I don't think the 2012+ bill has completely passed yet [Edit: almost as soon as I wrote that, there was news that the budget had been sent to the governor]. It's out of conference committee, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything considering how the governor may veto it. The bill only officially covers the years 2012 and 2013, as far as I'm aware, but there were also "base appropriations" for 2014 and 2015 listed in the most recent version of this year's bill.
[Edit: I don't know the full history of funding for metropolitan transit operations. Prior to 1996, this graph shows funding for the old Regional Transit Board rather than the Metropolitan Council. The funding structure seems to have been significantly rearranged at that point. Prior to 1996, roughly half of the allocation was specifically being directed to Metro Mobility for door-to-door paratransit operations. After that point, there would occasionally be a ceiling set for Metro Mobility funding. The appropriation in general rose by 50% from 1995 to 1996.
I'm not quite sure when the MVST started being used.]
"this only accounts for a fraction of Twin Cities transit operations funding (less than half). The balance presumably comes from federal and local sources each year, and things like the Motor Vehicle Sales Tax."
ReplyDeleteYou forget farebox revenue, which brought in $97m in 2009.
Use of MVST for transit was approved by voters in 2007, I think. There had been a dedicated funding source in the 90s - I'd always thought that Ventura had nixed that but your chart implies it happened earlier.
I was just trying to weasel out of saying "subsidy", which just confused things further. Oops.
ReplyDeleteThe money has still accounted for less than half of the subsidy from what I can tell, although it may have barely reached half in 2008. Farebox revenues work out to around 32% of operational costs, and the other 68% or so has to come from somewhere else (I'm certain you know that, but in case someone else doesn't know...).
Mn/DOT has a timeline for MVST's history.
I don't quite understand that page, but it looks like it was used briefly in 1990 for some transit funding (some share less than 30%), then started being used again in 2003 (basically 23.75% for both metro and statewide transit). I think it went down slightly from 2004 to 2007. The amendment passed in 2005, but only started to change things in 2008. The allocation has been ramping up from 25.5% to "not less than 40%" for 2012 and beyond.