Regional Transportation Authority of Southeast Michigan

[corktownyuppie]

Call me crazy, but I think we're gonna get an RTA through the legislature this year.

[DetroitPlanner]

You're crazy??? But we have a good shot at it.

[cramerro]

What prompted this post?

[RO_Resident]

What prompted this post?

A slew of transportation related bills are about to be introduced in Lansing. One of the expected bills is the creation of an RTA for Wayne, Macomb, Oakland, and Washtenaw Counties.

[cramerro]

Yep, I see now. Fingers crossed!

[dtowncitylover]

What are the bill numbers?

To answer my own question: SB 909, for those who want to read it.

[GoGrixdale]

The authority may design routes to augment, complement,

enhance, replace, or improve other forms of public transit

operating within or on the corridors. Initial plans for a rolling

rapid transit system may include all of the following:

[[a) A Woodward corridor line to operate along, on, or near

Woodward avenue between a location in or near the downtown Detroit

station and a location in downtown Birmingham in Oakland county. As

used in this subsection, "downtown Detroit station" means a

location in or near the Campus Martius area of downtown Detroit.

[[b) A Gratiot corridor line to operate along, on, or near

Gratiot avenue between the downtown Detroit station and a location

in downtown Mt. Clemens in Macomb county.

[[c) A northern cross-county line to operate between the city

of Troy and the city of Mt. Clemens, using a route to be determined

by the authority. The route determined by the authority under this

subdivision shall have stations along Big Beaver road in the city

of Troy and highway M-59 in portions of Oakland and Macomb

counties.

[[d) A western cross-county line to operate between the

downtown Detroit station and the Ann Arbor Blake transit center for

a distance of approximately 47 miles. This corridor shall include,

at a minimum, stations in the city of Ypsilanti, Detroit Wayne

county metropolitan airport, and the city of Dearborn. The

authority shall determine the exact route.

How can they vote no?

[DetroitPlanner]

How can they vote no?

They have before. Several times. Thistime however they will be seen as being divisive.

[dtowncitylover]

They have before. Several times. Thistime however they will be seen as being divisive.

And they have a governor that supports it and is prepared to sign it.

[bailey]

Notwithstanding any other provision of this act, the authority may not acquire, accept responsibility for, or obligate
itself to assume liability for, or pay any legacy costs of an
existing public transit authority or agency that may be purchased,
merged with, assumed, or otherwise acquired in any manner by the
authority, including, but not limited to, costs associated with any
authority or agency's litigation, claims, assessments, worker's
compensation awards or charges, swap losses, pensions, health care,
or other postemployment benefits of an existing transit agency or
authority without first securing an affirmative vote of a majority
of the electors of each member county in the public transit region

Somehow I think the DDOT and SMART unions are going to have a problem with this part.

[Novine]

There's some big unanswered questions in the legislation. The bills include language for levying a special assessment to pay for transit services.

"[[2) An authority may levy a special assessment within the public transit region only as approved by the board and the electors of the public transit region."

But there's no explanation of how that special assessment would be set or assessed nor how it would be voted on and how it would be applied. Seems like a big piece of the puzzle is missing until those questions are answered.

[professorscott]

But there's no explanation of how that special assessment would be set or assessed nor how it would be voted on and how it would be applied. Seems like a big piece of the puzzle is missing until those questions are answered.

Local units have been doing special assessments for decades, and the procedures for them are spelled out elsewhere. My suspicion is the drafters found no need to repeat well-known procedures in a bill which is already pretty long and complex. Just IMHO.

[Hypestyles]

I hope the language also includes how to pay for it, and I hope that doesn't end up being the dealbreaking hurdle.. hope for the best, we'll see.. I wonder how many state legislators are up for re-election this year..

[Dexlin]

Everyone should go read the bill as currently proposed:

Senate bill 909

I'll look through it more. Hopefully, this is better crafted than DARTA, and hopefully, the majorities in both houses have enough since to give Southeast Michigan the option. There is no reason beyond narrow ideology why they shouldn't pass this. I know they are Republicans, but I want them to back up their forever-rhetoric about the inherent goodness of local self-determination [[well, apart from PA4 lol) with action allowing for Southeast Michigan to have the option of making its own transit destiny.

EDIT: Here is something I found interesting in Sec. 5, Item 3 of the bill. It basically says that the body can do these things by a simple majority or set an even higher [[or, theoretically, lower) vote threshold:

[[3) Actions of the board shall be by simple majority vote of
all serving members of the board, except as follows:

[[a) The board shall provide in its bylaws that the following

actions require the approval of a supermajority, not to exceed 4/5

of serving members:

[[i) The placing of a question of the levy of a special

assessment under section 10[[2) on the ballot by the authority.

[[ii) The determination of the rate of, or amount of, any

special assessment to be requested by the authority at an election.

[[iii) The placing of a question of approving a motor vehicle

registration fee on the ballot by the authority.

[[iv) The determination of the rate of, or amount of, any motor

vehicle registration fee to be requested by the authority at an

election.

