Vote YES for regional transit!

[Lowell]

UPDATE: Crain's has called RTA for the No's. Sad day for regional cooperation.

"The overall tally at this morning, based on results posted online by Oakland, Wayne, Macomb and Washtenaw counties, showed 873,308 in favor of the tax with 891,821 against with nearly all precincts reporting. That's a difference of 19,513 votes.

Macomb County voters overwhelmingly rejected the 1.2-mill, 20-year measure intended to raise $3 billion for improved transit. With all 337 Macomb precincts reporting, the issue was losing 222,806 [[60.1 percent) to 148,159 [[39.9 percent).

In Oakland County, the tax lost by a very narrow margin — 293,510 [[50.09 percent) against versus 292,401 [[49.91% percent) in favor with all 520 precincts reporting. That's a difference of 916 votes.

Washtenaw County voters, especially in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, were voting in favor of the tax with 91,594 [[55.99) yes and 71,994 [[44.01) no.

Wayne County showed 359.244 [[52.7 percent) in favor and 322,447[[47.3 percent) against."

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20161109/NEWS/161109846/regional-transit-tax-goes-down-to-defeat-in-tight-vote

[sirrealone]

I'm a Rochester Hills resident and my wife and I both voted Yes.

I didn't think that they needed to expand the reach of their ad campaign. Every ad I saw was more a 'get out the vote' type ad, where it appealed to groups that probably was going to vote Yes.

But I don't think they even attempted to answer the "What's in it for me?" question that I'm sure many in the outer suburbs were asking. Could the RTA have gotten people down and back to see a game? Could it offer a quick jaunt over to Ann Arbor? Were the buses going to be 'nicer' than the buses we all think of for public transportation? Could this be a good alternative to some of the rising stars like Uber?

The margin was think enough that had they gotten a few people to say "Oh, I never thought of that" I think they could have pulled this off.

[rbdetsport]

They shouold have made people understand the impact transit can have on economic growth and property values. I heard way too many times that "it isn't helping me, so i'm voting no." NO NO NOOOO.. Something this major for the region helps everyone. And the RTA did a bad job of making that case. Hopefully they learn from this and try again in 2018 or 2020.

[Junjie]

Atlanta, Seattle, LA all passed major transit taxes last night. Detroit falls farther behind. What a missed opportunity.

[swingline]

This proposal offers no service whatsoever to the community where I live. My income is totally independent of the local economy, so my "return on investment" will be negative since I'll be spending upwards of $300 per year for services that I won't be able to use. There's also no mention anywhere of a proposed service link from Metro from my city.

As I mentioned, I'm in favor of increased mass transit in the metro area. What I'm not in favor of is a vague plan that benefits some communities, but totally skips over others while charging them more.

Your "return on investment" on your measly $300/yr would have consisted at a minimum of the appreciation of your homestead attributable to the regional economic benefits generated by the creation of an actual working regional mass transit system. That appreciation would have far exceeded $300/yr. It's not a coincidence that regions with mass transit have median home values far in excess of home values in SE Michigan. And that's not just for homes right around the corner from the transit stop. Folks who never use the system get the benefit too.

The "there's nothing in it for me because I'll never ride it" crowd carried the day though. Another example of folks voting against their economic interest. [[A lot of that going around yesterday given what happened at the top of the ticket.) Thankfully, given that childless households far outnumber households with kids, the selfish nothing in it for me crowd usually doesn't carry the day when it comes to school millages.

[Johnnny5]

Your "return on investment" on your measly $300/yr would have consisted at a minimum of the appreciation of your homestead attributable to the regional economic benefits generated by the creation of an actual working regional mass transit system. That appreciation would have far exceeded $300/yr. It's not a coincidence that regions with mass transit have median home values far in excess of home values in SE Michigan. And that's not just for homes right around the corner from the transit stop. Folks who never use the system get the benefit too.

Well thank you for explaining it to me. In that rosy scenario I would get to look forward to the "Appreciation of my homestead" resulting in a further increase in property taxes and still would not see any additional services. What a deal!

[dtowncitylover]

Well thank you for explaining it to me. In that rosy scenario I would get to look forward to the "Appreciation of my homestead" resulting in a further increase in property taxes and still would not see any additional services. What a deal!

Well, you wouldn't have seen an renewal and/or increase for at least 20 years from the RTA and in the that time, who knows if new routes would have been added to SMART into the outcounty. The Master Plan was just a basic framework, it wasn't a finality of how much further we could do. But thank you for your shortsightedness.

