CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Atlanta gets rave reviews for moving passengers to the airport by train. So do St. Louis and Portland, the Charlotte Observer reported.
But as it stands now, riders of Charlotte’s rapid-transit system won’t take trains to their planes. Instead, the $2.9 billion plan calls for a busway to Charlotte/Douglas International Airport.
Critics say the city is missing a major opportunity if it does not extend the UNC Charlotte-to-uptown light rail line to the airport.
Those three areas are the city’s most important economic engines, says consultant Michael Gallis, and linking them would make Charlotte more attractive to the business community.
But Mayor Pat McCrory says an airport train would carry relatively few passengers and would be so costly that the Federal Transit Administration would reject the project.
So if Charlotte wants light rail to the airport, it almost certainly would pay for it itself. “I’ll ride the bus,” McCrory said Monday.
A busway along Wilkinson Boulevard to the airport would cost $141 million, compared to $335 million for light rail. Charlotte Department of Transportation says 7,000 to 8,000 people a day would ride rail or bus on that route by 2025. In other words, CDOT says, the train would generate no more ridership at more than double the cost.
The west or airport corridor is one of five rapid-transit routes planned in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Construction starts next year on the first, a light-rail line from uptown to south Charlotte.
A public hearing on the other routes — uptown to the airport, University City, Mooresville and Matthews — will be Wednesday, and the Metropolitan Transit Commission will decide Nov. 20.
Mecklenburg’s half-cent transit sales tax and state and federal money will pay construction and operating costs.
Charlotte’s airport is ranked 21st busiest in the country, with 10.7 million passengers departing annually, just behind LaGuardia in New York and Philadelphia. But 3 out of 4 passengers are changing planes and thus are unlikely transit riders.
Gallis, an urban-development consultant in Charlotte, said an airport rail line can’t be judged simply on cost and ridership.
Rather, he said, look at how fast, easy airport access would appeal to new businesses.
“The airport is simply the most important single factor driving the economic health in Charlotte today,” he said.
Jerry Orr, Charlotte’s aviation director, also wants light rail to the airport but acknowledges the cost. Airport employees may use a busway, Orr says, but he doubts passengers would.
The Charlotte Chamber, the area’s main business booster, is not calling for an airport train.
“If costs were no concern, I’d love to see it,” said chamber head Carroll Gray. “But we have to buy what we can afford, and there isn’t enough (local) traffic at the airport to justify the expense of rail.”
Chamber delegations have ridden — and applaud — the rail-airport connections in other cities, including St. Louis. “Those projects were built in a different era when money was more plentiful,” Gray said.