Category: transit

How to pay for future transit? MTC to study

Mecklenburg’s transit agency, the Metropolitan Transit Commission, is launching a study group to look at how to pay for future transit projects.

According to a news release from Charlotte Mayor and MTC Chairman Anthony Foxx’s office, the working group’s leaders will be Huntersville Mayor Jill Swain, a Republican, and Charlotte City Council member David Howard, a Democrat who chairs the council’s Transportation and Planning Committee.

Finding new money for transit projects beyond the Blue Line Extension has been difficult. Revenues from the half-cent sales tax for transit tumbled after the 2008 financial crash. Federal funding is highly competitive, and state transit funding has been cut and with a Republican-led General Assembly, may be cut further. The study group will look at a variety of transit-funding strategies, including tax-increment financing, synthetic tax-increment financing, special tax districts, and more.

  Here’s the press release sent by Mayor Anthony Foxx’s office:


METROPOLITAN TRANSIT COMMISSION FORMS WORKING GROUP TO STUDY 2030 TRANSIT PLAN FUNDING
Charlotte, NC— At a meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) Wednesday night, MTC Chair Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx urged the formation of a working group to study funding for future transit projects.  This action follows an October decision by the MTC to convene a workshop, currently scheduled for April, to consider and adopt strategies to fund the 2030 Transit Plan. 
The working group will be co-led by Huntersville Mayor Jill Swain and Charlotte City Councilman David Howard, and include MTC staff, MTC member mayors or their designees, and business and community leaders from participating jurisdictions.
“As I and many others have been saying, our funding environment has changed, making it harder to see any future transit projects happening over the next 10 to 20 years,” Foxx said.  “We need to explore all options available to us to complete, and perhaps accelerate, our long-term regional transit plans.  Connecting our region through transit is critical both to our future economic prosperity and to managing our exponential population growth.”
“I believe that if we are to have a vision for the future, it’s imperative for us as a collective group to look at creative financing mechanisms for our transit plan and explore anything that can help us achieve our goals,” Swain said.  “Analyzing our future transit issues is at least as important, if not more so, than addressing our current ones.”
“There’s nothing more important to Charlotte’s future than figuring out our mass transit system,” Howard said.  “I look forward to working with Mayor Swain and the rest of the working group to find ways to make sure we move our transit plan forward as it will be one of the things that will most define us as we go to the next level as a city and a region.”
The working group will submit its findings and recommendations to the MTC in a report due no later than April 15.  The group will consider such financing strategies as: Tax Increment Financing (TIFs), Synthetic Tax Increment Financing (STIFs), Tax Increment Grant (TIGs), Business Privilege Licensing Tax, sales tax revenue, and incremental property taxes.  It will also consider which strategies are currently available to local governments and which would require additional County, voter, and/or North Carolina General Assembly authorization. 
The Charlotte Area Transit System will be the lead agency in supporting the working group.
The formation of the working group comes at a critical time for the Charlotte region’s transit system:
  • Transit sales tax revenues dropped during the recession to 2005 levels, eliminating capacity to fund projects beyond the Blue Line Extension.
  • The Blue Line Extension, the single largest capital project in Charlotte’s history, has required increased property taxes from at least three jurisdictions.
  • The General Assembly has already eliminated $6 million in matching transit funding, increasing concerns that matches for future projects will be eliminated and may require increased local commitments.
  • New federal policies and funding approaches may make funding the 2030 Transit Plan less predictable than in previous years.
  • The Charlotte region is the fastest-growing urban area in the nation.
More information on the MTC’s 2030 Transit Plan is available here. 

Is a streetcar speedy? And other red herrings

Courtesy Charlotte Area Transit System

Here’s the thing about the proposed Charlotte streetcar expansion, the one the City Council today is probably going to pitch from the city’s five-year capital improvements plan. A streetcar is not only about speedy transportation. To judge it from that point of view is to miss the point almost entirely.