Now LA, Seattle, and Atlanta get to build transit systems while we are left in the lurch.

[dtowncitylover]

I find a silver lining in that in two years, when they will hopefully come back, they would have time to get the word out and since it's mostly state and local elections more exposure and education would happen for the initiative.

The Master Plan is fine but the YES Campaign needs to broader its appeal other than seniors and disabled people. It needs to say "economic investment", "social mobility for everyone", "better attractiveness for the region". It really didn't say that the past two months. It needs to combat the no side hard, not just be happy with thinking people are gonna feel sorry for seniors and disabled people.

[Hypestyles]

It was a nice idea while it lasted. The RTA might as well be dismantled by January. People are too reactionary and they will not vote to affirm this in another two years or 20. Let it go. SMART will also probably shrink services in the next 5 years. More reason for me to escape this region as soon as possible.
message: Buy a car and insurance, if you have morals and are civilized, regardless of cost.

[ABetterDetroit]

It's the tax vehicle, NOT the capital improvements to transportation.

Stop the stupidity and LEARN in this region for a change.

http://t4america.org/maps-tools/stat...ng/2016-votes/

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I would favor an increase in the statewide sales tax by .5% to fund both the RTA and the other transit systems in Michigan's other cities. I am predisposed to disliking property-based tax systems anyways. I am not predicting it would happen, but the legislature upping the sales tax just a bit would be great. For roads and bridges, I would hike the gas tax one penny per gallon of fuel every six months for ten years, then hold it at that level thereafter. I would divvy up that money 50% to state highways, 35% to counties, and 15% to cities and towns, based on population. Those 2 ideas would adequately fund our transportation needs without being a big burden on taxpayers.

[Junjie]

Having thought about this a little more, I'm actually feeling ok. The Detroit region - perhaps the most anti-transit major metro region in the country - just had 49.5% of voters support a tax to build a regional transit system in the same year that a Republican won the state for the first time in over two decades. With anyone else on the Dem ticket, this would have passed. On this issue at least, things are improving. People are changing how they think about the city and about transportation.

We should have started 30 years ago, of course. We should have started this year. But I'm very confident now that this can get done. Let's see the RTA regroup, improve the plan, improve their campaign, and bring it back to voters in 2018.

[swingline]

Well thank you for explaining it to me. In that rosy scenario I would get to look forward to the "Appreciation of my homestead" resulting in a further increase in property taxes and still would not see any additional services. What a deal!

So you would prefer that your home's value go down so that you can pay lower taxes? That's a hell of a plan for wealth accumulation.

The Johnny5's of the region may have defeated this important vote but the sharpest blame should be directed at the RTA leadership and the media and communications consultants they hired to promote the millage. The Johnny5 rationale for opposition to any transit that doesn't directly serve them personally was not some kind of under the surface voter viewpoint. That uninformed position is blatantly out in the open in SE Michigan and has held up transit progress in this region for decades. It previously held up progress in other regions as well. But cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Salt Lake City, Denver, Minneapolis, Charlotte and Portland overcame this ignorance with fact-based creative and informative ballot campaigns that persuaded their voters of the benefits of transit. The RTA and pro-transit people from the top down failed to account for and address the Johnny5 voter and it was a fatal mistake.

As just one example, the common playbook for transit ballot campaigns in other cities involves discussing the benefits of transit oriented development which adds jobs and tax revenue to the region. Billions of dollars of such development have spun off from their transit systems. Nothing like that ever got into any media campaign promoted by the pro-transit groups here. Instead, all we got was a few ads telling us that we needed to vote for the millage so we could help poor car-less people get to their jobs. Of course, that is a good reason to vote for the millage as well but it was never going to win the majority. And certainly it was never going to win with the Trumped up Johnny5 voter living in Lake Orion, Walled Lake or Shelby Township.

This was obvious stuff missed by the pathetic RTA media campaign. We had the wrong people running the show and got a completely ineffective media campaign as a result. Our region is no different in its makeup [[either density-wise or voter-wise) than other regions that have recently voted for and built new mass transit systems. All of these regions are enjoying steady economic growth to which transit is in no small part contributing. Yet we continue to banish ourselves to last place in transit usage and transit dollars spent per person. President Trump would call us losers.

Oh well. Johnny5 has opened my eyes. I'm going to let my house go to hell. Persuade the assessor to lower my taxes. And then I can retire early.

