Speaker 1: What's going on.
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And again, thank you so much for your support. As
we have begun doing here on our tuesdays, we want
to welcome to the program Andrew Dunn. He is the
publisher of long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com and a
contributing columnist to the McClatchy Papers, The Charlotte Observer, and
The News and Observer.
Speaker 1: Andrew, how are you today, sir?
Speaker 3: I'm doing fantastic. It's great to be back with you.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, I appreciate it. As always, you're making the
time for us. So, who's ready for a tax increase
for transit right in Charlotte Mecklenberg. So, I guess. So
there's a piece of legislation that was filed by Senators
Raven Craven and Sawyer and so I guess for people
who want to see the transit plan funded with an
additional one cent sales tax in Mecklenburg County, I guess
this is this is a positive development.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, this has been this
has been in the works for years and years now.
Charlotte's been wanting to do some big swing transit plan
for really the past decade. The price tag keeps going up.
The latest is something like thirteen billion dollars, and so
they've been pushing for this one cent sales tax increase
that would generate something like four hundred million dollars a
year that would pay for it all. But the thing
is that Charlotte has to get the General Assembly to
sign off on a referendum to ask Charlotte voters if
we're willing to pay for that increase. So yeah, I mean,
if you're in favor of the transit plan, this is
a good step to have the bill filed. But I
just don't see it passing yet.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 3: Why not, Well, because there's still a really big disconnect
between how the City of Charlotte is looking at transit
and how the General Assembly is looking at transit. You
know how, Speaker Dustin Hall was here the other day
and he he had some offhand comment about when he
takes you know, Charlotte transit to Republicans in the General Assembly,
they basically say, well, why are why are we going
to raise taxes so that they can buy a bunch
of trains. Really, how they're viewing it is it's, you know,
Charlotte wants some shiny new toys. And I don't really
blame him because that's kind of how Charlotte has treated
transit for the last decade decade and a half. How
can we get some new toys that it's going to
spur economic development? So until Charlotte comes around and starts
talking about transit is actually transportation, how can we move
people from point A to point B? How can we
you know, how can we use that to build the
city that we want? There's just going to be no
hope with the General Assembly.
Speaker 2: Now, you had a piece a couple of weeks ago
with the Charlotte Observer and op ed there titled Republicans
can save Charlotte from itself on transit, and you recommended
that Republicans in the legislature should take control of Charlotte's
transit plan, fix it, and then take the credit. So
that is that realistic, especially what I just heard you
say about the sort of general attitude that you know,
Charlotte just wants some shiny toys. Is that a realistic
thing that could even be attained at the legislature.
Speaker 3: I do think it's realistic and it could happen. So
one thing that I think is going to pass the
General Assembly this year is some sort of transit authority
for the Charlotte region. That's part of the big compromise
quote unquote that Charlotte has reached with the General Assembly.
So far as you know, Charlotte's on board with some
sort of authority to oversee what all this money would do.
The sticking point is going to be who gets to
be on the authority. I mean, the City of Charlotte
still wants it a lot of you know, local Charlotte
political appointees, so I was arguing that it should be
more General Assembly appointees, you know, people with expertise and
knowledge here. So I think it's possible. The big problem
is going to be, you know, your listeners might recall back, gosh,
it's been ten fifteen years ago where there was a
bill that would put Charlotte's airport under an authority, and
that was a huge blow up. You know, WBT covered
it extensively, So how you know, the question is how
can the General Assembly structure it in such a way
that Charlotte's on board with it and doesn't turn it
into a huge fiasco.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's always a problem, whether it's the Metropolitan
Transit Commission or the planning organizations or any of these
sort of larger regionalized bodies, is that Charlotte doesn't want
to seed control by vote and count basically to the
six towns or the rounding counties. But those areas they
don't want their votes to be ineffective either by having
Charlotte control the entire board. So figuring out that that
number balance has always been difficult, no matter what it seems.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right. And this is a little different
than the airport and that you know, the airport was
in Charlotte's control, so it was taking something away. This
doesn't exist yet, you know, this this sales tax, so
it's not quite the same. Hopefully it'll be a little easier,
but you know, I guess we'll see what comes out
of committee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: So another thing that you had written over at your
substack or your website is it are you on substack
or is this just your own website.
Speaker 3: It's powered by substack.
Speaker 2: It is okay, long Leaf pol longleafpolitics dot com. And
so you got three things North Carolina Republican clubs should
start doing. And you gave obviously three things local club
ubs can find can help find strong electable conservatives. And
you said you're the focus should be on somebody who
is normal, competent and can effectively communicate our values in
the suburbs. So I wanted to ask you why the suburbs?
