I spent most of my working career in public transportation.

The TL;DR-Don't let the camel get his nose under the tent......ever.

Here in Polk County and other places there are ballot measures to increase sales taxes for "Public Transportation".

Here are some things most people don't know about the "Public Transportation" industry.

One of the first people employed by a transportation system is a "strategic planner" (and staff). These are the skunk works of an agency. These guys/gals are serious true believers and or don't care what they do as long as they get a pretty good pay check for it. They are looking 20-40-50-100 YEARS down the line at what the "needs" of the system are and......determining/planning how to get from here to there as if their job depended on it. Their first goal is to tap into "the money stream" (ie, the government tit). These days they don't have to think very hard because others have done this before them and have been very successful so they don't have to reinvent the wheel. These guys network with other "properties" all over the country and/or have decided that your little part of the world is where they would like to infect with their wisdom and knowledge.  It starts with the ability to suck revenue from the taxpayer at a rate most people won't feel or see.  This is how the camel gets his head under your tent.

"It's just a 1% sales tax".

Public transit agencies are unelected and unaccountable. They almost always have a board.....that is unelected by the public and also unaccountable to the public.  See any names or positions on your ballot? Yeah, you can quit subsidizing them.....when you quit buying stuff-including gasoline. They become an Administrative Taxing Authority"......a pseudo .gov agency that has taxing authority-kinda like the guys who take your child support money every month.

It's just a .25% sales tax increase

We need to  buy new equipment. Ours is old junk and wearing out and if we don't replace it we will have to cut service. The newer public transportation equipment running around on your streets costs in the neighborhood of $250,000.00 each and climbing. New light rail cars are ten times that amount as are the Sunrail Bombardier cars and Motive Power Locos.

We need another .5% increase because fuel costs keep going up.

We don't want to cancel or reroute services that the community has come to depend upon.  People need to get to their jobs. The equipment that I worked on had 400-2500 gallon tanks. (commuter buses were 400 gallons/Heavy rail loco's were 2500 gallons and our bus fleet was >700 and 20+ Locos)

Offering discounted and or reduced rates to "Partners" such as schools and major employers so they can offer that as an incentive to employees and students creates "buy in" with the community and shores up support for future projects because.....

If we only had another .5% PROPERTY Tax increase we could bring in this light rail system just like the real cities have but this is a serious commitment and we need your support so that we can continue to grow.  This is the critical mass event and when it happens it's Katie bar the door.

Oh, those pesky fuel prices keep going up........along with your fares.  That will be another $2.50 please.

There wasn't a single transit agency in the country that didn't rely on large federal and state subsidies (read: confiscated tax money)to stay in business when I was in the industry 10 years ago. Doubt much has changed. Para transit fleets alone drag down any and all "profitablily".  

What follows a period of growth is transit UNIONS.....cause you know....unions gotta union.  Once a transit union is established (and they will be even in right to work states)  they get to demand pay and benefit (including pension and health care) raises for their underpaid drivers/mechanics/janitors etc.  Management is on board with it because management pay is tied to a percentage of contract worker pay. These raises are something you as the taxpayer are obligated to support with your tax money.....and you didn't get to vote on that did you?  

And the wheels on the bus go round and round......

I know there are good people working for transit agencies.....AND.....lots of people benefit from the ability to move about freely if they don't have a vehicle (think gang bangers and illegal foreign nationals for example) so I'm throwing this information out as a PSA before you go vote understand that if you let the camel's nose under the tent EVER.....that fucker is soon going to be sleeping in your bed.

I did a quick calculation and will pay almost as much in extra sales tax as my

my total property tax bill is.





NO NEW TAXES

I'm not reading all that because I have 1 question...WHAT public transportation?
You mean the POS bus service most places have that don't interconnect counties & don't run 24/7?

Yeah, it's only a POS now because they don't have enough of you or your grandchildren's money to make it any better. If only they could figure out a way to get more money?

When you can't agree on a state wide transit system it will never work.  Throwing $ at it is useless. There needs to be county interconnecting.  There should be no reason why I have to take a bus to a county line & then have to get off & get the bus for the next county when the road is the same road running for miles. For me to get to work using a bus it's 3 buss's & almost 2 hours of travel. To go 15 miles! 25 minutes in a car with traffic.
The problem is the gov lack of infrastructure & incentive to take public transportation..

Already voted against it in polk.

Green Light Pinellas is your Polk county sister. 8% sales tax is what they are promising will get PSTA out of the property tax revenue stream. (BS). This measure would make Pinellas County have the highest sales tax in the state. What is more regressive than a sales tax? And this group wants to raise the sales tax by 12%.
VOTE NO !!

Sales taxes are not regressive. But if they want to raise it that much they should eliminate the


property tax entirely.



And the same should be done for income tax (which is really the regressive tax)





 

Trust me brother......they (strategic planners at transit agencies and other non-governmental agencies) are working night and day as if their jobs depended on it to connect everyone with "public transportation". The more people they can get out of their private autos the better they like it. Agenda 21 anyone?

  You're right.....they hit a vein of gold (someone else's) and they NEVER let go.

Can anyone name a sales tax that has ever been repealed?  I can't think of one.

public transport has always been first and foremost, about forced income redistribution.  There are more 'poor' voters, so these initiative almost always get passed.  On the other hand, it is nice when you maid can get to work, right?
I doubt there is a public transportation program in America that actually runs at a profit.  All are heavily subsidized.

If mass transportation was profitable a private company would be running it.



Where it is profitable they do. namely Orlando around the theme parks.

I'm voting a big NO on it. The best kept secret about Polk Transit is how empty those buses are. The "working poor" sure a hell aren't using them.

They cut my neighborhood out of the route over 10 years ago.