Before nearly 150 Charlotte area government leaders, a regional rail task force Tuesday unveiled details of a $452 million plan to provide dual commuter and freight service from southern Iredell County to Charlotte by 2018.
The Red Line Regional Rail project would upgrade 25 miles of Norfolk Southern rail line from near the Lowe's headquarters in Mount Mourne to the planned Charlotte Gateway Station uptown. The line could eventually extend north to Interstate 40 in Statesville.
The $452 million would also pay for rail cars and maintenance and some operating costs, said Ted Vaden of the N.C. Department of Transportation in Raleigh..
Commuter trains are heavier passenger coaches pulled by a locomotive. Light-rail cars, such as the Lynx line, are attached to overhead electrical lines, Vaden said.
The state and the Charlotte Area Transit System would each fund 25 percent of the Red Line cost, or $113 million apiece. Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson and Mooresville - along with Mecklenburg and Iredell county governments - would pay the other half in two ways.
The first would be through what's known as "tax increment financing," in which a portion of the additional property-tax revenues from new development expected near the line would help fund its cost. The second local funding source would be a special assessment on retailers, industries and other businesses attracted to the corridor.
The financing approach would be a first for a transit project in the state, said Paul Morris, deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Transportation. But it has been used to fund numerous projects elsewhere, including the streetcar system in Portland, Ore., Washington Metro's New York Avenue Station and improvements to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit System, officials said.
"There's not going to be a tax increase, or a tax obligation that the general public is liable for," task force member and former Mooresville Mayor Bill Thunberg said. He is executive director of the Lake Norman Transportation Commission.
The Metropolitan Transit Commission formed the Red Line Task Force in June 2010 to find ways to finance and build the project. Members also include Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, Mecklenburg County commissioners' Chairman Harold Cogdell Jr. and mayors from North Mecklenburg and Mooresville.
The plan also calls for the formation of a limited-power regional agency called a Joint Powers Authority to handle project financing, secured by a financial guarantee from the state. The authority could only receive funds from its members and would have no power to institute any new taxes. Such an authority would protect governments from risk associated with project financing, task force members said.
The governments could hold public hearings on the plan early next year and consider adopting it between April and June. The plan will have to be approved by all governments along the corridor, said Davidson Mayor John Woods, task force chairman.
Mooresville Mayor Miles Atkins said he has many questions about the plan. But with governments working together on such initiatives, he said, "this region could continue to grow and prosper."
