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Tina Votaw: Well one of the reasons that we needed rapid transit
is, quite simply, growth. Charlotte and Mecklenburg County
experienced significant growth since the 1970s. By virtue of the
fact that we were evolving into a financial and banking center.
Obviously movement of people primarily, access to jobs, which is
huge, and then access to schools.
Moira Quinn: We found so many people came together on this issue
because they realized it was important for economic development,
it was important for citizens from the least among us to the most
among us. It is very important to get people out of cars and onto
buses and trains. It's important for a city to have this kind of
transit to be a 21st-century city. And to be a city where people
want to live, where people want to work, and can attract the kind
of work force that we want. Everywhere that steel goes into the
ground and you know the rail is coming, we can see the development
promise along the light rail that has happened along the south
corridor. There's a huge advantage to being able to build around
transit. Livability is a huge issue, less congestion because you
have fewer cars on the road. You have a better way of building,
you find the design for transit-oriented development is more
pleasing, and you can build in a more dense way. 70 percent of the
voters came out and they decided that they supported transit and
they wanted to continue to have a half-cent transit tax so that we
could continue to have transit in our community.
James Bazzelle: It was lovely, I loved it! No hassle, no parking,
are they going to tow my car? It's a no-brainer to me. The train
is great. It could be a lot better. I think we need more trains.
It's a lot of traffic. But the main thing about the train: it
makes it so convenient. You have so many stops at center city you
can get off on and you're two blocks from
the theater, two blocks away from a grocery store or a farmer
market that we've got there. So I really think the train is super
and I really wish we could get another line going.
Tina Votaw: The ridership has been tremendous. Our initial
projection was that we'd see about 9100 trips per day. And
what we experienced from day one was almost a doubling of that.
They'd like more frequent trains, they'd like more frequent buses.
It's more, more, more, more. Our biggest obstacle is money. It is not
public acceptance. It is not how do you do this, we know how to do
this and we know how to do it well. It is truly having enough
money to build as quickly as everyone would like. And that is our
challenge.