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From state to town, Michigan takes strong steps toward a better transportation future

One place illustrating the national positive voting trends for transportation is Michigan, where citizens voted to raise taxes for transportation investments in cities and counties across the state, at least one anti-transit elected official was ousted, a Republican governor led the charge for regional transit investment in the state’s biggest metro and when given a chance to bail in the name of “cost savings,” local voters doubled down on their existing transit system.

There were a lot of eyes on Michigan during Transportation Vote 2012, in part because of the sheer number of transportation measures being decided there: over 30 different ballot questions in 2012 alone, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence.

Though there were dozens of worthwhile transportation ballot measures passed this year, Eaton County, Kalamazoo County, Muskegon City, and Ogemaw County all either renewed or passed new substantial tax millages to support public transportation specifically.

That’s no fluke, as Tim Fischer of the Michigan Environmental Council told us. Fischer, the Deputy Policy Director for MEC and part of the Transportation for Michigan coalition echoed a familiar refrain about the success of transit related ballot measures.

“I think the real message is that voters will support transit almost every time when they know where their money is going and what it will be used for,” he said.

Along those lines, a handful of cities around the country were offered a choice to secede from existing transit systems and decide to send that money elsewhere — a phenomenon explained in more depth by Angie Schmitt at Streetsblog Capitol Hill a few weeks ago — including one vote in Walker ~~County~~, Michigan, a city in the western suburbs of Grand Rapids. In a show of support for their existing system, voters in Walker rejected that attempt by a huge margin (73 percent opposed), “because residents see real value in their local transit systems even though they might not ever use them,” Fischer added.

“Road millages, by comparison, don’t always fare so well and have been rejected more often than passed in recent years. People perceive that they already pay for roads through the gas tax and are less inclined to pay for roads through millages.”

(That wasn’t the only good news in Grand Rapids, which also recently received $20 million in federal funds to build a BRT line.)

In a more recent development, just last week, the Michigan legislature passed landmark legislation finally creating a regional transit authority in Detroit, something that transit advocates and Detroit leaders have been trying to do for decades.

They were no doubt urged along by USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood, who told Michigan leaders they wouldn’t receive federal money for the Detroit Woodward light rail line without a regional authority to receive and manage the money.

“The RTA passage will trigger USDOT to release $25 million in promised federal funds which will add to about $80 million in private money,” Fischer said. “In addition, a component of that legislation is the development of about 100 miles of rapid bus transit (‘BRT light’).”

The coalition that helped the RTA legislation along to victory was a broad one.

MOSES (Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enables Strength), which does faith-based organizing within over 40 congregations in southeast Michigan, was a key part of the successful coalition. MOSES did much of the legwork to push the bill through, holding scores of meetings with legislators to affirm to them the importance of investing in public transportation (pdf), and explaining how the lack of this regional authority was a significant roadblock to doing that.

Michael Tasse with MOSES said that their leaders and members had been having meetings with legislators for over two years on the regional transit bill.

“We pushed the governor to support it,” Tasse said. “We helped persuade legislators who were on the fence or who might not have initially supported it by helping them to understand the bill. A big part of what we spent a year doing is educating them on the bill and pushing them to read through it and understand it. We made scores of visits in district, and we went to Lansing more than ten times.”

MOSES is celebrating the passage of the bill as 2012 comes to a close. “This is important because it’s about transportation — not just rail lines to Chicago, but the bus lines that connect people across town and the factories across town and the suburbs,” he explained. “Connecting people to those jobs is how we’re going to build strong families and communities in Southeast Michigan. If people can’t get around, they’re stuck, and that creates a gap between the few and the many.”

But the wins go beyond just local or regional transit in Michigan. Passenger rail statewide has had a significant boost in the last year, certainly helped along by the leadership and straight-up boosterism of the Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder talks to the media at an event sponsored by the Michigan Municipal League.

Michigan has received about $500 million for the Chicago-Detroit/Pontiac passenger rail route, including funds to purchase about 130 miles of track from NS, adding to the 100 miles already owned by Amtrak. 234 miles of the 300 mile Chicago-Detroit route are now under public ownership. Trains are already running at speeds of 110 mph on some of this stretch, and they’ll run that fast for longer stretches once more track is upgraded next construction season.

Incidentally, this line from Detroit to Pontiac runs right through the town of Troy, where a mayor who refused a federal grant to build a new train station there was ousted by recall in November and removed from office.

All of these stories of Michigan communities and the state seizing control of their futures and declaring the importance of transportation at the ballot box are encouraging, but they still can’t go it alone — they need the feds to step up and support these kinds of communities leading the way.

“The rail projects wouldn’t exist without it [federal support], nor would the Grand Rapids BRT line,” Tim Fischer told us. “The locals must do their part, but federal money is necessary to turn the projects into reality.”

Michigan boosters like Fischer see the positive trend continuing.

“I am optimistic for Michigan’s future. Our passenger rail programs and transit systems have come a long way in just a few short years. Also, communities across the state have great interest in complete streets — over 80 have adopted complete streets policies or resolutions since we established our complete streets law in 2010.”

“Things are coming together at long last,” Fischer said.

What the 2012 elections mean for the federal transportation picture

OK, now it’s official: Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) will replace Rep. John Mica (R-FL) as chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee. That much has been resolved after a 2012 election that still leaves a number of key questions hanging in the balance.

It is too soon to say, obviously, what sort of chairman Rep. Shuster will be. His early remarks – seeking to strike a middle ground while avoiding dogmatic statements – appear to put him more in the mold of his father, Bud Shuster, who served 28 years in Congress and chaired T&I for six years in the 1990s. In remarks honoring him in 2002, former T&I Chairman Jim Oberstar praised Bill Shuster’s dad thusly: “His perseverance, patience and willingness to find common ground made him one of the greatest committee chairmen we have seen in recent years in the House.”

However, “Things are different (now),” Bill Shuster told The Hill last week. “To move legislation, I think certainly takes some of the skill set that he had. … But also, you’ve got to make sure that you’re listening to the … committee and the (GOP) conference to move these things forward. I’ve learned a lot from him, but there’s some things that happen around here today that he didn’t have to deal with.”

