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Wins and Losses for Public Transit at the Ballot Box
Voters handed public transportation wins and losses in state and local elections on Aug. 5.
The win for public transit was in the Detroit area, where voters in three counties (Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne) passed a millage increase ranging from .59 to 1 mil to generate an additional $28 million annually to fund capital needs for the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation initiative. In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, voters in Wells and Escanaba townships defeated a property tax increase that would have provided additional funding for the Delta Area Transit Authority.
In Kansas City, voters defeated a proposal to enlarge the transit benefit district to fund the streetcar expansion, operated by the Kansas City Streetcar Authority.
And statewide in Missouri, voters defeated Amendment 7, a three-quarter-cent state sales tax that would have provided funds to transit agencies throughout the state, including new revenue to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) for capital initiatives, among other projects.
“There was strong support [for the measure] throughout the state in the business community—the chambers of commerce, the farm bureaus, contractors—they supported it,” said Mark Huffer, KCATA general manager, who added that the new funds would have helped accelerate some capital purchases and expansion plans. “Organizations involved in moving goods or people and in economic development were for it, but they just weren’t in step with the populous that voted.”
Huffer added that Missouri is one of the few states in the country that doesn’t invest in public transit. “There’s general agreement that public transit is important—you have to have it. We just have to find a mechanism to fund it. We have to find ways to embolden the state to invest in transit.”
National Trend? Poll Shows Majority Support Public Transportation; No Consensus on Funding
An Associated Press-GfK poll released Aug. 5 reported that six in 10 Americans nationwide value the economic benefits of public transit, highways, and airports, but there’s no clear consensus on widely discussed proposals for funding transportation-related initiatives.
Gas tax increase: 58 percent oppose raising the federal gas tax, while 14 percent support it;
Tolls: “By a better than 2-to-1 margin,” says the Associated Press, Americans oppose allowing private companies to fund new construction and then collect tolls;
Vehicle miles traveled tax: 40 percent oppose a VMT tax and 20 percent support it; and
State and local funding: 30 percent of respondents support shifting more funding responsibilities to state and local governments.
In addition, the survey found that most individuals—56 percent—say traffic has worsened in their community in the past five years, 6 percent says it has improved, and 33 percent say it is unchanged.
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