Stopping Charlotte’s new light rail trains won’t take a ton of strength -- but it could cost a bundle of money, said Charlotte Area Transit System CEO Ron Tober Saturday.

Tober showed off the new South Corridor Light Rail maintenance facility at an open house on South Blvd. Saturday morning.   But he said he’d like to spend his time and energy getting the system ready for riders, instead of fighting opponents of the system and a transit tax that pays for it.

Opponents recently gathered enough signatures on a petition to force a vote on repealing the tax.  Tober said even without the tax, the train will keep rolling.

“If we did not operate the light rail system,” said Tober, “the city would have to pay back to the federal and state government in excess of 300-million dollars that we’ve used to build the facility.”

Tober denied trying to get the trains up and running before the election in order to sway voters, but said the system should be ready to ride near that date, around mid-November.

“What will happen is we'll complete the project and get the line in service and people will have a different opinion about light rail,” said Tober. 

He added that without revenue from the tax, bus service would receive the most cutbacks.  The rest of the money would still come out of taxpayers’ pockets. 

“We'd have to find alternative funding either by raising property taxes or reducing service somewhere else in the city,” said Tober.

Families touring the trains at the new maintenance facility didn’t seem concerned about taxes.

“Very nice, nice facility – impressive,” said Pat King.  “Can't wait for it to open.” 

King said he won’t ride the train to work because it doesn’t go north of Charlotte where his office is located, but he and his kids would probably ride it on weekends.

He thinks the time has come for Charlotte to ease traffic congestion with this kind transportation.

“I think its good to have some kind of mass transit in the city with all the growth happening here,” said King. “There’s more and more people are here every day.”

South Charlotte resident Hadi Tajvar said he might ride trains if they came closer to his home.  He’s willing to pay more for that opportunity if the light rail system is successful.

“I think we needed the train no matter what because gas prices are going up and all that,” said Tajvar.  “We need to make it feasible and workable so other people can get to work and use the track.”