In Episode 16 of the Infrastructure Technology Podcast, Brandon Lewis, Jessica Parks and Noah Kolenda take a deep dive into Mass Transit's newly launched transit ballot measure tracker, which is tracking public transit-related ballot measures across the U.S. during the 2026 election cycle. The discussion focuses on several of the most significant measures being considered around the country, including major funding proposals in the San Francisco Bay Area, Charleston County, S.C., and Pima County, Ariz. The hosts examine how these measures could affect transit service, infrastructure investments and long-term financial stability for agencies and discuss how transit ballot measures historically enjoy strong success rates at the ballot box.

Listen time

29:09

Here is a transcript from the episode:

BL: And welcome to the Infrastructure Technology Podcast. I am Brandon Lewis, the associate editor of Mass Transit magazine, and no, I am not Gavin Jenkins. He is currently with Maz at the International Bridge Conference in Maryland. So I am here. Jessica Parks, staff writer for Roads and Bridges is here. Noah Kolenda, associate editor for Mass Transit magazine is here. Guys, how are we doing today?

NK: Doing good. Happy Tuesday. Happy podcast day.

JP: Doing good. Loving this dynamic again. We've returned, the three of us.

BL: We return, and on today's show, we're going to be talking about a special project that Noah has been working on for a long time. It is on our website, masstransitmag.com, and that is the transit ballot measure tracker. So Noah, why don't you start us off today by giving us a little overview on what this transit ballot measure tracker actually is.

NK: Absolutely. So our ballot measure tracker is currently cataloging and tracking the movements of all of the ballot measures regarding transit in the U.S. for the 2026 election cycle. So that's everything from new funding or resuming and extending funding on for more years. Or there are other measures like the ones down in Dallas to see whether or not residents want to stay in transit systems. So it's not all necessarily just straight funding, but a little bit of that administration too. But yeah, we're covering over 20 measures right now across I think almost a dozen states and at all points throughout the year, too. We have several that are already decided, some that are slated for primaries taking place in the summer and some that will get decided on the general election day in November.

BL: And if you go on our website right now, you can see there's not only a huge amount of body copy that Noah has been working on rigorously for months, but there's also a fun interactive map that you can go through and click on the different counties and the different measures and all that and read a little bit about if it's been decided if it's on the ballot, etc. Noah, could you talk a little bit about how you designed the map?

NK: Yeah, absolutely. So this was a pretty fun project to put together because I love a good interactive map. Anything that you can really get a good idea of a situation before you really have to dig in and read all of that body copy. I love that it's super color coded, and you're able to get in and get a quick view of results before you dig into that copy. But really it's nice because it boils down to the county level and so you can really get in there and granularly see what's going to be impacting you as a voter or what's going to be impacting your area if you're a transit agency or transit professional working around there, you can kind of see how these measures may impact your work or your life going forward.

BL: Jess, do you have any thoughts on the making of this transit ballot measure?

JP: Well, first I love how micro skill you got to, it's not just, I know that measures aren't usually figured out by state, but it's not by state. It's like you got a lot going on inside a state, too, so that's really impressive. So I guess that leads into my question, which is how did you go about finding all of these ballot measures and putting all this together like that?

NK: Yeah, thankfully we have a lot of great partners in the industry that are also cataloging a lot of these movements, too. And so there were a lot of different avenues like the Center for Transportation Excellence was doing their own cataloging of ballot measures, which kind of gave me a good idea of where to look. And then Ballotpedia also does a very good job cataloging not just transit ballot measures, but just all ballot measures that can be boiled down to transit, and so I really used those as a jumping off point to then go out and kind of further the reporting, find out more, figure out what's at stake for the region or for the agencies that are seeking these funding boosts or just continuations of funding, and it was really just a kind of combined effort based off of a lot of different resources and a lot of different really talented professionals in the space.

JP: And then I was also thinking too, is there a common thread that you noticed when compiling all of these? Is there something that a lot of agencies in counties and states are kind of tackling right now or would you just say they're all completely different?

NK: I would say there is a pretty common thread here. A lot of these measures are pertaining to funding renewals and that really is kind of paramount for a lot of these systems. Most have stakes where without renewal of these measures, they're looking at the possibility of a pretty significant service reductions or having to shutter entirely with the cost of everything on the rise due to inflation and other global conditions. These agencies are facing costs outsized by anything they've ever experienced before and so this is a really pivotal time for them to secure in some instances the next 30 years or at least part of the next 30 years of their funding.

BL: Then Noah, when you go to update this, I guess two questions on that. One is, are you looking daily and checking to see if there's been any updates on any measures? And then two, how frequently is this ballot measure tracker updated on our website?