In other comments, Shuster has said that he does not support rolling back the federal role in transportation or giving the entire job to the states. Rather, he said he wants to find the additional revenue and financing strategies that can help make up the gap between necessary investment levels and a federal gas tax whose earning power is in decline. In a nod to reality, he also endorsed exploring the potential of transitioning to a per-mile fee, or vehicle miles traveled tax (VMT), rather than a per-gallon gas tax.

“Longer term, VMT seems to me to be the only way to stop the decline because we’re all going to be driving cars five, ten years from now that are going 40, 50 miles [per gallon] or more, or maybe not using any gas at all,” he told The Hill. Whatever the revenue source, he and his colleagues will need to move quickly: His committee needs to be ready to adopt the next transportation in just 22 months.

Rep. Bill Shuster, second from left, tours a Corps of Engineers lock facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

But what about raising the gas tax in the meantime?

Suddenly, almost everywhere you look in transportation land, people are talking about the possibility of a gas tax increase, and Shuster himself raised the possibility this week. Some argue that a lame duck session provides the perfect opportunity. They and others also see the potential to include a gas tax increase as part of the debt deal that is expected in the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

There is some justification for that argument. A shortfall in expected gas tax revenues already has led Congress to make increasingly large transfers from the over-burdened general fund to the highway trust fund, and was a key reason that last summer’s transportation bill lasts only two years, rather than the typical six. A gas tax increase large enough to cover all the highway and transit funding now coming from general revenues would hardly cure all the budget issues, but it certainly could help, the argument goes.

But will the Obama Administration end its opposition to talk of a gas tax increase? The President had declared it a non-starter as long as the economy is sputtering. Has the U.S. economy stabilized enough – even as fears of a Europe-led global recession lurk in the wings – to allow a gas tax increase to be put on the table?

Whither Ray LaHood?

And speaking of the Administration, if Ray LaHood has the old Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” on his iPod he’s probably listening to it a lot these days.

A year ago he announced – or rather blurted out – that he planned to step down if Obama got re-elected. The possibility has fueled much speculation as to replacements, but he has been silent since the election. That didn’t stop The Atlantic Cities from running a recent piece on why a mayor should get the nod for the job. The article quotes yours truly praising LaHood as one of the best to hold that job, and given his support for innovations like the TIGER program, his emphasis on the safety of everyone who uses road and transit systems, his strong support for local communities trying to improve their livability … Well, we’ll stand by those remarks.

A stirring persuasion for deciding to vote for transit: seeing it built next door

One of the most powerful avenues for persuading a skeptical community to invest in transit is to see it successfully implemented nearby — whether in the community or neighborhood right next door, or a city and region a few hours away. This trend is illustrated in two of this year’s Transportation Vote 2012 ballot measures through two very different stories in Virginia and North Carolina.

In the tidewater region along the Virginia coast, discussions ramped up in the 1980s and 90s about a light rail system connecting the neighboring cities of Norfolk — a little more inland — and Virginia Beach on the Atlantic Ocean, mostly via an underutilized Norfolk Southern railroad corridor that runs in a neat, straight line from Norfolk all the way to the beach.

In 1999, an attempt was made to pass a referendum on the potential light rail system in the City of Virginia Beach, but voters rejected it. Perhaps as a result of the controversy or simple issue fatigue after talking about it the concept for more than a decade, the Virginia Beach city council washed their hands of the whole affair and passed a resolution affirming that the city would have nothing to do with the future construction of the light rail system for ten years.

That setback didn’t stop the project in its tracks.

Norfolk decided to forge ahead on their own with a system spanning the core of their mostly linear city along the Elizabeth River. And in summer of 2011, The Tide — the first light rail system in Virginia — opened to huge crowds and daily ridership exceeding projections.

Crowds of people took rides during the Grand Opening of The Tide in Norfolk, Virginia. Newtown Road Station. Photo by D. Allen Covey, VDOT

Down the road in nearby Virginia Beach, citizens there finally got to move beyond renderings and promises and meetings and see a brand new working light rail system through the center of their neighboring city just a few miles away. Perhaps they bemoaned the perpetual traffic congestion on I-264 between the two cities and wistfully thought about how nice it would be to hop on a train at the beach and get to the downtown mall or the Tides baseball park right on the river in Norfolk.

But most powerfully, the idea of rail transit in their community was no longer an abstraction; a figment of some planner’s or city councilperson’s imagination. There it was, dropping off students by the thousands at Norfolk State and winding right through a newly rebuilt MacArthur Square and park by the mall every day with shiny new passenger vehicles on the way to the burgeoning hospital complex on the west side of town.

A year and a half later, it’s easy to understand how Virginia Beach voters went to the polls Tuesday and gave a hearty “me too!” to the Tide system. Though it was a nonbinding resolution directing the city council that still has the final say on moving forward, 62 percent of voters supported the measure. And in no small part because of the case study of success just a few miles west.

MacArthur Square in the center of Norfolk before, and how it looks after tearing down an old office building and creating a stop and a new park across from the downtown mall. First photo from Bing Maps, second photo by Steve Earley, the Virginian-Pilot

North Carolina Research Triangle

Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte are just a few hours apart on Interstates 85 and 40 and about the same size in population (1.7 million) yet Charlotte has done far more to invest in rail transit in the last decade, with more to come. (Though acknowledging the differences: Charlotte is a metro anchored by a central city and the more spread-out Triangle region is composed of the large and small cities of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary and the suburban Research Triangle Park.)

After the better part of two decades of discussion and study, Charlotte’s new Lynx Blue Line opened in 2007 and is a popular line running south from downtown to “uptown” Charlotte that has stimulated a wealth of new development along the way. According to our friends over the Center for Transit-Oriented Development, the Blue Line has catalyzed more than 10 million square feet of new housing, retail and office development along the corridor.