[Dexlin]

BTW, this is being sent to the committee, and here are the members on the Senate's Transportation Committee if anyone is interested in getting in contact with them:

Tom Casperson [[R) Committee Chair, 38th District
Mike Kowall [[R) Majority Vice Chair, 15th District
Jack Brandenburg [[R) 11th District
Phil Pavlov [[R) 25th District
Goeff Hansen [[R) 34th District
John J Gleason [[D) Minority Vice Chair, 27th District
Morris Hood III [[D) 3rd District

Also, special shout-out to state senator Casperson, who oddly enough being from all the way up in Escabana, has been the most consistent backer of a regional transit authority for Southeast Michigan.

[Novine]

"Local units have been doing special assessments for decades, and the procedures for them are spelled out elsewhere. My suspicion is the drafters found no need to repeat well-known procedures in a bill which is already pretty long and complex. Just IMHO."

Are you not familiar with special assessments? They're not subject to the approval of voters. I'm not aware of any special assessment process that includes such a step.

[cramerro]

There's some big unanswered questions in the legislation. The bills include language for levying a special assessment to pay for transit services.

"[[2) An authority may levy a special assessment within the public transit region only as approved by the board and the electors of the public transit region."

But there's no explanation of how that special assessment would be set or assessed nor how it would be voted on and how it would be applied. Seems like a big piece of the puzzle is missing until those questions are answered.

There is separate language in companion bills that spell outmore specifics on funding. HB1501 and HB1502 each have information on levying county-specific vehicle registration fees of 1.20-1.80 per 1,000 sticker price. There is also a bill that dicusses the special assessment method in more detail also, I believe - not sure what number it is though.

[Dexlin]

EDIT: cramerro beat me to it, and added far more information than I was going to.

It sounds to me that votes for special assessments will indeed include both the board and voters, and by "voters" it's likely that they are talking county voters.

[Baselinepunk]

"They have before. Several times. Thistime however they will be seen as being divisive."

If they do pass it, and mass transit becomes a reality down the road, that would mean less cars on the road, right?

Wouldn't having less cars on the road mean less revenue for fixing the roads? They were all just talking about upping the vehicle registration cost and changing the tax on gas to help raise funds to fix the roads. Wasn't there also talk of moving toward more hybrid buses as well? I'm already seem them on Woodward ...

I'm seeing lack of vision, consistency and leadership here; perhaps I missed something from Lansing in the last week?

[Novine]

"If they do pass it, and mass transit becomes a reality down the road, that would mean less cars on the road, right?"

Perhaps. But most of the riders are going to be people already riding buses or people who don't use transit today because they don't have access to it.

[Novine]

"There is also a bill that dicusses the special assessment method in more detail also, I believe - not sure what number it is though."

If so, it hasn't been posted on the state legislature's web site.

[Baselinepunk]

"If they do pass it, and mass transit becomes a reality down the road, that would mean less cars on the road, right?"

Perhaps. But most of the riders are going to be people already riding buses or people who don't use transit today because they don't have access to it.

FWIW - I would ditch my car in a heartbeat. With insurance and other associated fees, cars will be/already are very expensive to operate. I would be able to save at least 2,500 bucks a year.

I already live off of the route and take the bus down to campus and other activities. I just nee to find employment in the City and I would be set. However, if an RTA come online my options for employment [[sans car) would definitely open up.

[ndavies]

"They have before. Several times. Thistime however they will be seen as being divisive."

If they do pass it, and mass transit becomes a reality down the road, that would mean less cars on the road, right?

Wouldn't having less cars on the road mean less revenue for fixing the roads? They were all just talking about upping the vehicle registration cost and changing the tax on gas to help raise funds to fix the roads. Wasn't there also talk of moving toward more hybrid buses as well? I'm already seem them on Woodward ...

I'm seeing lack of vision, consistency and leadership here; perhaps I missed something from Lansing in the last week?

That's the reason they are changing the fuel tax model. They are changing it from a per gallon tax to a % of wholesale price tax. As fuel usage drops and fuel cost rise the revenue stream should grow or at least remain constant. With this change the fuel tax will automatically go up as fuel prices increase.

It's the same reason they changed from a weight based assesment on license plate fees to one based on the cost of the vehicle years ago. They used to have to go back to the legislature every few years to raise the vehicle license fees. Now they go up automatically as the price of new vehicles increase.

[professorscott]

"If they do pass it, and mass transit becomes a reality down the road, that would mean less cars on the road, right?"

Perhaps. But most of the riders are going to be people already riding buses or people who don't use transit today because they don't have access to it.

Well, actually one of the things we hope for is for people to use transit more and private cars less. But right now in southeast Michigan, last I checked, I think 2% of us take transit regularly and the other 98% of you drive cars. If we are spectacularly successful and we can triple the transit use, then the driving population goes from 98% down to 94%.

Funding wise that's not awful. If you were collecting $100 million before, now you're collecting $96 million. Not a catastrophe.

[Baselinepunk]

"If we are spectacularly successful and we can triple the transit use, then the driving population goes from 98% down to 94%.

Funding wise that's not awful. If you were collecting $100 million before, now you're collecting $96 million. Not a catastrophe."

Well, I think in this case they are "counting" on raising something like 1.5B for road repair with the proposal.

With a number that large, that would mean more like loosing around 60 million per year, right? That's gotta be a few bridges/miles of road.

Generalizing for the sake of "argument", of course -- but 4M per 100M would eventually add up to a sizable number, IMHO.