Critics of plans to build more light-rail lines in Charlotte, North Carolina say that proposed new lines will fail to serve the neighborhoods of blacks who “need it most.” Blacks are more likely than whites to ride transit, they say, so black neighborhoods need to have light rail too.
They are wrong about black’s use of transit. According to the 2023 American Community Survey, 1.5 percent of both black and white workers who lived in Charlotte took transit to work. In 2019, blacks had been more likely to ride transit — 4.5 percent vs. 2.5 percent — but since then the rise of remote working has allowed most former black Charlotte transit riders to work at home.
History also shows that Charlotte’s light rail has significantly harmed its transit system. In 2005, before Charlotte’s first light-rail line opened, 3.3 percent of workers living in Charlotte took transit to work. By 2019, when Charlotte had 19 miles of light rail plus a 4-mile streetcar line, transit share had fallen to 1.8 percent.
Charlotte’s first light-rail line opened in 2007. Between 2006 and 2019 total transit ridership in Charlotte grew by 15 percent and transit passenger-miles grew by 18 percent. While that sounds good, in the same time period the Charlotte urban area’s population grew by 70 percent and driving grew by 64 percent.
What’s most painful is that transit passenger-miles were gaining market share before Charlotte built light rail. Between 1996 and 2006, the region’s driving grew by 109 percent but transit passenger-miles grew by 138 percent. Transit ridership grew by only 80 percent, but the average transit trip was longer as people as average trip lengths increased from under 4 miles to more than 5 miles. Even 80 percent ridership growth in the 10 years before light rail is stunning when compared with the 15 percent growth in the 13 years after 2006.
Thus, Charlotte is just one more example of light-rail failure. Charlotte residents should support more rail transit only if they want to pay high taxes to make transit even more irrelevant than it is today.
