urbanSTL

roger wyoming II wrote:Both sides can deploy less-than-accurate or misleading statements on Amendment 7, that's the nature of the game, but this one from CMT annoys me the most so far:

CMT St. Louis ‏@CMT_STL · 19m
Amendment 7 includes more than $800 million in transit and Amtrak projects with matching funds from regional sources. #Amendment7 @STLonAir

even the new wording is deliberately vague. 75% of people who vote on this are not going to realize that "with matching funds from regional sources" means "with funding that we don't yet have, and for which we'll probably have to tax you further".

Has anyone seen any commercials opposing the sales tax?

downtown2007 wrote:Has anyone seen any commercials opposing the sales tax?

I doubt they have enough money for a TV spot.

Ebsy wrote:

downtown2007 wrote:Has anyone seen any commercials opposing the sales tax?

I doubt they have enough money for a TV spot.

I got a flyer in the mail today.

Another anti-seven op ed in the KC Star:

Missouri road tax increase is a study in bad behavior

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-c ... 42460.html

Since the state legislature is so averse to voting for any tax increase, we should acknowledge that and just vote tax increases locally and apply the funds locally instead of statewide.

It's show time. All the work is done, back and forth debates are over and now it's in the hands of the 15-22% of Missourians that will vote tomorrow. I talked about A7 and how it relates to a bigger picture of the state of transportation planning with innova8ion tonight...I won't go into the details but there is more to this then just this sales tax and the project lists, it's a beginning on a big wave and a lot will be surprised, pleasantly with what happens in the next 3-5 years in the transportation planning arena in our state if A7 passes. Should be a close one, hopefully SoState website has the results by this time tomorrow night

It will be interesting to see a if their is even a small uptick in primary voting. I think A7 will have some impacts and will touch a lot of people in different ways. However, tough to get people to vote outside of a presidential election.

At the same time and on a different note. PD ran article a few days ago on the number of local primary sales and bond measures for all the respective fire districts. I think they listed ten different fire districts or at least the vast majority were for fire districts. My favorite comment was the person who question why Wentzville needed a tax measure to pay for fire district expansion when all the new residents and growth should increase tax revenues. Tough to argue against the point.

dbInSouthCity wrote:It's show time. All the work is done, back and forth debates are over and now it's in the hands of the 15-22% of Missourians that will vote tomorrow. I talked about A7 and how it relates to a bigger picture of the state of transportation planning with innova8ion tonight...I won't go into the details but there is more to this then just this sales tax and the project lists, it's a beginning on a big wave and a lot will be surprised, pleasantly with what happens in the next 3-5 years in the transportation planning arena in our state if A7 passes. Should be a close one, hopefully SoState website has the results by this time tomorrow night

Sorry db, but I'm not voting for amendment 7 on the basis that there are super-secret great urbanist things about to happen if we just pull that "Yes" lever. Feel free to tell us what those things are now ahead of the vote if you'd like. You've been trying to sell this thing since you joined the forum. I'd like to share why I'm going to vote no on amendment 7.

I attended Modot's public St. Louis meeting in February 2013, part of the agency's "Missouri On The Move" campaign to raise money for this effort. This was, of course, only after a blue ribbon committee, comprised heavily of labor, highway construction, and highway engineering firms reached the oh-so-surprising conclusion that we should spend more money on highway projects. The meeting was designed to elicit support for the sales tax. The agency went to great effort to frame the questions posed to attendees in a way that would elicit answers that would be supportive of a sales tax. It was rather obvious and heavy-handed and the people attending were too smart to go along with it. Attendees expressed an overwhelming desire to expand transit/bike/ped and keep highway spending at a maintenance level. Interestingly, at the meeting, Modot's documents indicated the current funding level would provide not only for maintenance, but an additional $375 million in expansion per year. Even after the meeting, Modot remained focused on I-70 expansion. Now, here we are, and the proposal on the table is essentially the opposite of what was expressed in that meeting. Lots of highway spending, little (and uncertain) transit spending, turning more of our land area into places people want to pass through, instead of places people want to be. Oh, and we get to give a bit of a subsidy (I know it's small, but still) to our out-state friends for their highways too. I'm sure it will help fill the coffers of the highway lobby so they can be well-resourced when they return looking for more money in another decade.

People have commented that Modot has turned a corner. I don't see any evidence of that. The I-64 project was a pedestrian disaster. At the time, they described the new Kingshighway/64 interchange as pedestrian friendly. I'd hate to see what they consider pedestrian unfriendly. My perception is that Modot has learned to say the right things to get what they want, but in practice is not executing in a way that favors urbanism. Honestly, I'm not sure the city is that much better. Tacking on a 4 foot sidewalk next to a 40+ mph highway does not equal walkability. When the primary guiding principle is move cars faster and make everything else secondary, urbanism loses.

Kansas City and St. Louis have the most highway lane miles per capita. Are we about to spend more of our money on highways? We'll find out soon.

