During the last election an issue was added to the ballot for the creation of a Denton County Transportation Authority.  At the time, it was sold as simply being the creation of the authority and no new taxes would come from creating it.  I saw this for the bovine output that it was, and voted against it.  But I was in the minority and it passed.  On September 13th there will be another vote to approve a half-cent sales tax increase to pay for a light rail system between Denton and Carrollton.  This will push Denton’s sales tax rate to the state maximum of 8.25 percent.

The people pushing this boondoggle are operating under the delusion that this will somehow reduce traffic on I-35.  Mass transit is simply not an effective option in most parts of Texas.  This area is too geographically dispersed for it to make money.  Further, Texans (and I think most Americans in general) prize the independence that comes from having their own vehicles.  We go where we want when we want, rather than making ourselves subservient to the whims of the train or bus schedules.  I’ve always been wary of mass transit.  There’s a faint reek of socialism around it, which always puts me on guard.

What got me started on this topic is that the signs have started showing up around town trying to exhort people to vote for the tax.  There was also this article in this morning’s Denton Record-Chronicle.

Former Corinth Mayor Shirley Spellerberg said there’s a long list of reasons she can’t support the authority or an increase in sales taxes for any resident in the county.

“It’s not going to reduce congestion and pollution on the highways because of low ridership,” she said.

“People don’t use the HOV lanes that are there now,” she said. “If people were concerned about congestion, they’d be carpooling in the HOV lanes to get where they want to go. That’s not the way it works in Texas.”

She almost gets there, but she’s still somewhat under the influence of the “cars are evil” Kool-Aid.  If we really wanted to do something about congestion, we’d widen I-35 and get rid of that stupid HOV lane.  But she ultimately comes back around to a couple of salient points.

Opponents also said mass transit really only works in high-density metropolitan areas with centralized business districts.

“I wish they’d listen to the experts on how this hasn’t done what it was supposed to do in other areas,” Ms. Spellerberg said. “Surely someone has enough common sense to say that you don’t pour all the money down a rat hole.”

I’m hoping to be out of Denton soon, but I will be around long enough to vote against this boondoggle before I leave.  But I’m not holding out hope that it’ll be defeated.