What if the Silver Line's route is all wrong?

With transit's future in flux, a new idea surfaces

Jan 16, 2025

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New idea: A group of transit advocates wants planners to consider building rail along an existing freight line instead of by big roads; ‘We have to stop and get this right’

A group of transit backers is championing a route for the Silver Line that follows existing freight tracks (in blue), compared with the longtime favored route (in red), which largely goes along Wilkinson Boulevard, Independence Boulevard and Monroe Road. (Image courtesy of Urban Charlotte Coalition)

by Tony Mecia

With Charlotte’s plans to build a future transit line from Belmont to Matthews poised to take a step forward this year, a group of transit advocates is now asking: What if we’re about to make a big mistake?

They aren’t questioning whether the city needs more transit. (They say it does.)

Rather, they’re asking whether the long-proposed route of the Silver Line — largely along Wilkinson Boulevard to the west and Independence Boulevard and Monroe Road to the east — really makes sense.

In its place, they have started advocating for the city to examine an alternative route along an existing freight rail corridor owned by CSX Transportation that charts a similar path. They say building rail along that route could better connect communities while potentially costing less to build and maintain.

It’s just an idea from a small collection of urban planners and transit supporters that is in its early stages, and it hasn’t been embraced by decision-makers. But at a critical point for Charlotte’s transit plan, the proposal represents a wholesale rethinking of a key leg of that plan, and one from people who are among the most ardent backers of expanding transit.

“We have to stop and get this right, because if the Silver Line is built as it is now, and it fails, that’s it,” says Demetri Baches, a former planning director for the city of Belmont who runs an international urban design consultancy. “That boat will have sailed, and all we will have is the Blue Line, and then this relic — this, like, Disney World monorail — that goes up and down Independence Boulevard [and] out [Wilkinson Boulevard] to the airport, and not even to the airport. And that would be a disaster, I think, for the city.”

Plenty of decisions ahead

The future of the Silver Line is still in limbo. The city hopes the General Assembly this year will approve a plan that the city, the county and five of six Mecklenburg towns agreed upon last fall. It would fund an expansion of transit and roads through a referendum on raising the county’s sales tax by 1 percentage point, to 8.25%. N.C. Sen. Vickie Sawyer, a Republican who represents Iredell County and a small portion of northern Mecklenburg and chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, this week put the odds of the measure passing this year at “50/50.”

But even if the plan passes and voters approve, financial projections show there probably isn’t enough money to build the entire 29-mile Silver Line as rail as originally envisioned, largely because of the high costs associated with building bridges and acquiring land. Planners have floated the idea of dedicated bus lines between uptown and Matthews instead.

That proposal disappointed some transit advocates, who viewed it as a misguided political compromise. It also infuriated political leaders in Matthews. At the same time, the city moved forward last year with its purchase of tracks for the Red Line, a 25-mile rail line between uptown and northern Mecklenburg, from railroad Norfolk Southern. That deal provided some of the inspiration for the CSX idea.

Silver line Project Vicinity map from morehead to CPCC levine

Under revised plans from last year, the favored route for the eastern part of the Silver Line (in purple, with stops marked) would probably be bus rapid transit instead of rail because of costs and funding constraints. Advocates of a new route (the railroad corridor also shown on the map above) say their proposal is likely to be less expensive and better for transit use. (Image from Charlotte Area Transit System)

From idea to advocacy

Baches and the others, who met each other initially through social media and places like the online chat board UrbanPlanet, discussed their frustrations and started to devise an alternate idea. Besides Baches, the group includes Clayton Sealey, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission member who posts frequently online under the name CLT Development; and Tesho Akindele, a former professional soccer player who works for the development company that owns Camp North End.

They worked up a 24-page presentation on the CSX route, with aerial imagery. Akindele put together an animation showing a train on the route:

People with an intense interest in trains, who sometimes call themselves “train nerds,” chipped in information about CSX. They said that in addition to the Red Line, passenger rail systems in cities including Boston and Miami have successfully negotiated agreements to run commuter trains on existing freight lines, and that CSX has sold the rights to hundreds of miles of its tracks to the state of Virginia for passenger rail.

The group, which calls itself the Urban Charlotte Coalition, held a meeting at Camp North End in December and invited neighborhood leaders, elected officials and transit advocates. About 20 people attended, including a county commissioner, a state legislator and a CATS employee. People in power to make the decisions haven’t backed the proposal, but they haven’t rejected it, either. Officially, no decisions have been made, although the original route has been assumed to be the preferred route for years, and the city has said it has spent $43 million studying it.

“I would say we were politicked and told all things are being considered,” Sealey said.

Among regular people, though, the group says running transit in an existing rail corridor has commonsense appeal.

“The response from normal people has been really good,” Akindele said. “… Everybody’s kind of excited about this.”

Pros and cons

The group says there are a few advantages to using the existing rail corridor, such as:

Lower cost. The existing rail bed could eliminate the need to build expensive bridges and tunnels, and it could avoid land acquisitions that would be required along the proposed routes along roads.
Better connections to existing neighborhoods: Backers say it would also integrate better with neighborhoods instead of stopping at freeway-adjacent stations lined largely with strip malls and parking lots. To the east, the CSX tracks run mostly parallel with Monroe Road, crossing it twice. To the west, they parallel Wilkinson Boulevard on the southern side and run closer to the Charlotte airport’s terminal than under the existing plan, which calls for a station about a mile away. One slight difference is it takes a route through Chantilly, Plaza-Midwood and Optimist Park to get to uptown, instead of closer to I-277.

CSX tracks run closer to the terminal of Charlotte’s airport than Wilkinson Boulevard, which is the airport stop under existing plans. (Image courtesy of Urban Charlotte Coalition)

Of course, there are potential hurdles, too:

Opposition: Switching the route could surprise some neighborhoods that might not want passenger trains to have stops nearby. John Lincoln, the board chair of Monroe Road Advocates, which champions the Monroe Road area, tells Transit Time: “We’re advocating for the Silver Line as it was laid out based on extensive community input. City/county leaders need to figure that out. We’re not backing down from that.” He added that he appreciates “people offering creative solutions for a very disappointing situation.” Landowners along the existing route might also favor the development the original plans could bring.
Railroad negotiations: Perhaps the biggest wildcard would be CSX, the railroad that controls the tracks. It would have to grant approval or sell the line. Backers say that the existing route was formulated after CSX rejected the idea decades ago and that as far as they know, nobody has recently asked CSX to reconsider. CSX told Transit Time in a statement:
CSX’s goal is to keep freight moving safely and efficiently for our customers. CSX considers reasonable proposals for new or expanded passenger rail service which are viable financially and operationally and do not adversely impact freight operations. Such proposal needs to address capacity, safety, liability and compensation.
(Edited from original on 1/16/25 to include CSX statement)
More delays: The city isn’t known for moving quickly on transit, so switching routes could prompt years of additional study and consideration. Backers, though, say existing plans would take a long time, too, by having to acquire land bit by bit instead of taking control of it all at once with a CSX deal.

Advocates of the revised route say their proposal isn’t a criticism of CATS or of elected officials. They’re just asking for a fresh look.

“This is probably a better plan, and now is the time to think about it,” Akindele said. “They’ve even said, ‘Now is the time to re-look at the plan before we put the plan in motion.’”

The group is working to spread the word among elected officials. They plan to attend a meeting about engineering for the Silver Line that the Metropolitan Transit Commission is holding next week.

Tony Mecia is executive editor of The Charlotte Ledger. Reach him at tony@cltledger.com.

➡️ View the 24-page presentation on the “Silver Line Alternative”

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