No one can be completely surprised members of the Washington County Quorum Court voted last week to spend its $1 million in new county money from a voter-backed statewide transportation tax on roads and bridges.
That’s bread-and-butter politics in countygovernment.
The forgotten piece of the transportation pie is, again, public transit.
Some may remember discussion in 2012 of expanded money for public transit in Northwest Arkansas.
The Quorum Court in May 2012 even askedWashington County voters to consider a county tax dedicated to a massive expansion of public transit.
That overly aggressive plan failed by a nearly 2 to 1 margin.
The Northwest Arkansas Council, a private organization of business leaders that advocates for public investment in infrastructure and other pro-business projects, opposed the public transit tax in Washington County. Its executive director, Mike Malone, said a regional approach was needed and a proposed statewide transportation tax could provide additional transit money.
Here we sit in 2013, nearly a year after that transportation tax passed, and it looks like public transit might have missed the bus again.
“I think our endorsement this early in the process of all of it going to roads and bridges is perhaps contrary to what we helped perpetuate among voters,” Justice of the Peace Eva Madison of Fayetteville said. “I think we owe it to the people that approved the sales tax to slow it down a little bit and say we need to adequately consider transit in this calculation.”
Malone believes there’s hope for expanded public transit, despite Washington County’s vote. He’s asked each jurisdiction to allocate an equivalent of 20 percent of the new state tax money annually to public transit. If they all do, it will add about $700,000 to the $800,000 those jurisdictions already contribute.
Fayetteville, a city more reliant upon and supportive of public transit than other localities, already exceeds 20 percent. Still, with the expectation the new state tax will provide about $1.3 million in new transportation funding per year for the next decade, one might be forgiven for expecting an influx of cash for transit. Mayor Lioneld Jordan’s proposed budget provides $110,000 more for transit - mostly ($106,000) to the University of Arkansas’ Razorback Transit for new equipment - to keep current service level. His priority, at $800,000 in 2014, is building sidewalks.
It’s interesting to note, too, Fayetteville plans to cover its transit expense fully from the new statewide sales tax revenue, freeing up $246,000 previously spent from the city’s general fund for other uses, such as salaries, police pensions, employee health insurance and other more general costs of government. What happens to public transit money in 10 years, when the statewide tax goes away, will be a future administration’s challenge.
If Malone is right, doubling up local governments’ commitment to transit is a step in the right direction, but Washington County’s vote last week and Fayetteville’s use of its new revenue refl ects the extent to which public transit is a front-and-center issue for many folks. It’s not.
Ultimately, public transit is an urban issue. The cities of Northwest Arkansas will have to lead the way on solutions. Unfortunately, it’s not an issue that resonates with most Northwest Arkansas residents.
Opinion, Pages 10 on 09/29/2013