Summary: City Council Meeting Regarding Transit Fare Increases

On April 12, I attended a City Council meeting hearing where SunTran transit fare increases were being voted upon.

The reason for a fare increase in the first place was a decline in SunTran funding --> a result of City of Tucson cuts --> a result of the Great Recession. Basically, it came down to service cuts vs. fare increases. Most people, including me, agreed fare increases were a better compromise than service cuts.

The meeting was quite crowded. Many people spoke at the meeting, with the vast majority complaining about the increase of the low income fare from 40 cents to 60 cents. They argued that all the other fare increase were only by a margin of 25%, while the lower income fare increase was by a margin of 50%. The City Council, after some debate, agreed and decided to raise all fares across the board by 25%. However, this means that there is still a budget gap to be filled.

Two other important items arose:
1) Many city council member discussed the need for SunTran to do more advertising so they could gain more advertising revenue. The city councilors agreed that this was a good idea.

2) Councilor Romero recommended the development of a long term, 5 year plan for SunTran. This is a fantastic idea and it is hard to believe a long-term plan for SunTran does not currently exist. This is also a fantastic opportunity for the Living Streets Alliance to influence progressive long-term transit policy in Tucson.

Looking Past the Present

It feels like 2008 all over again. Gas prices are on the rise and suddenly everyone is dusting off the bike or the fuel efficient four door. SUV's have gone back out of vogue and in some metro areas, transit use is on the rise. Of course, transit use has not risen nearly as dramatically as it did in 2008; this is a result of continuing high unemployment and massive service cuts as a result of the Great Recession.

I find it fascinating. Many are surprised over the increases in gas prices. This speaks volumes to the reactionary political policies in place regarding transportation, energy and the economy.

High gas prices are a great opportunity. They always stimulate great conversations about "sustainability" and creating a "post petroleum economy". Then, soon enough, prices decline again life returns to the car oriented status quo.

My hope is that this time, it will be different. Uncountable numbers of independent research groups and scientists have voiced concern over our oil addiction. Turmoil in the Middle East, as well as massive structural problems with our national economy, have only fanned the flames, feeding fear of failure. Without any political support for a gas tax increase, we may have major difficulties simply maintaining our existing infrastructure over the following decade, much less building new infrastructure. Just this week, all high speed rail funding for the next year was cut. I have a hard time understanding how long term infrastructure investments suddenly became partisan issues.


However, there are certainly reasons to be optimistic.

This week, thousands of students converged upon Washington, DC for the 2011 Power Shift Conference. This conference was put on by Energy Action Coalition. From the Power Shift website:

Energy Action Coalition is a coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement.
Working with hundreds of campus and youth groups, dozens of youth networks, and hundreds of thousands of young people, Energy Action Coalition and its partners have united a burgeoning movement behind winning local victories and coordinating on state, regional, and national levels in the United States and Canada.

This huge group of young people are spending the week training how to communicate with lobbyists, as well as constituents back home in their respective communities. Communication and education are two crucially important gaps that this conference is attempting to address.


Tucson is improving as well. Between Cyclovia, the Living Streets Alliance, Tucson Velo, the Tucson Modern Streetcar, and the University of Arizona, sustainable transportation and awareness is growing.

The pace is too slow. The issue is always funding. Our bike routes are terribly paved; road work money is always prioritized on high capacity automobile routes. I do not think that money for high capacity arterials is bad; far from it. I simply believe that the quality of our bike routes will only improve if there is a dedicated funding source (more on this issue here). Until then, biking as a form of transportation in Tucson, and elsewhere, will continue to be second tier.

Amsterdam has not always been the most bike friendly city in the world. In the 1950's, the streets were choked with automobile traffic so the city decided to pursue a policy of transit and bike oriented transportation policy. That's it. That's all they did. It took years and decades but it started with political action; it was not some random occurrence. The same goes for Portland, OR or Davis, CA. These cities decided that investments in alternative transportation were more beneficial than investments in car dominant infrastructure.

The American people have spoken: there is large demand for walkable urban development. How will the government and the private sector react to this news?

What do you think?

Power to the People: Take Power from the States and Give It to the CITIES!

Today, I came across this great article from the site Next American City.

The article basically discusses the problem with federal money being distributed to state governments:

Indeed, the strength of state governments in making transportation decisions is one of the primary culprits for the highway-dependent state of the American landscape, in addition to the federal urban renewal policies and Interstate Highway legislation that are more typically singled out for blame. This fact comes to the serious detriment of metropolitan areas, which lack the fiscal ability and legal right to make full decisions about their transportation futures.

Why does this occur?

That’s because the politics of almost every state are dominated by rural and suburban constituents, or, in other words: car drivers. The urban transit users, pedestrians, and bike riders are typically at the back of the pack when it comes to representation.

The author of the article, Yonah Freemark, calls on Washington to "stem that state power". However, he offers no alternative way for distributing federal money. He seems to be in favor of the Feds having more power in distributing the money.
This issue is also covering in this blog.

I agree with Mr. Freemark: urban areas should have far more power. Money should not even be funneled in to the Feds in the first place; more tax money should be staying within localities. The amount of money each locality has would be based on the amount of economic activity occurring in each given metro area. In the case of money being distributed from a Federal level, it should work the same way: the more valuable the metro area to the economy, the more money it gets.

However, since I am talking about this issue purely from a transportation standpoint, I can see many problems with money being distributed in this manner. Since everything is so road and highway oriented, how could anyone guarantee all the money would not just be used for building new highways?

One solution could be the idea of Federal matching of funds: the more money localities would contribute to non-road projects, the more money would be provided by the Feds for transportation.

Overall though, the main point:
The Feds can not just keep throwing money at states for whatever transportation projects they want. State governments will continue to prioritize road and highway projects because that is the popular thing to do in many jurisdictions (especially the rural ones).

Let the majority be represented. Give urban areas far more political power.

Update (5/8): Here is another blog that discusses this very issue. It suggests giving the power to MPO's (Metropolitan Planning Agencies). All metro areas with a population above 50,000 are required to have MPO's, so it makes sense to distribute federal money through these organizations. In Albuquerque, the MPO is MRCOG, and in Tucson the MPO is PAG.

These groups do a lot of regional transportation planning, so it makes a lot of sense to give these agencies more money, and power.

Update 5/12: Here is great article about the history of road funding. It discusses how the acceleration of the car based transportation system led to money being taken from local control and given over to state and federal control. This [PDF] is the longer article that this previously linked article was summarizing.

We MUST focus on getting our transportation money back to the local authorities. State leaders generally do not understand the idea of "sustainable transit". Metro regions do and they need the money now, more than ever, to invest in sustainable transportation options.