[ndavies]

The lack of transit is not killing the city of Detroit. The obnoxiously high tax rates are. The 65 mills for non homestead property in Detroit is outrageous. Adding another 1.5 for transit and 2 more for schools will only make it worse.

The only place this millage passed was in the city of Detroit and Washtenaw county. Even the Wayne county suburbs voted it down. Maybe the suburbs understand you can't rebuild a city with a millage rate over 65 for homeowners and 80 for businesses.

Unfortunately the school tax passed. I want my 2% back from the sales tax, if we're going to return to raising property taxes for schools. Wasn't that the deal, we were supposed to trade sales tax for property taxes on schools when prop A was passed so many years ago. Why is the property tax going up for schools when Prop A was supposed to stop that?

[masterblaster]

Well thank you for explaining it to me. In that rosy scenario I would get to look forward to the "Appreciation of my homestead" resulting in a further increase in property taxes and still would not see any additional services. What a deal!

It's just not economically and logistically feasible to provide regular bus service to every single exurban community in the tri-county area.

Maybe on a daily basis you wouldn't use the regional transit, but what if you wanted to go to a pro sports event downtown and escape the traffic congestion and excessive parking fees downtown? You could park in downtown Pontiac and take the Rapid Bus downtown!

What if you wanted to go check out downtown Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti for a day without putting 90+ miles on your car - you could take the Woodward Rapid Bus to the New Center, and take the commuter train.

What if you needed to get to the Airport to go on a weeklong trip, and wanted to avoid paying the $13/day parking fees in the Big Blue lot? Take the Woodward Rapid Bus downtown and transfer to the Michigan Avenue Rapid Bus, which would take you to the airport.

[swingline]

The Free Press editorial board accurately sums it up:

Every other major metro area has at least a basic, functioning transit system, even around cities that have fewer natural assets and advantages than Detroit. The traffic that snarls our highways, the billions we spend trying to take care of and expand roads, the absurd inability to catch a train or a bus to the ballgame or a concert or a restaurant — it makes us a backwater. It holds us back from growth.At the end of the day, we fear that voters in metro Detroit just don't believe they and their neighbors deserve better. After nearly 50 years of trying, they're more captive to anti-tax provincialism than they are dedicated to moving forward, together. It's not just sad; it's worthy of the ridicule and pity visitors often express when they land at Metro Airport and can't even find public transportation to any of the region's population centers.

http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/e...-eco/93547790/

We are indeed "worthy of the ridicule and pity" of visitors from the world's modern and growing cities.

[Johnnny5]

It's just not economically and logistically feasible to provide regular bus service to every single exurban community in the tri-county area.

I understand that, but you have to offer a community something in return when asking for a fairly large increase in their property taxes.

Maybe on a daily basis you wouldn't use the regional transit, but what if you wanted to go to a pro sports event downtown and escape the traffic congestion and excessive parking fees downtown? You could park in downtown Pontiac and take the Rapid Bus downtown!

What if you wanted to go check out downtown Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti for a day without putting 90+ miles on your car - you could take the Woodward Rapid Bus to the New Center, and take the commuter train.

What if you needed to get to the Airport to go on a weeklong trip, and wanted to avoid paying the $13/day parking fees in the Big Blue lot? Take the Woodward Rapid Bus downtown and transfer to the Michigan Avenue Rapid Bus, which would take you to the airport.

I live in Milford. Looking at the RTA masterplan you'll see that there were no planned services whatsoever in this area of the county. None of the above scenarios would apply to Milford residents, but due to the higher home values they would be paying 7-8x more towards the RTA than the average resident of Detroit.

[Russix]

If we had built this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2wh3rXaMLM it would have passed.

Hey look, the CoD built something that makes commuting downtown viable, lets expand it. Not, hey lets drive downtown and ride people mover I and II.

[Junjie]

I understand that, but you have to offer a community something in return when asking for a fairly large increase in their property taxes.

The benefit is an economically healthier, more attractive metro region with better prospects for growth and economic mobility. I know that sounds nebulous but it's the truth. It never ceases to amaze me that people who live in the Detroit area, which is viewed worldwide as one of the most shocking human disasters in the developed world, can look around and think, "Yes, the development strategy we have chosen for the past six decades should be continued without change."

I live in Milford. Looking at the RTA masterplan you'll see that there were no planned services whatsoever in this area of the county. None of the above scenarios would apply to Milford residents, but due to the higher home values they would be paying 7-8x more towards the RTA than the average resident of Detroit.