A streetcar is about economic development and trying to buttress the city’s tax base. Which, let me point out, grew only about 7 percent overall 2003-2011, with a frighteningly high proportion of the city’s acreage seeing declining home property values, not rising ones. (See map at end.)

That point seems to be lost amid debate about streetcar speed and the fact that it stops at traffic lights. Even my former colleagues at the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board seem to be assessing the streetcar’s value by whether it’s faster than driving, as in Sunday’s editorial, “Now is not the time to take streetcar ride,”  which pooh-poohs the proposed 2.2-mile extension of the streetcar’s Phase I, a 1.5-mile segment due to start construction at the end of the year. The streetcar, it says, “would operate on regular streets, stopping for red lights and traffic congestion. It wouldn’t be faster than a bus. It would merely be a very expensive, but very pretty, bus. What the city is buying is an aesthetic.”

But lost in that analysis, and in remarks by some that a streetcar is just a toy, is this: Development reacts to streetcars very differently from the way it reacts to bus routes.

Cities all over the country have built or are building streetcars and seeing them lure development. These are not all big places like Seattle, which has seen revitalization along its South Lake Union  streetcar. They’re places like Little Rock, Ark., where North Little Rock has benefited from streetcar-induced development.

If streetcars are just silly aesthetics, then a whole lot of cities are being scammed, including Tampa, Dallas, Denver, Tucson, Philadelphia and, yes, Little Rock, all of which have streetcars operating. Cities with streetcar lines under construction include Atlanta, Cincinnati and expansions in Seattle, Tucson, New Orleans and Portland, Ore.

Cities with streetcars planned but not yet built (although in some cases already funded) include Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Antonio and Fort Lauderdale.

Illogical though it may seem, people are more willing to ride public transportation on rails than city buses. I know people who’ll drive 10 or 15 minutes to park and ride the Lynx light rail to uptown Charlotte, driving past multiple bus stops on the way.

And not just riders are lured. Rail transportation brings development in a way buses don’t. After all, city buses ran regularly up and down South Boulevard for years, and still do, but development didn’t blossom in what’s South End until the nonprofit Charlotte Trolley ran a demonstration project along the rail line that today holds the Lynx.

Johnson C. Smith University president Ron Carter got it right in his piece in today’s Observer,
Streetcar would bring critical development to westside.

So love it or hate it, the streetcar should be debated based on what it would do for development, not as if its only role is to convey people along a city street. We could debate the value of trying to catalyze development along Beatties Ford Road versus other city areas, such as uptown (where the city just offered up almost $8 million in public money for a baseball stadium and the county some $28 million in similar subsidies).   Others may simply think now is not the time to build a streetcar, or they may not like the way it’s funded. Those are legitimate debate points.

Would Charlotte see the development other cities have? Why or why not? How would today’s development climate affect things?  Is  the long-term streetcar route, planned before the death of Eastland Mall, still appropriate? For a map, click here. Is the funding City Manager Curt Walton proposed, paying for the streetcar the way the city pays for its street and road projects, appropriate? Some cities have used a combination of funding tools, such as public-private partnerships, municipal parking deck revenues and special tax districts.

Legitimate questions. Too bad so many people are focused, instead, on stoplights and speed.

____________________________

Map of city single-family property valuations 2003-2011, is below:
(For a slightly larger view, click on the image.)

And click here to see my interview this morning on Fox News Rising, discussing the streetcar.

Was light rail at root of odd council budget vote?

A source with good Charlotte City Council information tells me this morning it’s highly likely the bizarre 6-5 City Council vote Monday night to spike the proposed city budget (but proposing no other budget, either) was related to an attempt in the N.C. Senate to kill any state funding for Charlotte’s Blue Line Extension project. (Click here for more on the council’s budget vote.)

The proposed Senate budget, released Monday, as reported by the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, would cut the state’s transit programs by “eliminating the New Starts Program and transferring the $28.9 million to the General Maintenance Reserve. The Charlotte light rail Blue Line Extension is the only project in the New Starts Program. The budget bill specifically says public transportation appropriations shall not be expended on any fixed guideway project in Mecklenburg County. There is an additional provision that says fixed guideway projects can compete for Highway Trust Fund dollars under the equity formula.”
 
