Fourth Ward residents live closer to Charlotte's transit future than almost anyone in the city. The light rail runs through uptown, and Gateway Station, the long-stalled multimodal hub, is planned for West Trade and Graham streets, at the western edge of the neighborhood.
So the milestone reached on June 24 lands close to home. The Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority, the new regional body created to run the Charlotte Area Transit System, finished the last of the twelve requirements the state set before it can take over, and voted to send the compliance report to Raleigh.
The handoff comes in two stages. Operational control of CATS, along with the one-cent transit sales tax, transfers from the City of Charlotte on July 1. The employees, and the technology systems they work on, follow on January 1, 2027.
What that means for uptown, the rail lines that define it, and the Gateway hub that has been promised for a quarter century, now rests with a board that spent six months assembling itself.
The Charlotte Mercury has the full account, including what is settled and what is not.
Charlotte's transit authority clears its last state requirement →