[Doady]

Maybe Charlotte should focus on improving their bus system, which has suffered 24% ridership decline since 2012, wiping out most of the ridership gains since their first light rail line opened in 2007.

2002
Bus 14,319,100

2007
Bus 17,877,900
Light Rail 517,200

2012
Bus 20,858,100
Light Rail 4,950,300

2017
Bus 15,960,700
Light Rail 5,228,500

Charlotte is an urban area of only 1.2 million people and yet it already has 34km of light rail. In comparison, Edmonton (urban area population 1.1 million) has 24km of light rail but six times more transit ridership (138 million boardings annually). It doesn't seem like rail expansion should be such a huge priority for Charlotte.

Nashville's system gets 9.1 million boardings annually with an annual budget of $85 million and a fleet of 135 buses (cost approx $400,000 each). Does a system like that really need $5.2 billion? I think places like Nashville and Charlotte are looking at transit expansion the wrong way. There are much cheaper ways to get people using transit, and more people using transit will make them more likely to support more spending on transit.