What legislative challenges does your agency face with elected officials in your area? Charlotte NC

Hampton, Va.

Hampton Roads, located in southeastern Virginia, is home to 1.6 million people and comprised of seven cities including Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach, each with different governing bodies. Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) is the region's sole provider of public transportation with nearly 19 million passenger trips taken per year. With more than 45 fixed routes and 300 buses, HRT provides neighborhood, commuter express and shuttle services. Additionally, HRT will launch Virginia's first light rail system, known as The Tide, in Norfolk in 2010. In order to sustain these services and plan for expansion and maintenance, a steady and predictable source of revenue is necessary.

Like many transit agencies, HRT is funded by a combination of local, state, federal and passenger revenue. On the local level, the seven municipalities that make up Hampton Roads fund 30 percent of HRT's operations through city general funds derived mainly from property taxes. In turn, HRT contracts with each city in the service area separately, and each municipality determines how much service is to be provided in their area. What does this mean for our customers? It means limited service and only for those who need it most. Reliance on subsidies from seven local governments leaves HRT vulnerable to the erratic political and economic climate in each jurisdiction. This makes it difficult for us to create truly regional connections because one city's wants may not necessarily meet those of its neighbor. Further, reliance on this source of local funds does not allow HRT to plan for long-term projects and forces us to compete year-to-year with education, public safety and other important municipal needs. More importantly, HRT is vulnerable to service cuts or reductions, which especially hurts those who are dependent on public transportation. While HRT has had to maximize its resources to provide services to its customers, the biggest threat to public transportation in Hampton Roads is the sustainability of local operating funds.

This fiscal situation presents HRT with its biggest legislative challenge — how to generate a stable local funding source. For years the Transportation District Commission of Hampton Roads, HRT's board, has included the desire for a dedicated funding source as a top item on its legislative agenda. Statewide, however, it has proven difficult to convince the entire regional delegation that transit requires investment in an environment of fiscally conservative constituencies who question the value of public transportation. Further, some believe that increasing the tax burden should only stand to benefit the building and maintaining of roads, pitting mode against mode. HRT continues to make the case that a dedicated funding source that provides a stable source of operating funds would create a system that operates at much higher frequency and service level and become a truly viable method of transportation, and inducing usage by those who typically use cars as a primary method of transportation.

Since 1996, legislators in Hampton Roads have tried to tackle the issue of dedicated funding. There have been several efforts in the Virginia General Assembly to provide such a funding source. House Bill No. 1364 allocated a 2 percent sales tax on fuel region-wide that would help fund public transportation in Hampton Roads. This bill, as well future efforts, failed. Had these measures passed, the source of funds would have provided a more stable, admittedly not totally stable, revenue stream for transit operations.

Locally, it has proven difficult to convince each municipality that it is in the best interest of city governments for HRT to be funded by a source other than property taxes. The current funding structure provides an element of control that officials are not willing to give away easily.

Having dedicated funding would enable HRT to reach all citizens throughout Hampton Roads by providing reliable services where they are needed most or are in highest demand rather than where municipalities are willing to pay for them. While HRT has worked with its elected officials both on a local and state level in past successful bids for dedicated funding, it remains our biggest legislative challenge. We hope that future efforts will prove successful.