The state’s two largest mass transit programs are getting some help from the Oregon House.
TriMet and Lane County Transit will get some additional money from an increase in payroll taxes in the areas they serve. The tax will increase from .7% to .8%. The Senate has already approved the bill, so it now goes to Governor Kulongoski for his signature.
Raising the tax was one of the priorities for several environmental groups in Oregon, who want to increase spending on mass transit. On the Oregon League of Conservation Voters blog, the group’s Evan Manvel writes, “Oregonians desperately need transportation choices, especially those one million Oregonians who are too young, old, poor or infirm to drive. This bill helps provide those choices.”
What needs to happen is for the State to subsidize ticket prices. Bus and Max prices should be very low; that is the only way to get more ridership. But the truth is that governments don’t want more ridership, because it would overwhelm the systems and force them to spend more money on transit. So governments raise ticket prices to control (lower) ridership. Governments talk a big game about wanting more riders, but in reality that’s the last thing they want.