CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte City Council on Monday approved spending $37.9 million for the next stage of the Red Line commuter rail project, which will serve communities north of the city.
The unanimous vote will pay for work by HDR Engineering to bring the project design to the 30% stage and prepare the project’s environmental report. The design work — which includes stations, track and grade crossings, and a maintenance facility — is expected to be completed by the end of 2027, according to council documents.
“The Red Line has been talked about for years,” Councilwoman Dimple Ajmera said during the meeting, the Charlotte Observer reports. “This step moves us closer to reality.”
The city bought Norfolk Southern’s O-Line right-of-way, the planned route of the 25-mile Red Line, in 2024 [see “Charlotte council approves purchase …,” Trains.com, Sept. 3, 2024].
Voters passed a ballot initiative approving a 1% sales tax to fund the Red Line and other transportation projects last November [see “Charlotte-area voters back sales tax increase …,” Nov. 6, 2025]. The legislation approving the tax requires that at least 50% of the commuter line is completed before Charlotte addresses any other rail project on its agenda.
The nine-station Red Line would run from Charlotte’s Gateway Station north to Davidson, N.C., in the Lake Norman area, with the possibility of eventual extension another 3.3 miles north to Mount Mourne. More on the project is available here.
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By math, $128 Million for the completed design. {39.7 x (10/3)} Then, property acquisition, utility relocation, and construction. After that, acquisition of rolling stock.
Now let my dial up some Engineering Economics, a class I took at Wayne State University. You each can do the math yourselves, projecting the completed cost of the right of way, park-rides and stations, approach roads to park-rides, and acquisition of rolling stock. Pick an APR for capital amortization (say, 5%), divide by the number of annual service days. I get something like $2 Million per service day in capital recovery, before you pay a salary, or buy diesel fuel, or pay for upkeep of the property or maintenance on the rolling stock. Maybe my math is off, maybe way off, but it’s a lot of money no matter who calculates.
The project web site (link is the last two words of the article) is the usual feel-good stuff without any numbers attached such as how much to build, projected ridership, etc. The usual cliches like lessening of traffic on the Interstate Highway, as if the highway would even notice a diversion in (as a guess) the low single digit percent of daily traffic.
If anyone on this TRAINS MAGAZINE site advocates for this project, that’s fine, we have free speech on these pages, you’re all rail followers, many of you are rail experts. All I ask is that you do so with some numbers. Not hot air.