Public Transit, Battered by Pandemic, Triumphs at the Ballot Box
Far fewer people are riding buses and trains during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in this month’s election voters still approved more than a dozen proposals to increase spending on public transit.
From California to Virginia, voters supported sales or property tax hikes and bond issues to pay for maintenance, improvements or expansion of mass transit systems that have been hit hard in the last nine months.
“Transit ridership is down in most cities. At the same time, it’s still moving millions of people a day, and a lot of those people are essential workforce—nurses, grocery store workers, people working in warehouses,” said Alex Engel, spokesperson for the National Association of City Transportation Officials. “There’s a lot of recognition that our transit systems need to be there now for them and to make sure we’re maintaining them for the future as well.”
Though President-elect Joe Biden strongly supports public transit, Senate Republicans may favor other funding priorities. This month’s elections show that more local governments will be stepping up to generate their own funding, given the uncertainty about federal help, said Michael Walk, a program manager at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, a university-based transportation research agency.
Read more: https://www.marylandmatters.org/2020/11/27/public-transit-battered-by-pandemic-triumphs-at-the-ballot-box/