PONTIAC (WWJ) – Oakland County voters will be deciding this fall whether to approve a tax increase that would fund a countywide public transit plan after the Oakland County Board of Commissioners voted 13-7 on Wednesday in favor of placing the proposal on the Nov. 8 ballot.
Commissioners in favor of the proposal say it would make transit service accessible for everyone in the county, something that’s not currently the case.
If voters approve the measure, the .95-mill proposal would raise an estimated $66 million in the first year to fund the service for the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) bus system. It would also fund the North Oakland and West Oakland transportation authorities and the Older Persons' Commission Transportation.
In addition to keeping and maintaining current public transit service in place across the county, the proposal would “improve and expand transit by creating and extending routes, and expanding rural transit to improve mobility across all of Oakland County,” according to a summary of the proposal from the Oakland County Board of Commissioners.
It would also fund capital improvements and “seize new opportunities to match federal, state, and other funding opportunities as a result of the recently adopted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
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Commissioner Dave Woodward said the plan will help the entire county.
“The need for senior transit matters,” he said during Wednesday’s meeting, which featured three hours of debate. “The need to help workers get to jobs matters. It matters to make certain that people with disabilities and veterans and others without modes of transportation can get to the places they need, and ideally, where they want to go.”
Commissioner Adam Kochenderfer, meanwhile, voted against the proposal, citing the current state of the economy.
“For some communities, this is one of the biggest tax increases in Oakland County history,” Kochenderfer said. “And it’s at a point where we have inflation at the highest rates in 40 years, and how many headwinds within the recession.”
“This is a terrible time for this,” he said.