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Shifting the Costs of Public Transit

10 April 2008 - 5:00am

In a trend being seen across the country, cities and states are thinking about new ways to fund public transportation. One California bill aims to shift the costs of public transit to drivers.

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Greenhouse gases – those pollutants that are being blamed for heating up the planet and destroying the environment – are increasingly on the minds of politicians. Outlawing them isn’t a realistic option, and entirely removing them from the atmosphere is impossible. So, many lawmakers are looking for ways to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases people produce. A major source of these greenhouse gas emissions is the automobile, and cities across the country and around the world are coming around to the idea that cutting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions means cutting the amount of cars on the road. For many, this means improving public transit. But while the idea of improving public transit is easy to think, funding those improvements is not so easy to actually do.

So some municipalities are looking at new and innovative approaches to raising the massive funding required to run and improve public transit systems. These new approaches all revolve around a central idea: tack on some extra fees or taxes to everyday activities like driving and shopping and use that money to pay for transit and other transportation projects. From road tolling to congestion pricing to increases in sales taxes, lawmakers are getting creative in their attempts to generate funding and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In California, a bill in the state assembly is seeking to create the option for Los Angeles County’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to place a new fee before voters that would help fund the county’s public transportation system as well as programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Assemblymember Mike Feuer, a Los Angeles Democrat and author of Assembly Bill 2558, says voters are ready to pay the price their driving habits are costing the environment.

Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), California State Assembly member: "Voters around the country are getting increasingly cognizant of the effect their driving behavior has, not just on air pollution, not just on their wallet, but also on the climate, and this bill gives the voters the opportunity in Los Angeles County to determine how they want to deal with that responsibility."

The fee would come in the form of up to 9 cents extra per gallon of gasoline pumped in Los Angeles County, or up to $90 extra per year to register a car. He says the bill could generate between $400 and $600 million dollars per year, two-thirds of which would be dedicated to MTA projects.

Feuer: "Because of course, if there are expanded public transportation opportunities, there are meaningful choices for drivers and they will be ideally choosing what will be much more environmentally friendly, and that’s to take a new subway or a light rail trip to work rather than to be a single driver in a car on the freeway."

Michael Turner is Government Relations Manager at the L.A. County MTA, and he says the time is right to try out fees like those proposed in Feuer’s bill. He says the congestion in L.A. is bad enough to convince drivers that devoting more money to transit will help to clear up the roads. But with almost 10 million residents in L.A. County, more than 5 million commuters, and only about half-a-million public transit commuters, are people really going to be willing to pay more money to improve a public transportation system they’ve probably never used?

Michael Turner, Government Relations Manager, Metropolitan Transportation Authority: "Well, as we would say, what are people's options? You know, we're not going to, I think we can't expect that there's going to be a lot of financial relief coming from Sacramento or Washington. There are clearly issues of air pollution and congestion in this county that are becoming of increasing concern to everybody that drives or breathes in this community. And if we're going to make any progress, we have to look at local resources. And with that, your options are fairly limited."

The Board of the L.A. County MTA voted recently to endorse Feuer’s bill. One dissenting vote was that of Mike Antonovich, also an L.A. County Supervisor. According to spokesman Tony Bell, Antonovich stands against the bill because he says the costs would be disproportionately paid by people who will see little of their benefits.

Tony Bell, Spokesman for L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich: "Supervisor Antonovich doesn't believe that the MTA, the money they would garner from this particular tax would go to the right projects. The MTA is very, very L.A.-city centric, whereas the money would be taxed on L.A. County residents, motorists, taxpayers, gas-buyers, and would be spent on L.A. city projects. We have 88 cities, and 134 unincorporated communities in Los Angeles county, and the MTA is weighted heavily towards the city of Los Angeles."

Turner at the MTA says the exact breakdown of where the proposed funding would go would have to be determined and voted on when the money comes in, but Antonovich remains opposed. Bell, his spokesman, says Antonovich has an ideological conflict with the bill and sees little likelihood of it passing the legislature or with voters.

Bell: "The bill in itself is flawed. The entire mission is flawed. New taxes to solve problems like this are wrongheaded. The way you provide for cleaner air, as a member of AQMD, Supervisor Antonovich proposes incentives for alternative fuels, and finding ways to improve investment, private investment. You have to have private-public partnerships, not new taxes. And the idea is to clean our air for the future, and not to just continuously place an unnecessary burden of regulation and taxation on consumers. So it has to be a more proactive, incentive based solution to out pollution problems."

