CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A year ago, when Charlotte was building its first light-rail line, the city's transit agency was under siege.

Critics blasted it for cost overruns. They questioned whether anyone would ride the train in a sprawling, relatively small city. Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a transit supporter, later admitted he had nightmares about empty trains.

The anti-rail efforts culminated with a petition drive that placed the transit system's chief funding source — a half-cent sales tax — on the November 2007 ballot for voters to repeal.

The Charlotte experience is not unlike what Honolulu is going through as it debates whether to build a new $3.7 billion commuter rail line. Opponents of the Honolulu project hope to put it on the November ballot and get voters to kill the plan.

In Charlotte, the repeal effort was unsuccessful, and the train opened three weeks after the vote, on Thanksgiving weekend 2007.

Six months later, the Charlotte Area Transit System, or CATS, is enjoying a successful debut.

Boosted by high gas prices, ridership on the 9.6-mile light-rail line is averaging more than 13,000 weekday trips. CATS projected it would average 9,100 weekday trips in its first year.

Ridership is still lower on a per-mile basis than other cities with light rail, such as Houston, Salt Lake City and Denver. But CATS is claiming victory, and recently ordered four new train cars to increase capacity.

CATS chief executive Keith Parker believes the train will meet its 2025 goal of 18,100 average weekday trips by the middle of next decade.

"I always thought the line would be successful," said Ron Tober, the transit chief executive before Parker who retired in December. "But I didn't think it would be as successful as it has been."

Tober, who oversaw the construction of the line, has been hired as a consultant for the city of Honolulu as it looks to build rail transit.

POPULATION SPREAD OUT

The Charlotte metro area — while growing rapidly — has about 1.7 million people, and is small compared with many cities with rail transit.

Charlotte's low population density, at 1,750 people per square mile, is a major challenge for a successful rail system.

Honolulu, while it has a population of about 900,000, has nearly 4,700 people per square mile.

Charlotte's light rail line begins downtown amid a cluster of skyscrapers, many filled by the city's two large banks, Bank of America and Wachovia. It runs south through a semi-industrial area, and even passes through parts of the city that seem rural, with old, country-style homes. It stops just inside the city's loop freeway, Interstate 485, and is a five- or 10-minute drive from some of Charlotte's more affluent suburbs.

While Honolulu's proposed train would run on an elevated track, Charlotte's train usually runs on the ground. It uses bridges to cross some busy streets, but it crosses most with crossing guard arms. That helped keep the price down.

The Charlotte rail system cost about $48 million per mile to build while the Honolulu system is budgeted at $3.7 billion for 20 miles, or $185 million per mile.

The Charlotte system was designed as a catalyst to bring high-density housing into the city, clustered around stations. That has so far been successful, with new condos and apartments being built along much of the line.

The plan to use transit to spark development wasn't universally welcomed. Opponents argued that the transit agency should just focus on moving people.

MOUNTING COSTS

Charlotte's other problem was the mounting cost of building the transit system.

When voters approved a half-cent sales tax in 1998, the city said it could build the line for $221 million. That estimate proved to be unrealistic, and the latest estimate for the train's cost is $462.7 million.

The Federal Transit Administration paid for half of the construction costs, and the state of North Carolina paid for 25 percent. Charlotte is paying for the rest from its transit sales tax.

Honolulu officials hope to get $900 million from the federal government and cover the rest of the $3.7 billion rail cost with an increase in the general excise tax on O'ahu.

Much of the cost increase in Charlotte was due to the rising price of concrete and steel.

But CATS also made some bad decisions that drove up the cost. One was separating a contract to build the stations from a contract to build the line. CATS thought it would increase competition and lower costs, but only one firm bid.

CATS also didn't respond quickly enough to critics, especially about the cost overruns, Tober said.

"You need to constantly communicate what the numbers actually mean," Tober said. "We got beat over the head with the 1998 number and the new numbers."

Another mistake: Not continuing to educate, or sell, voters on what CATS was doing.

Because Charlotte is such a high-growth city, the metro area had added 400,000 people from the time the sales tax was approved in 1998 to when the train opened in 2007.

"We talked about our vision, but we didn't sell it," Tober said. "The new people in the community hadn't heard what we were doing."

The campaign to repeal the transit sales tax was intense, with heated rhetoric from both sides. But voters overwhelmingly backed the tax, with 70 percent of the vote.

One of the backers of the repeal effort told The Charlotte Observer he was surprised by the success of the train.

"Our concern was whether we would have a white elephant," Jim Puckett said. "It doesn't seem we do."

Steve Harrison is the transportation writer for The Charlotte Observer.

COMPARING RAIL IN 3 OTHER CITIES

For a third time in recent history, Honolulu is planning to build a new mass-transit system. The previous two efforts, in 1982 and 1992, failed amid changes in priorities and a lack of political will.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann hopes to break ground next year on a $3.7 billion elevated commuter line from east Kapolei to Ala Moana.

The debate over whether to build a rail line is not unique to Honolulu. Dozens of U.S. cities have some form of commuter rail, and at least 19 of those cities built or expanded their systems since 2000.

The Advertiser contracted with reporters in three Mainland cities to chronicle the rapid transit experience in their towns. The series:

Today: Charlotte (N.C.) Observer transportation writer Steve Harrison writes on the city's 9.6-mile light-rail line.

Tomorrow: Dylan Rivera, a reporter with The Oregonian, writes about Portland's extensive rail system.

Tuesday: Dennis Camire of the Advertiser Washington Bureau reports on the proposed 23-mile extension of the Washington Metro rail system to Dulles International Airport.

— Advertiser staff