Alabama Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, recently filed a bill to establish a new funding mechanism to fund public transportation in the state, a measure that she says is necessary to improve the state’s low labor participation rate.
“With all the focus and emphasis on workforce development, it is really important that people have access to the jobs that we are trying to create for them,” Coleman-Madison told Alabama Daily News Oct. 11.
Alabama is routinely ranked among the bottom of states in terms of its available public transportation. The Alabama Public Transportation Fund was established by the Legislature in 2018, but to date, lawmakers have yet to allocate any money toward it.
Coleman-Madison is hoping to change that.
“Counties would also have the option to opt-out if they choose not to participate, however, to me, it would be kind of dollar-foolish looking at the fact that everybody is trying to develop economically,” she said.
“We can rebuild our cities, we can rebuild (the) safe, accessible community square.”
The bill, Senate Bill 11, would introduce an additional $5 charge to annual license tax and registration fees for motor vehicles. A fiscal note attached to a previous version of the bill estimates that the new charge would generate $26 million annually for the state. The legislation in the 2024 session didn’t advance out of a committee.
However, it’s the generous federal match for public transportation investments, Coleman-Madison said, that would make her bill impactful.
“If we can use this as a leverage to pull down federal dollars, which is usually about a four-to-one match, we will be able to create synergy where local governments create a transit system, but you’ve got to have some seed money to start it,” she said.
Potential
Alabama’s labor participation rate was 57.5% in August, among the lowest rates in the country. State lawmakers last year established a commission to investigate the root causes of the state’s low labor participation rate. A lack of reliable transportation was one of the key findings.
Dev Wakeley, worker policy advocate for Alabama Arise, a nonprofit organization that promotes policies that benefit low-income Alabamians, concurred that the four-to-one federal match generally seen in state investments toward public transportation could have a major impact in improving the state’s labor participation rate.
“State investment here could bring down more federal money, and if you’re talking about a good return on investment, you can’t really get much better than the four-to-one capital matching rate for federal funds,” Wakeley told ADN Friday.
Investing in public transportation has been among the chief policy positions of Alabama Arise, which argues that investing in it, beyond helping to improve the state’s low labor participation rate, is also a measure to help the state’s most marginalized communities.
“Investing in public transit is one of the best ways to enable people to really participate in public life, whether that means going to the doctor, whether that means going to vote, whether that means just being able to get out of the house and see their friends,” Wakeley said.
The 2025 legislative session starts Feb. 4.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Alexander Willis and originally published by Alabama Daily News. It is reprinted with permission.