $1.4 billion RE taxes make up almost 900 million.
Sales tax $200 million which will be off by 40 million from 2009
300 million plus school budget
900,000 residents of the county.
Why do the politicians continuously threaten us with school, police, fire and service cuts.? Could it be that these are actually issues that affect all of us that want a good education, safe streets and libraries we can use? We need to demand and hold our elected officials to accountability. To me it seems we have pigs at the trough that want to keep on eating even when they're full.
We are growing in population but sales tax keeps on declining. Why? Could it be that even though we have had our sales tax raised people are looking for alternatives to the taxes that keep rising because nothing is being done to capture the $'s that are leaving the state via the internet? At 8% plus in Meck county every dollar that is spent elsewhere not only affects the counties pockets but the local business owner who actually has invested into the county.
The sad thing is even if the government could regulate and institute a tax for the internet would you trust them to manage it. I know I wouldn't.
When my family originally moved here 4 years ago I lived in an unincorporated area of Charlotte. We were annexed last year and our taxes jumped by $600. Even though my house is now worth $40,000 less I have a feeling I am going to get whacked again.
It's easy to copy and paste stuff from radical anti-transit guru Randy O'Toole (a fitting last name if there ever was one) and pass that off as fact. CATS ridership is down this year for obvious reasons, it has risen quite substantially, though, since the 2000s began.
How fitting someone who knows what the opposition is saying about light rail so it must be a "plant" because who else would complain about someone copying and pasting then someone who does it themselves then blames everyone else. That's the cool aid line, Jim Jones maybe?
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