Sunday editorial: Metro’s money mess
It was that noted transportation visionary Larry E. Salci who two years ago predicted that the St. Louis region was headed for a “surface transportation crisis.” Little did he know that his own actions would help set the date for the start of that crisis: Jan. 1, 2009.
That’s when Robert J. Baer, who succeeded Mr. Salci as president of the Metro transit agency, says Metro will have impose steep fare increases and/or service cuts and layoffs to bring its $221 million operating budget into balance. Mr. Baer delivered the bad news Friday to Metro’s board of commissioners.
In a meeting Thursday with Post-Dispatch editorial writers, Mr. Baer said Metro was at a “tipping point.” The region must decide whether it wants to invest in a public transportation system that can be the backbone of its economic future or see Metro collapse into a smaller system that carries fewer people at higher cost to fewer places.
Why should this be of concern to those who don’t use public transportation — which describes more than 95 percent of the people in our region, according to Census Bureau estimates?
Because those who do use public transit do a lot of the heavy lifting for those who don’t, Mr. Baer said. They work at malls and retail stores, hospitals and clinics, restaurants and other service industries. The advent of MetroLink trains, which attract riders who wouldn’t ride a bus on a bet, is changing Metro’s ridership profile somewhat. But the system still is heavily geared to those who toil at service jobs.
“We estimate that transit riders in St. Louis earn $2.2 billion in wages annually,” Mr. Baer said. “Even if only half of them have no other means to get to work but transit, that’s still over a billion dollars a year in economic benefit created for a $174 million [taxpayer] investment.”
Metro’s fiscal 2009 budget is $8.3 million out of balance. The bigger financial picture is much worse than that. The projected budget deficit for the following year, when some federal funding sources are scheduled to disappear and pension obligations must be funded, is $45.8 million.
In addition, Metro needs $88 million in local funding to qualify for $403 million in additional federal and state funds to extend, repair and rebuild its system and buy new equipment. And then there’s the high cost of diesel fuel, for which Metro is now paying $3.83 a gallon. On a good day, a diesel bus will get 3.5 miles to the gallon. Metro also has 32 buses that run on compressed natural gas, the price of which likewise has skyrocketed.
Metro’s short-term hopes lie with voters in St. Louis County. County Executive Charlie A. Dooley is expected to recommend that the County Council place a half-cent sales tax issue on the November ballot. It would generate about $80 million a year, half of which would go to Metro’s operating budget and half toward MetroLink expansion in the county. If the measure passes, it would trigger an additional quarter-cent sales tax in St. Louis City. City voters approved the tax in 1997, but it can’t be levied until a similar tax passes in the county.
Mr. Dooley originally had placed the measure on the February ballot but withdrew it after the firestorm that erupted late last year when Metro — then under Mr. Salci’s leadership — lost its $81 million lawsuit against the construction managers on the Cross County MetroLink expansion. The lawsuit cost Metro more than $27 million in legal fees and settlements — and cost Mr. Salci his job.
That money would have come in handy this year, but Metro still would be staring at a $21 million hole in 2010. The simple fact is the transit agency is underfunded. It gets almost nothing from state government — “The state ought to be kicked in the ass for not doing more,” Mr. Baer said — and federal mass transit contributions are shrinking. Farebox revenues pay for only about 21 percent of the costs; most of the rest comes from county and city taxpayers.
County voters can, and should, bail out Metro in the short term this November, but $4-a-gallon gasoline suggests that a far more comprehensive approach to St. Louis’ transportation crisis is needed. It will be as difficult as it is essential, and it’s long overdue.
Sorry, another sob story from Metro. Another way to look at it is the way every family and business must. They are spending more than they have. If we give them the $8 mil, a year later they will want more. If Baer is a good manager, he needs to bring services in line with income and quit whining. Look, everything is going up. Laclede wants “just a few hundred dollars more”. Ameren wants more. Mobil wants more. Schnuck’s wants more. Sorry Baer, we’re tapped out and you want us to forfeit one half percent of our buying power to pay for a mismanaged agency that we can’t use even if we want to. Airlines are raising ticket prices. Gas is up 30%. Why is it unreasonable to ask people who use the system (and they are not all poor) to pay more like everyone else. This town isn’t designed for mass transit. Its designed for cars. We can’t change the design. This system is never going to replace the car. People won’t walk miles to take a bus. Think of what they are seeking people: they want one-half percent of your total buying power. If Barak F. Obama is elected even people making 50k will pay several thousand dollars more in taxes. Property taxes are up big time. Who is going to subsidize us? I’m voting NO on this and NO on Charlie F. Dooley, if he has the guts to run again.
