It appears the home of Jamestown native, recent Republican gubernatorial contender and Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, is under the lash from Gov. Bev Perdue, regarding NCDOT projects:
North Carolina Department of Transportation officials told members of the Mecklenburg Union Metropolitan Planning Organization again Wednesday night that they need to delay the widening of Independence Boulevard several years to fund the completion of Interstate 485.
In July:
Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory said the area’s number one priority has always been improving Independence Boulevard, followed by completing the I-485 project.
Both projects, which are funded differently, are experiencing funding shortfalls.
State transportation leaders are recommending using funds currently earmarked for Independence Boulevard construction to finish the outer loop.
That wad blown in Greensboro would come in handy now:
The regional planning group MUMPO delayed a decision Wednesday night on whether to put the completion of Interstate 485 in northern Mecklenburg County ahead of other local road projects.
In February, Gov. Perdue promised work on the final leg of I-485 would start later this year and be finished by 2012 or 2013. But in May, transportation leaders said no new revenue would be available for I-485.
Wednesday, N.C. Department of Transportation officials suggested using bond money already planned for the widening of Independence Boulevard. But that could delay Independence Blvd. and other local road projects in the coming years.
MUMPO’s chairman argued that I-485 funding should come from other sources.
“I think the governor ought to look hard at reallocating loop funds from other parts of the state and move that money to Mecklenburg County because we have the greatest need,” Chairman Lee Myers said.
This sounds familiar:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Michael Taormina purchased his first home in 2003, he could see a golf course from his back yard patio. Six years later, the greens are gone, replaced by Interstate 485.
Taormina, a resident of the Keeneland subdivision near Mt. Holly-Huntersville Road, said a sales agent never told him the highway, which opened last December, would be built 30 yards from his back yard.
From commenter Mike CRS:
Guess what all, with doing a small amount of homework, we would discover that the owner of the house in the story above, bought this house DIRECTLY from the builder. He DID NOT use a Realtor to help him purchase. Under NC State disclosure laws builders are not require to disclose changes in freeways, where 485 might be, or a sewer plant. Builders are not monitored by the NC Real Estate Commission, and most of the sales people in the model home are NOT LICENSED agents or Realtors.
From commenter Aggravated:
Welcome to Charlotte Mecklenburg. We bought our house along a road that was more or less a country road. Now, transport trucks use it to get to I-485, at all hours. Now, the airport has changed the flight pattern allowing planes to begin their turn earler and they now fly over our house. We are having a problem trying to sell the house.
No homework would have helped in this case!
Tighter turns at PTI would have little impact when there are no flights.
Meanwhile, insanity reigns:
An hour-long debate over a streetcar study ended Monday with City Council’s decision to overturn Mayor Pat McCrory’s veto, clearing the way to award an engineering contract. It was a 7-4 vote along party lines, with all seven Democrats supporting the streetcar study…
City Council deferred a vote last week on McCrory’s veto to spend $4.5 million on a streetcar study, with an additional $1 million set aside for staff costs and other contingencies. In June, city leaders approved $8 million in the current budget to begin work on assessing the cost and engineering of the streetcar line…
McCrory noted sales-tax revenue this year has declined by 19%, a sign of the cratering economy’s impact. “We are in the most serious recession of my lifetime,” he said, urging fiscal restraint.
Here’s an update on light rail:
The 11-mile Lynx Blue Line extension to University City might not be finished until 2019 – six years later than the Charlotte Area Transit System planned two years ago.
The project may be delayed to give the transit system more time to pay for it.
CATS had projected the half-cent transit sales tax would generate $76 million in fiscal year 2009. Instead, it only produced $62 million.
From commenter MeckDeck:
The streetcar was in the Destination 2030 plan adopted by the MTC in 2006 by Mayor Pat, Parks Helms, God and everybody. It was to be paid for with half-cent transit tax revenue just like the South Blvd. line. But then costs for ALL the LTR lines started to creep up, leading to the 2007 transit tax repeal effort.
Once the repeal was beaten back with a combo of lies and special interest dollars it was safe to admit that the 2030 plan was in fact a dead letter — utterly unaffordable under the half-cent. The easiest thing to do was to move the $500m. streetcar out from under CATS and give it to the city on a “fast-track” to be paid for with CITY, not transit tax, dollars. This left more transit dollars behind for the North line and — especially — the Northeast line to UNCC. “Focus” is already on the NE line.
Apparently, the streetcar line is to ferry airport traffic to the banking craters downtown.
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