
Please Support Tulsa Transit
The Mayor’s office, City Council, and the Chamber of Commerce are all united from their collective podium on one talking point: that in order for our city to thrive, we must attract and retain young professionals — the next generation of leaders, creatives, skilled laborers, and empires of business. How to do this?
We’ve created a ballpark, a world-class sports and music stadium, a thriving arts district, built more living spaces and hotels downtown, we’ve built partnerships and invested in a few great entrepreneurial programs, created a wonderful greenspace and a nationally-recognized food truck community, and we voted in November to create a bus rapid transit program & invest in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. In dozens of public discussions throughout the city last year, more than 200 people spoke: nearly all of them in favor of bike, pedestrian, and transit options. The public input in favor of transportation choice makes sense. Thirty percent of the population — whether low-income, young, elderly, or disabled — do not drive. There’s also a growing trend of choice ridership. Nineteen percent, or almost one out of every five young professionals since 2007 have not applied for a driver’s license. That number continues to grow, post-recession. It means that younger generations want transportation options other than cars.
According to Tulsa Transit, 55% of those who ride the bus, do so to commute to work. That’s roughly 2300 people on a daily basis. Cutting transit spending by 12% would mean the loss of approximately 300 jobs. This is far more than the 215 which are proposed to be cut by the Mayor’s new budget. TulsaNow estimates the financial cost to the city of Tulsa of these jobs cuts to be $165K per year. How can we celebrate the creation of 1,000 new jobs at Macy’s Distribution Center when we cut 300 of them elsewhere? How can we claim fiscal conservancy when we save $700K and lose almost $200K of income in the process?
TulsaNow, Transit Matters, the Center for Individuals with Physical Challenges, and other like-minded organizations collected 2,600 petition signatures in support of keep the budget for Tulsa Transit intact. The number is equivalent to one out of every five people who voted in the last City Council election. Tulsa citizens have spoken, and they will speak again at the polls when they are choosing their next city leaders.
A strong city responds to demographic changes. Should you need guidance as to what action to take, you have no further to look than the Transportation Advisory Board’s own annual recommendations, which have remained relatively unchanged since 2010. These are aging demands, and Tulsa is falling behind. Tulsa spends less than half on transit ($29 per capita) compared with 20 surveyed cities of our size.
We cannot cut our way to prosperity. We need to increase the budget for Tulsa Transit. At the very least, we need to keep budget levels at the same level, not cut them.
Originally published at tulsanow.org.
