Voters And Transit Funding: Why Is This Region So Skittish?

The notion of asking voters in the six county area to approve a regional tax increase to fund public transit seems anathema to transit supporters in this region. Presumably, transit supporters fear that voters will turn down such a tax increase and believe that public transit will fare better in Springfield in the General Assembly. The doomsday cycles of the last few years and the success of transit funding referenda across the country should prompt a re-evaluation of that assumption.

The Center for Transportation Excellence tracks the success of transit funding ballot measures and has found an approval rate of over 50 percent nationwide. The elections earlier this week were no exception. Of the 19 transit funding measures on the ballot 13 were approved by the voters.

The biggest wins for transit came in San Francisco, where voters approved a measure that will increase funding and allow reforms of Muni, and in Charlotte, North Carolina, where voters rejected a repeal of the existing sales tax for transit.

The biggest loss came in Seattle, where voters rejected a measure that would have increased taxes to fund 50 miles of new rail transit and 186 miles of new road lanes. According to this article, however, the defeat might have been because the measure was insufficiently supportive of public transit and thus did not do enough to address global warning. Indeed, the Sierra Club opposed the measure.

Given the tough sledding in Springfield and the national success rate for transit funding referenda, why are transit officials and regional leaders here reluctant to proceed with a transit funding referendum to provide additional funds to the RTA and the three service boards, Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace? After all, public transit has a larger market share here than in most if not all of the areas that have approved transit funding referenda over the past decade.

I suspect that there are two answers. First, transit supporters fear that voters won't agree that the additional funding necessary to stave off doomsday and provide sufficient capital is worth the congestion relief and other benefits from public transit. Second, they fear that the State would not increase its Public Transportation Fund match of the new revenue generated regionally if the referendum did pass.

What would be the result if SB 572 were packaged into a regional referendum? How would you vote?