Transit: Pay up now or pay more later

(Reprinted as a courtesy to the Action Mesa! Transportation Task Force.)

Reprinted from Tribune Newspapers, October 4, 1997, with permission of the author.

Just a few weeks ago, voters defeated transit tax proposals in both Phoenix and Scottsdale, so Mesa leaders are biting nails over their city's transit proposals, scheduled for the ballot in March.

Mesa's proposal includes not only transit (65 percent), but also the arts (14 percent), library, recreational, and cultural activities (10 percent), police department (7 percent), and fire department (5 percent). All of this for just a half-penny. Nice work if you can get it.

Local transit advocates have expressed dissatisfaction with "bundling" multiple issues in one tax, asserting that the entire half-cent should be dedicated to transit in order to adequately address Mesa's transit needs. "The other cities didn't just pull that half-cent number out of the air," said long-time transit activist Vic Linoff. "That half-cent for transit came as a result of much research and study."

Phoenix and Scottsdale didn't even try to cram so much into their funding initiatives; both were for transit only. The transit-only approach worked for Tempe, which approved a half-cent sales tax increase for transit just about a year ago. With its new-found revenue, Tempe is expanding bus routes, increasing service hours and frequency, purchasing new buses, building more and better bus stops, and reporting a greater than 30 percent increase in ridership.

The cold, hard truth is that Scottsdale and Phoenix will ultimately be compelled to "come on board" also. It's not a question of if, but rather when we fund transit. We can plan for the future now and begin to put transportation options in place, or we can wait until we have no other choice.

Funding transit is a "pay now" or "pay big time later" proposition. With our consistent population growth, the air gets dirtier and roads become more congested. We stand to lose a lot when we ignore transportation solutions. We lose federal fudning for freeways, as well as funding for transit alternatives (e.g., rail) whenwe don't comply with clean air standards, and the resulting pollution-related illnesses cause health care costs to soar.

Crowded freeways bring more accidents (hence higher auto insurance rates), but citizens don't have options to the daily commute by car because we haven't had the foresight to invest in a good transportation system. Progressive companies don't relocate to a city where their employees can't get to work in a timely fashion (affecting new jobs, the economy), and when traffic gets too bad, those who venture out on weekends opt for watching the game on TV (impacting ticket sales, vendor income, etc.)

Visitors vow never to come back because it's just too much hassle getting around (there goes tourism), and when low-income workers can't get to their jobs, people earning higher incomes support them through welfare programs.

As a result of the recent transit tax defeats in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Mesa's mayor and city council are considering a cutback on the transit portion of the city's March tax proposal. Our own Tribune even advised such a move in a recent editorial (crowd boos here). But knowledgeable, dedicated citizens, who for two decades have been committed to improving Mesa's transportation, believe the council should be beefing up the transit component on the tax proposal, not scaling back.

Even if the city's final version of the proposal makes a strong commitment to transit, low voter turnout could defeat the effort. When citizens don't vote, naysayers (no new taxes) and short-sighted people who don't value their role in "community building" have their way. When tax proposals fail, they sit back with crossed arms and smug smirks, while the rest of us -- those who didn't think it was important to vote -- idle in traffic jams and sweat it out at bus stops.

Mesa shouldn't have to wait for Phoenix to move, or Scottsdale, or any other city. It's time for Arizona's third-largest city to take the initiative. Mesa leaders and citizens need to identify transportation as a priority, develop a funding source, create innovative solutions and vote to implement quality-of-life improvements like transit.

For those of you who feel you don't know enough about transit to cast an informed vote, here's my challenge to you: Get out and ride the bus. For three days, pretend you have no car and must get around town on public transit. No cheating! You may walk, bicycle, and, most definitely, ride the bus absolutely everywhere you go. Judge for yourself whether or not Mesa's current transit system is adequate.

It's a three-day education you can take to the polls with you.

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