What’s the connection to the city budget? My source believes the issue is Republican opposition to the city’s proposed streetcar project, which would have cost $119 million, part of the almost $1 billion, multiyear capital projects budget City Manager Curt Walton proposed. The capital program is what would have required a property tax increase of 3.6 cents per $100 in property value.

Council member Michael Barnes, a strong supporter of the BLE, which would run through his district, asked several questions during the council meeting to make Charlotte Area Transit System chief Carolyn Flowers  specify publicly that the 30-year CATS plan, funded with a countywide sales tax, does not include money for the proposed streetcar project, which would come from city money only.

My source speculates that the four council members who raised barely a peep against the budget through months of council discussion and who were part of a 9-2 straw vote for it May 30, but then voted against it Monday – Barnes and at-large members Patrick Cannon, Claire Fallon and Beth Pickering – will try to get the streetcar removed from the capital budget. Why? Because influential Republicans at the state level don’t like it, and may be using the BLE as a bargaining chip. I won’t identify whom my source named as behind it until I can get that person’s comments.

And I’m seeking comment from some of those council members. Will update this when I have more information.

No TOD for you!

Have you noticed that huge lot being cleared and graded on Woodlawn Road between Old Pineville Road and Interstate 77, about a half-mile from the light rail stop? Curious whether that part of the city is finally going to see some true-to-the-plan development designed with transit in mind, I asked city planner Kent Main what was up

Main led the Woodlawn Transit Station Area Plan process that resulted in this document, adopted in October 2008. The plan calls for “Transit-Oriented Development-Employment” for much of the area in the so-called Transit Station. It says: “New development within the Transit Station Area should have uses, intensity, site and facade design, and transportation elements that are consistent with the Transit Station Area Principles outlined in the Introduction to South Corridor Station Area Plans.” Here’s a link to that document.
The station area principles document says: “Transit Station Areas are higher density areas within a 1/2 mile walk of an existing or planned rapid transit station. They typically provide a mixture of pedestrian-oriented housing, employment and retail services designed to promote travel to and from them on transit.”
On page 11 it goes into even more detail. Among other things, it says, development in the station areas should “disallow automobile-dependent uses, such as automobile sales lots, car washes and drive-thru windows.” Further, it says, transit-oriented development in these areas should:
  • – Orient buildings to front on public streets or open spaces.
  • – Minimize setbacks and locate parking to the rear.
  • – Provide windows and doors at street level and minimize walking distance to entrances.

Buildings designed and situated in those ways make an area easier and more attractive to navigate on foot. That helps make it possible for people to live near a station, walk to nearby shopping, take light rail to work or to get uptown. In other words, in the long run people who live in those areas don’t need to drive as much – saving them money and helping ease the upward trajectory of the city’s traffic congestion.
So what is being built at that cleared lot? I was hoping for a good example of new, transit-oriented design, given the adopted plans and existing conditions on that part of Woodlawn. Nearby are: a Bojangles with drive-through window, some vintage ’70s office park developments, deteriorating old chain restaurant buildings, a few motels, a handful of comparatively thriving restaurants including Azteca and Carolina Prime and three or four gas station/convenience stores. It’s predictable highway-oriented commercial development circa 1980.
Kent Main told me the property is going to be … wait for it … a gas station/convenience store.
The site was never rezoned to TOD zoning but remains zoned B-2 General Business, which allows gas stations/convenience stores. Thus the new gas station not only isn’t transit-oriented development but it didn’t even have to go through a rezoning. Main didn’t say this, but Charlotte’s B-2 zoning is not only not transit-oriented, but it’s suburbanized city planning standards from the disco era, nothing that most of today’s planners would be recommending for such a location. 

