Charlotte Transit, the view from Chicago

Some of the comments I've seen swirling around the transit tax issue in Charlotte seem based on the theory that pro-transit people are either trying to take away people's cars or bulldoze their front yards. The same rumors and acusations were common in 1998 when we decided to create the tax.

This conspiracy theory sets up an unnecessary conflict between urban and suburban cultures, and threatens to do serious damage to my home city.

No one wants your car, and I don't really care how big your yard is. Public transit isn't about taking your car away or forcing you to live in a highrise. It's about giving all people a real choice of how they want to live and how they want to get around.

We've lived in Chicago for two months now, and we have driven less than 300 miles since moving in, thanks to the CTA. Notice that I said driven. We still have our car, and yes we do use it. But because we have an extensive transit system here, we can decide: Do we use transit or not, do we own two cars or one, or none at all?

Unfortunately, living in Charlotte and Asheville, there was no choice: Two cars for two people. We managed to get by with one car in Baltimore by living two blocks from where K worked, but it was incredibly inconvenient whenever the normal routine was altered.

Building Light Rail in Charlotte isn't about taking away your car, it's about letting the rest of us get rid of one, or both, of our own. It's about using your car and transit together for different trips. Take the train to work, drive to the supermarket. Take the train to the Panthers game, but drive out to SouthPark.

We have that kind of freedom here, why can't Charlotte have it too?