What why that demographic?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question. And you know, the suburbs
are really where statewide races are won and lost in
North Carolina. You know, the rural areas are very heavily Republican.
Urban areas obviously very heavily Democrat. Republican suburbs have the
potential to go back and forth. They've certainly been going
a lot bluer over the last call it eight years,
but I don't think that's irreversible. But Republicans have really
done kind of a poor job over the last couple
of cycles. Really emphasizing candidates who can speak effectively in
the suburbs. And I think, you know, the whole column
on my website came about because I've had the privilege
to speak to some of these Republican clubs over the
past month, and they're really, you know, kind of hidden
powerhouses in the Republican Party in North Carolina. I mean,
there's a lot of smart people there, a lot of
elected officials go and I just really see a lot
of potential for those clubs to really increase their power
in helping shape primaries and shape the candidates that will
ultimately go onto the statewide ballot.
Speaker 2: You also mentioned fundraising collecting money should be a core
mission for these Republican clubs, and then on your third
recommendation was that Republicans who traditionally they make it a
rule basically to you know, stay neutral in the party primaries,
and you're saying, no, that shouldn't be the case anymore.
And I think that would be a very big change
for for a lot of the party leadership.
Speaker 3: I think it would be and you know, the North
Carolina Republican Party has actually put it in their bylaws
that the party is supposed to stay neutral in primaries,
and all of these clubs are supposed to stay neutral.
I think it's a mistake. I mean, because primaries are
kind of, by definition, a party activity. You're trying to decide,
you know, who the party's nominee is going to be.
And just kind of leaving it open ended and not
allowing these clubs to have a voice in there, it
just makes it kind of a free for all. I mean,
primaries are already sort of low information, low turnout races.
So anything that we can do to make sure that
we're getting the best, strongest candidate for the Republican Party
I think is a necessary step.
Speaker 2: And so that was another piece. Again, this is at
long leafpol dot com. You had another piece, and you know,
we're of blowing through these things because you create so
much content that I read.
Speaker 1: So it's a yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: The other The other piece I was reading the other
uh yeah the other day was because it's published on
the third Republican dads are leading by example. And this
was one of the bizarre reactions I saw. It was
with Elon Musk when he had his kid at the
Oval office and they were and there was all these
attacks against him, all he's using his kid as a
prop or as a shield or something. And we got
a couple examples in North Carolina that you mentioned. Dad's
just you know, on the campaign trail or doing their
jobs in elected office and they bring their kids around,
and you think, this is this is a good sign,
this is a good thing to do.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean there's kind of a broader sentiment in
American culture right now that children hold people back. You
know that you can't quote unquote.
Speaker 2: Have it all.
Speaker 3: I have a career, you have lead, have a leadership position,
and have a family, and that's just not true. And
I think, you know, you know, at the national level,
Vice President jd Vance is doing a great job normalizing
children and families. And then I highlight two people in
North Carolina, Representative Mike Sheefzel and New Labor Commissioner Luke Farley.
They've had their kids, they're both the fathers of young children,
and they're both out and about, you know, openly, you know,
being dads and public officials at the same time. And
I think the message it sends to the broader culture
is just so important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I encourage people to head on over subscribe long
leafpol dot com. Longleaf Politics. You can also read Andrew's
work at The Charlotte Observer and The News and Observer.
And we'll talk with you again on Tuesday at noon,
same time. Andrew, thanks for your time again. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you all right.
Speaker 2: 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
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only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground news
as they make the media landscape more transparent. So one
of the in going back to the transit issue here
because we are all maybe going to vote on another
sale tax increase for transit here in Mecklenburg County, depending
on what happens with the legislation. And I've got a
copy of the Senate Bill one forty five in front
of me. I'm not going to read through all of
the details, but don't worry, I will read through a
piece of legislation later, but not about transit, okay, But
a couple of the notes here that I thought were
pretty interesting. So apparently congestion begins slowing the employment growth
rate in a region at approximately thirty seven annual hours
of commuter delay. And yeah, commuter delay. So that's the
first number you're looking at, thirty seven hours of delays okay,
per year on average in a region. Okay, growth is
halted altogether at one hundred eighty annual hours of commuter delay.
