Mecklenburg County voters on Tuesday said yes to increasing the sales tax to 8.25% to pay for a nearly $20 billion transportation plan that will dedicate money for roads, sidewalks and bike lanes, as well as rail transit and buses.
The vote was closer than many expected, with the referendum passing 52% to 48%.
WFAE’s political reporter Steve Harrison joins All Things Considered host Nick De La Canal to talk about how the tax won and what comes next.
Nick De La Canal: Steve, Yes for Meck, the group that supported the tax, won. How did they do it?
Steve Harrison: Nick, the transportation plan did well in the city of Charlotte, in both mostly white south Charlotte neighborhoods close to uptown and in Black communities in and around center city. The tax also won support in very diverse suburban areas like Steele Creek and University.
For fun, I looked up the precincts that supported the tax the most.
The most supportive: NoDa. After that, it was Davidson, then followed by South End, UNC Charlotte and Dilworth.
A common theme there: Young voters. They want a Charlotte that has more options than just driving. And most of those precincts are places where the Blue Line currently runs.
De La Canal: Interesting. I assume there were a lot of no votes in Matthews because the town was upset about not getting the Silver Line light rail.
Harrison: That is correct. There are six precincts in Matthews. The five precincts with the lowest amount of support for the tax in the entire county were all in the town.
And there were also people voting no in east Charlotte, also along the path of the aborted Silver Line.
Those two areas had specific problems with the plan. But there were other parts of the county voting, and those areas are historically more conservative and anti-tax: Lake Norman west of Interstate 77. Ballantyne. Mint Hill.
De La Canal: It was a close race. Was that a surprise, given the financial advantage the Yes for Meck had?
Harrison: I think so, at least when you go back to the fall, when the pro-tax campaign started. They spent at least $1.7 million according to the most recent campaign finance report. And the opposition was led by Robert Dawkins of the progressive group Action NC. He said he spent about $6,000.
Yes For Meck at one time talked about winning 65% of the vote, and the group was confident going into Election Day they would win by a larger margin than by what we saw. The original half-cent sales tax in 1998 and the re-authorization in 2007 both passed by much bigger margins, for comparison.
But: A win is a win. The transportation plan comes to life.
De La Canal: So, how quickly will this come to life? When will we see new projects?
Harrison: The first step: Appointing the 27 members to the new transit authority board. That happens this month.
The tax is levied starting July 1. There is a lot of grunt work to be done — transferring all of the assets and employees from CATS to a new transit authority.
But the new authority can start buying new buses and hiring drivers to expand the bus system. That should start in late 2026.
And around that time, the city of Charlotte and the Mecklenburg towns can start spending road money for things like sidewalks, bike lanes, streetlighting and intersection improvements.
De La Canal: And what about trains? People always like to focus on rail transit, the biggest and shiniest projects. What’s the timeline there?
Harrison: The first project is the Red Line commuter train to Lake Norman. The city already owns the tracks, but it’s said it will take 8 to 10 years for that train to carry passengers.
But the key thing to watch for is whether the Red Line gets a federal grant to pay for half of the construction, and whether today’s cost estimate of $1.4 billion holds.
Let’s say the Federal Transit Administration doesn’t fund the Red Line - something it’s been reluctant to do with commuter rail projects nationwide.
The new authority can still build it, but that means less money for other rail projects: The Silver Line, the Gold Line streetcar and Blue Line extension to Pineville.
All of that will be decided in the 2030s.
De La Canal: A long way off.
Harrison: Indeed.
