An Instructive Win for Transit in Spokane

Downtown Spokane is really spectacular, by the way. Photo by William Jacobs vs Pexels.com In many US cities, voters will soon be asked to invest in public transit operations, if only to sustain services as operating costs rise. Depending on your social media circle, you may be hearing a lot of negative voices about transit generally, so it might be useful to look closely at the just-completed battle in a very “purple” place, i.e. a place with plenty of Democrats but also lots of Republicans. What’s interesting is the specific arguments that the opposition made, some of which you can expect when this issue comes up in your community. Spokane, Washington’s transit agency faced the voters on August 4 in a special election in order to renew their 0.2% sales tax. This renewal does not let them expand the total quantity of service very much, but it does ensure that they can maintain the current level of service well into the future. The measure looks like it has passed although the State of…