Taxes set up to fund mass-transit projects get turned into operating funds in San Diego. Is that the future trend elsewhere as funds grow scarce during these lean times?

Steering sales tax to transit proposed

Steering sales tax to transit proposed
Move might delay county road projects
By Steve Schmidt (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer

2:00 a.m. April 8, 2009
Overview

Background: In 2004, voters approved an extension of TransNet, a half-cent sales tax that was sold as a way to help fund highway and mass-transit improvements.

What's changing: Several elected officials have broached the idea of using more TransNet funds to shore up the region's troubled transit operations.

The future: The San Diego Association of Governments will hold a public workshop on the issue at 10 a.m. Friday, 401 B St., San Diego.

In 2004, San Diego County voters tossed commuters a lifeline by extending a local half-cent sales tax aimed at easing congestion.

The freeway construction crews now working Santee? The bulldozer jockeys carving lanes in Otay Mesa? The major expansion of the Interstate 15 express lanes?

Those projects – and more – are fueled in part by the countywide TransNet tax, first established in 1987.

But a growing number of elected officials are raising the idea of shifting more TransNet funds to pay for fuel, salaries and other costs of operating mass-transit systems, even if it could mean delaying long-planned highway projects or trolley extensions.

If pursued, the idea is likely to prove politically dicey and could spur complaints that regional planners are breaking faith with what voters approved in 2004.

The region continues to pour billions of TransNet dollars into big-ticket construction projects and other improvements at a time when funding for the Metropolitan Transit System and the North County Transit District is sputtering.

Crippled by a loss of state subsidies, MTS has embarked this spring on a round of service cuts and fare increases. Agency officials wish they could expand bus and trolley service instead, in light of concerns over greenhouse gases, gyrations in gas prices and expanding ridership.

Clearly, the agency needs help, San Diego Councilman Todd Gloria said.

“We seem to always have all this money for capital improvements but not for transit operations,” said Gloria, who is also a member of the MTS board. “Right now, I think we're favoring one form of transportation over all the others.”

So why not steer more TransNet money to transit operations?

That's the question Gloria and others will raise when the San Diego Association of Governments discusses transit funding at a special meeting Friday.

To some commuters who use buses or trolleys, the answer is easy. “MTS needs a bailout,” said Lorenzo Rodriguez of Mission Valley. “People need more public transit, not less.”

But TransNet is not easily toyed with, SANDAG officials point out. The long-range planning agency created and manages the fund.

For starters, amendments to TransNet require the consent of at least two-thirds of SANDAG board members. The 21-member panel includes two representatives of the city of San Diego, two from county government and one from each of the 17 other cities in the county.

Further, some worry that major changes could undermine the chief intent of the tax – to fund projects aimed at clearing out bottlenecks and other commuter headaches.

TransNet has been portrayed over the years as one way to keep the local commute from descending into Los Angeles-style chaos. During the 2004 campaign, SANDAG crafted a detailed wish list of highway and mass-transit improvements to be funded during the initial phase of the 40-year program.

Lani Lutar, president of the San Diego Taxpayers Association, worries that any major changes now would break faith with voters.

“TransNet was passed by voters with a very specific set of projects and proposals of how they would be paid for,” said Lutar, whose group backed the 2004 extension.

Among the TransNet projects recently completed or under way, with help from state and federal transportation funds: new car pool lanes on Interstate 5 in Del Mar; the extension of state Route 52 in Santee; and the $1.3 billion expansion of the express-lane network on I-15, including the creation of a bus rapid-transit system.

Voters narrowly agreed in 2004 to extend the tax by 40 years. About $14 billion in TransNet projects are expected to be completed by 2048.

The tax is expected to generate $241 million during the fiscal year starting July 1. About a third of TransNet revenue now goes to freeways and major highways, a third to transit projects and operations, and a third to city streets and county roads.

Under the 2004 ballot language, SANDAG can allocate 16.5 percent of all TransNet revenue to fund transit operations and services. As a result, MTS and the North County Transit District received $31 million this year to help with operations – still short of what they need to cover budget shortfalls.

MTS faces an $11 million operating deficit this year. Most of its operating revenue comes from government subsidies, which have been slashed in recent years. Fares also generate revenue. SANDAG oversees long-range planning for MTS.

The North County Transit District projects a budget deficit of $2.9 million in the year that begins July 1.

County Supervisor Ron Roberts, a member of the MTS board and a SANDAG board alternate, said the region needs to look at shifting more money into transit operations, at least in the short run, even if it means delaying highway projects and other major improvements.

San Diego City Council members Sherri Lightner and Tony Young, also members of the MTS board, have raised similar points in recent weeks. Lightner, Young and Gloria are alternates on the SANDAG board.

“Clearly, the operation of our transit system is in dire jeopardy,” Young said.

Roberts blames Sacramento for the financial bind, saying the recent collapse in state transit subsidies has left MTS and SANDAG in an awkward spot.

But he knows that persuading his SANDAG colleagues to delay projects, in the name of sustaining bus and trolley operations in the short run, could be a tough sell.

Roberts said that big-ticket projects often come with powerful constituencies, such as suburban commuters who are anxious for freeway improvements in their area.

“The advocates for new roads are a lot stronger than the advocates for transit,” he said.

Santee Councilman Jack Dale, chairman of SANDAG's transportation committee, said his own city is a good example of how it's the best of times – and the worst.

At the same time that Caltrans is building a $600 million extension of Route 52, with the help of TransNet, MTS is moving to boost monthly pass prices and scale back bus service on local roads.

He said the upheaval in mass transit is “brutal” on workaday riders. “It's so disappointing, and it's so frustrating,” Dale said.

Steve Schmidt: (619) 293-1380; (Contact)