In an email, Main explained: “We did not rezone these station areas, relying on the carrot of higher density if and when TOD does become a viable opportunity.”
He noted,  “The Woodlawn Transit Station Area Plan does indeed show the site as appropriate for Transit Oriented Development. In practice, given the heavy traffic on Woodlawn, the proximity of the I-77 ramps, and remoteness from the actual transit station, that is a hard sell there.”
I realize it isn’t always a good idea for the city to pro-actively rezone land in its transit station areas, and that if developers aren’t interested in (or able to get financing for) developing land, simply rezoning it may not solve that problem. I also realize sometimes you have to decide whether some development is better than no development, that those decisions may not be easy. But yet another gas station/convenience store inside a transit station area? That isn’t at all what the plans envision.

Commuter rail to Gaston and Union counties?

Here’s an interesting snippet from deep inside a report to a Charlotte City Council committee. It suggests that some of the money from a proposed special tax on property along the proposed Red Line commuter rail would be set aside to help pay for commuter rail to Union and Gaston counties.

This is intriguing, but extremely preliminary.

The mention is in a memo emailed to council members of the Transportation and Planning Committee in advance of the panel’s Feb. 23 meeting (noon-1:30 p.m. in the city-county government center, room 280); the documents haven’t been posted online yet.

The Red Line proposal is complex, but in a nutshell it proposes setting up a special tax district near the would-be commuter rail line from uptown Charlotte to north of Davidson. Whether it would extend into Iredell County remains an open question; Iredell County commissioners have been relentlessly negative so far. Here’s a link to a slide-show presentation the city council committee heard last month. The idea is to upgrade the not-well-used existing Norfolk Southern tracks for both commuter rail and more freight traffic. You’ve heard of Transit-Oriented Development? The idea is to promote Freight-Oriented Development, luring industries and jobs in some spots, as well as mixed-use residential and retail development in other spots.

The special tax district flanking the rail line would assess 75 cents per $100 of property value on income-producing property, that is, not on single-family residential property. For most of the special tax district, 75 percent of the revenue would go to pay for building and operating the Red Line, with 25 percent going to the local municipality.

BUT, the Friday report emailed to the committee says, “At Charlotte Gateway Station, the proposal would:
• Direct 25% of the tax increment capture proceeds to the Red Line.
• Direct 75% of the tax increment capture to a reserve fund for future commuter rail projects to Union and Gaston Counties
The proposal presumes the future commuter rail projects to Union and Gaston Counties would terminate at Charlotte Gateway Station.”
The Gateway Station is the long-proposed new Amtrak station on West Trade Street, which would also be the end point of the commuter rail line. Some people, notably local planner and architect Michael Gallis, have criticized the idea of having two different rail stations, one at Gateway and the other, for the Blue Line light rail, six or seven blocks away at the Transportation Center. The Charlotte Area Transit System proposes running shuttles between the two stations.
But commuter rail to Gaston County? If you’re thinking that’s more pie-in-the-sky than anything you’ve heard recently, then consider this: The N.C. Department of Transportation has bought several chunks of the old Piedmont and Northern Railroad right-of-way that runs from uptown Charlotte through the Wesley Heights neighborhood, crosses Tuckaseegee Road, crosses the Catawba River near N.C. 27 and heads into Mount Holly. CSX owns much of the line in Mecklenburg County, but the state owns enough of the Gaston County sections that it is introducing freight traffic there. Hmmm. The old P&N was an electrified passenger rail line built and operated between Charlotte and Gastonia by a precursor of Duke Energy. When passenger service stopped it became a freight line.
Commuter rail to Union County, though, might be in that pie-in-sky category. 

Charlotte transit plan makeover goes beyond cosmetic surgery

The stalled-for-years proposal to build a commuter rail line from downtown Charlotte north to the booming suburban towns of Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson and Mooresville is getting a significant makeover, not just cosmetic surgery. The state and local officials involved are looking to find funding with freight-oriented development, a sort of cousin to the more widely recognized transit-oriented development (a.k.a. TOD).

