This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights Kristen Jeffers’s Black Queer Feminist Urbanist commentary on one key issue every week. This week we taking a breath on our first leg of what Kristen is calling the Wish Journey of 2022 and she really appreciates you supporting this one, because the year is still going and it’s not too late to fund our journey. Read on and learn more and please share!

There’s no need for transit fares, when municipalities can provide transit using taxes and subsidies. Then, if municipalities absolutely must charge individual people and low-earning businesses, base that payment on their adjusted gross income which municipalities, not those citizens, pull from their public tax records.

One of my first ever transportation wishes was for my hometown to have adequate enough transit that I could stop driving so much. If you would have told me 13 years later that I would be driving 90 percent of my time in a metro area that should have adequate transit, but is suffering major system failure, I would have laughed.

How did I get there? Well, I took for granted that everywhere in the DC metro region was well-served by transit. Well-served meaning that all the stops have coverings and seating that works. All the stops run at all hours of the day. Never mind the train not catching on fire or the bikeshare having e-assist on all bikes in a very hilly city. Plus, what I consider a safe space (not being leered at or verbally harassed), is often chalked up by others as “the price of living in a city”.

And yes this is an embarrassment, but those of us who have the ear and/or control of local governments, major foundations, and corporations need to start that course of fixing that embarrassment, rather than dusting it under the bin. Energy just moves around, it doesn’t go away and we would be better served channeling that energy in a positive direction sooner rather than later.

So many public/government entities have gotten caught up in this idea that everything they do has to balance out on the balance sheet. I agree, especially when it comes to actually charging businesses taxes, instead of assuming that they will eventually pay them or passing taxes on to people’s salaries, which may or may not actually cover cost of living. I even wrote about this for Greater Greater Washington and it was even re- posted on Strong Towns. (By the way, I’m not currently a member/active in either collective, but this was from 2018 when I was).

And it’s still true today that if corporations paid their fair share in taxes we could use that for other things, like eliminating fares for private citizens.

Or, if corporations don’t want to pay taxes, based on their size and revenue, they could pay for a certain number of days, they could advertise on vehicles and they could buy passes for their workers.

Taxes however would be easier to enforce, because everything in that last paragraph could be considered unnecessary business expenses. Taxes though…not so much. Oh, and businesses have to cary licensure. Don’t pay up (or make a plan to pay), poof goes the license.

Yes, it can be that simple, especially in major global cities with companies that make not just multiple millions, but multiple billions. Some cities are spending more policing fares and on fare gates than they are paying drivers.

This article from 2012 breaks down how Nationals Park in DC gets public money and how much public money it gets.

Those of you who are familiar with these kinds of numbers will see how similar they are to the entire operating budget of many bus-only systems like DASH in Alexandria, VA, and half, sometimes all of the fare income of other systems.

I would, however, alter the kind of gross receipts tax mentioned to be fairer to the growth of businesses, especially businesses owned by marginalized people, who may be subject to less favorable debt terms or who may struggle with cash flow.

I would also encourage cities, states, and Congress, as well as other government entities globally, to continue to do some of the new math they’ve had to do to face the pandemic and improve on their provision of public services.

I commend the estimated 100 cities globally, especially those I’ve lived in and near like Kansas City and Alexandria that have started doing the math and wrestling with the “impossibilities” of transit funding, especially when it requires municipalities to stand up to those who have extra money and those who believe that their taxes shouldn’t go to transit.

And finally, since this is a wish journey, all I need at the moment is the knowledge that several people, with means and power, are setting this as a vision and taking small steps.

In future newsletters, I’ll be digging into more of this math and on future episodes of my Patreon-powered, YouTubeseries Open Studio with Kristen Jeffers, I’ll be talking to some of the leaders in shifting transit from fare dependence to subsidies and taxes. Also, I definitely welcome all thoughts, especially those of you who have found success! And anyone who is able to make sense of NYC MTA, which is one of the largest fare-dependent systems and seems to not have any other options.

Before You Go

— If you were curious as to some of why Keisha Lance Bottoms decided to not seek re-election, this article provides some answers.

— I never realized, but it makes a lot of sense, that venues that housed punk shows in the early days of the musical movement, were by day (and sometimes upstairs while shows went on in the basement) mutual aid and civil rights agencies for marginalized groups, at least in DC.

— Interested to follow this series that centers on the economies of Native tribes across the US.

— How Black women/femmes continue to be erased from French/French-language media.

Until next time,

Kristen

P.S. What I mean when I call myself a Black Queer Feminist Urbanist.