The Charlotte Black Voter Project held a forum Monday on Beatties Ford to discuss the new one-cent sales tax increase for transportation that goes into effect July 1.
Activist Colette Forrest called the meeting so residents could hear about the new Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority’s plans. The new organization will take over bus and train service from the Charlotte Area Transit System later this year.
The first transit improvements are slated to be more bus service and micro-transit, as well as improving 100 bus stops in the next year. In all, 2,000 bus stops are slated to be upgraded.
MPTA chair David Howard was part of a panel, along with Mecklenburg Commission chair Mark Jerrell and MPTA vice chair Frank Emory.
“The MPTA has kinda had our head down, doing our work and now it’s time to start telling people what we’re up to,” Howard said. “People have given us the last three or four months to get ourselves together and they want to know where we are going next.”
The MPTA will also be working on advancing the Red Line commuter rail line to Lake Norman. Other rail projects are scheduled to follow next decade.
Mecklenburg County voters in November approved increasing the general sales tax from 7.25% to 8.25% to fund a multi-billion dollar transportation plan.
