Cornelius town commissioners voted unanimously Monday night for a resolution to take power away from the city of Charlotte in making decisions about transportation planning.
The move could have big implications for projects like proposed toll lanes on Interstate 77 in south Charlotte, as well as Charlotte’s efforts to build a regional transit system.
The dispute is over how votes are counted on the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization, a federally required organization that makes transportation decisions for Iredell, Mecklenburg and Union counties.
Charlotte has only one voting member, but that vote is weighted to equal 46% of all votes.
Some smaller governments say that’s not fair.
Huntersville passed a resolution earlier this month calling for one municipality one vote, and Cornelius did the same Monday night.
Former Cornelius Commissioner Kurt Naas is leading an effort to change the voting structure. He’s upset that Charlotte last decade pushed through toll lanes for I-77 in north Mecklenburg even though many in the Lake Norman area didn’t want them.
“If this were a school analogy right now, everyone would take a test once and Charlotte gets to take the test 15 times and add up the score,” he said. “That’s not really regional governance.”
The city of Charlotte has said that the current weighted vote is fair. Because Charlotte is by far the largest city in the three-county region, it should have the most votes, according to a memo written by City Council member Ed Driggs.
Naas said he has studied other planning organizations nationwide and in North Carolina. He said none gives one municipality as much power as Charlotte has. Some planning organizations also required a two-thirds vote for critical decisions, such as whether to build toll lanes.
Earlier this year, the city of Charlotte voted for the state to study building more privately managed toll lanes from uptown to the South Carolina state line. The other option would be for the state to build and operate the lanes. That could mean motorists would pay less in tolls, although the project might not open as quickly.
But a new voting structure on CRTPO could reverse the decision to consider privately managed toll lanes — if towns like Huntersville and Cornelius can band together and out-vote Charlotte.
The other key regional issue is transit.
If Charlotte declines to give up some power on CRTPO, it could alienate some of its neighbors.
That could make it harder for the city to build alliances with its neighbors to support a new $13.5 billion transit plan. The city has said it wants to present a unified front to the Republican legislature in Raleigh, showing the GOP that transit is a regional need. Charlotte needs the legislature to approve putting a 1-cent transit sales tax on the ballot for a referendum, to pay for the plan.
A final decision on the voting structure of CRTPO is expected this fall.
