Why relying on cars alone 'simply doesn't work'
Urban areas like Charlotte require rail, buses, greenways and bike options, says Sustain Charlotte's executive director
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Q&A: Sustain Charlotte’s Shannon Binns on the city’s transit plan, the challenges of sprawl and the need for more parks
Shannon Binns leads a nonprofit that advocates for sustainable growth. (Photo by Grant Baldwin Photography)
On some of the biggest local issues in the Charlotte region — from transit plans to land use regulations — the organization Sustain Charlotte has been at the table.
The nonprofit advocates for smart, sustainable growth. It has been a major backer of Charlotte’s transit plan, the Unified Development Ordinance and more parks, greenways and sidewalks.
Charlotte Ledger editor Tony Mecia talked last week with Sustain Charlotte’s executive director, Shannon Binns, about those and other topics. (For an alternate point of view, check out last week’s comments in Transit Time from N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore on why the Charlotte region should focus on building roads.)
The conversation was edited by clarity and length:
Q. A big theme in Charlotte going back decades is that we're a growing region. There are a lot of positives in being a growing region, and there are also some negatives. What is your idea of how Charlotte should grow?
What we’re really focused on is how can we grow in a more sustainable way? How can we grow in a way that is better for the long-term — not just looking at maybe what’s best in the short-term from an economic standpoint, but in economically, environmentally and from an equity perspective?
We’re focused on decisions and policies around land use and development, as well as transportation — how we move around the city and the region. For us, it’s keeping in mind the long-term — what do we need to do to have a healthy, safe community and a vibrant economy now and into the future, and a place that is livable and affordable for everyone, not just some of us.
Q. That sounds great, but what's the CliffsNotes version of how you do that? How do we make sure we have the lifestyle that people want as lots of people pour into this area?
What we really need most in terms of making the area more livable, more affordable, more convenient to move around, is we need diversity of housing types. We need smaller housing types, like apartments, up to single-family homes, and all the different housing types in between — what’s often referred to as the “missing middle” housing.
By providing a variety of housing types across the community, we’re able to provide affordable price points for more people, given that people have a range of family incomes.
Similarly, we need a diversity of transportation choices. On the one extreme is assuming everyone will want to and be able to get around with a private car. But we need other transportation choices because frankly, private cars don’t work for everyone. Not everyone has access to one, or has the ability to use one, or frankly, wants to use one. So at a very high level, I think when we and other cities grow in a way that prioritizes a diversity of housing and diversity of transportation, and build our communities in a more efficient way, that’s when we move in a more equitable and environmentally sustainable way and a more economically sustainable way.
Q. Transit is something you’ve been very involved in. Charlotte has been talking about a transit plan over the last few years. But it seems like in many ways that we're no further along in getting to that comprehensive transit plan or mobility plan than we were three or four years ago. Is that frustrating?
It’s very frustrating. It’s been very painful to see that not go forward. Even prior to 2021, going back at least as far as 2015, our Metropolitan Transit Commission convened a working group. So we’ve been paying attention since before 2015.
Certainly, this is a conversation that’s dragged on for a long time, with the most recent iteration being the 1-cent sales tax that started to come forward in 2021.
Q. So what needs to happen for that to move forward? And why hasn’t that moved forward? And why is that important to move forward?
I think that really comes down to the fact that we have not been able to build both the robust local support as well as the support of the state legislature that’s needed to move that ahead.
At the local level, I think everyone knows that part of the transit plan for our region included a rail line to the north of the county. And because of a broken agreement, essentially, with Norfolk Southern, who owns those tracks, that project has not come to fruition — not for lack of trying on Charlotte’s part.
In a similar vein, we’ve seen the legislative leadership not be supportive, at least in rhetoric. So there’s a lot of politics involved. But at the same time, I believe that there’s a good chance something will move forward this year. I think there’s a lot of work that is being done and underway to both craft an agreement with Norfolk Southern to use those tracks, but also efforts to work with the leadership in Raleigh to really make the case that from an economic standpoint alone, this is a really important investment — that we should allow residents here who pay taxes to make a decision for themselves and at least give us that opportunity to decide if that’s what we want to do.
Q. What is the case for moving that forward? Why does that have to happen?
The reality is we are a fast-growing urban area. A reliance on primarily moving people in vehicles — cars and trucks — simply doesn’t work in urban areas. It works in rural areas. But as areas become more urban, there’s only so much land, and cars take up an enormous amount of space on a per-person basis.
So your streets can only be widened so much before you start to run into other things like houses and buildings and parks and things that people need to get to. And transit, walking, biking — these modes are just simply more efficient ways to move people.