I hope we don’t let our growing and popular metro system go under, because the state of Missouri has a personal vendetta against St. Louis and wont help us fund any progressive projects. If this doesn’t pass maybe we can get some federal money down the line, because the days of cheap gas are over.
Why on earth should the STATE pay for municipal transit? No one else in the state benefits from it. Maybe it would help if more of the people who ride the Metro rail system actually bought tickets.
Many states give healthy funding to there urban core’s public transportation systems “Senior Citizen”, considering that St. Louis is the economic engine of Missouri, Missouri should also make this same investment. Just like the Feds, most progressive states have earmarks to do “progressive” things, like build public transit systems (which sustain neighborhoods and cause billions of dollars in investments and jobs). In my humble opinion the local citizens should just be responsible for the maintenance of the system, which would have only probably taken an original 1/4 cent sales tax. The problem here is that St. Louis is building its own public transportation system and having to maintain it with little to no help from that state. This is a crime! Illinois gave St. Clair County a lot of money to help build there Metrolink extensions, why not the same here? Is it because Missouri has the worst intentions for the the state’s only true urban society? Is it because the outstate interests are against progression and want to keep Missouri a second rate state? I dunno, you decide!
By the way Senior Citizen, NO public transportation system in the country supports itself by ticket sales. Not even the systems in New York and Chicago.
If “St. Louis is the economic engine of Missouri” then Missouri is in pretty sad shape. Senator McCaskill has at least overtly opposed earmarks and the masses voted for her, as instructed by the political leaders of the majority of Bi-State riders.
Ticket sales provide little support for public transit and never have. Still, there are many users who don’t buy tickets, in violation of the law.
^ 25% of the states jobs are in St. Louis County alone. If you take St. Louis and St. Louis County out of Missouri, Missouri economically collapses, much like a car without an engine, hence the term economic engine. Yes, Missouri is in bad shape thanks to the outstate legislatures who continues to put a strangle hold on any kind of progression or economic development, trying to preach morality and enforce any kind of division they can. Whether its Black/White, Rural/Urban, City/County. This state is mess and will continue to slip into obscurity. What do you think the economic engine of Missouri is?
St. Louis County and St. Charles County are far more important “engines” than the City of St. Louis, which extends only to Skinker Boulevard. They depend little on busses and even less on Metro rail as it exists today or will in the foreseeable future. There’s also a megopolis called Kansas City, and other important towns like Rolla, Springfield and Cape Girardeau. The economic engine stretches almost non-stop along all our main highways.
another part in the series: “We Have Never seen a Tax Increase That We Didn’t Like”
The St. Louis Post Dispatch - ‘Supporting taking your money for our projects for as long anyone can remember.’
(Unless it’s to tax newspaper sales which as anyone can tell you is Evil)
It’s tough when the facts get in the way of an opinion Senior Citizen, so might I suggest that you take a look at the facts first.
1. ”St. Louis” is far more than the area bounded by the river to the east and Skinker to the west.
2. As per the Missouri Department of Economic Development’s 2007 report on the State’s economy the St. Louis region comprises 39.6% of the Missouri economy. This percentage is lead by St. Louis County (20.5%), St. Louis City (5.5%), St. Charles County (6%) and the remaining 8 Missouri-side counties (7.6%) that comprise the Metro area. For comparisons sake, Kansas City and its suburbs comprise 20.1% of the Missouri economy. The rest of the state including your vaunted economic capitals such as Rolla and Springfield, make up the remaining 40% of the state’s economic growth (i.e. equal to that produced by the St. Louis metro area itself). With out St. Louis City and County, the state of Missouri would loose 25% of its economic capacity. If that isn’t an economic engine I don’t know what is.
3. If you want to see your tax dollar better spent, vote for the Metro tax increase. Consider the percentage of operating costs covered by Metrolink vs. Metro bus. For Metro Bus, the FY 2008 budget estimated that 19.2% of its operating costs. Comparatively, the FY 2008 budget estimates that Metrolink would cover 32.1% of its costs. With every Metrolink expansion the percentage of operating costs covered by revenue has increased for the light rail system and decreased the overall subsidy needed to fund public transit in St. Louis because riders switch from using the costlier Metro Bus to the less costly Metrolink. With the increases in fuel costs, Metro Bus will continue to become more expensive and require more subsidy.