Simliar plans have been discussed in the Raleigh-Durham metro area for almost as long, but with four cities in three different counties trying to agree on a single region-wide plan, they’ve certainly had a harder time making it happen.

Perhaps prodded along by the success of the Blue Line down the road in rival Charlotte, Durham approved a half-cent sales tax last year to fund transit operations and a regional light rail line toward Chapel Hill, and Orange County (Chapel Hill) approved their half-cent tax to do the same just this week on Tuesday.

Rendering of a station in Durham courtesy of Triangle Transit

Unfortunately, the third partner in the region, Wake County (Raleigh), decided not to put a sales tax on the ballot this fall, so as of yet, there’s no truly regional commitment to building rail transit.

Leaders of similar sized cities and regions know that investing in transit, the signals it sends to employers, and the kind of growth that it can stimulate are key to continuing to attract a smart workforce. In a similar story about Nashville, Ralph Schulz, president of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, told the Nashville Ledger that “the lack of a mass transit system costs the area about one in five businesses considering relocating here.” (In that story you’ll see that Nashville Mayor Karl Dean knows it too and is a tireless advocate for investing in more transit.)

With Charlotte signing on the dotted line with the Federal Transit Administration just a few weeks ago to move ahead on a 9-mile expansion to the Blue Line that will reach northward to UNC-Charlotte, the bar has been raised in the region which the Triangle most closely identifies as their competition for jobs and workers.

While they’re two-thirds of the way to a regional system with Orange and Durham approving the tax, unlike Norfolk’s story, the utility of a Chapel Hill-Durham line will be incredibly limited without including lines into Wake County to connect the thousands of jobs in the Research Triangle Park and downtown Raleigh with Durham.

But every trip that a Triangle leader or citizen takes down the road to Charlotte will be a powerful reminder that successful new rail transit in a similar still-sprawling southern city is a downpayment on future growth that reaps dividends in shorter commutes, more access to jobs and neighborhoods, and an increase in the type of walkable neighborhoods that are so heavily in demand these days.

On an optimistic note, if a booming suburban city in the South with jobs scattered across the region like Raleigh can find a way forward with more transit, there’s hope for many other similar regions.

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Though these regions have voted to tax themselves to invest in transit and make their vision for the future a reality, they can’t do it alone. They need a strong federal partner to come through and help leverage those local dollars into tracks in the ground one day.

Tuesday’s vote: Strong support for more transportation options nationwide

They say all politics is local. Well, that goes double for transportation.

During a federal election season that saw the presidential candidates making only the barest mention of our teetering system for funding transportation infrastructure, local voters took transit funding into their own hands in more than two-dozen locales Tuesday. Most of the measures that included public transportation and a more balanced set of transportation options appear to have passed – or in the case of California, came achingly close to the required two-thirds majority. (Read The Transport Politic for a great summary of important measures. -Ed.)

According to the Center for Transportation Excellence election tracker, 14 of the 20 measures whose ballots have been tabulated at this point passed, a 70 percent rate. And in two of the “losses”, the funding proposal actually won 65 percent of the vote. Despite continued doubts on the economy, voters confronted with a well-presented plan to fix or improve local transportation networks generally said “yes” to slightly higher taxes. Up until yesterday, 2012 had seen 33 of 39 such measures pass, for an 85 percent pass rate.

One of the most closely watched votes Tuesday was Measure J in Los Angeles, where voters were asked to extend their 2008 transit tax another 30 years out to 2069. It was an ambitious scheme to build more of the expansive rail and rapid bus network faster by taking larger upfront loans over the next several years. The longer repayment stream was necessary in order to be able to sell long-term bonds in the coming years. Outside observers thought it was a heavy lift to get voters to approve another transit tax just four years after passing Measure R, but Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and others felt that Angelenos are impatient to get the transportation options they’re seeking sooner.

Metro Board member Richard Katz, Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa, Metro Board member and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky earlier this year celebrating the new Expo Line light rail, funded in part by 2008’s Measure R. Photo by Metro Library and Archives.

Apparently they were right: The measure won 64.7 percent of the vote. Unfortunately, that’s just shy of the two-thirds required for revenue measures in California. (Notably, only 2.3 million Angelenos voted this year versus the 3.3 million who voted in 2008, when LA’s breakthrough sales tax for transportation, Measure R, passed with 67.8%.) A similar fate befell Alameda County, across the bay from San Francisco, where a half-cent sales tax would have helped improve local bus service and build a BART extension to Livermore. It’s likely to fail despite also receiving a strong majority of support — over 65.5 percent. (That vote is still too close to call and might not be decided for a few days, though it is still trailing. -Ed.)

Transportation issues played a significant role in a few mayoral races, as well. In Honolulu, the election became a referendum on construction of the $5.26 billion light rail line voters approved in 2008 (and which is already under construction today.) There, rail supporter Kirk Caldwell, the former city managing director, bested former Gov. Ben Cayetano, who came out of retirement to stop the rail project. Caldwell, who said he will “do rail better”, came from behind to win 54 percent of the vote to Cayetano’s 46 percent.

In Portland, OR, Charlie Hales – a longtime rail and streetcar proponent – beat state Rep. Jefferson Smith with 62 percent of the vote. In San Diego, U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat, beat city council member Carl DeMaio in a race in which both candidates passionately embraced complete streets and safer conditions for walking and biking. And in Troy, MI, Mayor Janice Daniels, who rejected federal funding for a transit center in 2011, was recalled.

In other key votes, a few jurisdictions voted to join the transit party begun by neighboring communities. In Orange County, NC, home of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina, third city in the Research Triangle formed with Raleigh and Durham, voters approved a sales tax expected to raise $661 million for upgraded bus service and light rail to connect to Durham. Partly prodded by in-state rival Charlotte, which has seen multiple benefits from its own rail line, Durham County approved a half-cent sales tax for those purposes last year. Now it remains to be seen whether Raleigh will complete the triangle.

