This fall, 2011, Durham County voters will be asked to vote on two tax proposals: a transit tax and a school tax. The proposed transit tax is a nominal increase of .05%; this means a 25% increase in the Durham County tax rate. The proposed school tax increase is nominally .025%, translating into an additional 12.5% increase in the Durham County sales tax. Thus, the two proposals combined are asking the Durham voters to approve a combined 37.5% increase in the county sales tax. In this section we examine the transit tax.
The new transit tax is estimated initially to raise $17.3 million dollars per year. Currently the county budgets about $12,500 per year for transportation; these funds go to RDU. The County’s annual transportation budget is therefore expected to rise by an amusing 130,000%. To make a more reasonable comparison, we note that the city transit budget is approximately $15.5 million dollars per year. Thus the tax implies an increase in the combined city/county transit budget by 110%.
The stated goal of the tax is to fund the creation of a light rail system for Durham County and to increase bus service in Durham County from the current 177,000 hours per year to 254,000 hours per year. A brief synopsis of the proposal is contained in the Durham Transit Plan. A more detailed proposal is contained in the Durham Investment Plan.
The light rail plan calls for trains linking Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh. Unfortunately for supporters, the Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in early June against putting a half-cent sales tax on the November ballot to fund their portion of the transportation plan. The Wake County Commissioners also refused to place the half-cent sales tax referendum on its ballot this year. Only the Durham County Commissioners have voted in favor of the half-cent sales tax. The Durham Commissioners have said that they would not begin collecting the tax until Wake and Orange counties hold public votes on the same issue (likely in 2012), but this decision does not appear to be binding; it can be undone by a subsequent vote.
The following is a rough budget for the plan.
Rail Capital: $1.7 billion
Rail Operations: $283 million
Bus Capital: $47 million
Bus Operations: $151 million
Debt: $136 million
The plan assumes that the NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT) will provide a $465 million dollar subsidy for the project and that the federal government will provide an additional $926 million dollar handout.
Opponents argue that
1. Light rail is not a cost effective mode of mass transit outside of dense urban areas. It is
big city solution, not applicable to areas like Triangle. Moreover, ridership estimates are always overly optimistic. Bus transit ridership now is low. There is no reason to believe that
a different form of mass transit will attract a larger ridership.
2. Rail always costs much more than initial estimates. We don’t have any idea of the true cost of the system. Estimates are always much lower than actual costs. The region will be saddled with huge debt for building the system followed by huge operating deficits.
3. The high cost of rail typically drains money from more flexible forms of
public transit such as buses, which serve more parts of our community.
Flexible, lower cost buses across many routes are preferable. They can be
adjusted easily to meet future needs and development. Rail can never adjust.
4. The plan assumes large federal government subsidies at a time when the Congress is returning to some small measure of fiscal responsibility. What happens if these funds disappear?
Supporters of the plan concede that while Durham is currently too sparsely populated to support light rail, if we build the rail, high density development will grow along the rail corridor. In fact, one aim of the project is to try to direct future Durham County growth along the rail corridor, preserving open spaces elsewhere in the county.
Opponents argue that it is reckless and irresponsible to spend billions of dollars on a gamble that the government can push county residents to abandon their preference for raising their families in green neighborhoods and push them to live in high rises proximate to a rail corridor which the planners hope might run near the sites of future jobs.
