TRANSPORTATION

In Charlotte, one neighborhood more than any other came to represent the housing crisis. Built between 2002 and 2004, the Windy Ridge neighborhood of 133 small, single-family homes fell victim. By 2008, 60 percent of the neighborhood’s homes were in foreclosure. Crime rates rose, property values plummeted and the homeowners association couldn’t afford to keep […]

When you hear “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night … ” you probably think of the U.S. Postal Service. But if you found yourself around Plaza Midwood on one of this past winter’s cold and snowy Tuesday nights, you may well associate that phrase with something else: hardy bicyclists pedaling despite […]

As a planner, I’ve found most communities open to making concessions to pedestrians and cyclists in their transportation plans, a goal generally phrased as “providing transportation choices.” There’s an underlying assumption that transportation networks are for cars and trucks, and accommodating anything else is just for variety. For example, Charlotte’s Transportation Action Plan includes a […]

Although the vast majority of Charlotteans (roughly 98 percent) don’t commute to work on public transportation, the opening of the Lynx Blue Line in 2007 has made a visible difference in the county’s transportation choices. But is another change afoot as well? Nationally, Americans are driving less than they used to. The Atlantic Cities website […]

A recent Supreme Court decision has some trail advocates worried about the fate of the national rails-to-trails program, but the ruling is unlikely to affect North Carolina. The case, Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, has to do with who retains the property rights to abandoned railroad right of ways. The national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and […]

It was a challenge thrown at the feet of the city of Charlotte in September 2008. In a package in The Charlotte Observer looking at the region’s future, writers Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson urged Charlotte and nearby cities to position themselves as a “Green, Great & Global” region.* One way to signal this aim, […]

How should the Charlotte region grow over the next 50 years? It’s a complicated question, but planners from area towns and cities and the Centralina Council of Governments have been at work finding an answer. And once again, they’re looking for the public’s help. In March, the CONNECT Our Future program will hold open forums […]

Several recent newspaper articles have described the city’s plans to subsidize a new edge city west of Charlotte Douglas International Airport by spending about $45 million to widen and extend streets in the Dixie Berryhill area. City leaders want to build on the airport’s expansion and the new Norfolk Southern freight center at the airport […]

As hundreds of apartments pop up around transit stations in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood near uptown, the city’s plan for more high-density housing near its young rail line is beginning to take shape. But a sister policy encouraging apartments for low-income families isn’t faring as well. In the six years since the Lynx Blue Line […]

U.S. Secretary of Transportation and former Charlotte mayor Anthony Foxx gave urbanists and bike enthusiasts hope this week with his remarks at the Transportation Research Board, Streetsblog D.C. writer Tanya Snyder reports. Foxx, referencing increasing pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and deaths on Charlotte streets during his time as mayor, said he would “look out for […]