Rendering of a future light rail/Amtrak station in the Triangle Transit System in Durham, courtesy of Triangle Transit

Inspired by the success of light rail in neighboring Norfolk, voters in Virginia Beach approved an advisory measure in support of extending it to their city and, potentially, waterfront. The city council will make the ultimate decision whether to go forward. Elsewhere in Virginia, the D.C. “suburb” of Arlington approved a $32 million bond issue for transit, roads, bike, and pedestrian projects, with half going toward improvements related to the Metro rail service in Arlington. In Michigan, where four jurisdictions – Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Eaton and Ogemaw counties – passed transit levies, the Grand Rapids suburb of Walker overwhelmingly rejected withdrawing from the regional transit system.

In South Carolina, voters in Richland County – home of the state capital, Columbia – passed a penny sales tax to would widen and build roads, expand bus service and extend miles of sidewalks, bike lanes and trails. It passed with 54 percent and will be collected for 22 years.

Bucking the trend, voters in Clark County, WA – across the Columbia River from Portland – appear to have rejected a proposal to fund transit service on the proposed Columbia River Crossing, a controversial, multibillion-dollar bridge and freeway project connecting Vancouver, WA to Portland. That loss likely wasn’t just about transit — transit-supporters such as Mayor Tim Leavitt of Vancouver and the Clark County Chamber of Commerce opposed the sales tax measure, claiming there were other ways to fund operations and maintenance of proposed transit improvements. (This vote is still too close to call, though the measure is currently losing. -Ed.)

A couple of the ballot failures were nonetheless winners in the “worth a try” category. Memphis city leaders sought a one-cent per gallon gas tax to raise money to expand eight bus routes and build a downtown trolley, but were rebuffed. In Houston, transit advocates sought to end the practice of diverting a quarter of the one-cent transit sales tax to local roads. Voters confused by the fact that a “for Metro” vote continued the diversion and effectively ends light rail expansion, overwhelmingly approved it.

So many localities ponying up their share for expanded transportation options has led some to argue that the feds can shrink from their commitment to fund infrastructure. But ask any of the local communities that have just taxed themselves to improve transportation options and you’ll quickly hear that it’s not an either/or proposition.

Local communities have a vision for a 21st century transportation system that provides affordable options for every resident. They’re willing to tax themselves to get there, but they can’t do it alone. Stay tuned in the next several days for our take on what seems likely to change – or not – at the federal level as a result of election 2012.

Transportation Vote 2012: San Diego mayoral candidates indicate strong commitment to investing in transportation options in a televised debate

In San Diego, a region facing significant growth on a congested transportation system, the two mayoral candidates signaled their commitment to expanding transportation options throughout the region in the years to come — but shrinking transportation funding will test that commitment.

This post is one of our Transportation Vote 2012 series, looking at the role of transportation in local and state elections this fall.

Like most other metro areas across the country San Diego is facing major transportation challenges. Over the next 40 years the region’s population is expected to grow by 1.3 million, 42 percent, with the city itself absorbing half of that increase.

With regional freeways and roads already straining to deal with the congestion that threatens economic competitiveness, health, and quality of life, San Diegans need and are demanding more and better options for getting around where they need to go day-to-day. While the city is making plans to significantly expand their public transportation systems and invest in making streets safer for walking and biking, the limited transportation funding available in the years to come will test its leaders’ commitment to prioritizing these investments over more of the status quo.

And just who that leader will be is a decision voters will make this election season.

Last week in San Diego, Transportation for America partners Move San Diego, WalkSanDiego, and the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition held a mayoral debate titled “Walk Bike Move Live” between the two candidates for mayor. Congressman Bob Filner and San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, both put forth their visions for improving transportation and quality of life in San Diego.

“We want San Diego residents to know the candidates’ plans on how to improve transportation alternatives that support smart growth, and what those plans are for improving our environment, the local economy and preserving and enhancing the quality of life that defines America’s Finest City”, said Elyse Lowe, Executive Director of Move San Diego.

Though accelerating public transportation improvements were emphasized, most of the energy of the debate focused on how to make San Diego one of the most bikeable and walkable cities in the country.

Both candidates stressed their commitment to making San Diego’s communities safer for biking and walking with Councilman DeMaio saying it is in an investment in making the city more competitive, creating jobs, and “the San Diego way of life.”

Congressman Filner stressed that this would be one of his top priorities and that he sees San Diego’s future as a “city of villages” connected by walkable and bikeable streets that promote the arts, community, and the economy.

Biking and walking are gaining significant traction as transportation options in San Diego. The regional transportation planning organization SANDAG is planning to invest more than $3.5 billion in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure by 2050. This investment will make streets safer as more people travel by foot and bicycle and enhance access to transit, jobs, and housing while reducing the cost of transportation.

“Making our communities more walkable is one of the best ways to make the San Diego region a better place to live”, said Jim Stone, Executive Director of WalkSanDiego. “Walkable neighborhoods lead to healthier people, lower healthcare costs, higher real estate values, better retail sales, less air pollution, and an improved quality of life. Walkability is a winning proposition.”

Even as both candidates repeatedly trumpeted their commitment to this approach — certainly easy to do in debates typically long on promises and short on specifics — questions remain as to how they’ll achieve this vision given the fiscal realities facing cities today and in the days to come.

The federal programs that fund the majority of bicycle and pedestrian projects was significantly cut in the recently passed federal transportation bill, (MAP-21) and state revenues for transportation funding have remained flat and sometimes decreased.

“The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition is looking for a bold leader who will commit to join us in our quest to become the nation’s most bicycle friendly city”, said Andy Hanshaw, Executive Director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.

“Working together we can change the way we think and get around by taking the initiative to provide safe and accessible bike connections throughout our city.”

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You can watch a full video of the debate below.

It’s not too late: join us today to learn about communicating transportation issues in 2012 and beyond

Are you curious how to talk about transportation best resonate with the general public? Do you want to know how to make sure that transportation gets covered during a busy news cycle in the period leading up to the 2012 election (and beyond)? Are you interested in increasing your outreach to local reporters?

Join us today, Thursday September 13 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time, for “Communicating Transportation Issues in 2012 and Beyond,” the most recent presentation in our Transportation Vote 2012 series.

