Shut up together for hours in a dark and windowless room to try to tackle an even darker financial picture, the governing body for Mecklenburg County's transit system managed to find what passes for daylight. After a tough-love presentation from a financial consultant, the Metropolitan Transit Commission all but leaped on the glimmer of sunshine he proposed: It voted to scale back the Lynx Blue Line Extension light rail to UNC Charlotte and to look under every possible rock for private (or public) money to build commuter rail to north Mecklenburg.

Although the financial outlook remains cloudy - and just what, exactly, "scaled-back" means for the UNCC line isn't clear - the MTC managed to avoid making a choice no one wanted to have to make: Deciding to scrap either commuter rail to north Meck or the Blue Line Extension.

Consultant Jeffrey Parker showed the MTC, made up of public officials from around Mecklenburg, a series of financial scenarios. The key problem for the Charlotte Area Transit System is that the recession has walloped its income from a half-cent sales tax. Yet its costs keep rising, including for the proposed UNCC light rail route. If you project out costs and revenues, Parker showed, even without building any new rail projects, costs overtake revenues by 2025.

His recommendation: Keep current bus service levels with little expansion in coming years. Don't let CATS operating expenses rise more than 4 percent a year. Don't build new park and ride lots or more transit centers. And cut 20 percent of the cost of the Blue Line Extension.

CATS Chief Carolyn Flowers didn't have specifics yet on what cuts would be needed to reduce the price from an estimated $1.2 billion to $800 million. But, she said, she believes the light rail line can still extend all the way from uptown to UNCC. Cuts could be in the number of stations, amenities and other items, she said.

The problem with the commuter rail - aside from the sales tax revenue downturn - is that it isn't eligible for federal transit money. Yet. Rule changes are afoot that might change that. But Parker offered a menu of public-private collaborations that might help bridge the funding gap. They included seeking federal loans or loan guarantees targeted at rail services, partnering with Norfolk Southern railroad (which owns the tracks on which the commuter rail would run), finding a private concessionaire to help build and operate the service and asking developers along the line to pay part of its cost.

For now, the MTC has back-burnered the other transit routes on its 2030 plan: the southeast corridor, west corridor and a streetcar route - although the City of Charlotte is building a streetcar starter-segment. And it has asked its consultant to come up with suggestions for "further alternative revenue streams."

It's clear, as it has been for months, that short of an unexpected surge in the local economy, CATS can't build its full 2030 plan without more revenues. An ugly choice probably lies ahead: Seek more tax revenue or jettison plans for more transit service for decades.

But by finding a way not to scrap one line now, the MTC at least found a parting in its dark financial clouds.