Mecklenburg County voters overwhelmingly backed the transit sales tax Tuesday, dismissing an aggressive grass-roots effort to repeal it and endorsing CATS' ambitious plans to expand light rail and buses.
The margin of victory stunned even transit supporters. With all but one precinct counted, 70 percent voted against repeal, with 30 percent in favor of stopping the tax. The number of people voting for repeal -- roughly 37,000 -- fell short of the 48,000 signatures collected that put the tax back on the ballot.
The decision means that the Charlotte Area Transit System will continue collecting the half-cent tax, which generated $70 million last year, and will continue with its expansive 2030 transit plan.
CATS plans to build a commuter-rail line to the Lake Norman area and to extend the existing light rail northeast to University City. It also wants to build a streetcar through central Charlotte and either a busway or light rail down Independence Boulevard.
Polls in the spring showed voters supported transit in similar numbers to the 1998 vote, which was 58 percent in favor and 42 percent against. By August, that margin had slipped.
But in the two months before the election, transit tax supporters spent heavily with a television and radio blitz that helped widen their margin of victory. They also had the support of numerous public officials, including ex-mayors and leaders in the black community. They urged against repeal.
The Vote Against Repeal Committee, which raised nearly $600,000, told voters that repealing the transit tax would make traffic congestion worse, hurt the environment and force the city to make cuts in the bus system, which receives 65 percent of the tax. The committee also warned voters that repealing the transit tax would likely result in higher property taxes.
"I think we should have had this 20 years ago," said Jim Sasser, a Charlotte retiree. "I didn't approve of some of the way they handled their finances, but overall, I never had any question about it."
Nancy Gross, a south Charlotte homemaker, voted against school bonds. But she supported the transit tax because it "is hardly noticeable. But if we repealed it, they were going to raise my property taxes."
Throughout Mecklenburg, there has been anger in the past two years over the cost overruns in building the Lynx Blue Line, scheduled to open this month.
Those frustrations often surfaced on talk radio and on the opinion pages of the newspaper, but they weren't enough to swing the election.
The anti-transit tax group, Sensible Charlotte Area Transportation, was disappointed that it had only raised roughly $12,000 by late October. A successful effort six years earlier to defeat the new uptown arena raised more money.
Former City Council member Don Reid, who helped lead the repeal effort, declined to comment to the Observer.
Former county commissioner Jim Puckett, another repeal leader, couldn't be reached for comment.
When the transit tax was passed in 1998, precincts in African American communities near uptown voted for the tax, with some showing nearly 70 percent in support.
But black support was thought to be harder to come by in 2007. A petition drive that placed the transit tax on the ballot had its highest percentage of signers in black communities, and an Observer poll in August found that African Americans favored repeal.
Results Tuesday, though, showed that a number of black precincts west and northwest of uptown voted against repeal by more than 70 percent.
Annie Cox, who works for a heating and air conditioning firm, said she considered voting for repeal. She voted to keep the tax because losing bus service would hurt low-income people, she said.
In the short-term, CATS will open the Lynx Blue Line in a little more than two weeks -- an event that supporters can celebrate with the repeal effort behind them. And the city must find a replacement for CATS chief executive Ron Tober, who announced in August he is retiring Dec. 21.
"Frankly I'm surprised at the spread right now," said Tober as incomplete results came in Tuesday night. "To have a significant margin -- it's a good feeling. People in the community realize we need to have a good public transportation system."