Drivers and consumers seem to agree. At a gas station on the corner of 6th Street and La Brea in Los Angeles, commuters pull up to the pumps to fill up before their evening commute home. Regular gasoline is $3.85 per gallon. Premium is more than $4.

Shavone Jennings is filling up her black GMC Yukon Denali, a large sport utility vehicle. She says it usually costs about $75 or $80 to top off the tank. Under the gas tax option in Feuer’s bill, her cost would rise about two dollars more. The thought of that price going up – no matter what it’s for – is not a welcome idea.

Shavone Jennings, driver: "I mean, gas is already $3.95, four dollars, so I think that maybe the city can just take care of that on their own, the state, somebody. Not us. Jesus."

The other option Feuer’s bill would enable the MTA to propose to voters is an increase in the cost of registering a car in L.A. County. This fee would be based on the fuel-efficiency of each car, and would range up to $90. Myra Repreza, a driver from Glendale, says that whether it’s a raise in gas taxes or in registration fees she is not likely to vote for it.

Myra Repreza, driver: "So it's cheaper gas..."

More expensive gas

"More expensive gas, and cheaper registration..."

More expensive registration

"Oh, my god! No. I think that both of those things are expensive enough as it is. And when you don't have a great job and you don't have great income I think it's already tight enough. So I wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't."

Bus riders in the MTA system tend to have a slightly different perspective, but not by much. Many say charging drivers to fund transit would be great, but with most voters also sitting in a driver’s seat, the bill doesn’t seem to have good chances. Paul Ryan is an L.A. bus rider, and is skeptical about the bill’s merit.

Paul Ryan, bus rider: "I want to say it's a good idea because I ride the bus, but as someone who also owns a car, I know it's going to be rough for people at this particular time. So I would say I don't necessarily agree with it, no."

Feuer is confident that his bill is headed in the right direction, but wrote it explicitly to leave the power in the hands of voters.

Feuer: "Well the point of my bill is that it's up to them. So rather than imposing this fee on them from Sacramento, my bill authorizes a vote. And if voters believe that it’s worth it to them to play a role in reducing the pace of climate change, improving air quality in the region, providing expanded public transit opportunities, then they'll vote for it. If they're not prepared to do that, they wont support it. And perhaps the MTA will choose to place it on a subsequent ballot down the road. But rather than pre-determine what I think voters will do, the purpose of this bill is to give local decision-makers a choice and then they can choose to proceed as they wish."

Feuer’s is just one of many transit funding ideas being considered around the country. In New York, though the plan was recently killed, lawmakers had seriously considered a congestion pricing plan that would have charged drivers to enter certain parts of the city. Toll roads are also being implemented in states across the country as a way to restock diminishing transit coffers. And in Minnesota, a recent bill has allowed counties to add a quarter-of-a-cent to their sales taxes to set up a fund for local transportation projects and grants. Five counties in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region have adopted these increases since February, and they are expected to generate more than $100 million in 2009.

Turner at the MTA says that all of these ideas are worth considering.

Turner: "The thing to keep in mind that this bill is an option for the board to pursue. This isn't mandating that we're going to go out and do this tomorrow. The bill just creates the option for the board, should they decide to go this route, this is one mechanism that we could put before the voters. A sales tax is another mechanism. If it turns out that people would rather do a sales tax rather than a greenhouse gas fee, then that's something the board would have to consider."

Feuer is also willing to keep an open mind to all the options available. He hopes voters in L.A. County will do the same.

Feuer: "These are just all tools available with different approaches to revenue, different choices to voters. I want to give local decision-makers in Los Angeles the widest array of choices that we can possibly provide, because Los Angeles simply can't afford to be this congested anymore."

California Assembly Bill 2558 will be taken under consideration in the assembly transportation committee on Monday, April 14. If it’s approved, the bill would head next to the Assembly floor for a vote, then off to the state senate, and eventually into the hands of the L.A. County MTA Board, which could place it before L.A. County voters in 2009. Whether it makes it that far is still up in the air, but where it could go depends a lot on the will of voters in L.A. county – voters who seem to support the idea of reducing greenhouse gases and improving transit, but only if they don’t have to pay for it.

Editor's Note: On April 14, 2008, the California Assembly's Transportation Committee approved AB2558 by a vote of 8 to 5.

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