The development of this 2025 Transit/Land Use Plan incorporates technical analysis, public education, outreach and hands-on public involvement. The resulting recommendations assume continued improvement of the entire existing public transportation system and continued improvement of the regional roadway system. This Transit/Land Use Plan can accommodate connections to key development hubs within Charlotte-Mecklenburg outside these five corridors as well as future transit extensions into adjacent jurisdictions. The consultant team selected to excente the study included LDR International, Parsons Brinkerhoff, Quade & Douglas, McCormick Rankin International, Basile Baumann Prost Associates, Dr. Robert Cervero, Dr. Reid Ewing, Howard/Stein Hudson and Dr. Mary Hopper. The City's Planning Commission, Department of Transportation and Department of Corporation Communications all played a very active role in this effort.
Context
Charlotte is the rapidly growing center of a booming metropolitan region now numbering approximately 1.2 million people. Ranked the second largest financial center in the US (after New York) Charlotte-Mecklenburg County's 600,000 people enjoy the relative benefits of this booming economy. They look, however, nervously to the southeast and see Atlanta with all of its advantages and disadvantages as their probable future unless they can proactively avoid the decanting of economic vitality from the center to the suburbs and minimize future gridlock.
The City of Charlotte occupies most of Mecklenburg County and fits roughly within its proposed, partly-constructed, outerbelt (see Figure 2). Six other towns are also dispersed within the county, none of significant size. The county is transected both north
