Why I’m voting NO on Broward’s tax pitch for transportation | Opinion

Why I’m voting NO on Broward’s tax pitch for transportation | Opinion
The proposed $5 billion light rail line in Broward County’s pitch for a sales tax increase could actually increase congestion, says Robert Poole, a 15-year resident of Plantation, and director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, a national think tank. (GREG WAHL-STEPHENS / AP)

Broward’s November ballot includes a one-cent sales tax increase that is projected to raise $15.6 billion for transportation over the next 30 years. If it passes, residents are more likely to see worse traffic congestion, not less, a presumably unintended consequence.

The 30-year plan’s fatal flaw is to devote up to one-third of the money to building and operating light rail on three major corridors: Broward Blvd, SR 7/US 441, and University Drive. These major arterials serve as vitally important commuter corridors for motorists and transit buses. The premise is that adding light rail will “get people out of their cars.” But the evidence that this will happen is very thin.


For a 2016 Reason Foundation study, I assembled data on 17 U.S. metro areas that have implemented light rail since the 1970s. To see if light rail actually got people out of their cars, I compared federal commuting data for each metro area before and after light rail (with the “after” numbers being for 2013).

Robert Poole
Robert Poole (Courtesy)

After implementing light rail, nine of the 17 actually had a lower transit share of commuting, and 12 of the 17 had a higher share of people driving alone to work. Only two had both an increased transit share and a slightly lower drive-alone share.

Portland is often seen as the poster child for getting people out of their cars by building light rail. But transit’s share of commuting there declined from 7.9 percent to 6.4 percent after light rail — and its share of drive-alone commuting increased from 65.3 percent to 70.7 percent.

The same outcome was seen in eight of the 17 light-rail cities. That is usually because when the bus system is reconfigured to feed the light rail, it becomes less of a grid that people depend on to get from anywhere to anywhere, so more transit users shift to car-pooling or driving alone, if they can afford it. Overall, the average light-rail city saw a slight decline in transit’s commuting share, and a large increase in drive-alone commuting.

But by far the worst impact of light rail would be destroying the viability of Broward Boulevard, University Drive and U.S. 441 as car and bus commuting corridors. The plan calls for taking away one lane each way on these vital arteries. The result would be a massive increase in congestion on those roadways and on parallel streets.

The plan would hurt businesses along each of these roads. More congestion and more stop-and-go driving also means increased emissions, including of CO2, yet another unintended consequence of the new sales tax.

Economists use a term called “opportunity cost” to describe other things that could have been done with money invested unwisely. What if the up to $5 billion budgeted to build and operate three light rail lines were available for other uses?

One well-researched concept is to add traffic signal bypasses at major intersections. By giving drivers and buses a way to avoid up to a 3-minute wait at traffic lights, the effective capacity of a six-lane arterial is increased by more than if it were widened to eight lanes. This is especially important as autonomous vehicles enter the fleet over the next 30 years, since most experts expect the net effect to be even more traffic than has been forecast by transportation planners.

As noted in a Sun Sentinel editorial, the traffic-signal bypass would be an option for drivers willing to pay a modest Sunpass toll to use an underpass (like the Kinney Tunnel) instead of waiting up to three minutes at the traffic light. (Buses would go free.)

This would enable longer-distance commuters to make faster and more reliable trips on the arterial, just as they can on the I-95 express toll lanes. The Sun Sentinel editorial described this as “the best idea we’ve heard for better moving people from east to west” in Broward County. A version of this idea has been accepted as the best alternative for unsnarling gridlocked SW 10th Street between the Turnpike and I-95.

Broward County clearly needs to invest more in its transportation system. Many of the items in the 30-year plan are sensible, including modest roadway improvements, better-timed traffic lights, and the addition of bus rapid transit to the county’s inadequate bus transit system.

But what is offered on the November ballot is a package deal. If voters approve it, we will get light rail — and all its unintended consequences — along with the sensible improvements. That’s why, based on my 30 years of transportation policy research, I will be voting NO on this ballot measure. If offers little hope for reducing Broward’s growing traffic congestion, and a high likelihood of making it worse.