Referendum: The War on Transit

Are rural-dominated legislatures fighting a war on transit that they can win by default?  It looks that way in the U.S., as close as our nearest neighbour:
From the Seattle Times:

The Legislature failed to grant local cities and counties the power to ask voters for transportation funding. We will face crippling congestion in the coming year.  (Without the option to ask voters for funding, the county will need to cut the transit system by 17 percent in 2014.)
A coalition of business, labor, environment, social services, and regional and local officials warned state legislators of the dire consequences of the massive transit cuts King County Metro bus service would face without this option.
In the state Senate, leaders chose to ignore those warnings and avoided action. Hollow promises of action next year or beyond will come too late to avert massive transit cuts that will gridlock the region. The Legislature should regroup and reconvene in a special session this year to act on transportation.

One supposes that representatives outside the Puget Sound urban area see transit as a social service for the urban poor, even if paid for by local taxpayers.  Ironically, by standing in the way of sufficient funding, they are also hobbling business and the source of wealth that finances infrastructure in their districts.

King County is the economic engine of the state of Washington. Forty percent of the state’s jobs are located in King County. Transit is critical to our county’s transportation network. It is how 43 percent of people get to work in downtown Seattle.
As employment is reaching pre-recession highs in the Seattle region, transit ridership is growing dramatically.
It’s an affordable, efficient and environmentally friendly way for people to get to work in a place where expanding highways to accommodate more cars is often prohibitively expensive and geographically constrained.

Proponents of the referendum can argue that, unlike in Washington, Metro Vancouver is being given a vote.  Masterfully, the Premier has positioned herself so that a ‘no’ vote on a referendum to provide new sources of revenue for transit will be seen as a vote against TransLink, presumably without the provincial government having to take the blame.
But what happens the day after a no vote?  Is it viable to say to the Lower Mainland: No more transit for you, regardless of the million more people who show up and the increased congestion that will hobble the economy?
The best advice I’ve heard so far is that, if a referendum goes ahead, it has to be about jobs and economic growth – the same planks used by Christy Clark to win the last election.  Without effective transit service, as Washington State will learn, it is not just the poor who get punished.
[As of July 12, there are 491 days to the proposed referendum date.]