The project has been stalled because it hasn’t qualified for federal funding, which typically pays half the cost of a transit line. After years of patiently sitting by, towns in northern Mecklenburg County and Mooresville in Iredell County formed the Lake Norman Transportation Commission, which succeeded in kick-starting a fresh look at the so-called Red Line (which honors the Davidson College school color).

A Wednesday meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Commission heard a detailed presentation of the financing plans. I couldn’t make it, but here are several looks at the presentation: The Charlotte Business Journal’s Erik Spanberg “Red Line rolls toward 2012 vote”  and DavidsonNews.net/CorneliusNews.net’s Christina Ritchie Rogers’ “Homeowners won’t see tax hike in Red Line plans, consultants say.”

Here’s a link to the various presentations and handouts from the MTC meeting.

Nothing’s been decided yet, of course. The Lake Norman Transportation Commission will hold a four-hour summit on the proposal Dec. 13 in Mooresville (10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Charles Mack Citizens Center, 215 N. Main St.).

Then the different governments, who’d have to agree to create a joint powers authority, must study the proposal and decide whether to opt in. From my observations, I’d predict Charlotte, Mecklenburg County and the Mecklenburg towns are on board. The trickier discussions will be in Mooresville and Iredell County. Although many in Mooresville have favored the transit idea, Iredell County commissioners have traditionally been wary of anything that might be viewed as a tax increase.

This proposal would create a sort of self-imposed tax assessment on owners of income-producing property (that is, not residential property) along the line. A part of the tax revenue from the new development would be used to help pay the costs of the rail construction. A portion of the new tax revenue generated from rail-related development would go to local general funds. This proposal would create a sort of self-imposed tax increase on property owners along the line, although it would send a proportion of those extra revenues into local general funds. (2:50 p.m.: Wording refinement on details of the proposal.)

Adding the freight proposal, which takes advantage of a national boom in freight rail fed by rising gas prices rise and freeway congestion, makes the Red Line plan more clearly an economic development maneuver. Luring freight-oriented industry might be a strategy Iredell leaders can be comfortable with, as opposed to simply building a commuter rail line that will draw more Charlotte-bound workers, which will bring homes and children needing county-funded services.

Like the $5 million regional HUD planning grant, the Red Line joint powers authority proposal is one more example of the need to treat the Charlotte region as more than a disconnected set of individual governments, but as, well, a region.

Voters oust GOP, raise their own taxes

Durham County voters OK’d a transit tax Tuesday

Tuesday’s municipal elections in Charlotte and across the state offered some unexpected results, especially if one considers that the state legislature is dominated by conservative, anti-tax Republicans. Voters in four N.C. counties voted to tax themselves, with Durham voters opting for two new taxes, one for transit.

In Charlotte, voters re-elected Mayor Anthony Foxx, a Democrat, over a conservative Republican and political newcomer, Scott Stone. That wasn’t unexpected. But voters swept into office all four Democratic candidates for at-large City Council seats, ousting moderate incumbent Republican Edwin Peacock III  in favor of Claire Fallon, a planning commissioner and neighborhood activist, and Beth Pickering. Pickering had never run for office and just arrived in Charlotte five years ago from Denver, Colo.

That gives Democrats a 9-2 council majority, which I believe is more than at any time since the council went to districts in 1977. (Are any political historians out there to confirm or deny this?) The two lone Republicans, Andy Dulin and Warren Cooksey, didn’t have Democratic opposition in their districts; Cooksey dispatched a Republican opponent in the primary.

But across the state, voters in four counties made a kind of history by agreeing to raise their own taxes, something that conventional political wisdom has said isn’t likely during an economic downturn, or in a state that just last year sent to the General Assembly a slew of conservative Republicans.

A quick rundown:

– Durham County voters approved (about 60-40 percent) a half-cent sales tax for transit, making it the state’s second county, after Mecklenburg in 1998, to do so. Voters in Orange County (Chapel Hill) and Wake (Raleigh) are expected to face similar ballot measures next year, with Orange voting in the spring and Wake sometime later.  That should finally give the Triangle area a funding stream hefty enough to start building a long-awaited rail transit system of light rail and commuter rail.

