Voters defeat Tampa rail initiative but approve funds for transit in California

Despite a sour economy, transit ballot measures scored 22 wins and eight losses in Tuesday’s voting across the US.

 A plan for a light-rail network and expanded bus service in the Tampa, Florida, area — in preparation for the past four years — suffered a severe setback Tuesday when Hillsborough County voters rejected the transportation system’s financing by a 3-to-2 margin.

The proposed 1-cent sales tax was impossible to sell to tax-weary Floridians, even though proponents of transportation improvements, including business interests, hugely outspent opponents — $1.6 million versus $24,000. “The mood of the people is we just can’t afford all these projects,” Karen Jaroch, founder of the group NoTaxForTracks.com, told the St. Petersburg Times in an article available here.

By contrast, five of the seven counties in the San Francisco Bay Area — Alameda, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara — voted to increase registration fees by $10 per motor vehicle so that millions of dollars can be raised for improvement of transportation systems. This made vehicle fees a noteworthy new financing tool.

Statewide, California voters, by a margin of 64 to 35 percent, approved a ballot measure aimed at preventing the financially desperate state government from borrowing, raiding, or redirecting public transit funds and other revenues that would otherwise belong to local governments.

“It’s a response to the last couple of budget cycles, in which the state rescinded money that was allocated to transit,” said Jason Jordan of the Center for Transportation Excellence (CFTE), a pro-transit organization based in Washington, DC. The American Public Transportation Association said the state measure — Proposition 22 — "protects more than $1.8 illion in state and local public transit funding."

Voters in Fairfax County, Virginia, a large suburban area outside the nation’s capital, approved, 65 to 35 percent, a $120 million transportation bond, which will help the region’s Metro system buy 400 rail cars and 500 buses and make other improvements to the transit network. In neighboring Arlington County, voters approved a $34.1 million bond to support the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and other transit, pedestrian, road, and transportation projects. 

Over all, CTE said there were 22 wins and eight defeats in ballot measures on Tuesday. That was better than average, Jordan said, “which is good, given the election climate, with concerns about taxes, the role of government, and the size of government.” Nearly $500 million in funds over five years was approved Nov. 2. "When aded to funding approved earlier in the year, voters have supported over $1 billion in transportation investment," CFTE calculated.

Among the results:

• Oahu, Hawaii, approved the establishment of a semiautonomous public transit authority to oversee Honolulu’s planned $5 billion rail transit system. The referendum won by 63 to 29 percent. The rail project itself was approved in 2008.

The charter amendment in Honolulu “takes the development and operations of the rail system out of the City Department of Transportation Services” by creating a transit authority that would include a mix of members appointed by both the mayor and City Council, Todd Apo explained in an article in Honolulu Civil Beat, available here. This, said Apo, “will help insure that our project is done right and with the least amount of political interference or motivation.”

The transit authority, Apo said, will be able to guide transit-oriented development, avoiding “continued urban sprawl in areas that should remain open.”

• Richland County, South Carolina, by a 51 to 49 percent vote, rejected a 1-cent transportation sales tax that would have supported the Central Midlands Transit Authority (recipient of 33 percent of the revenue), road improvements (61 percent), and bicycle/pedestrian/greenspace projects (6 percent).

• Austin, Texas, by 55 to 45 percent, approved a $90 million mobility bond for streets, sidewalks, bike paths, trails, and transit infrastructure.

• Rhode Island passed a statewide ballot measure, 73 to 27 percent, approving $80 million in bonds and notes for roads and bridges, including $4.7 million for buying or rehabilitating buses.

• Toledo, Ohio, renewed the regional transit authority’s mill levy for another 10 years.

• Horry County, South Carolina, passed a nonbinding referendum supporting continuing funding for mass transit.

• Bellingham, Washington, raised the sales tax by 0.2 percent for transportation projects. The vote was 55 to 45 percent.

• Contra Costa, California, 54 to 46 percent, rejected a $10 increase in annual car registration fees that would have benefited roads, congestion relief measures (such as express buses, transit passes for students and workers, and park-and-ride lots or rail station improvements), and bike and pedestrian improvements.

• Sonoma County, California, 58 to 42 percent, rejected a $10 increase in motor vehicle fees. Sixty percent of the revenue would have gone to transit.

• Polk County, Florida, 62 to 38 percent, turned down a .5 percent sales tax for transit.

• Clayton County, Georgia, whose county commission ended all public transportation services earlier this year, made a turnaround, with 70 percent of its voters approving an advisory measure asking the county to join the metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) and to levy a 1-cent sales tax to pay for the new service.

• Metropolitan Portland, Oregon, 54 to 46 percent, rejected  a $125 million bond for TriMet. Some of the funding would have gone to purchasing new buses to replace older models.

• Eaton County, Michigan, 60 to 40 percent, rejected a mill levy for transit for the second time in three months.

• Richland Hills, Texas, facing the question of whether to leave the Fort Worth Transportation Authority and use their half-cent sales tax on other services, decided to stay with the "T."

Property tax increases or renewals were successful in four Michigan jurisdictions, two West Virginia cities, and two counties in Ohio. 

In Tampa, Mayor Pam Iorio, who four years ago had reignited a long-running transportation debate by calling for greater investment in transit, including a start on commuter rail, said of the defeat, “This is a very difficult time for people.”

The St, Petersburg Times said, “For now, the defeat halts talk of Hillsborough County leading the way in what had been envisioned as a regional rail network linking neighboring counties.”

“Voters do see the need for regional transit and transportation,” said Ronnie Duncan, chairman of the Tampa Bay Regional Transit Authority. “I think what they were uncomfortable with was the funding mechanism.” The 1 percent sales tax would have doubled the bus fleet and paid for road expansions as well as installing light rail. The tax was projected to raise $180 million annually at the outset and was expected to pull in matching state and federal grants.

Supporters of the measure, including many Tampa business and civic leaders, “vowed to come back in the future with a new plan for mass transit, though perhaps when the economy looks stronger,” the paper said.

Forty-three of the 56 transit measures on the ballot this year have been approved, according to CFTE, whose description of the measures is available here.