This is according to the Texas A and M Transportation Institute,
the Charlotte Concord Gastonia Metropolitan Statistical Area or the MSA,
we hit thirty eight hours, so we were above that
thirty seven hour growth rate retardation level. And that's thirty
eight hours we had in the year two thousand, So
twenty five years ago we hit thirty eight annual hours
of delays and right now or well it's probably higher now,
but in twenty nineteen pre pandemic, which by the way,
happy five year COVID anniversary everybody, fifty three hours is
where we were in twenty nineteen. I have to imagine
we're above that now. In twenty years, it is projected
that the population of the Charlotte region is going to
be fifty percent higher. So right now it's about two
point six million people in the Charlotte metro which include
that's Concord, Gastonia and Charlotte, so two point six million,
and by the year twenty forty five, it's projected that
will be at four point one million. And so what
Pat McCrory always talked about when he was pitching the
blue line, right, the McCrory line as it was referred to,
down South Boulevard was that it's about creating options for people.
Speaker 1: So if you don't want to.
Speaker 2: Live on a light rail line, if you don't want to,
you know, take the train into center city or wherever.
Speaker 1: You don't have to.
Speaker 2: But if you want to, there is the option to
do that, and it will direct more dense development in
the urban core. And that then will you know, theoretically right,
it frees up some of the road space outside of
the urban core. And there is no scenario that I'm
aware of, at least where an urban core.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have congestion. That's kind of the deal.
Speaker 2: It's going to be loud, it's going to be crowded,
and it's going to be congested. That's what you get
when you live in a city, right, and in a dense
urban area. Those are the hallmarks of it. And if
you don't want to live there, that's totally fine. See
I'm an options guy. I want all of the above
options there. So I'm not trying to force people into
living in the suburbs or out in the country or
in the city. But that was always the argument, was
to provide options, and according to Andrew Dunn, a lot
of people have lost sight of that as sort of
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this Charlotte transit plan, that there was a breakthrough quote
unquote as it was described at the time over the
summer between city and county leaders. They said they had
achieved a breakthrough to advance the region's long stalled transit
plan after years of delays, and according to a write
up by Steve Harrison over at Charlotte Ledger, the main
components are a new commuter rail to North Mecklenburg and
maybe southern Iredale known as the Red Line, an extension
of the Blue Line light rail into Pineville and Ballantine,
and a new light rail line called the Silver Line
that was originally envisioned as running from the airport all
the way down to Matthews. But now it appears like
Matthews is not happy. I think they've against recommendation for
this plan because they're going to get a rapid bus
transit line or a bus rapid transit BRT they're not
getting a light rail line under the plan because there's
not enough money for it. Because the legislature said, look,
you can't do a mass transit plan and not have
any funding in there for roads. And so they created
this breakdown of formula where the net proceeds for the
sales tax revenue forty percent would go to roads, forty
percent would go to rail, and twenty percent would go
to buses. So Matthews wants a train, they do not
want they do not want a bus line. And then
there is also an extension of the gold Line streetcar
down Batysford Road to the west and down Central Avenue
to the east. And I think it's important to note
here that that streetcar line, I call it the Anthony
Fox Line, because that was done in order to help
Anthony Fox secure the mayoral win lo those many years
ago when he was a city council member and he
was running against a fellow city council member, John Lassiter,
a Republican. And the plan did not call for that
streetcar line to leap frog over other transit lines. But
the East Side was up in arms about how they
were being neglected. They didn't want to bus rapid transit
line either in East Charlotte, and so they came down
and they were, you know, beating the drum for a
light rail line, and so the streetcar was done in
order to and and Lasted opposed it because he's like,
the plan is not for the streetcar line to leap
frog over the other projects. And the Democrats behind you know,
Anthony Fox, they made it an issue and Fox squeaked
out the victory over John Lassiter in that mayor's race,
the first you know mayor's race after Pat McCrory stepped
down after what's seven years or seven terms rather fourteen
years as Charlotte mayor. So that's sort of the background
on that line. It never should have been built when
it was now the Blue line, which was called by
a lot of folks the mccruary line, because Pat was
the you know, the lead cheerleader for the transit plan
and for this first light rail line. You know, his
argument was that this thing is supposed to be about
giving people an option for transit. So if you don't
want to drive in, you'll be able to take this
train and you don't have to use it, but this
will be available and it will revitalize the South end
of the of Charlotte, which it has right, it absolutely has,
and according to Andrew Dunn in his piece over at
the Charlotte Observer and his op ed about this sparked
a building boom that turned a run down manufacturing district
into one of the most desirable places to live and
work in the entire city ever since then. And if
you haven't been to South End recently, it's crazy. I
was down there like three weeks, four weeks ago or something.
I mean, it's it's almost unrecognizable to me because I
remember it before the train line was built over there,
and there was really nothing down there. Ever since then,
according to Dunn, Charlotte City Council has only seen dollar signs.
