First-rate bus system won’t happen on its own

05/19/2006

It’s a little more than ironic that as gas prices top $3 a gallon and local residents celebrate Bike-to-Work Week, Flagstaff voters have turned down the chance to ramp up local bus service.

The reason may be that Mountain Line is caught in a Catch-22: Not enough voters ride the bus now to provide majority support to increase taxes; but unless taxes are hiked, there won’t be enough money to add new buses that will attract enough new riders to assure a victory at the polls.

So for now, Mountain Line is stuck in second gear, with buses running no more frequently than every half-hour when experts say the maximum time most riders are prepared to wait at a stop is 15 minutes.

The vote against the bus tax hike Tuesday wasn’t overwhelming, however—the margin was less than 6 percentage points. And it came without any major campaign effort by supporters of the bus system. Had there been a Friends of the Mountain Line PAC ready to hang fliers on door handles or take out ads, we’re pretty sure the results would have been reversed.

One reason is that the tax hike, although nearly a doubling, was still minuscule compared with all the other taxes, fees and miscellaneous levies that voters are asked to pay every day. In this case, the new rate would have been 33 cents on every $100 of taxable sales. Considering that groceries are exempted, even a household with $1,000 in taxable purchases a month would pay the equivalent of one café mocha grande a month—$3.30 --to quadruple ridership on Mountain Line.

Sounds like a campaign slogan to us.

But as pollster Fred Solop told the Daily Sun yesterday, voters need more than slogans if they are going to overcome their natural resistance toward raising taxes. They need to be told how the money will be spent and how it will benefit them. But aside from a brief summary in the city’s voter information pamphlet, neither of those two tests was met during the campaign.

So who is responsible for educating voters about ballot propositions? Mountain Line officials and city staff can make the rounds of civic groups and newspaper offices to explain the proposal, but by law they are prohibited from campaigning on its behalf. That leaves advocacy groups or elected city officials like the Flagstaff City Council, which voted unanimously to place the issue on the ballot.

In Flagstaff, however, most councilmembers traditionally have played a low-key role in campaigns on ballot measures. The assumption is that once they’ve voted, it’s out of their hands and up to the will of the people. Witness last year’s referendum on the Wal-Mart supercenter, which saw very little campaigning by any councilmember, pro or con.

That leaves advocacy groups, but in the case of the bus system, the constituency most affected—students, seniors and low-income workers without cars—is also among the city’s least organized and politically active.

So it’s time that members of other, more established groups step up to the plate in city elections. Churches, civic and neighborhood groups, trade associations and public policy organizations might not be able to campaign directly for a ballot issue because of their non-profit status. But that doesn’t mean their membership can’t organize separate political action committees or campaign actively as individuals.

If, in the case of Mountain Line, this city really wants a first-rate bus system, it will take more than a couple of paragraphs in the voter guide. Flagstaff has a vibrant and diverse array of grassroots interest groups. It’s time they added “voter education and turnout” to their list of activities every two years when the city elections roll around.