By Dennis Quick

Timely transportation. In March, Rick Laubscher, president of San Francisco’s Market Street Railway and a light rail expert, told an audience at the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce that we in the Lowcountry have phenomenal light rail opportunities right in front of our collective face.

We’ve already got the railway tracks in place. We’ve also got the ocean, sunshine, great restaurants and attractions. These are attributes other light rail-minded cities would kill for. We also have a need, since traffic problems have increased to the point where I’ve run out of cuss words during my often frustrating, stop-and-go commute to work.

We’d be nuts not to install a light rail system. That’s pretty much what I inferred from Laubscher’s presentation, and I wholeheartedly support the idea.

Light rail would help our urban redevelopment efforts, particularly in peninsular Charleston’s blighted Neck area. Laubscher pointed out that light rail helped resuscitate San Francisco’s commercially and residentially dead waterfront south of Fisherman’s Wharf. Hotels, condominiums, restaurants and shops began popping up along the streetcar and trolley lines. A similar phenomenon happened in Charlotte, where a mere two-mile light rail line transformed an abandoned area into a thriving commercial district.

An electric-powered light rail system extending from Charleston International Airport to the Visitors Center in downtown Charleston, with additional routes to, say, Summerville, Moncks Corner and the Noisette area, would make our region an even more attractive and pleasurable place in which to live.

Park-and-ride stations could be established along the routes. A light rail system working in conjunction with an improved bus system would make commuting a dream.

And with rising gasoline prices nibbling at our wallets, light rail seems even more appealing, since most of the time we burn up our gas while we’re stuck in traffic going nowhere.

The time to start planning a light rail system is now, while our noses are still above water from the ongoing population flood. By 2015, the Lowcountry’s population is projected to soar to more than 625,000 from our current 571,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That means more cars on the roads and highways. It means driving into downtown Charleston with scarcely a prayer of finding a parking space, if that isn’t the case already. And that could mean some of us nixing downtown Charleston altogether unless we have to go there.

It also means our quality of life and chances for further economic uplift will be threatened.

Among politicians and business leaders, the topic of light rail has been bandied about for several years. Some roll their eyes with boredom whenever the subject arises. They say light rail sounds fancy enough but doubt anyone other than tourists would ride it.

Charlotte and San Francisco have pretty much flattened any skepticism about light rail ridership. They did this by promoting light rail as a municipal necessity rather than a tourism toy. That’s why neighborhood residents, commuters as well as tourists ride light rail. The Bay Area’s light rail system daily carries about 42,000 riders.

The need for transportation improvement was a key element of the proposed half-cent sales tax increase. Even though the proposal mentioned nothing about it, light rail obviously would help ease transportation headaches, and money from the sales tax hike could be used to help fund light rail. Local businesses, private donations, plus state and federal funds also could finance our light rail. Exactly how much would it cost? Nobody knows because serious plans haven’t been hammered out yet.

Let’s start hammering.

Noisette Noise. How important is communication in a business (or any other) relationship? Just ask Noisette Co. president and CEO John Knott.

Had Knott told North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey that Noisette had taken out, or was planning to take out, bank loans to renovate two Navy base buildings, the North Charleston-Noisette public-private partnership to remake 3,000 acres of North Charleston probably would have remained a fairly smooth and quiet one. Instead, because Noisette did not notify the city about the loans, fireworks erupted. Questions about Noisette’s integrity arose. At a press conference, Knott admitted that the fuss could have been avoided had Noisette been a more conscientious business partner.

Anybody who has a vision is a target, and it’s probably safe to say that Knott, whose vision of a new North Charleston is nothing less than radical, entered the crosshairs of folks aiming to maintain the status quo the moment he announced the Noisette plan. That’s why it’s imperative that Knott be more careful and thoughtful in his dealings with the city. To do less is to give his enemies a bullet.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.

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