NK: So it kind of ebbs and flows depending on the time of year, so we've hit a little bit of a lull for the time being. Everything I'm tracking right now, I don't believe that there's anything going to be on the ballot in July for transit ballot measures. We really pick up back up in August, but I think on August 4th there are nine up for vote or something like that and so my current process is I do a sweep of the nation every week. I check in on those resources like Ballotpedia and the Center for Transportation Excellence and then just do a broader search too of all the states and larger systems that may have their funding coming up for renewal and kind of sort through those, see if there's anything new to add. And then also too, it's furthermore just a bit of a team effort in the sense that our boss, Megan, has been pulling wire stories that have been illuminating little pebbles of the story along the way. And so for the Wayne County item on the tracker, I didn't realize that the lawsuit was settled on that until Megan pulled the wire story for that, so it's really been a combined effort because there's so much data and it's such a wide breadth of coverage. It's really been a pseudo collaborative effort, even if people aren't like, ‘Oh, here's this piece, it's a tracker for you’. So yeah, that's really how I've been building it, and I hope I got your second question in there

BL: Yeah, no, 100%, and I will say that working hand in hand with you pretty much on this from the beginning, this is unique coverage, something that we have never done, and I am really proud to see it develop from the stage that it was in where this has been talked about internally for I would say maybe a year until launch. And so now we are here, and I hope that this continues for years to come, but with that, we're going to get into some of the, I'm not going to call them key measures, but we sort of went through the country, and we wanted to pick different regions to highlight today, and one of them we're going to start with is a pretty big one out there in California. So go ahead Noah.

NK: Yes. Okay. So this is a very interesting measure because of its breadth. So this one is covering five counties and is going to provide both regional governance and regional funding for local transit agencies in the Bay Area. So that's covering BART, SFMTA with Muni. It's covering so many transit agencies out there. I'm going to completely forget the exhaustive list, but in essence, this is a five county effort, which is a citizens initiative ballot measure. They collected, according to the campaign working for this measure, over 300,000 signatures of the required 186,000 to get this towards the ballot. They're currently in the signature verification process. And so this fall, if that makes the ballot in November, residents of these five counties will vote in four of the counties. it'll be voting on a half-cent sales tax and then in San Francisco, it'll be a full-cent sales tax, but if all five counties come together and agree to pass this measure that will provide funding in a new regional governance structure for the local transit agencies to push off potential fiscal cliffs that they're facing, and for a lot of agencies, it can lead to 20% of their station closures and losing several track miles and depleted frequencies and everything like that. So really this is kind of an overall effort to close a funding gap that the agencies have been unable to close themselves.

BL: So Jess, just to give you a little bit of insight and a little bit more detail on the actual transit side of things. So without the measure of making the ballot and passing, for instance, Bay Area Rapid Transit, which is BART in San Francisco, they could see the closure of up to 15 stations that shut down the Blue Line, the reduction of service to peak hours and up to 70% of train service hours.

JP: That one I saw. it seemed like it would have extremely catastrophic effects, and that one will definitely change the lives of a lot of people if it doesn't pass. So definitely interested to hear what happens there as the vote comes up.

NK: And from my understanding too, this isn't really something that can be piecemealed, so if all five counties don't get on board, this measure from my understanding is in effect dead, so this is going to be a pretty big hurdle for these agencies to cross. However, from what I've seen in the signature collection process and them garnering over 300,000 signatures, almost double what they need to qualify for the ballot. And for note, usually ballot measure initiative campaigns collect 30 to 50% more signatures than they'll need just to make sure that they can fully get through the verification process whether signatures are challenged or struck because they were multiple, or they weren't actual signatures, what have you. So they've really almost doubled the amount that they actually need signaling that there is pretty stark support for this, so it seems like it may have a good chance, however, it's really just going to come down to that November vote.

BL: Well, and I guess the one silver lining to this is that if it doesn't, the agencies have been preparing for this. It's not like it's an out of nowhere cut to service. These agencies have been planning for potential service reductions and trying to figure out how to make sure it was the best that they possibly could in the event that services do get cut.

NK: And I think, too, a lot of the regulation that was set forth in the Senate bill that even allowed for this transit measure to work towards the ballot is also part of what happens if not and so I think that while there are going to be service cuts and pretty immediate changes, it seems like it's not necessarily the end of the road if this measure doesn't pass. It seems like there are further contingency plans and backstops in place, not that it would provide the full amount of funding that this measure would provide, but it sounds like these agencies aren't going to shudder from this if it doesn't pass.

BL: The next one is an agency that we've actually talked a lot about here on the ITP, whether it's through games or news, and that is Dallas Area Rapid Transit, DART.

