Charlotte Streetcars Play the Waiting Game »
According to an article in today's Charlotte Observer, at some point in the next two years or so, our fair city will lay tracks along Elizabeth Avenue for a streetcar to make its way outside of the so-called urban core and introduce a new sort of growth to Charlotte. Sounds good, right? Sure it does. It mostly sounds good to me because we live way out on the East Side near Eastland Mall and it's long been rumored that any plans for a streetcar will (eventually) make their way out Central Avenue and to the mall. I harbor no illusions that it will make it to my house or anything, but to that fancy new transit center in the mall parking lot would be nice. So what's the problem?
The problem is that according to this same article (not linked because of the Observer's policy of pulling articles after a short while online), since no federal funds will be available for this line, the North line will get priority over the streetcar line, meaning that even though they lay track in the next couple of years, it will be sometime around 2019 until cars start running, and it will be 2023 until the "full line" is open. There isn't an explanation of what the full line is, but I would suspect that might just mean it's running all the way to Eastland. Maybe it's me, but I'm thinking that even having a plan for something like that is just stupid.
