ELECTION SHOWS WHO'S WILLING TO PAY FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT - AND WHO'S NOT >>>
Pierce County residents decided to reject Proposition 1, a decision that officials say will result in reduced transit services throughout the county beginning as early as July. Roughly 55 percent of voters chose to reject to measure. Perhaps more disturbing, only 33% percent of Pierce County's registered voters bothered to vote in decision that has big ramifications for our community.
Organizers of the Save Our Buses campaign, which encouraged voters to approve the measure, were disappointed but not shocked by the results.
"It was a tax increase in an anti-tax climate," explains Save Our Buses campaign manager Justin Leighton.
Leighton attributes much of the loss to a self-serving mentality amongst voters who do not use public transit or live in parts of the county that receive limited or no service. "Many voters had a sentiment of ‘if I don't use it, why should I pay for it?" he says.
"You often see a similar sentiment concerning school bonds," he explains. "Not everyone understands the overall benefit of education, and (they) say because they don't have a kid or relative in the system they don't want to pay for it."
The map linked below released by Gecommons.com and Chris Karnes shows the approve/reject trends throughout the county. Tacoma strongly supported the measure, as did the core are of Puyallup, and much of Lakewood. However, the sprawling suburban and rural areas of Pierce County overwhelming rejected it.
"We won Tacoma by 55 percent but lost a lot of other areas by over 60 percent," explains Andrew Austin, Field Director for Transportation Choices Coalition and Steering Committee member of Save Our Busses. "The urban ‘yes' vote wasn't enough to offset the suburban ‘no' vote."
It is now inevitable that services will be cut, and Austin says that the voter map should be considered by the County as they prepare to make tough decisions about where and how they make cuts.
"This map shows who is willing to pay for transit services," he observes. "I hope that using this (map) Pierce Transit will have a serious conversation about shrinking their boundaries to places where they can better service communities and people have indicated that they want it."
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