Could the secret to America's mobility future be hidden in the welter of confusing "yes'' and "no'' road-building and transit votes that were cast Nov. 5?
I suspect so. We're in a strange era of paralyzing traffic jams, antitax zealotry and public distrust of officeholders to make correct decisions. Spooked state legislatures are increasingly handing off decisions on big infrastructure investments to the citizenry.
Look at the vote results gathered by the Washington-based Center for Transportation Excellence. Four big statewide transportation measures passed--but three failed. Nine regional transportation proposals passed--but 12 lost. Across the country, a majority of transit-only measures went down to defeat. Yet the very same day, voters in Florida's Miami-Dade County reversed past "no'' votes to approve--not just narrowly but by a thumping 66 percent--a multibillion dollar sales tax hike that will expand the rail system countywide and double the area's 675-bus fleet.
So what's going on? Are voters just contrary and unpredictable? Or are they a tad smarter than we give them credit for?
The smartness theory suggests that voters cast "no'' ballots on transportation tax measures where they don't see compelling need. Add that to today's sweeping distrust of elected leaders and the hurdle for ballot measures is high indeed.
Second, many voters--among them harried commuters and suburban soccer moms--are identifying with a powerful argument of the smart growth movement. They're catching on to the game of developers on the fringes of metro areas. They're starting to see that just adding roads "out there'' simply feeds sprawl and thickens traffic for virtually everyone else.
Third, more voters want public transit, if not for themselves, then to at least get the "other guy'' off the roads. Transportation choice and channeling growth to cities and inner suburbs appeals to them. But they agonize about transit's high costs, especially for new rail systems.
What all this means is that any measure is likely to be doomed unless (1) it's well thought out, with extensive public input, and (2) avoids getting any major group, from taxpayer groups to business to environmentalists, strongly opposed.
Four major transportation measures that failed this month--in Virginia's Washington suburbs and Hampton Roads area, in Fresno, Calif., and statewide in Washington--illustrate the point. Each, advertised as a cure to choking traffic conditions, was pushed hard by local political and business establishments. Each put roads first but included some transit.
But each was costly, stirring up antitax sentiment. And each added to roiling taxpayer suspicions--that the real motive was developers' hunger for roads to feed sprawl, that money was going to new highways at the price of maintaining existing roads and bridges, and that transit was being shortchanged.
Result: When environmental groups came out in opposition, warning of the measures' sprawl-promoting features, they had a ready audience.
But such defeats aren't inevitable, says James Corless, campaign director for the environmentally attuned Surface Transportation Policy Project. He points to Alameda County, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where voters in 1998 turned down a speedily drawn transportation sales tax that opponents said shortchanged public transit.
Immediately afterward, officials sat down with both supporters and opponents, including a coalition of community, environmental and social equity groups. New funding categories were locked in for expanded transit services and bicycle and pedestrian safety. With every camp from road-builders to homeless advocates in favor, the revised road and transit measure sailed to 81.5 percent approval in 2000.
Or take Miami. Three years ago voters crushed a sales-tax add-on for transit, continuing decades of resistance to finishing a half-baked rail system (that even misses the airport and Miami Beach), and to provide bus service into under-served areas.
But this time around, fractured Miami conducted dozens of meetings to get input from community and faith-based groups. Mini-buses to run in currently under-served neighborhoods were added. More train-bus connections were planned. Transit emerged as a lifeline for Miami's massive low-income populations. An independent citizens trust was set up to oversee the spending--a critical protection in a notoriously corruption-plagued community.
With Miami-area traffic an ever-increasing nightmare, business and civic leaders fell in behind the new measure, assuring its overwhelming approval.
Given today's politics, the volume of state and local transportation referendums can only go up. And it's a good thing, says Corless: "Transportation decisions were traditionally made in back rooms, out of public view. These votes provide a little bit of democracy.''
But they also require true compromise--listening to many voices, and identifying solutions that everyone can agree on.
Everyone, that is, save the visceral antitax voters--who can never be mollified. And the suburban fringe developers--for whom sprawl pays.
It's "everyone else,'' from inner city interests to suburbanites, environmentalists to big corporations--the big civic "us,'' in other words--who needs to mobilize for transportation systems that really work.
Neal Peirce's e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com.
(c) 2002, The Washington Post Writers Group
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