NK: Oh, so this is a really interesting one. So this one wasn't really to do with funding, at least at the ballot box per se. So three municipalities part of the DART system decided in March to put it up to a vote of their citizens, whether or not to stay a part of the system due to a perception that they weren't getting a return on investment for the sales tax that they were contributing into the system. So two of the three that were voting decided to stay a part of the system, whereas one municipality decided to exit. And so that has actually created a little bit of an interesting situation down there. So in the one city that decided to exit, Highland Park, Texas, they no longer have service stopping in Highland Park, however, DART buses will still run through Highland Park to complete their routes. Additionally, there's a new transit service that has been spun up in place of DART, which it's been part of their, or they spun it up as a micromobility, I think they call it Highland Park on demand, so they've replaced the transit service with their own boutique local on demand service. But yeah, it's really kind of reshaped the way that people moved down there in the Dallas area.

JP: I thought that one was interesting. I’m wondering how does this new finance, well, so I was wondering too, how does the new transit services, how much do those cost? Because I know that they thought that the reason Highland Park wanted to pull out was because they felt like they weren't getting enough return on their investment with DART, right? So how much do you, I just wonder the new transit services if that's costing more?

NK: Yeah, so this is going to be a shared cost between the city and the riders, so the service will operate seven days a week for $3.50 a trip, and that is obviously not the full cost of service. Highland Park is taking up the rest of the cost to facilitate that service, but Via facilitating this in partnership, and they've hired a transportation management service to help facilitate the new transit service in the area.

JP: And then my other thing is a lot of the cities, other cities that were going to pull out as well, but DART announced a new financing structure, right?

NK: Yeah, so DART introduced a new general mobility plan, which kind of directed more of the sales tax revenue back towards the member cities so that they would be able to fund transit services that would accent DART and help facilitate kind of a more full service transit experience in their region, and that helped those. Initially it was going to be, I believe it was six municipalities that were going to go up for a vote. However, it pulled back down to three and then only one decided to leave. So the general mobility plan satisfied three of the six that we're planning to leave and then seemed to have satisfied the voters of two of the three remaining that decided to go for the vote. And I should say, too, that population size probably does matter a bit here because Highland Park in comparison to other member regions is a very, very small region with a pretty limited representation in the DART Board. So Dallas, for instance, is represented by, I think approximately half of the board seats, where a lot of the other member cities, I want to say like eight or nine of the member cities are represented by a shared seat. They're not even represented by a sole seat.

JP: Oh, wow.

NK: Yeah, there was definitely some tension there that led to this vote for sure.

JP: Definitely. That's helpful context for sure to understand that.

BL: Let's talk about a vote that will be decided on November 3rd in Charleston County, South Carolina.

NK: Oh, this one's really interesting. So this one is a little bit more standard, however, it's not exactly standard. So the budget that they're going to approve here in Charleston is kind of readjusting and reformatting the spread. So the way that they fund a lot of their local programs is through this half-cent sales tax. They're pushing it for 25 years in this update, and it covers multiple categories, including roads, transit, bike and pedestrian infrastructure and just various other city infrastructure categories. So for this one, they've actually proposed folding the bike and pedestrian infrastructure category into the roadway infrastructure category and slightly bumping each of the percentages just to ensure that everything's a little more smoothed out and rounded. So for this vote, transit is looking at getting 20.2% of the funding, which will shake out to being about 860 million over the life of the measure, and that's going to fund a variety of transit projects in the area. Not only is it sustaining service, but it's also going to be funding the low country rapid transit bus rapid transit project that's slated to start construction next year, in addition to just other various transit projects. However, this one is pretty paramount because without this one passing, the Charleston Metro area Chamber of Commerce says that without adequate funding from the tax continuing, CARTA would be unable to sustain its current operations, so this one has a bit of pretty high stakes attached to it. So not only is it just a sustaining service, but it's also hinging that new VRT project on it as well and just a lot of transit and mobility in the region may be at risk should this not continue.

JP: I thought that one was interesting, too, because you had mentioned that a lot of residents felt that the existing spread right now lean too heavily public transit and now they're bumping it up that quarter percentage.

NK: That was a pretty big contentious point in here as the measure was working its way towards the ballot, and they were gaining or garnering citizen feedback, that was something that they found a lot of plurality of voters were saying that the 20% split in the measure was already too much for public transit. However, this was another one of those instances where the agencies running up against high costs from inflation and global conditions and so cutting it back would've meant cutting service.

JP: And I guess that leads into a question I have for you. Do you think that Charleston County, more rural, less like public transit focused areas where it's more buses, public transit, is it in your face as much, right? Do you think it's harder for people to conceptualize where the public transit funds are going? It can make it harder for these measures to pass at these places in New York City and Boston. In Chicago in a lot of these places, your public transit's, so in your face, you're so exposed to it every day. A lot of people don't take the bus in these rural, more suburban areas. So yeah. Do you think it's hard for people to conceptualize the spending?