Register here

This online presentation on communication and messaging transportation reform featuresDavid Goldberg, communications director for Transportation for America, and Hilary Reeves, communications director for Transit for Livable Communities in the Twin Cities. David will share basic concepts about framing the issues and choosing appropriate messages, based on previous opinion research and his experience as a longtime former journalist. He also will discuss about lessons learned from recent events, including metro Atlanta’s disappointing transportation vote.

Hilary will focus on media relations from a local perspective, including cultivating relationships, managing news flow, and ideas on how to win attention in a crowded news cycle. You will have opportunities to ask questions of both speakers.

If you haven’t already, sign up now and join us this afternoon at 2 p.m. If you’re unable to make it, we will be posting a summary and the audio from the session soon, so check back.

Is metro Atlanta vote a bellwether for transportation funding?

Flickr photo of Atlanta’s “Spaghetti Junction” by Felicity Green

In my best grandpa voice: Way back in 19 and 96, as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, I wrote a series of stories under the heading “Gridshock” that laid out the traffic hell facing metro Atlanta absent something resembling a plan. At the time, the Georgia DOT was wrapping up its $3 billion “Freeing the Freeways” paving bonanza, and the last planned extension of MARTA rapid rail was winding down.

Meanwhile, metro Atlanta was sprawling out of control, spreading out in all directions and in ways that ensured that options other than lengthening car commutes would be hard to provide. At the same time, the metastasizing traffic was far out-pacing the existing and projected highway funding, and the region was facing a collision with the Clean Air Act that would put federal dollars on hold for several years.

Fast forward to 2012. After three tries in the Legislature to win the right to vote on a regional sales tax for transportation and two years of a mandated political process to develop a project list, metro Atlanta voters July 31 finally had a say over a bold transportation spending plan.

The result: Still no plan. Two-thirds of the voters rejected the Transportation Local Option Sales Tax – or T-SPLOST – which would have put $7.2 billion toward 157 projects throughout the 10-county region, evenly split between highways and transit. It was a serious blow to the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, whose leaders led the battle to get the right to have a regional vote, and to politician-supporters such as Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. (His City of Atlanta voters, though, comprised the only jurisdiction to approve the measure.)

But is it a bellwether for transportation votes in other states and metros? The short answer, most likely, is “no”. To be sure, many were following it nationally. The vote came on the heels of MAP-21, a federal bill that seems to presage a shrinking federal role in transportation funding, at least for the near term. Many wondered: Will metro regions and localities be able to make up the gap and bootstrap their way out of congestion and mobility woes?

Like most ballot measures, the Atlanta vote failed for its own peculiar reasons. The Legislature had ensured an uphill battle by mandating the vote be held during the primary election, rather than the November general election. The vast majority of contested races were in Republican districts in the suburbs. The Republican primaries drew an anti-tax electorate to the polls, while residents in the core, who tend to be less tax-averse, had fewer reasons to turn out.

The vote also bore out what we heard in focus groups there last year: Georgia voters are especially negative about their government. Polls and exit interviews showed that many were mistrustful of Georgia DOT on the heels of outrage over the decision to continue tolls on Georgia 400 after the promised sunset. MARTA, too, has been under the cloud of a long fiscal crisis as a result of the economic slump and depressed sales tax revenues.

Many voters also complained of a sense that the project list was a goodie bag for various political interests and not a cohesive plan to address well-articulated needs. The Legislature-mandated process almost assured that outcome. It called for creating a 21-member “regional roundtable” made up of a mayor and county commissioner from each of the region’s ten counties, plus the mayor of Atlanta. While the “pro” campaign pitched the project list as a solution to congestion, the list struck many voters as a collection of pet local projects that did not necessarily add up to a thought-through plan.

Was this an anti-transit — or anti-transit rider — vote? Certainly, some of that sentiment exists. But remember there was plenty of money in this for road building too. As someone who lived in and wrote about the region for many years, I think the other reasons offered here had far more to do with the loss than the public transportation components did. Atlanta is made up of thousands of newer and younger residents who do not carry the baggage of race-based, anti-transit battles of previous decades. Most of them just want a system that works, regardless of mode, and they want efficiency and accountability in their operation.

Are there generalized lessons to be taken from the Atlanta experience? Two important ones:

First, regional votes in places without a tradition of regional institutions and decision-making are an extremely heavy lift. In our focus groups, the idea of a regional solution held a lot of appeal. But in reality, voters were being asked to send a lot of their money to a “regional” approach with unclear lines of accountability. The money would have gone to GDOT, MARTA, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and to local jurisdictions throughout 10 counties.

But with money spread all over the place, where did the buck actually stop? They were being asked to trust, not just their local electeds, but government writ large. In this day and time, with this electorate, that may have just been too much to ask.

And second, important though it is, a project list is not necessarily a plan. The Atlanta proponents understood that the 70 percent of transportation tax measures that pass nationwide almost always have a clearly articulated list of promised projects. Given the legislature-mandated process and the resulting list of 157 projects, voters perceived the T-SPLOST as a grab bag of pet projects, offered with a plethora of justifications.

If you can’t sum up the rationale for the plan in a couple of lines, and point to an elected official or body that is ultimately responsible, you are going to have a tough time. Again, our polling and focus group work, as well as lessons gathered from many of our members during ballot fights, bear this out.

So where does this leave metro Atlanta? Two follow-up pieces are worth reading. In one, longtime Atlanta columnist Maria Saporta – a devoted regionalist – suggests it’s time for the core to go it alone. (The piece also includes a very interesting map of the voting results, included below.) And in the other, Georgia Sierra Club President Colleen Kiernan recaps what happened, and suggests the Club’s “strange bedfellows” alliance with the Tea Party may offer a way forward.

Update: Also worth reading is this hopeful editorial in Creative Loafing encouraging those Atlantans that supported the measure to imagine a path forward together, similar to Maria Saporta’s suggestion of the core “going it alone.”

