It just so happens I was sitting in the conference room on the day the Oakland County Board of Commissioners General Government committee considered authorizing a vote on a county-wide millage to fund SMART, the only mass transit system serving southeastern Michigan.
The vote split 6-6, and I’m not surprised, given that certain local elected officials (not any of ours) complained the millage would create a transfer of wealth from north to south Oakland County that one might call “socialism”.
I suppose it didn’t occur to them that if SMART had more money, perhaps the system might be expanded to provide service farther north. Or that SMART already operates park and ride services available to everybody in the county. Maybe no one north of Pontiac works down here. I don’t know.
What I do know is we’re probably not going to get a vote on a county-wide millage any time soon. But officials in Farmington and Farmington Hills are going to consider opting out of SMART this month.
Some of our local officials apparently don’t see a reason to stay involved with SMART. Their concerns are myriad, and I’m not going to defend SMART’s service or their failure to provide local ridership numbers, which I understand has been a problem.
But let’s be honest, shall we? Everyone knows SMART has been operating at a distinct disadvantage. In Oakland County, 38 of 61 communities have opted out of the service. SMART has to provide service through a fairly tattered patchwork, with not nearly enough resources. Consider this, from a letter by SMART Interim General Manager Steve Brown, published last month in the Detroit Free Press:
Over the past few years, SMART staff has worked to reduce our costs by $7 million, including reducing nonoperational staff, obtaining union concessions, closing facilities, eliminating operational expenses, consolidating and bringing programs in-house, and restructuring routes. SMART’s administrative costs are less than 9% of our operational costs, less than the transit industry average of over 13.5%.
And that’s before anticipated revenue shortfalls over the next two years.
For almost a decade, I have heard local officials grouse about SMART. They feel their concerns aren’t being addressed – or even heard – until it comes time to renew the millage. I can understand their frustration. What I cannot understand is going from those kinds of complaints to “let’s opt out and try to create a system of our own.”
That’s just small thinking. And it’s not healthy thinking for our cities or for our region.
Both Farmington and Farmington Hills are headed into deeply troubled financial waters. Make no mistake, neither has the resources to reinvent the bus service wheel. SMART’s not close to perfect, but its bones have plenty of potential for future growth – growth that will not happen if the service loses our contribution.
The SMART millage we pay does more than just cover direct costs. It also provides leverage for SMART to bring state and federal funds back to our region. Elected officials are always complaining they don’t get enough back from the taxes residents pay at the state and federal level. And now they’re thinking about dumping a means to get some of that money back.
While we see empty buses rattling down Grand River, lots of people throughout our region ride the bus. According to their Web site, SMART serves nearly 13 million people every year, an average of 44,000 per day. I know one of those riders; he catches the bus into the city for work. That’s typical. About 70 percent use the bus to get to work. Another 20 percent rely on it to get to and from school. If two more partners – especially Farmington Hills, one of Oakland County’s largest cities – pull out, millions of our neighbors will be affected.
And don’t think for a second that residents in opt-out communities don’t use the bus. They just don’t pay the millage. As Farmington Hills city manager Steve Brock noted the day of the General Government meeting, people from opt out cities just use the bus stops in other communities. SMART drivers don’t check ID. Frankly, I think that’s a mistake. If SMART stopped providing service to those residents, perhaps their elected officials would be pressed to reconsider.
More well-informed people than I could probably figure out much better solutions to SMART’s problems. That process won’t be as easy as walking away, but I want our elected officials to stay and fight, for one reason. Regional transit is not a dying service. SMART ridership is growing. As the economy worsens, more and more of us will need help getting around town. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but certainly people we know.
This isn’t just about SMART. It’s about supporting our regional community and the millions of people around us who rely on mass transit. I’ve heard this old saw a few times over the past week, and I think it’s more than appropriate here:
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Opting in makes us part of the solution. And that’s where I want my community to be.
–JH-G
Weigh in at either of these public meetings:
Farmington Hills
January 11, 7:30 pm
SW corner of Eleven Mile Rd and Orchard Lake Rd
Farmington
January 18, 7 pm
23600 Liberty Street
