Local and Regional Funding Mechanisms for Public Transportation (2009)

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50 5.1 Steps for Successful Implementation of New or Enhanced Funding Mechanisms Over the past decade or so, important lessons have emerged from around the country on the steps that are necessary to successfully propose and enact new or enhanced funding mechanisms for public transportation. Legislative initiatives and popular referenda require the same basic steps to succeed in implementing new or enhanced revenue sources. These steps are the following: • Develop a consensus on the scope of current and future transit needs and on the importance of actions to address them. Public transportation needs and funding should not be separated. The perception of a need is the most pow- erful motivator for funding decisions. The expression of needs must include not only a clear statement of the ben- efits of the investment, but also a statement of the vari- ous costs of not making the investment. In order to trig- ger broad-based support for new funding for transit investment, a consensus must be established that trans- portation problems exist that, if unaddressed, will have broad and unacceptable consequences for citizens, busi- ness, and industry. Typically, a wide-ranging dialogue is needed on the scope and nature of the transportation challenges and on the consequences of not acting, i.e., a coordinated effort is needed, as described in the later steps, to educate various stakeholders and community leaders through a compre- hensive public education campaign that draws on com- plete and credible information and analysis. • Develop a specific plan and program of investments for which additional funding is needed and demon- strate the benefits that are expected from the proposed investments. For a plan or program of investments to be funded, leg- islators, community leaders, and voters must be confident in the specific investments proposed, the benefits expected, and the rationales for each element. Experience has shown that, until recently, legislators and/or voters have been re- luctant to support new funding initiatives unless they in- clude the following: – Mixes of improvement types, e.g., highway, transit, and non-motorized improvements;76 – Specific improvements and projects; – Balance (however “balance” is defined locally, e.g., re- sources directed to local as well as regional priorities and problems) in the location of improvements; – Clear rationales, including the expected benefits as well as the consequences of failing to act; and – Sound arguments and documentation to deflect issues that critics may raise over the proposed investment pro- gram and/or funding strategy. • Identify clearly established roles, responsibilities, and procedures for executing the funding and investment strategy and implementing the proposed improvements. Intergovernmental roles and relationships must be clearly spelled out with regard to how investment decisions are to be made, who and what organization(s) are responsible for execution of the program, and how agencies and organiza- tions are to partner for the program to succeed. There must be no ambiguity, and the legislators and community leaders and citizens must have trust in the agencies and processes to be used in committing the new resources. In addition, actions must be taken—legislative, regula- tory, and administrative—to ensure that the respective agencies and organizations have adequate authority to col- lect, expend, and encumber revenues; incur debt; contract; S E C T I O N 5 . 0 Enacting New Funding Mechanisms for Public Transportation 76 More recently, legislators and voters have enacted, or are poised to enact, substantial independent transit-specific funding initiatives, including mea- sures in Seattle, San Francisco, and Denver.

51 and undertake other activities necessary to fully execute the program. State legislative actions may be necessary as well as legislative actions by local jurisdictions. Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) and other formal mechanisms may be necessary to ensure that clear lines of authority and effective procedures are in place to budget, obligate, and oversee the expenditure of new funds. • Describe the funding sources in detail and provide the rationales for their use. There may be several funding sources for consideration in increasing transit investment. Selecting the most appropri- ate sources(s) requires a thorough evaluation of the alterna- tives across a number of key criteria (as previously noted) and an understanding among stakeholders, citizens, and community and political leaders of the rationales for pursu- ing particular sources. • Design and carry out a public education and advocacy plan and campaign.77 The act of raising new funds for transportation invest- ment (or any other worthy public purpose) involves the equivalent of a political “campaign” since it is likely that for- mal public approval will be required at some point, either through referenda or through the legislative or administra- tive actions of elected officials. As with any campaign, both sustained leadership and adequate funding are needed. Typically, campaigns rely on regular polling to test public response while prob- lems, plans, rationales, and funding alternatives are pre- sented and discussed. In addition, a full range of com- munications strategies and products are needed to ensure that the public education process is comprehensive and continuous. In successful cases of regional transportation funding ini- tiatives in Houston, San Diego, St. Louis, and Seattle, public education and advocacy efforts have shared several charac- teristics that should be considered in any effort to raise new transit or transportation revenues. Among the most impor- tant of these characteristics are the following: – Sustained involvement of effective leaders, with an em- phasis on participation by influential individuals and community leaders from outside the ranks of elected officials; – Sustained support from key elected officials at all levels; – Formal involvement of stakeholders and citizens repre- senting the broadest array of interests and organizations; – Creation of formal coalitions or organizations to co- ordinate, direct, and channel resources and advocacy activities; – Financial support from nongovernmental sources in amounts of several hundreds of thousands of dollars to underwrite a sustained, multiyear campaign; – Participation of experienced public relations and legal professionals to advise and conduct elements of the campaign; – Extensive and continuous monitoring of public opinion to help shape the investment program, identify the sources of funds, and build the institutional structure to be used; – Preparation to both understand and rebut arguments from opponents; and – Preparation of a wide range of activities and products for use in presenting issues and proposals to the public, including both electronic and print media strategies, a range of public education materials, and spokespersons and materials needed to make regular presentations to the public and various interest groups. • Develop sustained leadership and demonstrable, sus- tained support. Every campaign requires enlightened, sustained, and ac- tive leadership from individuals and organizations that are recognized as community leaders. Typically, this means that champions for the initiative must be recruited from business, industry, and politics. It also means, as men- tioned above, constant, up-to-date understanding of pop- ular sentiment around the issues involved and the propos- als being considered and advocated. Leadership plays a key role in arriving at final funding proposals and investment plans, advocating those propos- als actively in the community, and responding to criticisms that are inevitably raised when new public revenue-raising initiatives or specific projects are proposed. • Lay out a clear and reasonable timetable. Transportation funding initiatives typically take many months to plan, detail, promote, and enact. A typical timetable may involve 2 years or more, depending on the scope of the issues involved, the knowledge of community leaders and the electorate, “friction” in the political arena over public service priorities and revenue raising, and the potential for bipartisan consensus building and decision making. It also is not uncommon for a new transit or transporta- tion funding initiative to fail on the first attempt to garner public approval. While the percentage of transportation funding initiatives approved in recent years has risen, there are always examples of initiatives turned down at the polls largely because one or more of the steps noted above was not carried out effectively. Researchers at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Berkeley sharpened the focus 77 The Center for Transportation Excellence provides useful information on advocacy strategies and techniques at http://www.cfte.org.

