Editor's note: We have asked representatives on both sides of a number of important initatives to express their views. David Crossley, president of Houston Tomorrow, states his case on the use of tax dollars in the METRO General Mobility Program.

For nearly 35 years, unincorporated Harris County and 15 area cities have taken $2.7 billion from METRO’s transit tax revenues, successfully preventing the creation of a robust, high-capacity transit system in the service area. The program that has prevented the emergence of that system is called the General Mobility Program.

METRO gets a penny in sales tax from every dollar of purchase in the service area, which includes part of unincorporated Harris County, the City of Houston, and 14 other small cities that are part of the METRO system. Beginning in 1978, when METRO was established by the Texas legislature, some of METRO's money was used to repair bus lanes and do other street work related to bus service.

In 1984, the METRO board agreed to allocate $150 million to the 16 “partners” and that became the General Mobility Program, which was approved by voters in 1988, in a sort of blackmail that traded support for a rail transit program for 25% of the tax revenue needed to create the system.

In a 2003 referendum, the voters agreed to revisit that idea before 2014, and that’s why a referendum is being held this year.

By now, the recipients of the funds have become dependent on the money, particularly the City of Houston. Under the arrangements, which are executed as a series of contracts with each of the entities, all but the City of Houston get back far more than 25% of the sales taxes collected in their jurisdictions. The city gets only 20%.

The allocations are spectacularly unfair, and the end result is that the City of Houston has been subsidizing the other 15 GMP recipients for decades.

Now there is a chance to end the program once and for all, but it’s a little convoluted in that a "Yes" vote will continue the diversion for another decade. For reasons that are cloudy and even mysterious, Mayor Parker and the METRO board, the majority of whom are appointed by her, are for continuing the program and opposed to spending that money on transit.

A tale of two stories

There are two stories about why that is. One is simply that the mayor needs the money to balance the massive budget of the ReBuild Houston initiative passed by voters in 2010. What voters didn’t know was that the program relies heavily on the METRO money far into the future. The idea of ending the program in 2014 puts the ReBuild Houston effort in a pickle.

The other story is that if this program is not continued several local power players will go to the legislature to get that body to take METRO apart. The threats, so far, include changing the composition of the board to allow Harris County to control it —which would be fabulously undemocratic — and making the GMP a permanent item, perhaps at a higher percentage. The mayor and most of the METRO board believe the legislature would acquiesce.

While it’s difficult to envision the legislature overturning a vote of the people, it isn’t difficult to imagine them trying. Players on the "Yes" side are trying to make a case that "No" means nothing, that it only ends the GMP for the moment, and leaves it up to the METRO board to simply reinstate it. That would be another instance of a government body going against the expressed will of the people.

So what are the effects of a "Yes" vote? First, it would end rail expansion in the METRO area. METRO’s board has specifically agreed that any additional sales tax it receives under the new GMP program will not be used for rail, period. That means the University line, which is intended to be the east-west backbone of a regional light rail system, would be dead. Its connection to the Uptown/Galleria line would be dead. And all the planned expansions to the suburbs would be dead.

It would be 2025 before Houston could consider doing more rail, and by that time all the money that has already been invested in future rail would be lost, wasted, an amount that exceeds $77 million dol-lars.

The effect of the "No" vote would be to return all transit taxes to Metro to create and support transit service. So the correct pro-transit vote is "No," or, as the ballot is worded, "Against."

In considering whether to end our rail expansion, it’s important to understand that Houston was building the best modern light rail system in the nation. The Main Street line, already in service, has the highest ridership per mile of any modern light rail system and is second only to the 100-year-old Boston Green Line. When the three lines that are under construction right now are in service in 2014, the light rail system will have total ridership significantly greater than the much larger Dallas system at a small fraction of the cost.

That’s because the Dallas strategy was almost purely political, answering the call of suburban partners for lines that stretched out to the region’s sprawling communities. METRO’s strategy is to connect Houston’s big activity intensity areas, which means the big job centers around which many people live. The 2003 referendum specified lines that would connect downtown, the Medical Center, Greenway Plaza, and Uptown/Galleria, creating what would a massive business district with riders throughout the day, not just at peak hours of commuting.

Whereas most U.S. light rail systems try to address only commuting, which largely happens in the morning and the evening and is a minority of trips, METRO was addressing all the trips, all day long. When the phase that includes the University line was completed, Houston would be in the top tier of riderships and would have 65 stations, again putting it in the top tier.

The idea of halting this very smart plan is amazing. It would make Houston the only city in the world trying to advance into the realm of global great cities without a significant fixed guideway transit system. It is a goal that planners do not believe is possible.

In the meantime, as the mayor and others go around telling civic groups how important this funding is to street repairs, people are looking at the streets they’re driving on and wondering what happened to the $2.7 billion that has already been spent on that. Everyone seems to agree that the streets in Houston are in terrible condition and that’s part of what Rebuild Houston is about. But you have to wonder why $2.7 billion —most of which went to the City — appears to have had no effect on street condition.

While the mayor and Harris County have the money and clout to gain partners and perhaps ram this terrible deal down the voters’ throats, it’s not so clear that the voters are ready to swallow. The Kinder Houston Area Survey makes it plain that people in the region want more transit and even that they want it more than they want roads.

While it is plain that the only way to move in the direction of a high quality of life is to expand the transit system, the question is will the voters understand that the way to do that is to vote "No" on the Metro referendum?

Houston Tomorrow, with the Citizens’ Transportation Coalition, is leading the Houston Transit Coalition to ensure that Houston transit ex-pansion programs continue.

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For an opposing view, read this opinion piece by METRO board member Dwight Jeffererson.