Many advocates worry about the fate of federal funding for sustainable transportation in light of Tuesday's federal election results, but voters across America approved a stunning $24.9 billion for transit improvements across 18 separate ballot measures.
In the end, it was a banner year in which 46 out of 53 initiatives passed overall — a nearly 87 percent win rate that sends a strong message that the American people want more choices about how they get around even if they didn't always vote for transit-friendly politicians elsewhere on the ballot, advocates said.
"No matter if you live in a red state, a blue state, a purple state or anything in between ... people support transit," said Jessica Grennan, executive director of the American Public Transportation Association's Center for Transportation Excellence. "No other issue is this popular."
Grennan credits the success of this year's wins to well-run campaigns and "a focus on bipartisanship and the importance of equal access to schools, doctors and jobs — and public transit is a way to do that." That bipartisan appeal, she said, helped advocates "cut through the noise" of a contentious election year where campaign organizers faced fierce competition for expensive airtime and voters' attention.
Here are a few of the most exciting measures that passed according to APTA, plus a few of the newly approved initiatives aimed at increasing active transportation, as highlighted by our friends at PeopleForBikes.
- Maricopa County, Ariz. — home to Phoenix — passed a sales tax measure that will fund nearly $3.1 million in public transportation and light rail improvements.
- After voters approved an exception to state's notorious "'Taxpayer Bill of Rights," transit agencies in Denver and Aurora will be able to keep between $50 million to $60 million every year that they would have been required to refund to the public.
- Mountain Village, Colo., home to skiing hot spot Telluride, passed $246 million in sales, property and lodging tax increases to fund a new gondola as well as improving bus transit services.
- The Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge approved $75 million for sidewalks, safe crossings, bike lanes, and improved drainage.
- The Atlanta suburb of Woodstock passed a $24 million bond for parks and recreation, including bike lane and trail maintenance.
- Albuquerque passed a $62.3 million bond to build safer streets and intersections, lower neighborhood speeds, and construct bike lanes and trails.
- Columbus, Ohio approved a sales tax initiative that will help fund bus rapid transit lines, which will bring in an expected $6.2 billion by 2050.
- Richland County, S.C. is home to the state capital of Columbia, and it's estimated to bring in $990 million for public transit after voters approved a 25-year, 1-percent sales tax on Tuesday.
- Elsewhere in South Carolina, Horry County (home of Myrtle Beach) approved a transit-funding sales tax of its own that will continue to be collected until the fund hits $6.3 billion or 25 years have passed, whichever comes first.
- Nashville okayed yet another sales tax that will raise an estimated $2.2 billion and allow the city to undertake an "accelerated expansion of Nashville's bus system, build out dozens of miles of sidewalks and bike lanes and upgrade nearly 600 traffic signals to better handle vehicle congestion," APTA said.
- Arlington County, Va. passed a bond measure that will generate $44.3 million for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and other projects benefiting non-automotive modes.
- Nearby Fairfax County, Va., meanwhile, approved $180 million to finance their share of those WMATA projects, including major capital expenditures.
- Seattle passed a $1.55 billion transportation levy that will build sidewalks, pave streets, fix bridges, and fill the gaps in the region's transit connections.
- In Bellingham, Wash., voters okayed an $86 million levy that will help build out a greenway network consistent with the city's sustainability goals.
Sadly, it wasn't all good news for transportation choice this election cycle. Here's some of the bad news from Tuesday:
- In San Diego, voters rejected a sales tax increase that would have raised $350 million a year for transit, which some analysts called the biggest investment in the region's history.
- Cobb and Gwinnett Counties in suburban Atlanta both rejected a sales tax measure that would have funded a raft of local transit measures in a region that's tried and failed to expand mobility options for years.
- Voters in Charleston County, S.C. said no to a sales tax that would have brought in $4.9 billion for mass transit systems and green space — though $2.3 billion of that would have gone to the extension of an expressway, so this one's a mixed bag.
- And in the Western Idaho county of Kootenai (home to Coeur d'Alene), voters declined a bond that would have helped link and expand its local trail system.
- San Francisco did vote to increase operations funding for the Muni transit network to the tune of $750 million, sourced from a new business tax on ride-hail companies ... but a second measure nullified that positive result. (Voters in SF did approve a measure that would repurpose part of the Great Highway for people, not cars.)
This article has been up updated with additional information about San Francisco's vote that was not available at the time of publication.