– Durham County voters also OK’d (57 percent) a quarter-cent sales tax for education.

– Orange County passed a quarter-cent sales tax for school building improvements and economic development infrastructure. The county voters rejected the tax a year ago. This year it passed with almost 61 percent of the vote.

– Buncombe County voters approved a quarter-cent sales tax increase to pay for renovations and new buildings at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.

– Montgomery County voters also approved a quarter-cent sales tax, for buildings at Montgomery County Schools and Montgomery Community College.

The N.C. Association of County Commissioners’ website tally shows a clean sweep for those taxes for this year, with Cabarrus voters approving one in May, Halifax County in February. Compare that to 2010 results. The same quarter-cent sales tax was on the ballot in 23 counties at various times throughout that year. Of the nine votes before Nov. 3, seven were successful. Of those Nov. 2, all lost, including in Orange and Montgomery counties.  Does this mean the Nov. 2, 2010, anti-tax fervor was a one-time blip? Or was Nov. 8, 2011, the oddball election?

Sales taxes, of course, are an easier sell to most taxpayers than other types of tax. Suzanne Leland, a UNC Charlotte associate professor of political science, tells me voters usually prefer sales taxes over income or – the most hated – property taxes. Sales taxes, as Leland and many others point out, disproportionately hurt low-income households, where a higher proportion of income has to go for necessities such as housing, transportation, food, etc. Nevertheless, many voters consider them a more fair way to assess a tax.

New strategy for transit to North Meck

The Charlotte transit project getting the most attention the past four years has been extending the Lynx Blue Line from uptown to UNC Charlotte. But in recent months plenty of behind-the-curtains work has been focusing on the planned commuter rail line to north Mecklenburg. Tonight, the transit governing body heard about a significant shift in strategy for the Red Line.  The idea is to change the focus from “commuter rail” to “rail.”

Charlotte Area Transit System rendering of Red Line car

Quick background: The proposed commuter rail is a different form of transit from light rail. In many ways it’s more like intercity passenger rail than the electric-overhead-wire, plenty-of-stops Lynx. The rules for federal money for commuter rail and the cost-benefit analyses the feds require are structured so as to make the proposed 25-mile Red Line from uptown to Mooresville ineligible for federal money. That left a huge gap – 50 percent of the total – in the proposed funding plans, estimated at $373 million total for both phases of the project.

In addition, the countywide half-cent sales tax revenues tanked in 2008 and haven’t revived to the earlier estimated levels.  The Charlotte Area Transit System has been stumped over the problem of finding local money for the Red Line to cover the gap left by the lack of federal money, not to mention how to operate the existing bus system and Lynx, plus pay the local share for the $900-million-some Lynx Blue Line Extension.

Back to tonight’s meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Commission, which oversees CATS: The Red Line Task Force subcommittee that’s been meeting for about a year has agreed on recommending a new approach. Led by Paul Morris – formerly a consultant and starting this month,  the N.C. Department of Transportation’s deputy secretary for transit – the group wants to pitch a strategy Morris says will be nationally unique.  Use the rail line as an economic development strategy for both passenger rail and freight rail.  And form a formal partnership among Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson so they can share tax revenues from new development, via a Joint Powers Authority.

But where would the money come from? Morris said the JPA would have no taxing authority. Whether it could issue bonds might depend on how any financing package is structured.  The Red Line Task Force is, for now, looking at four potential “value capture” ideas (warning, tax-policy-geekdom coming up): tax increment financing, special assessment districts, partnering agreements with private developers, or jointly developing property with a private owner. Which of those ideas, if any, would come to fruition can’t be known at the moment.

For most of the past 15 years, the strategic thinking about the north corridor’s Red Line was to use it to shape residential development. The area was booming, and the three towns adopted zoning ordinances to encourage transit-oriented development at the proposed station areas. The fact that the rail line’s owner, Norfolk Southern, was still running freight trains on it was generally mentioned only in passing.