Graphic of the vote by precinct, provided by the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Atlanta transportation vote: “You pay it one way or another”

It took three tries in the Georgia legislature for metro Atlanta to win the right to vote itself a regional sales tax to fix its transportation woes, and another two years of a grinding political process to come up with a list of 157 highway and transit projects that just might do the trick. Now comes the really hard part: Convincing the voters likely to show up for the July 31 primary election to vote for it.

A piece in the New York Times today lays out what is at stake:

For more than a decade [ed. note: make that two decades], Atlanta has been among the fastest-growing regions in the country, but the road and rail system in a state that ranks 49th in per capita transportation spending just could not keep up. Hourlong commutes are common, and more than 80 percent of commuters drive alone. … The approach is also an attempt to thread the political needle in an era when the recession and smaller-government sentiment have made any effort at new public spending, especially one with the word “tax” attached, a Sisyphean task.

A Sunday piece by the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Ariel Hart noted that, without the sales tax revenue, the region is likely to be so strapped for transpo cash that tolls are the only real option. As a consternated voter told her: “I guess you pay it one way or another.”

A nice overview today by Streetsblog’s Angie Schmitt noted that, “An odd coalition of opponents has come together including the local Sierra Club, the DeKalb County NAACP and the Tea Party Patriots.” Coalition might be too strong a word; these groups aren’t actually working together, but they each have their reasons.

The Sierra Club feels that a few big highway projects, including an old bugaboo known as the Northern Arc (of a defunct proposed “Outer Perimeter”), make it a deal killer. They hope that Atlanta could follow in the footsteps of Seattle, where voters turned down a highway and transit referendum only to approve a transit-only measure the next year. Supporters of this month’s project list argue that the convoluted process for getting a vote almost certainly requires another trip through the legislature and a couple years’ delay, with very uncertain political prospects after that.

The DeKalb NAACP feels the county got short-changed by getting a rapid bus line rather than rail, among other concerns. And the Tea Party folks actually prefer a regional gas tax over a sales tax. While that might be a more responsible position than a reflexive “no taxes” stance, there are several problems. One is that the gas tax would have to be fairly stiff to raise the same amount of money as a penny sales tax. The other is that gas taxes are even less popular than sales taxes.

The biggest hurdle supporters face is the likely composition of the electorate, in a low turnout primary race where most of the contested races are among suburban Republicans. Support is strongest in the urban core within the I-285 beltway, but there are fewer reasons for those voters to go to the polls than in the farther-flung suburbs. At the same time, though, many of those suburban voters face some of the worst traffic, because their communities grew up almost overnight and the infrastructure has hardly kept pace. In a couple of weeks we’ll know whether they think a penny sales tax would truly, as the campaign ads say, “Untie Atlanta”.

This photo accompanied the New York Times July 16 piece on Atlanta's regional transportation vote.

Saving a transit system and turning the tide for the future of a mid-sized city

Last month, the citizens of Baton Rouge, LA, voted to raise their taxes to preserve and expand their struggling bus system. The landmark measure will nearly double transit funding — saving the system from meltdown while laying the groundwork for dramatically improved service.

To pass it, churches, faith-based groups and local organizers teamed up with businesses and institutions. As we’ve seen in similar local measures, they won by explaining exactly what taxpayer money would buy, building a diverse coalition and getting out the vote.

This in-depth story is part of our Transportation Vote 2012 coverage. Communities across the country are preparing to vote on the people, plans and projects that will set the tone for transportation progress in the months and years to come. These are the places that will provide the energy, innovation and inspiration for the next national vision for transportation. Transportation Vote 2012 will help educate voters, advocates and candidates and keep abreast of transportation-related issues as they unfold.

A crisis point

Even before the prolonged fiscal crisis hitting governments everywhere, Baton Rouge’s Capital Area Transit System (CATS) struggled to do more with less. Over the last few years, service had degraded to the point that the wait for a bus exceeded 75 minutes and average rides were over two hours long. The system was saved repeatedly only by last-ditch city budget shuffles, creative grants and even private donations.

The biggest recent blow came when Louisiana State University backed out of the CATS system after years of student complaints and contracted with a new (more expensive) private operator. That meant a loss of $2.4 million from the CATS annual budget.

In 2010, a parish-wide tax to support the transit system failed at the ballot box, in part because large parts of the parish (same as counties in other states) don’t use or have access to the service. When projections came in that the transit agency would be so far in the red they’d have to shut down in summer 2011, it became painfully clear that something major needed to be done.

After cobbling together grants and funding to make it through 2011, the mayor appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to make recommendations not only to save the service, but to create something much better. But the first job was to save the system, as Rev. Raymond Jetson, the chair of that commission, told the Baton Rouge Advocate: “Before there can be a robust transit system, before you can do novel things like light rail between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and before you can have street cars from downtown to LSU, you have to have a backbone to the system,” he said. “And that backbone is a quality bus system.”

The commission learned that Baton Rouge was the largest city of its size in the country to have a transit system without a dedicated revenue source, subsisting on annual local government appropriations.

But before putting a funding measure to voters, the commission recommended significant reforms to the composition of the transit board and an end to the ability of the Metro Council to veto the board’s decisions. “Governance reform and long term accountability … helped separate it from the previous failed measures,” said Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge, a broad, multi-racial, faith-based coalition of institutions backing the measure.

Photo courtesy of Frank McMains, www.frankmcmains.com

So how did they do it?

Coalition building

The first step was to build the core coalition that would push this measure to victory.

Enter Together Baton Rouge, a relatively new organization of churches, faith-based groups, social workers, and university students and groups. Together Baton Rouge led the way as the grassroots behind the measure, coordinating call banks, get-out-the-vote rallies, more than 120 educational “transit academies” and door-to-door canvassing of tens of thousands of homes by hundreds of volunteers. (Note that LSU students chose to get actively involved even though CATS was no longer the provider of their transit service on campus.)

They began with three informational meetings with 300-400 people each, where “community members told other community members why things were bad and what the new plan was,” said Bagert.