NK: I think you make a very good point there. I think it is something that just your average car driving citizen in a more suburban area just doesn't see all of the time, or they may not necessarily understand the benefit it plays in their community because maybe your standard car driver doesn't need to take the bus every day. However, there are so many people, whether it be because of disability or because of the low income or a myriad of other qualifiers, a bus could be their lifeline and so they may not necessarily see the public transit as a benefit for them, but it also will keep their community moving, keep the economy and their local community moving. Like APTA reports that for every $1 invested in public transit, there's a $5 return on an investment and so that type of thing really kind of shows through in those local areas, too. And furthermore, having a transit system ensures that there is a dial a ride system there, too, to help out for the people that have disabilities and can't even take a standard fixed route public transit service, so it's very important in several ways, even if you're not necessarily taking the bus every day, or you're not even seeing a bus every day, they play a huge role in these more rural communities.

BL: Well, the last one we'll dive into is one in Pima County, Arizona.

NK: Oh, yes. The RTA Next Plan. Okay, so this one is also really interesting too because it required two measures to actually get this whole plan in motion. So one measure was citizens agreeing to the RTA Next Plan at all and what the priorities were for transit and infrastructure in the region going forward, but then also had to agree to a half-cent sales tax measure to fund all of the plans and the RTA Next Plan, and both passed. The tax passed with 59% of the vote, the plan with 61 or 62% of the vote, and that's a pretty big one. That was one of the first ones to make it through the election cycle this year. That one was the first I tracked to pass in March of this year, so it focuses on five main priority areas, so roadway infrastructure, arterial reconstruction, transit safety and enhancements and environmental goals for the region. So really, this is kind of similar to the Charleston one where a lot of infrastructure funding is folded into one initiative, but it also provides RTA funding for Sun Trans for expanded evening and weekend services, improved frequencies, expanded paratransit and sun shuttle neighborhood circulator services. I mean, a lot of improvements to the RTA system really came from this measure, and this was one where they didn't really, from my understanding, take a big bump or anything like that. They were able to just kind of make a lot of little tweaks that made the overall transit experience better, where they were able to just, like I said, add that little bit of weekend service, extend the circulator shuttle service just a little bit, those little quality of life improvements that really make the transit experience all that much better but really don't cost millions and millions and millions of dollars, so this was a really interesting one because it was a very efficient go to the grocery store before you take off for Paris type of thing.

JP: Definitely.

BL: Honestly, we should have said this off the top, but I think that this measure really sort of encompasses this, that public transit funding measures has hit at historic high rates in recent years and when rates are typically between 72- 85%.

NK: And that tracks over years and years and years and years and years. That's not just us pulling a number from one statistically, but year after year, transit finds great success at the ballot box. Like Brandon said, 70 to 80% last year, I think it was 82% for 2025 transit is usually a very big priority when it comes to the ballot box, and we're seeing that throughout the country this year. There have been a couple of fails throughout the election cycle so far. I think I've recorded four or five, however, that's fewer than all of the wins that have been recorded, and additionally, the year's not over yet, and I should mention for a lot of the measures that did fail, that was not their last chance, so that is a good thing. I should note for a lot of these measures too, is for this, a lot of these agencies are not waiting until the last possible second for these measures. They’re a couple where either they've already failed once, and this is their next attempt at the ballot or something like that. However, most of these don't expire until 2028 or 2030. And so there are one, two, three, four, even six more election cycles before current sales tax or property tax or various funding measures expire and weave these agencies with no money, so there is hope that if measures do fail in this current year, that they will have time to either set again with new language and a different totals, or if they wanted to wait again until a general year where they expect a higher voter turnout, there are other avenues for this funding to end up coming through. These agencies typically just start a little bit earlier in anticipation of potential failures or of low voter turnout that leads to a failure. This isn't necessarily the end. 

JP: That's good. We love to see proactive government. That's awesome.

BL: Absolutely. Well, as Noah continues to track these ballot measures, I'm getting a message all the way from Maryland from Maz that says it's time to wrap up this episode. So please email Noah at [email protected] and give him his flowers on the ballot measure tracker. You can also email us at [email protected]. If you want to know what Gavin and the Maz are doing at the International Bridge Conference, we're going to be doing a special conference recap episode sometime this season. So stay tuned for that. But before we leave for today's episode, we have some people to thank. Jess, who should we thank?

JP: We love to thank our listeners. We'd love to thank Endeavor B2B for sponsoring our podcast,

BL: Our parent company.

JP: Thank you so much. And I also want to thank Noah for his awesome ballot measure tracker. It was so fun to talk about today.

NK: It's been such a fun project to work on. I really, really appreciate all of the kind words everyone's been sharing with me so far.

JP: Keep 'em coming.

BL: And we'll be back with a new episode next week on the ITP. For Mass Transit magazine, I'm Brandon Lewis.

JP: I'm Jessica Parks.

NK: And I'm Noah Kolenda.

BL: And with that, we will see you next week on a new episode of the ITP. Goodbye.