Cincinnati voters decisively approved a move that would eliminate a portion of the city’s earnings tax should Hamilton County voters approve a sales tax levy next year to fund the region’s Metro bus service.
Roughly 76 percent of voters approved the charter amendment striking the .3 percent of the earnings tax currently devoted to buses. That tax generates about $50 million a year.
For the amendment to go into effect, however, Hamilton County voters will need to approve a .8 percent sales tax increase for a plan called Reinventing Metro the board of the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority approved in September. That may be a tougher ask.
The sales tax would generate about $130 million. Under the plan approved by SORTA’s board, $100 million of that money would go to Reinventing Metro and another $30 million would go to an infrastructure fund for local roads and bridges.
Metro’s plan promises eight new bus routes to and from employment centers around the county; expanded hours and more frequent service on existing routes throughout the week and on weekends; 24-hour service along six major corridors; new transit centers; smaller circulator buses and crosstown routes; and better service for people with disabilities.
SORTA officials say the Reinventing Metro plan could substantively improve bus service if voters approve the sales tax increase. In the meantime, the bus system is in a tough spot.
Metro’s precarious financial situation hasn’t been helped by state funding. Ohio’s state funding for public transit per capita is among the lowest in the country. Some help will likely be coming to Metro’s budget via a 10.5-cent increase in the state’s gas tax, however, which will generate roughly $70 million more for public transit every year. But that money will need to be divvied up among the state’s 60 transit agencies.
Thousands of riders on SORTA’s Metro system face long, convoluted commutes, some riding for more than an hour and taking transfers to get from one Cincinnati neighborhood to another just a few miles away.
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 12, 2019.