I love easy elections. No on everything.

dredger wrote: At the same time and on a different note. PD ran article a few days ago on the number of local primary sales and bond measures for all the respective fire districts. I think they listed ten different fire districts or at least the vast majority were for fire districts. My favorite comment was the person who question why Wentzville needed a tax measure to pay for fire district expansion when all the new residents and growth should increase tax revenues. Tough to argue against the point.

I saw that too and thought if they can't pay for infrastructure now during their "growth" period where are they going to be in a generation when the development wave has moved on?

Luscombe wrote:
Sorry db, but I'm not voting for amendment 7 on the basis that there are super-secret great urbanist things about to happen if we just pull that "Yes" lever. .

lol, its not a secret, i said i didn't want to go into all the details last night...it was my bedtime its a discussion that can be had with or without A7 passing but A7 passing opens a lot of doors for other modes for money that's not part of A7.

MarkHaversham wrote:I love easy elections. No on everything.

This

dbInSouthCity wrote:

Luscombe wrote:
Sorry db, but I'm not voting for amendment 7 on the basis that there are super-secret great urbanist things about to happen if we just pull that "Yes" lever. .

lol, its not a secret, i said i didn't want to go into all the details last night...it was my bedtime its a discussion that can be had with or without A7 passing but A7 passing opens a lot of doors for other modes for money that's not part of A7.

You indicated previously that federal matching funds for the gas tax only allocates 15.5% to transit. So amendment 7 opens the door to a lot more highway spending with some peanuts for transit.

only? most people (99.8% of the general population) doesn't even know that any of the federal gas tax went to transit at all
Again about $1.488 billion will be generated for this region from A7 sales tax (80/20 split highways/other modes, tho some of the $ in the highway category will be used for other modes as more detailed project scopes are developed; see below), current sales tax for transit in the area will generate about $2.5billion in this region over the life of A7, metro isn't underfunded, mismanaged? maybe, underfunded? no

Sure i guess you can call the $200million A7 project on I-70 as "highway spending" but reality is, 70 in our region is currently being studied as a total transportation corridor with metro, grg ect involved and the end product will be a multimodal approach to solve the current shortcomings of 70 from St.Charles to the new river bridge.

Vote No on 7

roger wyoming II wrote:

MarkHaversham wrote:I love easy elections. No on everything.

Not sure about that last one on privacy but the rest are an easy no.

My take is that if there are existing protections in place (however ineffective they may be), it does more harm than good to add redundancies.

I've wrestled back and forth, but I feel the more patriotic choice is to abstain from voting. I mean, why support a system that gives us false or stupid issues/choices to vote on? And if voting on an office, you're really voting for the special interests that buy them off.

I don't really mind if the Koch brothers or their puppets get elected as President and gain a majority in Congress. It would only prove a point.

I respect you opinion, but I'd counter it by saying on some level you have to participate in reality. A low voter turnout hasn't and won't change the system. It only skews the results.

Participate by voting, IMO. Our system isn't totally broken, it's simply fallen into some big flaws. They can be fixed, but I think we have to vote to do so.

But to each their own. Respecting differing views is what democracy is (or should be) about.

jstriebel wrote:I respect you opinion, but I'd counter it by saying on some level you have to participate in reality. A low voter turnout hasn't and won't change the system. It only skews the results.

I just don't care to vote on ridiculous or redundant issues meant to cater to special interests.

jstriebel wrote:Participate by voting, IMO. Our system isn't totally broken, it's simply fallen into some big flaws. They can be fixed, but I think we have to vote to do so.

But to each their own. Respecting differing views is what democracy is (or should be) about.

That argument might sway me if we actually lived in a democracy. But we don't: "America is an oligarchy, not a democracy or republic, university study finds"

If there were more idealists like me, the pretty big flaws that cripple our democracy might be fixed.

Anyway, I'm probably off-topic here. Consider myself warned.

innov8ion wrote: I've wrestled back and forth, but I feel the more patriotic choice is to abstain from voting. I mean, why support a system that gives us false or stupid issues/choices to vote on? And if voting on an office, you're really voting for the special interests that buy them off.

You should at least show up and submit a blank ballot, if you're protesting. Not showing up at all just indicates that you're lazy and unworthy of consideration in the eyes of pols.

MarkHaversham wrote:

innov8ion wrote: I've wrestled back and forth, but I feel the more patriotic choice is to abstain from voting. I mean, why support a system that gives us false or stupid issues/choices to vote on? And if voting on an office, you're really voting for the special interests that buy them off.

You should at least show up and submit a blank ballot, if you're protesting. Not showing up at all just indicates that you're lazy and unworthy of consideration in the eyes of pols.

That's pretty novel. Are there metrics that indicate such things?

More on topic, I hear from an insider at MODOT that Amendment #7 is likely to pass.

Secretary of State office is predicating 10% turnout...yikes tho that does bode well for A7.