THE BUZZ
T R AN S I T
THE WAY FORWARD FOR CHARLOTTE’S STREETCAR The second phase of the city’s Gold Line, which connects east and west Charlotte, opened in August. Here’s what you should know BY GREG LACOUR
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CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // DECEMBER 2021
RIDING THE GOLD LINE
I pick a good day, or perhaps a bad one for public transit ridership: a bright, temperate Sunday afternoon in late September. We depart from Sunnyside Avenue in Elizabeth at 12:40 p.m. with a modest crowd of about 15. Compared to the Blue Line, it’s a slower, more pleasant ride, with more to look at—the historic properties and Independence Park along Hawthorne; the commotion among the businesses on Elizabeth Avenue, Central Piedmont Community College, and Trade Street uptown; and the Mosaic Village near JCSU once you pass I-277. After a stop at the university, the line reaches its current western terminus, French Street and Beatties Ford, at 1:15. The crowd of 15 has dwindled to three. Some marketing work left to do, clearly, but everything with this project takes far longer than it’s supposed to. The train slides into its turnaround, takes five minutes to reorient itself, picks me back up, and heads back east toward uptown. Continued on page 20
LOGAN CYRUS
ANYONE WHO’S LIVED IN CHARLOTTE for, say, five years or less might not remember when arguments over funding for “the streetcar project” dominated Charlotte politics. The discussions started in 2002, as soon as city leaders floated the idea of a train that would link the east and west sides through uptown. But they reached peak temperature during the mayoral tenure of Anthony Foxx from 2009 until 2013, when he left to become U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Foxx grew up on the west side, and he and his allies said the proposed Gold Line would accomplish two main goals: It’d be a boon for the city’s transit system and a critical tool for economic development in areas that city and business leaders had neglected for decades. Several City Council members doubted growth projections—they often referred to the project as “the train to nowhere”—and worried that it would force them to raise the city’s property tax rate to pay for it. (It didn’t.) Nonetheless, the first phase of the three-stage project, the mile and a half from the Transit Center to Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center, opened in 2015. Three years later, Foxx took a job as chief policy officer at Lyft. On Aug. 30, after six years of aggravating construction that included the notorious Hawthorne Lane bridge, the second phase, the heart of the Gold Line, opened as well. The line isn’t finished yet; the city’s still looking for money to pay for the third phase, which would complete the planned 10-mile route. But for the first time, a rail line does connect the east and west sides, from Sunnyside Avenue in Elizabeth through uptown to French Street, near Johnson C. Smith University in Biddleville. Here are some Gold Line facts, what it’s like to ride it, and excerpts of an interview with Foxx in September.