You have chosen to live someplace that by definition cannot be effectively served by transit. People who choose to live downtown and minimize their driving get taxed for roads to every subdevelopment, but they'll never use them. Same thing for you here, except that the RTA's plan would be a huge benefit to the region, whereas roads to far-flung developments are almost a pure drain.

[Bham1982]

You have chosen to live someplace that by definition cannot be effectively served by transit. People who choose to live downtown and minimize their driving get taxed for roads to every subdevelopment, but they'll never use them. Same thing for you here, except that the RTA's plan would be a huge benefit to the region, whereas roads to far-flung developments are almost a pure drain.

New roads in places like Milford are almost always paid for through local user fees, usually for homeowners in new subdivisions. It's not really analagous to asking people in Milford to pay for buses in Detroit.

Would there be a way to pass this at a municipality level? Places like Milford probably don't make sense in terms of regional transit. Maybe draw narrower boundaries, and only ask voters within those boundaries? I think, if workable, it's a reasonable compromise.

[GMan]

The benefit is an economically healthier, more attractive metro region with better prospects for growth and economic mobility. .........


You have chosen to live someplace that by definition cannot be effectively served by transit. People who choose to live downtown and minimize their driving get taxed for roads to every subdevelopment, but they'll never use them. Same thing for you here, except that the RTA's plan would be a huge benefit to the region, whereas roads to far-flung developments are almost a pure drain.

I think you just proved his point. Asking the outlying areas to subsidize the metro region with a 20 year tax for a bureaucracy with a "vision" of transit is not a good workable plan.

Yes a vibrant metro area is desirable but hitting outlying areas with a tax on their more expensive homes and then not even throwing them a bone like an express bus to this new "Vibrant Metro Area" that you are hoping to create is project doomed to fail.

[dtowncitylover]

New roads in places like Milford are almost always paid for through local user fees, usually for homeowners in new subdivisions. It's not really analagous to asking people in Milford to pay for buses in Detroit.

Would there be a way to pass this at a municipality level? Places like Milford probably don't make sense in terms of regional transit. Maybe draw narrower boundaries, and only ask voters within those boundaries? I think, if workable, it's a reasonable compromise.

But the opt-out is what makes SMART inefficient already! We can't have everyone picking and choosing what infrastructure they want to give towards. REGIONAL transit helps the REGION not one particular community. As well, the 85% clause was to make sure 85% of funds raised in the county would stay in the county. So what 15% of funds may or may not leave? God forbid we should help other residents out. I'm a metro Detroiter, not an Oakland Countier.

I'm not sure why people thought they weren't going to be served, either. The Master Plan was for routes they deemed important NOW. No one said Milford or Richmond or hell Manchester couldn't have service in the future. The Plan was for improving what was currently underserved and extending it some. It wasn't a final thing, it was a step into greater transit.

There's more to infrastructure than roads. How about the electricity? Water? Gas? We are a rubber band region being stretched and stretched and no plan for when we break.

[GMan]

But the opt-out is what makes SMART inefficient already! We can't have everyone picking and choosing what infrastructure they want to give towards. REGIONAL transit helps the REGION not one particular community. .....

Again I think the problem was the creation of a 20 year tax plan with the transit portion to come at a later date. I think that was a bit over reaching.

[dtowncitylover]

Again I think the problem was the creation of a 20 year tax plan with the transit portion to come at a later date. I think that was a bit over reaching.

How the hell is that overreaching? Do you think transit systems take a day to create or something? The BRT system wasn't going to be completed until when into the 2020s. This isn't the zoo or the DIA, it's huge network that needed time to be implemented!

[jt1]

This proposal offers no service whatsoever to the community where I live. My income is totally independent of the local economy, so my "return on investment" will be negative since I'll be spending upwards of $300 per year for services that I won't be able to use. There's also no mention anywhere of a proposed service link from Metro from my city.

As I mentioned, I'm in favor of increased mass transit in the metro area. What I'm not in favor of is a vague plan that benefits some communities, but totally skips over others while charging them more.

That is a very long winded way of saying, "I only care about myself, the greater good [[especially those in need) can fuck off."

Good for you and your little selfish community.

I also see that you live in Milford: i assume you are fine with those of us in Detroit and inner rings paying for HCMA so you can have a nice park down the street. Please start campaigning to end that tax since it doesn't benefit us [[unless you are a complete hypocrite)