Oklahoma City bets on transit

In his recent State of the City address, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt urged citizens to support a proposed sales tax that would fund transit expansion in the growing city, reports Ethan Andersen in Streetsblog USA.

According to Andersen, "He wants to avoid the mistakes of peer cities like Austin and Nashville that have grown precipitously in recent decades without accommodating additional travel capacity, resulting in hellish levels of congestion."

Oklahoma City has been funding transit through its Metropolitan Area Projects initiative, which has funneled a one-cent sales tax to capital improvement and infrastructure projects since 1993. "Three-quarters of the proposed transit tax would go to bus and rail infrastructure and improvements, with the remaining quarter going to maintenance of existing infrastructure."

The city, whose population is on track to increase by 11.4% by 2030, banded together with neighboring Norman and Edmond in 2019 to form Oklahoma's first regional transit authority. "The backbone of ONE Transit’s transit expansion plan for the region includes commuter rail that will connect all three cities with key stopping points along the way."

If it garners enough support from the three cities, the tax measure could be put up for a vote in 2027.