They started looking at transit as a development strategy first
and to transportation solution second, hence the gold Line, and
why every single transit map since then has been determined
on the neighborhoods it runs through and not what makes
the most sense to alleviate traffic and stay under budget.
The city has adopted or updated its proposal to the
city or to the state so it includes more road funding,
and Charlotte has also agreed to create this You know
governing authority to manage all of the billions of dollars
that a one cent sales tax increase would generate. The
governance model, though, might be tricky as it has been proposed.
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so the uh Mecklenburg County. Oh, hang on a second
before I go to the governance model. It's a pete
tweet from Jonathan. Whatever happened to the cat's rail cars
that needed wheel bearings replaced and we're supposed and we're
supposed to be sent to California. That kind of just
went away.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have not seen or heard any updates regarding
that Charlie foxtrot of an operation and how they haven't
been maintaining the rail cars and yeah, all the problems
and they had, although I will say I haven't heard
of any derailments recently with the uh the blue line
down the South Corridor. Like that's so that's a positive, right,
that's a positive. We haven't heard of any replace any derailments.
But yeah, that the cost when was that, Like that
was over a year ago. But they had all the
problems with the wheel bearings. They weren't being maintained, and
then it created the derailments and then like they had
to like ship the entire truck system all the way
across to like Texas or something. Yeah, just absolute mess.
So look, maybe under a transit authority things will improve.
Just kidding now, oh man, I almost got through that sentence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's it's just I always feel like on these things
where it's like you're just swapping out a different management
structure for another, particularly when it comes to GOVC. So
I don't expect improvements per se, You're just getting trade offs,
right again, No solutions, only trade offs. Now, under this
plan that was announced over the summer for a new authority,
a transit authority, there would be twenty seven members on
this body, which seems like a lot, right, seems like
a lot. There would be members appointed by the City
of Charlotte, so the city gets twelve members of the
twenty seven. Mecklenberg County gets twelve members as well, but
that would include six from the six towns. Okay, so
the County Commission they would get six basically, and then
each of the towns would get one. And so this
obviously creates a bit of a problem because if you
are in one of those towns and you would like to,
you know, influence the outcome of a particular approach when
it comes to transit plan routes or modes or whatever.
Even if you were to band together with all of
the other towns, you only have six votes, and the
City of Charlotte has twelve of the twenty seven. So
then you would need to peel off some of the
either County commissioner votes at six, or you would need
to peel off some votes maybe from the Charlotte City
Council itself, right, Or you would need to peel off
some votes from the General Assembly. They have two and
the governor has one, So you're automatically, just by the
nature of the way the body is constructed, you are
already at a disadvantage if you are trying to, like,
if an issue comes up, and I'm not identifying a
particular issue, although I guess one could be the bus
rapid transit line down to Matthews, Right, They want a
light rail line, and there are reasons for that, you know,
I think it there's a I don't know, there's there's
a certain esthetic reason to it, right, Like it's it's
cooler to have a train than it is to have
just buses, right, And the bus would operate in its
own dedicated lane. And I'm assuming it would go down
Independence Boulevard. The problem though, is that it is a
lot more expensive right that. I think it was the
most expensive line because there's no existing rail that runs
down there, whereas the South line, the Blue line, and
the one going up to North Mech the Red line
those now like where they've been talking. I think they
negotiated the deal a couple of months ago where Norfolk
Southern would would sell them that that rail line that's
up there, so you don't even have to pay for
the installation of the rail so you already and you'll
have the dedicated right away and all of that. It's
already there, so you got the you know, the grade
crossings and everything. You don't have to worry about building
a brand new rail line from So that keeps the
cost down versus the one to Matthews unless they can
find another rail line that's there. But the other thing
is that, and this is what the East Side residents
were complaining about when bus rapid transit was initially slated
for the East Line but also now down to Matthews.
Also a bus rapid transit is that the bus stops
can be moved way more easily and the way you
spur development around the bus stations or these stops is
to have permanence. Developers are not going to come in
there and you know, blow the area up with a
whole bunch of apartment buildings and stuff and mixed use
retail and all of that. They're not going to do
that if if they know that the bus stop can
be just picked up and moved.
Speaker 1: And that's the benefit of.
Speaker 2: Bus stops is that if a route gets you know,
low ridership, you could just move the route. You don't
have to worry about ripping down stations and stuff. And
so they've always wanted the train stations because you get
developed element around those train stations and then that increases
the tax base. See like, that's the play, and that's
what Andrew done references in his piece over at the
Charlotte Observer from a couple of weeks ago, and it
is true. But is the primary mission moving people or
is it development? All right, that'll do it for this episode.
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