“We asked two questions on the sign-in card: ‘Do you want to be part of a voter outreach campaign?’ and, ‘Are you part of an organization and would you be willing to organize one of these sessions?’ We built a strong base of people that wanted to help do outreach and educate their fellow community members.”

Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

In part because of the groundwork of the Blue Ribbon Commission and other partnerships, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber got on board along with other business groups. Hotels and hospitals, whose leaders realized how much of their workforce depended on CATS each day, joined in.

Colletta Barrett, vice president of missions for Our Lady of the Lake hospital system told the Advocate that 10 percent of OLOL’s staff, or 400 people, use CATS.

It is imperative, she said, that a transit system is available to move people from North Baton Rouge to the medical corridor in the southern part of the parish.“It’s unacceptable that it takes an hour and 45 minutes to get to this side of town,” she said. “We have told our employees that we have an individual social responsibility to take care of each other.”

And:

Ralph Ney, hotel general manager for Embassy Suites [hotel], said about 15 percent of his workforce uses CATS to get to work, which sometimes results in his employees being late.

“It’s difficult to hire and maintain employees who don’t have transportation,” said Ney, who was a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission. “It’s evolved to where a lot of our employees don’t even take the bus because they can’t get to work on time, so they’re riding bikes or catching rides.”

A key part of the coalition was the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX), a T4 America partner and non-profit that helps Louisiana communities with planning issues and addressing complex problems with effective, forward-thinking, implementable solutions. They became involved through their CONNECT initiative to build a diverse coalition across the New Orleans to Baton Rouge super region to advocate for smarter housing and transportation investments. The CONNECT initiative concluded that one of the critical pieces for regional connectivity is a viable, robust transit system serving the metro area. This was also strongly recommended in the new comprehensive plan for Baton Rouge, called FutureBR.

CPEX worked with many of the former members of the Blue Ribbon Commission to create the Baton Rouge Transit Coalition, a diverse set of partners who provided information, resources and conducted educational outreach to the Baton Rouge community. They hosted numerous outreach meetings, advocated for the changes to CATS governance in the state house, created a website that became a clearinghouse for facts and research during the campaign, and worked closely with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber to solicit support from the business community — in addition to being a strong part of the grassroots effort led primarily by Together Baton Rouge.

In the end, the boosters of the transit measure had built a coalition that had strong grassroots, wide reach, and a diverse range of interests. Without the participation of any one of the core coalition members — Together Baton Rouge’s grassroots and trusted community members, CPEX and their coalition of transit boosters and others, and the area Chamber and the business community — the effort would not have had the same success.

Trusted messengers — and message

Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge summed up this strategy simply: “We let the community leaders be out front leading the way. Not professionals, not paid staff, not elected officials, not transit officials.”

“One of the strengths of this effort was that the plan was created by community leaders and many of the important people were already behind the plan,” said Rachel DiResto of CPEX. “It certainly took some effort to get new folks on board, but the important pillars were already on board. We didn’t need to convince them.”

For the message, especially in the key districts with heavy transit usage and service, the campaign kept it very basic. “Save our system.” They noted that Baton Rouge was the only city of its size without a decent transit system, and talked about the people who depend on it each day: Perhaps the nurse who cares for your mother at the hospital, or your neighbor or friend. The campaign steered clear of some of the typical statistics in transit campaigns about reducing traffic congestion, gas prices or environmental impacts.

The above story about the hospital and hotel workers shows how the advocates built a larger, inclusive narrative and a vision for the community’s future. The events were filled with personal stories and made the impact of the system (and the potential impacts of not having it or having it improved) clear to everyone, regardless of who they were, where they lived, or whether or not they rode CATS.

Success wasn’t due to being the smartest person in the room armed with the most data and facts. It was about making the impacts real and relatable through powerful stories helping people realize the bonds and impacts of community.

“Outreach, outreach, outreach”

To deliver that message, Together Baton Rouge and the coalition held an insanely ambitious number of community outreach sessions they called “transit academies” or “civic academies” in churches, community centers and other venues. In the four-month campaign leading up to the April 21 vote, they hosted 120 of these sessions.

“Anywhere anyone wanted to hear more, we did a presentation,” said DiResto of CPEX. “And it paid off with more people who hadn’t been active voters showing up at the polls for a special election.”

Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

These meetings were largely targeted to areas and precincts where support and heavy turnout would be needed to shift the outcome of the vote. “The diversity of those meetings was a huge plus,” DiResto said. “People who would never ride CATS were sitting in the same meetings with those who ride it every day. And their stories really impacted the former.”

The Advocate told one such story, about Fred Skelton, a 70-year-old Baton Rouge homeowner who had never ridden a CATS bus before. But during one community meeting he said he would be “first in line at his voting precinct to support” the 10-year, 10.6-mill property tax. The reason, he said, is because before his mother died, she used to stay at a nursing home where he’d visit her. When he visited, he said, he remembered frequently seeing groups of employees waiting for the bus.

“Those people who were waiting for the bus are the people who were taking care of my mother,” he said. “If we shut down the transit system, who will take care of those people?”

Strategic precinct targeting

Resources are always limited in a campaign, and therefore best deployed where they can make the most impact. The overall strategy — change minds of people on the fence, increase support from typically opposed groups, or focus primarily on the base — determines where resources should be targeted.

One of the biggest differences between this successful measure and the recent failed measure in 2010 was the use of more strategic targeting of resources in key precincts. Though the campaign did deploy some resources in suburban areas with small amounts of service, mostly to blunt opposition, the brunt of their efforts focused on getting out the vote in their strongest precincts.

Canvassing team. Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

“We did detailed analysis of the electorate,” said Bagert of Together Baton Rouge. “We referred to the recent failed measure for background, which helped analyze the lay of the land. We focused our direct energy on turning out the strongest [most supportive] precincts, leaving out voters that had no voting history in the last 4 years. We tried to get 10 percent of the 2008 presidential election voters to vote for the measure.”

