Mass Transit in the Treasure Valley...

A number of us from the Legislature in the Treasure Valley were invited to attend a briefing in Salt Lake last Monday regarding how their mass transit system has evolved. My intention was to learn costs per person, state funding, subsidies required and ongoing costs for maintenance and how that is managed.

The Treasure Valley Compass leaders ensured that we all met the major players in Utah that have been involved in setting up the transit system, expanding it and maintaining it. The Compass folks did a great job in ensuring that we got our questions asked and have promised to work with Utah in getting some of the data we requested.

There is no question that the public transportation system in Salt Lake is top of the line. They have a combination of bus, tram and light rail. Their system was originally started on a shoe string (much like the Valley Regional Transit Authority now), but was boosted through federal earmarks (around $500M if I recall correctly) and local option taxes of the six surrounding counties to Salt Lake of between 1/2 cent to 3/4 cent sales tax that is collected through the state. Utah has had local options taxes for quite sometime so you will find various sales tax rates throughout the state.

Utah's system thus far has cost the tax payers (both federal and state) approx. $1.5 billion dollars. The est. population in the six counties footing the bill (less federal earmarks) is approx. 1.2 million folks (just slightly less than the entire state of Idaho).

Inceases in local option taxes have been happening since the system was started, most run as a referendum that was done on a "quick sale" sort of effort by engaging with the public on the requirements shortly (within 4 weeks) before the vote was required. Their strategy was to ensure that any opposition would have little time to organize and coordinate an opposing view before votes would be made (sound familiar?) and worked absentee ballots hard as well to ensure passage of the increased tax.

No doubt that Utah's mass transit system is top of the line, however, I see no way that 500,000 people in the Treasure Valley would pony up the money for such a convenience.

One lesson that did hit hard was that Idaho must start early in purchasing easements for ANY kind of transportation planning, regardless if that's public trams, trains or roadways... it needs to be planned and purchased as early as possible. Land prices just continue to go up, waiting for "tomorrow" to purchase property for a bypass or a commuter train is just not smart business.

I appreciated being invited on the fact finding tour, I learned a lot. Utah started planning and funding these transit systems well before it was announced that they would be getting the Olympics, much to our surprise. I suspect that because they did invest in such a system, that it did bode well for their selection by the Olympic selection committee.

Idaho has transportation needs from city streets to the freeway, from buses to walking trails. We are going into debt now through GARVEE to get some of the issues corrected and, as I'm sure you've heard, we are still "$200M per year"short. We need to get creative, change the way we do day to day business in the way to manage our transit systems. I've posted some ideas previously (click here to read them) that we need to consider. Is it time to raise gas taxes, registration fees, fund transportation needs with General Funds or change our habits?

We don't have the answers or the money... do you?

Drop me a note at Marv@thg-inc.biz

Cheers,

H