Local leaders are stepping up efforts toward passage of Proposition A, a half-cent sales tax increase on the April 6 ballot projected to generate $75 million a year in St. Louis County toward restoring and expanding MetroLink and MetroBus services.
Citizens For Modern Transit, a nonprofit that promotes rail transit, has raised $400,000 toward TV spots and other advertising, touting the message: "Transit: Some of us use it. All of us need it."
Voters narrowly defeated a similar half-cent measure in November 2008. Failure of Proposition M resulted in layoffs, a fare increase and public service transit was cut by a third. The Missouri legislature approved a one-year appropriation of $12 million to reinstate some of those cuts, but that appropriation expires in May.
"Unless a half-cent sales tax is approved in April, more severe cuts will occur," according to information from Advance St. Louis, a group formed to promote passage of Proposition A. "Without the passage of the referendum, transit service will be decimated."
In addition to the $75 million generated annually by the new half-cent sales tax, passage of Proposition A will allow $8 million in tax revenue from the city of St. Louis to kick in from a tax passed in 1997.
Chesterfield Mayor John Nations, chairman of the Advance St. Louis group, claims that new revenue is needed to build a first-class transit system needed to be competitive nationally for economic development. He noted that all thriving cities and regions have first-class public transit systems.
At a Clayton Chamber of Commerce event held on Monday, Nations said that failure to pass Proposition A would lead to deeper transit service cuts than those made last year, resulting in hardships for workers, students, the elderly and the disabled.
"We are about creating jobs and enhancing the quality of life for St. Louis," he told the audience.
He pointed out that there is a misconception that the funds would be used only to expand MetroLink. Nations said additional funding would be used to improve all forms of public transit, including MetroBus, Metro Call-A-Ride and MetroLink, and would bring new transit options such as Bus Rapid Transit.
A Vociferous Critic
Tom Sullivan is a spokesman for the Public Transit Accountability Project, and has been an unrelenting critic of Metro's light rail projects.
Sullivan said nearly 1,000 buses could have been purchased with the $295 million cost overrun on the Cross County MetroLink Extension Project -- from Shrewsbury to Forest Park.
"The total cost of the eight-mile project will be $1.1 billion -- almost $150 million a mile -- when finance costs are included," Sullivan said. "Metro would have no need for additional funding if it were not for the Cross County project, one of the area's biggest boondoggles ever."
Sullivan has been consistently at odds with some of Metro's numbers. For example, Metro claims that "each day, more than 100,000 individuals board a Metro bus, train or van" -- something Sullivan describes as "patently false." He said the total number of people who use transit on a typical day is somewhere between 40,000 to 45,000 -- and that includes two counties on the Illinois side of the river.
"We have a governing structure that is completely outside of public control. There is no accountability and no public input," Sullivan said. "Sure, they have challenges. But so does the Webster Groves School District. This doesn't require a 100 percent increase."
Citizens For Better Transit, a group opposing Proposition A, claims that public transportation dollars would be better spent on new, higher-speed bus lines, which are cheaper and more adaptable than light rail. In addition to the buses, the group recommends a small increase in operating subsidy and no future rail expansion.
And while Metro in early February released a long-range plan that includes a series of options for rail expansion over the next 30 years, critics are quick to point out that Proposition A gives no specifics on what MetroLink expansion may entail.
Under New Management
Nations said that Metro is under efficient new management, and that the agency's performance deserves the public's support. He said that more than 20 independent reviews and audits over the last two years confirm that Metro has been fiscally responsible and accountable to the public.
Proposition M, narrowly rejected by voters in November 2008, included a sunset clause. With Proposition P, however, taxes will be collected indefinitely. Nations said there was no sunset on the sales tax because public transit needs a long-term funding source.
