![\"\"](\"https:\/\/actionnc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screen-Shot-2025-09-08-at-1.12.34-PM-300x192.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mecklenburg County voters will decide in November whether to increase the sales tax by one cent, to 8.25%, to pay for a multibillion-dollar roads and transit plan. With three months until the referendum, the tax has so far produced some unusual political alliances.<\/p>\n
WFAE Morning Edition host Marshall Terry spoke with WFAE\u2019s Steve Harrison about who is and isn\u2019t supporting the tax.<\/p>\n
Marshall Terry:<\/b>\u00a0Steve, before we get to who is on which team, tell me briefly about the plan.<\/p>\n
Steve Harrison:\u00a0<\/b>The plan calls for 40% of new sales tax money to go for roads. Forty percent would go to rail transit, most notably the Red Line commuter rail line to Lake Norman. And 20% would go to buses and a new on-demand service called \u201cmicrotransit,\u201d which is like Uber.<\/p>\n
The city of Charlotte has estimated the tax would cost the average household in the county about $240 a year. The city says low-income residents would pay about $130 a year,<\/p>\n
Terry:<\/b>\u00a0OK, let\u2019s start with the people who are in support of the tax. Who\u2019s on that team?<\/p>\n
Harrison:<\/b>\u00a0Marshall, last week Mecklenburg commissioners voted 8-1 to place the tax on the November ballot, and supporters packed the Government center. Many were wearing white T-shirts that said \u201cYES FOR MECK.\u201d<\/p>\n
And they came from a pretty wide cross section of the county: you had activists, political leaders, religious leaders and people from the nonprofit world.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s Sherry Chisholm from the group Leading on Opportunity.<\/p>\n
“Tonight, I ask you to let voters decide whether they want to invest just a little more at the register to build a region where their children\u2019s children thrive, where we can continue improving.”<\/p>\n