Poll: Transit Tax Support Declines

Although Orange County’s transportation tax has raised billions of dollars for local road and transit projects, voters are unlikely to extend the 20-year funding measure when it expires, a new Cal State Fullerton poll shows.

Measure M has funded a vast array of projects -- such as rebuilding the infamous El Toro Y and widening the Santa Ana Freeway -- keeping Orange County ahead of neighboring counties on the transportation front.

If Measure M is allowed to expire in 2011, it could also jeopardize plans to build CenterLine, a shortened light rail project that would run through the heart of Orange County.

The poll wasn’t the only bleak news for the rail project, which, county transportation leaders learned Monday, failed to get $40 million in federal funding for final design work.

Officials of the Orange County Transportation Authority said the lack of federal support this year could force a reevaluation of the controversial project by the authority’s new board of directors when it meets for the first time in January.

The Cal State survey, sponsored by the Orange County Business Council, found that 70% of county voters are pleased with the highway, street and rail projects made possible by Measure M, the county’s half-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax, which provides the bulk of OCTA’s funding.

But the poll shows that only 46% of the voters would vote to reauthorize the initiative if asked today. Under a California Supreme Court decision, optional sales taxes like Measure M now require a two-thirds majority to pass.

Even if Measure M were broadened to include public works projects other than transportation, the poll found that just 52% of voters would approve the measure -- still significantly short of two-thirds.

“It’s a real surprise to me,” said Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell, an OCTA board member who is looking into a possible extension of the initiative. “I’ve seen [poll] numbers in the past in the mid- to high 50s. So this is substantially lower.”

For Measure M to have any chance at the ballot box, Campbell and OCTA officials said, the agency will need a strong campaign to show voters exactly what transportation projects they would get and how they would benefit.

“Because of all the money being shifted by the federal and state governments,” Campbell said, Measure M “is Orange County’s way of controlling its own destiny for transportation.”

So far, the measure has raised more than $2.3 billion for highways, local streets and transit projects since it was passed in 1990 on its third try. By 2011, it is expected to have raised $4.2 billion.

Measure M has also financed the expansion of the Metrolink rail service and financed major improvements to the Orange and Costa Mesa freeways.

OCTA would like to use Measure M to fund a large portion of the $1-billion CenterLine project if it is built .

Authority officials say the sales tax represents about 67% of the money in OCTA’s current billion-dollar budget.

The new poll stands in sharp contrast to a 2002 survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, which found that 62% of voters supported an extension of Measure M.

The Cal State Fullerton-Orange County Business Council poll used the same language as the institute’s survey.

“The apparent drop in Orange County support is puzzling in light of the extraordinary success of similar county ballot measures in San Bernardino, Sacramento, San Mateo and Costa Mesa counties,” said Stan Oftelie, the business council’s chief executive officer.

Phillip Gianos, a political science professor at Cal State Fullerton who participated in the poll, said possible explanations for the decline are the public’s resistance to taxes in Orange County and a perception by voters that the measure is no longer necessary because of its past successes.

For the poll, the university’s Center for Public Policy interviewed a random sample of 409 voters from Sept. 30 to Oct. 20. Pollsters said the margin of error is plus or minus 4.94%.

Arthur T. Leahy, OCTA’s chief executive officer, questioned the results, saying the public has not been presented with a list of projects that could be paid for by Measure M.

“Voters in Orange County are conservative,” Leahy said. “They are the show-me county. They expect to know where their money is going before they approve it.”

Leahy also said he was disappointed Monday to learn that Congress refused to include CenterLine in next year’s federal appropriations for transportation projects.

OCTA officials said they had hoped for at least $10 million to $20 million of the $40 million requested. They also said it does not bode well for the authority’s pending application for about $500 million in federal funds to help build the project.

“It isn’t good to not get funded,” Leahy said. “The immediate purpose of the money was for final engineering. In effect, Congress did not make an installment on the project.”

As now planned, CenterLine would run from John Wayne Airport to the Santa Ana train depot, covering about 9.5 miles through Irvine, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana.

Campbell, who opposes CenterLine, said the failure of the project to obtain federal funding for 2005 is not a good sign for the future of light rail in the county.

“I’m glad the feds are disciplining us,” Campbell said.