Repealing Charlotte’s Fraudulent Transit Tax: Spenders Still Can’t Get the Numbers Right
Published by wcox September 14th, 2007 in Urban Policy, Transportation.
Charlotte’s beleaguered transit system faces a taxpayer revolt that could see the repeal of a 1998 tax that was to have financed a $1.1 billion rapid transit and bus program. The reaction has been brought about by, among other things, the escalation of costs to $8.9 billion.
The city of Charlotte has responded to a letter from University of North Carolina Charlotte Professor David Hartgen, to the effect that the cost increase is accounted for by bus service, the failure of the original plan to include inflation and a few other things that could not possibly justify such a difference. In fact, the voters were told $1.1 billion, not $8.9 billion.
We’re back to the turnip trucks and Charlotte’s assumption that local residents just fell off one. Charlotte’s contention might be plausible if Zimbabwe style inflation rate is assumed and if enough buses are added to create gridlock in Uptown, all by themselves (Uptown, of course, is the only destination to which even a small number of drivers will be attracted to rail).
Charlotte indicates that traffic congestion has increased less in urban areas that have built rail. Randal O’Toole’s seminal Great Rail Disasters says otherwise.
The city of Charlotte, hearkening back to same kind of carelessness with which it concocted the fraudulent 1998 plan, cites its transit work trip market share numbers as overall transit shares in other urban areas. These are no more interchangeable than $1.1 billion and $8.9 billion. For example, Portland’s transit work trip market share is 6 percent, while its overall share of travel by transit is 2/3’s less, at 2 percent.
Charlotte cites research to the effect that if “people only have buses,” car travel is 10 to 20 percent higher per capita. This is absurd. Rail accounts for less than three percent of urban travel in every urban area outside New York, In places like Portland, Sacramento, St. Louis, Dallas-Fort Worth and Salt Lake City rail accounts for less than one percent of travel. This claim goes beyond Charlotte’s now famous mathematical malpractice. By what sorcery does a mile of travel by rail reduce road travel by from 5 to 20 or more miles?
The city of Charlotte indicates that transit has a 10 percent commuter market share to Uptown (downtown). A more realistic figure, based upon the 2000 Census is about one-half that. But, it all depends on how you define downtown. Maybe the city’s definition of Uptown is limited to the Bank of America building.
Finally, the city of Charlotte goes on to indicate that the transit system will carry 25 to 40 percent of trips to major activity centers, such as Uptown. In fact, there is no major activity center in the United States outside a downtown area where transit has a 25 percent market share. Moreover, it is nothing short of delusional to suggest that 25 percent, much less 40 percent of travel to Uptown will be on transit in the future.
It is all reminiscent of the ambitious Dallas rail plan that was raising the downtown transit market share to 50 percent by 2000. Well, 2000 came and went, and the share of commuters using transit to downtown Dallas remained under 15 percent, according to Census data. Moreover, the transit share remained virtually unchanged from 1990, the three light rail lines that opened in the 1990s.
Which brings us back to lemon laws. If a car dealer had been as misleading in its advertising as Charlotte has been on transit, substantial legal sanctions would have been imposed. It’s time to provide taxpayers lemon law protection against shady transit deals. The repeal referendum is a good start.
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Wendell Cox
Demographia | Wendell Cox Consultancy – St. Louis Missouri-Illinois metropolitan region
Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris
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Wendell Cox
Demographia | Wendell Cox Consultancy – St. Louis Missouri-Illinois metropolitan region
Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris
France..33.6.10.59.59.92
USA..1.618 632 8507
www.demographia.com | www.publicpurpose.com | www.rentalcartours.net
New Books & Publications
WAR ON THE DREAM: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life
Information & Orders:
http://www.demographia.com/wod1.pdf
DEMOGRAPHIA INTERNATIONAL HOUSING AFFORDABILITY SURVEY (http://www.demographia.com/dhi-ix2005q3.pdf)
THE WAL-MART REVOLUTION: How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy
By Richard Vedder & Wendell Cox
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