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In their first televised debate, Democrat Anthony Foxx and Republican John Lassiter Tuesday night continued to disagree over a $4.5 million streetcar study and the effect it has on an overall transit plan.
They met for an hourlong debate at Shalom Park, broadcast by WBTV and sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte.
The candidates agreed on some things: the need to diversify the city's economy while retaining current jobs, and to improve relations with Raleigh. They recounted differences over the 2006 city budget. Lassiter opposed its 9 percent property tax hike. Foxx supported the additional police officers and road improvements the tax allowed.
But while they both support a proposed streetcar, they parted ways on the council's decision last month to spend $4.5 million on an engineering study.
Foxx led Democrats in overriding Mayor Pat McCrory's veto of the money. He said a study showed that the streetcar, which would run from the Rosa Parks Transit Center on Beatties Ford Road to Eastland Mall, via Trade Street uptown, would bring $1 billion in investment to parts of town that badly need it.
"It would be the one investment the city could make that would trigger" revitalization, he said Tuesday night.
But Lassiter said he opposed the study because the city doesn't know where it would get the money to actually build the streetcar line, which is expected to cost more than $450million in local and federal money.
In addition, Lassiter said, it upsets what had been a carefully planned expansion of Charlotte transit that includes light rail to the UNC Charlotte area and commuter rail to Lake Norman. He said it sends the wrong signals to Washington and to commuter rail advocates in north Mecklenburg.
"It's a misplaced priority," he said of the streetcar. "We're seeing confusion in Washington about what our priority is."
Asked about that later, Foxx called it "ridiculous." He said officials in north Mecklenburg have assured him they have no problem with the streetcar.
The Charlotte Area Transit System originally planned to build all the rail lines but the recession has hurt revenues. The towns of Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson recently began their own lobbying effort in Washington on behalf of the north commuter line.
Their decision has rankled some on the Metropolitan Transit Commission, which plans where and when transit will be built, and which seeks a unified voice.
Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte, a member of the MTC, said Tuesday night that he's more worried about competition for dollars from the proposed northeast light rail line. But he said moving ahead with the streetcar complicates the whole transit equation.
"John's right in that it adds a complexity and it throws a little bit of curveball at us," Tarte told the Observer. "Anthony's right that a streetcar is a good thing."
