Critical mass in mass transit

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

CRITICAL MASS IN MASS TRANSIT: Hidden within the aching defeat by a thousand ballots of the WTA transit levy last week is the nugget that the levy passed overwhelmingly—by more than 64 percent—inside Bellingham, another indicator of Whatcom’s widening city/rural rift and deepening culture divide. And unlike November’s depressed turnout of disengaged Bellingham voters, Bellingham turnout for this levy—at 47 percent—was slightly above the countywide average, suggesting the city’s progressive leanings can no longer blunt the impacts of the populous county’s right-of-center misgivings.

Perhaps it goes without saying that the Whatcom Transportation Authority’s Proposition 1 campaign to tap local sales tax to raise operating revenues was terribly conceived and managed, allowing Brett Bonner’s Orwellian campaign—People for Progressive Transportation—to control the message and dominate the news cycle with a facile, greasy anti-tax message. The state’s most successful transit system, with yards of data on ridership and award-winning innovations, and the best the pro-levy campaign could televise were plaintive elders lamenting the loss of their mobility and entitlement? Ridiculous.

But beyond campaign details, the conclusions that will inevitably be drawn, ad nauseum, from the levy’s failure—that the “ask” was too big or improperly timed in this economy, or that public support for public transportation is weak—are simple-minded and just wrong. The truth is more durable: Half of county voters live in areas underserved by transit, which functions efficiently only in urban settings. Why should anyone volunteer to pay for a service that is largely invisible to them and one they cannot use? This will be the challenge every time the urban template is expanded and is required to be ratified by rural voters.

What a shame Bellingham’s ballot could not include a second, “Bellingham Only” option, allowing city voters to approve some smaller subset portion of a sales tax increase to preserve dedicated city services while also providing ’hamsters their opportunity to support the larger countywide service. Based on poll data, both options would have passed in the city; the county portion would have failed in the county, and WTA would be left with at least partial funding and a voter mandate on where to spend it.

Nine years ago, WTA incautiously expanded its board to include more representation from Whatcom’s smaller, outlying cities. The effect was that the influence of Bellingham—by the far the largest user and beneficiary of WTA services—became diluted and defocused WTA efforts in urban areas where support (and density metrics) for transit is greatest.

“As a board we’ve worked long and hard to support the needs of rural Whatcom County, especially in recognition of the large, yet widely dispersed population of low income and seniors,” notes WTA board member Stan Snapp. “Lynden is a great example. We’ve run shuttles around Lynden, we’ve built a very nice terminal close in to Lynden proper. We’ve often responded with favor to the lobbying by Lynden’s mayor in years past. Most of those efforts did not result in ridership increases or, obviously now, support at the polls.”

Indeed, Lynden’s mayor, who serves on the board, opposed the levy; and the measure failed in Lynden by a stronger margin than in rural Whatcom.

“It failed,” Snapp notes, “by a small enough margin that stronger support from Lynden might very well have brought support to maintain services.

“Maybe it’s a reaction on my part” he said, “but I think maybe we should shift our support to those citizens and voters that support WTA. If the final analysis shows that we’re not supported in parts of the county then maybe the service-level changes should reflect that.”

“The levy didn’t have the honest debate it deserved,” Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike admitted, “because the opposition campaign relied on misinformation about reserve levels and time frames that suggested we could wait instead of responsibly making cuts. And we can’t.

“This was not us going out to find money and then afterward trying to justify it and spend it,” he explained. “It was, ‘We are in a very dire situation, we need to do cuts—or we need to put it to a vote to raise revenues.’ Instead every debate centered around Brett Bonner saying we had usable reserves and could wait two years. Those were flat-out lies.”

Ten percent of an anticipated 14 percent service reduction in the fall will eliminate lesser-used routes, WTA General Manager Richard Walsh predicted. The other 4 percent arrives from the elimination of WTA service on Sunday.

Still, “if you look at the proposed cuts, well over half of the service hour reductions represented—55 percent—come out of Ward 1,” WTA board member Jack Weiss said. Like the rest of Bellingham, the city’s northernmost ward approved the levy. “We need to look at that carefully. I feel these supporters of transit should not be punished just because someone elsewhere in the county decides they don’t want to be taxed.”

Beyond the immediate crimp in service, the larger question for the future is how to adequately fund a countywide agency that offers services that are most efficient primarily within the larger cities—the mass in mass transit.

Recent changes in state law might hold the answer, allowing the creation of a “public transportation benefit district,” Walsh said. The taxing district could allow municipalities to create a fee instrument, perhaps a vehicle excise tax, in support of transportation-related expenses.

“That is not something WTA would have jurisdiction over,” Walsh cautioned. “The municipality that forms the district has jurisdiction over it.”

“I imagine there will be a few of us on the board who would support a redistricting around the I-5 corridor” as a means of raising revenues in support of municipal transit service, Weiss said.

“Bellingham deserves a transit service that the city can be proud of, rather than trying to be everything to everybody.”