talkgnv Transportation Sales Surtax Referendum Q&A City of Gainesville Telephone Town Hall

Transcription

1 talkgnv Transportation Sales Surtax Referendum Q&A City of Gainesville Telephone Town Hall

2 2 talkgnv City of Gainesville Telephone Town Hall Transportation Sales Surtax Referendum Q&A October 8, :00-7:18 p.m. City Hall Auditorium

3 3 talkgnv Number of Participants for Duration of Call 551 Callers During Peak Participation

4 4 talkgnv Survey Questions & Results 1. Do you have enough information to make an educated decision on the 1- cent transportation surtax initiative? Yes 78 43% No 62 34% I don't know 42 23% % 2. How frequently do you use RTS transit services? Primary source of transportation 12 7% Occasionally 22 13% Never % % 3. What transportation improvements are most important to you? Road repair and maintenance % Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure enhancements 8 5% Bus service improvements 11 6% All are equally important 47 27% % 4. How frequently do you visit the Senior Recreation Center? At least once a week 12 8% At least once a month 11 8% At least once a year 33 23% Never 87 61% % 5. Are you planning to vote on November 4th? Yes % No 0 0% I don't know 5 4% %

5 5 talkgnv Questions Asked On-Air (Darryl) With continual growth, why would they consider putting round-abouts in? Widen it. (Wanda) What improvements are you looking to do to roads to accomodate bikes/pedistrians to reduce morality rates? (Rick) why can`t some of the tax money wasted on choices program be transferred into transportation? Why can`t bus-rider fee be increased for those using insead of those of us never using it pay (Sue) Is the 55% 40$ and 5% in stone? 100% of cars, buses and bikes have to use the roads. Better chance of getting it passed 75% for roads, 20% for buses, 5% for bikes, change? (Patsy) Miles and miles of bicycle paths that no one ever uses. Why weren`t improvements made on the roads? (Josephine) Speaker said it will take 8 years, why not 2-3? We have a lot of taxes already (Thomas) Do you believe the county being the highest taxed county in the state? Do we need more taxes? (Jane) Any thought being given to extend service for people who come into city to work and who work late and on weekends? Not covered by service. (Mary) Seems no plan or priorities are made in using the tax money. Need BASIC road repairs- Who decides what this tax money gets used on? (Peter) If approved, will you finance the repairs to get them done faster? (Kimberly) How will the surtax improve our roads? How much will it cost? (Rosa) If you get this tax passed, will they be picking places to fix like NW 5th street, when it rains you can`t get on the road? (Shirley) How many times are we supposed to vote for a tax to improve the roads and then the commission spends it on anything they want to instead? (Glenn) How do we know what kind of trust we can be in the commission, for the 8 yrs that they won`t use it for something else down the line? (Royce) Why add another tax when we already pay tax in homeowners and in price per gallon of gas? (Sam) How will this affect the E side of Gainsville, on the west side all the funds seems to be distributed? (Pat) Why isn`t the gas tax used for fixing the road? (Greg) Live at Regency Oaks apt on SE side of Archer Rd. For us residents to cut across Archer to go east, we`re dealing with 3 lanes of traffic. Anyway the city can put a flashing code light for incoming? (Jeremiah) Anything within initiave that will hire more drivers or just expand services? Don`t have enough drivers as it is. (Jim) Roundabouts - I`m blind. Consider the safety, controlled intersection is safer. Tax for transportation, just for roads or buses too?

6 6 talkgnv Questions Submitted To Queue (Pat) Bring in more and more retired people, a lot of our shopping and eating areas do not have adequate parking. Plans to change? (Rick) Never see our tax dollars at work- horrible roads! When are you going to finally do some repairs? (Leonard) A lot of pollution with biomass, why did they make that decision. Roadway structure, you can congest the area, vehicles put out more CO2 than if they were able to move around area. (Lois) Not fair to keep on paying tax to fire dept. - Not fair that it`s attached to homeowners (George) Live here for 20 yrs, 5 cent tax added to gas. Where has that been spent? (Michele) Lived here since `78. General maintenance has gotten lousy. Paving seems to be sub-standard. Who was given the paving contract? 16th was poorly done. Investigate. (Elizabeth) Any othere sales taxes that are expiring soon? (Nancy) I think people who live in Europe and China use bikes everywhere, and in Cuba they have taxes and they could get anywhere. Why don`t we look at things in a new way? (Richard) Things that need to be done, that aren`t being done. handicapped. Don`t use library, no children. My taxes are high enough. I got in a wreck in car, needed transportation. Congested roads. (Irene) Why was money used on other things besides roads? (Elaine) Bought a house in a subdivision that has no sidewalks. Why did they build that? It`s a crime. (Barbara) Why do we need more tax when we don`t see anything being done with the taxes we already pay? (Bobby) Why are school bus drivers allowed to be offensive drivers? (Donny) Why do you want to raise tax now when we are all struggling? (angry) I pay tax and should be able to drive down the street without tearing up my vehicle (Bill) Projects that are slated to be redone, is that a fixed prjoect list or can other roads be added? (Mary) With all the money spent, why don`t we have any bus service on the east side of Gainesville? (Bob) Will this tax go to operating expenses or just to capital? (Darlene) How much money is in t he budget for the past 10 yrs for years?