New York Times on the wave of 2016 local transportation referendums

[afigg]

The New York Times posted an editorial on October 29 on the large number of local transportation and transit ballot referendums being voted on next week. It is not just a straight up editorial, provides a chart showing how federal funding for rail and mass transit has stalled out, so local and state governments are having to step up with increased funding. Easier for the wealthier states and cities to do this than the cities and states dealing with harder economic times and budget shortfalls that I suspect in the long run will widen the already large gap between cities with good transit system and cities/states with all road leaning pols resulting in lousy transit options.

NYT: Waking Up to Shorter Commutes. Excerpt:

This could be a record year for transportation ballot proposals, because local politicians and voters have realized that Congress is not coming to rescue America’s aging bridges, roads and transit systems. On Nov. 8, there will be about 45 ballot proposals across the country that could raise nearly $200 billion for transportation improvements.

Many local officials say they have no choice but to raise taxes to invest in transportation, especially in mass transit, because their highways are clogged and more people are moving to cities. In Seattle, for example, the average commuter wasted an estimated 63 hours a year stuck in traffic in 2014, up from 44 hours in 2010, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. It is no surprise that voters faced with worsening conditions have approved more than two-thirds of the local transportation proposals since 2000, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta are the large cities that I am aware of that have critical ballots next week that will fund major expansion of the local rail transit systems. Something to look for next week to see if they all got enough votes to pass (LA County's Measure M will require a 2/3rds majority which is a tough bar to clear).

 

[neroden]

Damn near all the public transportation referenda are passing.

Exceptions:

-- The "greater Detroit" referendum is probably going to fail, again

-- Virginia Beach decided they don't want anyone to be able to get there, and voted against the light rail extension... although it's only advisory

-- Sacramento didn't clear 2/3

-- San Francisco (city) referendum didn't pass the necessary tax

But it looks like all the others passed. It's quite impressive actually.

Oh, and the attempted sabotage of California HSR failed.

For more results, see http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2016/11/03/on-the-ballot-2016/

(Personally, I'm quite pleased by the referendum results in other areas too, from legalized marijuana to pro-solar-power, the "left-wing" positions have been winning... I think it goes to show how much of the right-wing control of the government is actually due to gerrymandering, not due to the popular will.)

 

[afigg]

Well, there is good news for the Atlanta and Seattle referendums and appears that the LA Measure M will pass. Those are the 3 major ones that should turn those cities & metro regions over the next several decades into ones with extensive transit systems. In the case of Seattle and LA, could make them real anchor cities for expanding intercity corridor services and join the "second tier" transit cities that has been discussed in other threads. Atlanta could as well, if Georgia and the region were to ever get serious about intercity passenger corridor services,

However, for the CA referendums, may have to wait on those measures that are close to the threshold (2/3rds for most). In the recent CA elections, there were a lot of mail in ballots that took weeks to come in and get counted.

 

[west point]

So far Sacramento and San Diego did not muster the necessary 2/3 yes but are close.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Austin Surprisingly approved Prop 1 Yesterday. It's a $750 Million Dollar Bond Package that doesn't include any $$$ for Rail, just Roads and Bike Lanes!

 

[afigg]

So far Sacramento and San Diego did not muster the necessary 2/3 yes but are close.

On the Sacramento Measure B, found this public radio report describing the mail-in ballot situation: UPDATES: Sacramento County, City Measures Falling Short Of Passage. As of Nov. 9, the yes votes for Measure B are at 64.8%, short of 2/3rds needed. But there are a LOT of votes to be counted (excerpt):

Sacramento County received 160,000 vote-by-mail ballots before the election and hundreds of thousands of ballots on Tuesday.

Just before midnight Wednesday County Registrar Jill Lavine said some races that are too close to call will remain that way.

"We won't know much of anything until tomorrow when we count how many vote-by-mail ballots actually got turned in and start processing those and how many provisional ballots we got turned in," says Lavine. "Then we can start estimating the turnout and where they all from. But, until we get them into the system, get them signature-checked, I don't even know where they came from."

Did a search on the CA mail-in ballot situation and the deadline is that the ballots have to mailed in and post-marked by November 8. The ballots then have a 3 business day cutoff to be accepted. But since Friday, Nov. 11 is a federal holiday and before the weekend, the mailed ballots will be accepted up to next Monday. So until all the mail in ballots are counted, the Measures hovering around 66% Yes votes are going to be on the bubble for some time.

Among the local transit referendums that passed are Raleigh NC Wake County Transit Plan which calls for raising $2.3 billion towards a commuter rail service between Raleigh and Durham and multiple BRT lines. If the BRT lines end up as true BRT lines with at least some dedicated ROW, that should eventually boost the Piedmont corridor service with cities with some level of viable transit systems on both ends.

Indianapolis also passed taxes for a local transit system with 3 BRT routes. But as long as Indianapolis has only 1 train a day service, the impact on Amtrak or intercity passenger rail will be minimal. However, a built out BRT system could nudge the city and state to move to investing in multiple daily frequency corridor service to Chicago.

 

[seat38a]

Austin Surprisingly approved Prop 1 Yesterday. It's a $750 Million Dollar Bond Package that doesn't include any $$$ for Rail, just Roads and Bike Lanes!

Wait couple more years for more Californians to pile into Austin. You'll get your rail soon.

 

[seat38a]

Some of the ones that failed such as the one in San Francsico and Contra Costa might be because they had to vote on multiple transportation measures. They voted to approve the tax for fixing BART but it was probably wishful thinking to think all could pass.

 

[Texan Eagle]

Some of the ones that failed such as the one in San Francsico and Contra Costa might be because they had to vote on multiple transportation measures. They voted to approve the tax for fixing BART but it was probably wishful thinking to think all could pass.

Sorry for my ignorance, did San Francisco have ANOTHER referendum that was transit related apart from the high profile Measure RR giving $3 billion to BART that passed with 2/3 majority? What was the other one supposed to fund?