As a result of this strategy, the campaign was well poised to bounce back and succeed when The Advocate threw a curveball late in the game and editorialized against the transit tax, which likely cost the campaign a significant amount of support in precincts with already low support or people and groups that were undecided.

Making the benefits tangible and measurable

Whether it is the federal program or a local ballot measure, voters need to know what our dollars are really “buying” at the end of the day. Are they going to fix our bridges? How will they better connect workers with jobs, make their lives eaier, save them money?

On this count, the coalition in Baton Rouge did an admirable job of making this crystal clear — backed in large part by the commission recommendations that had large buy-in from day one. In every meeting they offered a list of promised CATS improvements:

CATS promises the following changes if the tax passes:

Decreased average wait times for buses from 75 minutes to 15 minutes.

Eight new express and limited stop lines, serving the airport, universities, mall and other areas.

GPS tracking on the entire fleet, with exact arrival times accessible on cellphones.

New shelters, benches and signage at bus stops.

Expanded service to high-demand areas and increased routes, from 19 to 37.

Three new transfer centers operating in a grid system to replace the outdated route system that leads all buses back to Florida Boulevard.

A foundation for Bus Rapid Transit, a system in which buses get their own right-of-way lanes.

The ambitiousness of the promised changes was part of the success. Given the (somewhat unfair) perception that CATS was a poorly governed money drain, simply offering up a plan to pour money into CATS and hope for the best was not going to fly. People had to be inspired to believe that things actually would get better.

Similar specificity and transparency, including a long-range map of projects, helped win 67 percent of the vote for Measure R in Los Angeles. Supporters in Atlanta hope that a pre-approved list of transit and road projects will help convince voters to support a regional sales tax this July. The Baton Rouge formula – specific improvements, accountability reforms and relentless grassroots engagement – could offer a path to similar success.

Wrapping it up

The transit ballot measure was approved on April 21 in Baton Rouge, 54 percent to 46 percent and the municipality of Baker, 58 percent to 42 percent. In Zachary, a more suburban area with little service, it was rejected, 79 percent to 21 percent. Early returns showed the measure losing with only 40 percent support, but “then the precincts we had worked came in and voted in historic levels, supporting the measure at around 90 percent in those key precincts,” according to Bagert. “The key was really getting strong vote in supportive precincts.”

The story isn’t over, however.

The governance reforms for CATS, including changing the Metro Council’s veto power, are still passing through the state legislature. (The council’s veto power over changes in fares, routes, schedules and other operations was cited by the Blue Ribbon Commission as a key factor crippling the transit system.) The board nominating process will also change so that 13 different groups that have a stake in transit system (hospitals, businesses, etc.) can nominate members to the board.

Though some groups that were opposed are considering some legal challenges to the tax itself, the Baton Rouge story shows us a great success story of how a community rallied around their important transit system, fought to save it and improve it, and built a winning campaign to do exactly that.

Advice for others

Facing a ballot measure in your area? Planning one? Here are four last smart pieces of advice to take with you from Rachel DiResto from the Center for Planning Excellence.

Bring core partners to the table early and find your champions who have to be willing to speak well to various audiences and who are willing to expend time and energy for your cause;
Frequent communication with other partners is critical to maximize resources and not duplicate efforts;
Focus on the voter outcome – grassroots advocacy is essential – target those folks who are supportive and mobilize them to show up to vote instead of spending all of your energy combatting those opposed.
Frequent outreach to different sectors – know your message for various audiences

The election day team for Mid City. Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

Excited? Encouraged? Learn something that you didn’t know before? Let us know in the comments.

Our sincere thanks go out to Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge and Rachel DiResto and Lacy Strohschein of the Center for Planning Excellence for their time and information for the behind-the-scenes story of their success. And also to Rebekah Allen of the Advocate, whose solid reporting on the issue for the last few years was invaluable for understanding and background, as well as the source of valuable quotes.

Follow all Transportation Vote 2012 coverage here.

Kicking off “Transportation Vote 2012”

Local communities across the country are preparing to vote on the people, plans and projects that will set the tone for transportation progress in the months and years to come — with many communities already showing us how it’s done. Transportation Vote 2012 will help educate voters, advocates and candidates and keep abreast of transportation-related campaigns as they unfold.

As the House and Senate struggle to come to agreement over renewing the federal program, local governments and voters are feeling urgency about the state of our infrastructure. And voters across the political spectrum are supportive of spending their money on improving it – despite an ongoing a fiscal crisis and the anti-government rhetoric that permeates political discourse.

With maintenance needs growing along with population and travel demand, local governments increasingly are asking voters to approve ballot measures to fund transportation – and usually succeeding.

What is Transportation Vote 2012?

For the next six or seven months, we’ll be offering a series of online presentations, including interviews with experts and lessons we’ve learned, that will help individuals and non-profit groups talk about transportation effectively; engage in educating candidates around transportation reform and infrastructure investment; understand why and how local transportation ballot measures are winning at the polls. We’ll be sharing inspiring success stories from other communities; profiling local leaders and communities who are showing Congress how it’s done.

Whether covering the upcoming historic transportation ballot measure in Atlanta, telling the story of St. Louis’ successful transit referendum that saved their bus service and expanded rail transit in 2010, showing you what you can do in an election, or highlighting a spate of candidates making transportation a key issue in a local election, we’re going to equip you to get more engaged and help improve transportation decisions in your community.

Join us for the first presentation. Free and open to the public.

This first Transportation Vote 2012 online presentation is coming up next Thursday May 17th at 2 PM EDT, so register today and save the date. It’s completely free and open to the public — not just T4 America coalition members or supporters.

Do you work for a non-profit organization and want to raise the profile of transportation issues during the election but are unsure of the “do’s and don’ts” when engaging in educational activities around an election? For this first event, we’re going to talk about the types of educational activities that 501(c)3 non-profit organizations can legally engage in around the elections to raise the profile of transportation.

Join us May 17 at 2 p.m. EDT for “Transportation Vote 2012: Engaging in Elections for Non-Profit Organizations.”

And look for the TV2012 banner above on the T4 America website to mark more coverage and events, coming soon!