Public Transportation Bill One Step Closer to Law

The Progressive Pulse, August 4, 2009
Stephen Jackson

A bill granting local governments the option of placing a public transportation sales tax referenda before votes sailed through Senate Finance today.
H148 allows Triad and Triangle counties to place a half cent sales tax referendum on the ballot as Charlotte has on two occasions in the past decade, with the remaining 94 counties granted a quarter cent local option referendum. The bill also allows all counties in North Carolina, providing they operate or have within their boundaries a public transportation system, to levy a $7 local vehicle registration fee to be used for public transportation. The bill also establishes a non-highway equivalent of the Highway Trust Fund to be used to match local (and federal) public transportation monies, as well as provide grants to ports and rail operations. The fund will be (no surprise given the economy) initially un-funded.
After a build-up of some months, the vote on H148 was anti-climatic. After the House easily passed the bill in April, budget difficulties and several false alarms when the bill was pulled from the Senate Finance Committee agenda at the last minute, promoted doubts that the bill would get a hearing on the Senate side this year.
Thanks to the perserverance of the bill sponsors and key advocates, a hearing of a little over 10 minutes with just two questions was all it took for the bill to leap to the Senate Finance hurdle. It now goes before the full Senate possibly as early as tomorrow as legislators struggle to pass the budget and get out of Raleigh before next week.
The vote came as a pleasant surprise to advocates for the bill who spent hours leading up to the vote shoring up support and worrying about possible opposition from influential Senators and opposed to local option sales taxation. That oppoisition did not materialize in the face of a broad, bi-partisan and well-organied coalition of supports and legislators. Those sick of waiting for the bus or train are hoping that the Senate floor vote is as clear cut.