The city of Charlotte has a tentative agreement to buy the Norfolk Southern freight rail line for $91 million. The city wants to use the rail tracks for a commuter rail line to Lake Norman.
City staff members on Monday night unveiled the agreement with the railroad, which calls for the city to spend $74 million to buy the actual tracks from uptown to the Iredell County line. Charlotte would also spend $17 million on land for the planned Gateway Station in center city.
And the city would have an option to buy more of the freight tracks in Iredell County for roughly $17 million — potentially lengthening the Red Line to its long-planned terminus north of Mecklenburg County.
Charlotte wants to use the tracks for the Red Line commuter rail line from Gateway Station to Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson and possibly Mooresville.
The City Council is scheduled to vote on the purchase on Sept. 3.
But the deal comes with a significant risk.
If the city can’t get a one-cent sales tax increase enacted by the legislature and local voters, there will be no Red Line. That sales tax proposal is the main funding source for the broader transit plan.
And Charlotte will still own more than 20 miles of train track.
Charlotte City Council member Ed Driggs, who chairs the transportation committee, said if the city failed to get a sales tax approved, it could try again. If that failed, it could sell the rail tracks to someone else, although it’s not clear who would want to buy them.
Charlotte has planned to build the Red Line for 25 years but Norfolk Southern had refused to sell the tracks or allow Charlotte to use them, claiming they needed the little-used tracks for freight. That changed in the summer of 2023, when negotiations started again after a long stall.
