Chief
03-11-2008, 05:53 AM
http://www.oregonlive.com/metronorth/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_north_news/120520411142350.xml&coll=7
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
VANCOUVER -- Just as they did in 1995, voters in Clark County will have a say on a transit line connecting the county with Portland.
Transit supporters hope for a different result from the 2-to-1 drubbing county voters dealt to light rail more than a dozen years ago.
This time, voters likely will be asked in 2009 to approve a sales tax increase to pay for the annual expense of a transit line's operations in Vancouver. The proposed increase would be at least one-tenth of 1 percent, generating $5 million a year within C-Tran's service area. The increase would total 1 cent on a $10 purchase.
The combined state and local sales tax in Vancouver is 8.2 percent.
The voting area would include the district served by C-Tran, the agency that runs the county bus system.
That district includes Vancouver, whose west side would directly benefit from a transit line that would land in downtown and possibly run 40 blocks north.
But the district also includes farther flung, car-dependent towns such as Ridgefield, La Center, Battle Ground and Camas. The immediate benefit for voters in those areas may not be so clear.
The sales tax increase would be essential for C-Tran obtaining as much as $750 million in federal money for capital costs to build the transit line.
"If the sales tax is not approved, we will not have light rail in Vancouver," said Thayer Rorabaugh, the city's transportation director.
-- Allan Brettman
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
VANCOUVER -- Just as they did in 1995, voters in Clark County will have a say on a transit line connecting the county with Portland.
Transit supporters hope for a different result from the 2-to-1 drubbing county voters dealt to light rail more than a dozen years ago.
This time, voters likely will be asked in 2009 to approve a sales tax increase to pay for the annual expense of a transit line's operations in Vancouver. The proposed increase would be at least one-tenth of 1 percent, generating $5 million a year within C-Tran's service area. The increase would total 1 cent on a $10 purchase.
The combined state and local sales tax in Vancouver is 8.2 percent.
The voting area would include the district served by C-Tran, the agency that runs the county bus system.
That district includes Vancouver, whose west side would directly benefit from a transit line that would land in downtown and possibly run 40 blocks north.
But the district also includes farther flung, car-dependent towns such as Ridgefield, La Center, Battle Ground and Camas. The immediate benefit for voters in those areas may not be so clear.
The sales tax increase would be essential for C-Tran obtaining as much as $750 million in federal money for capital costs to build the transit line.
"If the sales tax is not approved, we will not have light rail in Vancouver," said Thayer Rorabaugh, the city's transportation director.
-- Allan Brettman