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Mass transit funding input sought
(Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 15--DURHAM -- Chapel Hill, Durham and Carrboro officials agreed Wednesday that if the Triangle someday uses a sales-tax surcharge to finance mass transit, the planning groups that oversee transportation spending here deserve a say in how the money's spent.
They also agreed that part of the revenue should go to existing, in-city bus services like the Durham Area Transit Authority and Chapel Hill Transit instead of being reserved exclusively for inter-city bus and rail links promoted by the Triangle Transit Authority.
Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy said the existing bus systems are barely treading water financially and need additional funding if they're to feed riders to a regional transit network.
Regional links "can't go forward if we can't continue to fund our bus systems in a robust way," Foy told fellow members of the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Transportation Advisory Committee on Wednesday. "And I know we can't. Our property taxes cannot afford to prop up our bus systems."
Wednesday's discussion focused on a legislative proposal emerging from a study group appointed last October by N.C. Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, and N.C. House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange.
The state-level "21st Century Transportation Committee" favors giving the Triangle and the Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem areas the power to levy a half-percent sales-tax surcharge for transit.
Officials in Mecklenburg County already have that power and have used it to fund construction of a 9¬Î©-mile commuter-rail corridor linking downtown Charlotte with its southern suburbs.
But Foy noted that Charlotte officials also devote a fair bit of the $90 million or so in annual surcharge revenue they collect to their city's bus system.
The Triangle will have to do likewise, he said.
In-city bus lines will become an essential part of any regional network "and we have to have the money to grow" them, Foy said.
TTA officials, however, contend that diversions to the existing city bus systems will undercut the region's ability to finance an ambitious new transit plan that includes rail links from Chapel Hill to North Raleigh and a network of new bus lines serving bedroom communities on the fringes of the Triangle.
"Would there be enough money to pay for fixed [inter-city transit links like a rail corridor] in the end?" asked Chapel Hill Town Councilman Bill Strom, a TTA board member who represents the agency in Transportation Advisory Committee debates. "That's the question."
Durham and Chapel Hill officials made it plain they want some say over the allocation of any sales-tax revenue, rather than leaving it up to county governments and TTA to decide as the state study panel suggests.
At the suggestion of Durham city Transportation Manager Mark Ahrendsen, they agreed that the way to assert more control is by asking legislators to make sure the Transportation Advisory Committee and a similar group in Wake County have a veto over the underlying financial plans for the use of the revenue.
Durham County Commissioner Becky Heron and Orange County Commissioner Alice Gordon made it clear that there's no guarantee their governments would support a transit tax, even if the General Assembly gave them the right to levy one.
Other programs, they said, could easily merit a higher priority.
"Building schools and social services is just eating us alive," Heron said.
Her comment illustrated that for all their worrying about the likelihood of increasing traffic congestion, elected officials even in the relatively transit-friendly western Triangle aren't necessarily sold on the ambitious plans TTA is pushing.
Nor, as Foy said, are they particularly willing to allot a bigger share of their property-tax revenue on local bus service.
Chapel Hill devotes about 10 percent of its property tax revenue -- $2.6 million -- to its bus system. The bulk of Chapel Hill Transit's money comes from state government.
Durham city officials don't account for their allocations to DATA as clearly as do Chapel Hill's. But they spend at most about 6 percent of their government's property tax revenue -- a maximum of $6.7 million -- on the bus system.
In both cities, critics of the bus systems contend they serve only a fraction of the population -- mostly UNC students in Chapel Hill, mostly low-income black residents in Durham.
Chapel Hill launched its much-praised fare-free service in 2002 only after the administration and student government at UNC agreed to pick up most of the tab. DATA managers also want to expand ridership by going fare-free, but the idea has little support on the City Council.
To see more of The Herald-Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald-sun.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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