Not to get too wonky, but you can visualize how much space you need to move 10 people on a bicycle versus 10 people in a car, or 100 people by car versus 100 people on a bus. So that’s why cities and urban areas in general move to other transportation modes, simply because without doing so, you have major gridlock.
The Little Sugar Creek Greenway is a favorite spot for walking and biking.
Q. Charlotte is a city that grew up around the automobile. And if you look at our development patterns over the last few decades, we have a lot of single-family subdivisions out in the suburbs. How hampered are we by the fact that we are so spread out?
It makes it really tough. We are one of the lowest-density major cities in the world. In order for walking and biking and transit to work, you have to have a certain level of density. Things have to be somewhat close together. It is difficult to efficiently and affordably provide transit service across a 300-square-mile city.
So it’s a challenge. But the reality is, land is being developed all the time. Cities by their nature are always changing. So we’ve had this opportunity, as redevelopment occurs, to redevelop in a way that makes these other modes of travel more possible. It comes down to better urban planning.
It is difficult to retrofit, but it’s not impossible.
Q. The leadership in Raleigh says we need to focus on roads because 90% of people drive cars, and traffic is getting worse. What would you say to people who say, “We need to look out for the interests of people who are driving cars”?
Intuitively, a lot of people do think, “Gosh, you know, if there’s a lot of congestion on the road, we just need to widen the road.” But what happens when you widen the road or add more road capacity, it actually attracts more drivers. So people tend to drive more.
It doesn’t provide that long-term congestion relief that you intuitively expect. When you add road capacity, the opposite actually happens. You may have relief for a very short time. But invariably, that extra capacity is absorbed by new drivers, especially if you’re a growing city attracting more and more population.
It also doesn't take into account the fact that here in Charlotte alone, 13,000 households don’t have access to a car. When you design the city for a single mode, you’re really leaving out many, many people.
From a climate perspective, we’re burning gasoline, which is emitting greenhouse gases. Here in the city, transportation is the largest source of climate pollution or greenhouse gas emissions by sector. It’s 40% of our emissions regionally.
Just from an economic competitive standpoint, many employers are now looking to locate in cities that have diverse transportation networks and multiple ways for their employees to get to work, in part because it’s a quality-of-life issue. And they know that people want to live in walkable, bikeable, transit-rich communities. So it’s important from an economic competitive standpoint that we don’t just limit ourselves to building for cars.
And I didn’t mention safety. Last year alone, 70 people were killed due to traffic violence.
Q. What sort of things is Sustain Charlotte working on nowadays?
We’re keeping a close eye on the sales tax and continuing to be an advocate for that. But we also right now have an effort where we’re engaging residents and helping them use their voice to advocate for more funding for Park and Rec. Park and Rec, we believe, continues to be underfunded relative to community needs across the county.
So we’re simply asking for more funding for land acquisition — which the county has done a great job of the last two years, putting aside $50 million for land acquisition. We’re asking them to continue that again this year. That’s to buy land for future parks and greenways and nature preserves, and also just increasing the amount of staff that the department needs to grow as the need for more Park and Rec facilities grows.
We’re also starting to look at a request to ask the city to increase funding for their bicycle program. These are all attempts to make improvements to the street network for safe walking and biking.
This becomes especially important because the sales tax has not moved forward, but our needs around making our city more multimodal have only grown. And yet the funding for these additional modes, namely biking and walking, has decreased in our future plans.
One thing we might also be advocating for later in the year is for CATS to have the financial and human resources to restore their frequency of bus and streetcar service that was in place prior to August of 2022.
You might remember that frequency on about a dozen routes was cut, and they’re bringing back that frequency, but it’s being brought back slowly. That would be good for people who are using our transit system.
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In brief
Talks continuing on Red Line: Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and City Manager Marcus Jones met with the mayors of Mecklenburg’s northern towns this week “as talks about the Red Line heat up,” WSOC’s Joe Bruno reported on X/Twitter, citing anonymous sources. Rail owner Norfolk Southern last year said it was open to making the line available, which could help move the city’s transit plan forward.
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Tony, Shannon- thank you for this. As a community we must see the big picture.
Thanks for the thoughtful article.
I would love to see someone make the argument that there is some fraction of car drivers who would be willing to give up their vehicle trips for an alternative. If we could spend a small fraction of our transit budget to help those people ditch their car trips, the roads would be emptier for "the rest of us.". They want to give us more space on the roads, why not take It? And It Is cheaper than building new or wider roads.