Metro calls vote Nov. 6 on road funds

Voters in Houston and much of Harris County will decide this November whether to continue diverting part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's sales tax revenues to local governments for road projects after the Metro board's approval of a ballot item Friday.

Metro leaders acknowledged the ballot proposal would leave in limbo the proposed University light rail line, a key project in a plan voters approved in 2003. Metro has spent millions of dollars planning the line and endured a divisive political battle over its alignment.

For decades, a fourth of Metro's 1 percent sales tax revenues has been diverted to the city, county and 14 small cities in the transit agency's service area for road, bridge, sidewalk and other non-transit projects through the "general mobility" program. The 2003 referendum required voters to renew the program.

The vote on mobility payments - totaling $141 million this year alone - has prompted fights among local governments and interest groups.

Under the ballot item adopted Friday, Metro's share of its overall sales tax revenues would increase from 75 percent today to a projected 81 percent in 2025. In that time, Metro would have collected a projected $400 million that otherwise would have gone to roadwork under the current formula. As demanded by county officials, Metro must spend that cash on buses, bus shelters, and to pay down debt - not for rail.

Another referendum would be called by the end of 2025.

If the ballot item fails - as transit boosters hope - Metro would keep all of its sales tax dollars.

Focus on finances

More Information The referendum on Nov. 6 ballot For or against: The continued dedication of up to 25 percent of Metro's sales and use tax revenues for street improvements and related projects for the period Oct. 1, 2014, through Dec. 31, 2025, as authorized by law and with no increase in the current rate of Metro's sales and use tax. For more information: www.ridemetro.org/AboutUs/Referendum/about.html. Click on "Resources" and then "Metro Resolution Calling Election"

Metro chairman Gilbert Garcia said the ballot item lets the agency focus on its finances and on boosting ridership. He said it's unclear when the University line would be built if the item passes.

"I want that University line, but ultimately I can't get everything I want," Garcia said. "I am going to try to work hard to get what we need, and what we need now is to pay down that debt, get community support and increase ridership."

The University line, as outlined in the 2003 referendum, would run from the Hillcroft Transit Center to the Main Street line's Wheeler Station. Board member Christof Spieler cited the line's importance in explaining his lone "nay" in Friday's 8-1 vote.

"This proposal does not give enough money to transit," Spieler said, adding that politics had prevented better policy. "The reality is we have to operate within a political environment that we're given. Are there some bullies in this political environment? Yes. I'll leave it to the public to judge what happened."

Spieler did not mention County Commissioner Steve Radack, and Garcia praised Radack's help in reaching a compromise, but the implication was clear.

Compromise reached

Metro two weeks ago adopted a proposal, replaced by Friday's action, that would have shifted more mobility money to Houston. Radack then pulled a contract with Metro board member Allen Watson's engineering firm off the county's next agenda, and he represented the county at a private meeting Monday with Houston Mayor Annise Parker and Garcia at which the deal was cut.

Radack said he was pleased with Friday's vote and that the idea that he'd bulldozed anyone was "outrageous."

"These pro-rail organizations see rail as the epitome of a great transportation system, but they fail to realize the incredible size of the Metro service area and don't even begin to understand that rail would take decades and decades and billions and billions of dollars to even begin to provide the mobility that the buses and the roads that are built using this Metro mobility money provide," Radack said.

Jay Blazek Crossley, of pro-transit Houston Tomorrow, said his group will urge a "no" vote.

"Good bus service is crucial. Paying off the debt is an important thing," Crossley said. "But what the Metro board is proposing to the people of Houston is not a gain of $400 million for transit. It's a loss of about $2.1 billion of transit funding over the next decade."

'Hard decision'

Under the proposal, $2.1 billion of the $10 billion Metro is projected to collect in sales taxes from 2015 to 2025 would go to the mobility program.

Houstonians' transportation needs are among Parker's top priorities, said her press secretary.

"The mayor made a hard decision," Jessica Michan declared. "While the original vote would have brought a windfall to Houston, it would not have advanced rail. Today's vote was about strengthening regional transit."

mike.morris@chron.com twitter.com/mmorris011