Now, residential and commercial development are, if not dead, certainly no longer booming. So the strategy being proposed is to use that freight line as a selling tool for industrial development while using the prospect of passenger rail on the same right of way as a selling point for residential and retail development.

Will it fly with the rest of the MTC?  Tonight’s discussion might make that more clear. No MTC vote comes until next month.

Here’s a link to the PowerPoint presentation Morris gave to the Red Line Task Force in August.

Why DO conservatives hate trains?

Found while looking up something else: An interesting piece in Slate.com, “Why do conservatives hate trains so much?”

Writer David Weigel dissects the opposition and notes it’s more libertarian than conservative (other than a delusional George Will line about trains – “…the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.” Whoa, George, you might wanna dial back the paranoia a tad.)

Libertarians, Weigel notes, don’t have a problem with transportation. What they and some Republicans have a problem with is federal spending on transportation. But then, the article goes on to note, “Amtrak passengers pay more of the cost of their transportation than do drivers on the interstate. About 62 percent of Amtrak’s operating expenses, according to the Department of Transportation, comes from fares. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the percentage of highway spending paid for by users—in the form of gas taxes and tolls—is headed below 50 percent.”

Weigel goes on to quote other reasons some conservatives don’t like rail transit, although little of what he reports as their reasons square with the reality that highways are just as expensive, just as prone to go over budget, just as heavily subsidized.

Ultimately, in my opinion (and Weigel gets at some of this) conservatives don’t like rail because liberals do. Some people will do anything in order not to be in the same camp with people whose beliefs they disdain. This is not limited to politics, of course, and seems to be a general part of human nature. Have you ever been around UNC and Duke basketball fans? They make liberal-conservative spats look tame.

Transit, taxes and Tampa

This one is for transit and tax-policy wonks. It’s a piece from Yonah Freemark, in The Transport Politic, about the problems many transit systems are facing with sinking revenues. “When the recession strikes, little maneuvering room for transit” He points out that one reason for the problem is over-reliance on a very volatile revenue stream: sales taxes.

Most cities have been especially affected by the recession because of their reliance on the sales tax to provide revenue. Of the recent referendums on transit expansion programs, almost all have involved a 1/2 cent or one cent increase in that tax; few cities have looked to other forms of revenue, like an income tax or a payroll tax. The consequences of this decision, however, have been devastating because sales tax revenues have fallen considerably as a result of the recession and the reduced standard of living experienced by the majority of Americans over the past few years. A more stable financing program for transit, using other forms of taxation, would ensure that planned projects actually get built.

If you want to get deep in the weeds of transit finance, follow the link on “financing program for transit,” above. I haven’t read it all the way through yet, but it looks at the New York and Paris transit systems and how they get and spend their money.

In other transit-related news, here’s a piece about Charlotte that ran Sunday in Tampa, Fla., where voters next month will decide on – you guessed it, a sales tax – to pay for transit as well as roads and other transportation needs.

And here’s a fun contrarian piece from the Market Urbanism blog, “The Great American Streetcar Myth,” by Stephen Smith, who contends it wasn’t General Motors and Standard Oil who killed off streetcars as much as the Progressive Era and New Deal planners and politicians. Fare-increase restrictions, labor union requirements, publicly paid street-paving and road-building all combined to finish off streetcars, he writes. It’s an interesting perspective. Smith also points out:

“While the status quo’s more libertarian-minded backers will point to the gas tax as a user fee, the highway funds are hardly adequate to cover the true costs. Though state and federal governments do now cover most of the capital and operating costs of the highways, local roads are still paid for almost entirely out of general revenues. And when you consider the forgone taxes and opportunity costs, roads start to look severely underpriced – to say nothing of the last hundred years of subsidized road building (the mainstay of FDR’s WPA), eminent domain, anti-urban federal home tax breaks and lending programs, positive feedback loops, and density-limiting zoning and parking policies.”