If you live in the Ballantyne area, you are helping pay for Charlotte's buses and trains whether or not you ride them. The one-cent sales tax voters approved last fall shows up on receipts across Mecklenburg County, and starting July 1 a new agency takes control of how that money gets spent.
The short version: the Charlotte Area Transit System is being handed from the City of Charlotte to a new regional body, the Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority. On June 24 the new authority finished the last of the requirements the state set for the handoff and sent the paperwork to Raleigh. Operations transfer July 1. The employees and the computer systems follow on January 1, 2027.
For south Charlotte, the long game is the Silver Line, the light-rail extension mapped to run from the airport through the southeast side of the county. None of it is close. But the decisions about it are being made now, by the board that just took the keys.
We are, as always, last to breaking news. Our colleagues at The Charlotte Mercury have the whole story: who runs the authority, what changes on each date, and what is still unsettled.