The Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority is one of the nation’s few transit agencies still funded by local property taxes. It’s an inadequate, unreliable, unsustainable, and unfair way to pay for the 3.4 million rides TARTA provides each year.
Property taxes inevitably create an inefficient and impractical opt-out system. That leads to a hodgepodge of local transit service that strands major employers and heath-care centers.
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Established in 1971, TARTA does not serve much of eastern and western Lucas County. Oregon and Springfield Township, whose location and density make them logical candidates for membership, are not part of the regional system.
Funded by a 2.5-mill property tax that generates roughly $13 million a year, TARTA serves Toledo, Sylvania, Sylvania Township, Maumee, Waterville, Ottawa Hills, and Rossford. But property tax revenue fluctuates with property values: Two years ago, TARTA lost more than $1 million in revenue, spokesman Steve Atkinson told The Blade’s editorial page.
Toledo needs a better way to pay for a first-class transit system, whether it consists of conventional buses, rapid transit, or even light rail. Urban regions nationwide that compete with Toledo for talent and capital are expanding transit to slow sprawl, reduce road congestion, improve air quality, and jump-start millions of dollars in transit-oriented development.
Smaller than Toledo, Grand Rapids, Mich., uses a $40 million rapid transit bus line to reduce commute times, raise property values, and give the region an expected 5-to-1 return on investment in retail, housing, and other development.
To build the 9.6-mile Silver Line, which started rolling last year, the Grand Rapids area enacted a six-community property tax increase in 2011. The tax leveraged tens of millions of dollars in state and federal grants.
A transit sales tax may or may not be the best route for Toledo. Either way, the people, politicians, and policy makers of this region can’t decide without more information. It’s time for a thorough, comprehensive, and timely study of how such a tax would work here.
The study should determine how much money an adequate system needs, whether some passenger routes could sustain light rail, and whether to limit the proposed sales tax to Lucas County. TARTA would likely pursue a 0.25-cent sales tax, which would generate as much as $15 million a year in Lucas County.
The Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, the federally designated metropolitan planning organization for Lucas, Wood, and southern Monroe counties, is the logical agency to undertake such a study. TMACOG, however, has been anything but proactive and aggressive. Regional leaders such as Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins would likely have to prompt TMACOG’s board of trustees to act.
Six years ago, TMACOG sponsored a series of forums on regional public transit at the urging of area mayors. No official recommendations emerged from those meetings, TMACOG’s Diane Reamer-Evans told The Blade’s editorial page.
Promoting any regional plan for new funding would require strong support from the business community, and getting it approved would not be easy. But the success of regions such as Denver and Grand Rapids — which persuaded conservative, anti-tax constituencies to enact transit taxes — should give this region a reason to believe. In Denver, the business community paid for the $3.6 million campaign to pass an eight-county, 0.4-cent sales tax increase a decade ago.
The road to a better regional transit system in Toledo, and a better way to pay for it, is long and winding. It’s time to take the first step.
First Published January 17, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