further on essential steps in enacting new local and regional revenues for transportation in their 2005 report Local Trans- portation Sales Taxes: California’s Experiment in Transportation Finance. In the study, they concluded the following: The four most important factors in the popularity of LTST’s [Local Transportation Sales Taxes] . . . are . . . specific lists of transportation projects, control of the revenues by the counties in which the tax is collected, finite lives [fixed term for revenue- raising authority and collection], and direct approval by the voters.78 5.2 Arguments for Increased Funding for Public Transportation In recent years, greater attention has been paid to the ratio- nales used to support initiatives aimed at expanding the fund- ing for public transportation. The heightened attention is, to a large degree, emerging from the realization that (1) local, state, and federal governments have a wide range of shared goals and (2) increased investment and use of public trans- portation yields benefits that serve these goals. In planning and carrying out steps to enact new local and regional revenue sources for transit, it is crucial to understand and promote these benefits, recognizing that the importance of each will vary from community to community. There is considerable documentation of the benefits of pub- lic transportation at all levels. Both APTA and CFTE, among other organizations, have exhaustive informational materials and research on the benefits of transit that can be used to fash- ion effective arguments for increasing support for transit fund- ing initiatives. These arguments are best crafted around individual com- munities’ specific circumstances, needs, and goals. They must, however, appeal to a variety of stakeholders, including households, business and industry, and government agen- cies and programs. Public transportation benefits include the following:79 • Increased energy efficiency through reduced motor fuel consumption and reduced dependence on foreign oil; • Enhanced environment through reductions in motor vehi- cle emissions—including carbon monoxide, carbon diox- ide, volatile organic compounds (the precursors of smog), nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter—and reduced con- sumption of open space; • Reduced growth in traffic congestion from ever-increasing VMT; • Increased freedom and personal mobility through in- creased transportation choices for all travel markets: choice riders, commuters, and those who may be transportation disadvantaged; • Increased access to opportunity, including improved ac- cess to jobs, to essential social and human services, to em- ployment, to education, and to training opportunities as well as to shopping and personal business; • Increased economic stimulus, including job creation, business sales, profitability and competitiveness; rising land and property values; and neighborhood revitalization; all of which yield increased revenues to every layer of gov- ernment—local, state, and federal; • Increased safety and security through reductions in motor vehicle incidents and accidents and enhanced options in response to human-made or natural disasters; and • Increased personal health and well-being through greater emphasis on and opportunity for walking and nonmo- torized trip making amid more efficient development patterns. The arguments and resources materials highlighted above are being combined with observations on the advantages and disadvantages of specific funding sources (noted in Sec- tion 4.0) by transit systems and advocates around the coun- try and tailored in support of virtually all new local funding initiatives. 52 78 Crabbe, A., et al. Local Transportation Sales Taxes: California’s Experiment in Transportation Finance—Detailed Research Findings. University of Cali- fornia Transportation Center, Berkeley, CA, 2002, p. 34. 79 Sources for this material on transit benefits are http://www.apta.com and http://www.cfte.org.