Regional transit funding measure options move on to polling and legislature
In December, the MTC forwarded recommendations for regional transit funding to the legislature and to its pollster. The legislature is expected to put its stamp on legislation to authorize regional transit funding, which could take the region toward maintaining and improving transit service with progress toward seamless transit, or toward options that would ask voters to raise taxes and receive service cuts.
At the legislature, there will likely be additional transit funding discussions focused on the state’s Cap and Trade program, historically a major source for transit capital funding, which will be considered for renewal, and the potential for other budget funding, especially to “bridge” agency finances until the timing of a transit measure.
This legislative session is a critical time for transit supporters to speak up.
Multiple options for polling
The MTC-convened Select Committee, with Commissioners and stakeholders representing business, labor, and transit riders, did not reach a single clear recommendation, but the discussion resulted in two scenarios that were refined through the process.
Scenario 1A, a half-percent sales tax yielding about $560 million per year for 10 years, focusing on transit, including Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
A Hybrid scenario, which is a half-percent sales tax plus a $0.09 square foot parcel tax yielding $1.3 to $1.5 billion per year over 30 years, serving 5-9 counties.
With Scenario 1A, MTC received vigorous pushback from transit advocates and labor representatives for its proposal to focus funding formula on replacing lost fare revenue, a metric that significantly underfunds Muni and AC Transit, agencies for which fare revenue was a much smaller part of the post-pandemic financial crisis. To partially address this gap, MTC proposed funding feeder bus service in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Mateo counties.
This change helps significantly with AC Transit, but still leaves the highest ridership agency, SFMTA, deeply underfunded, with $110 million toward a funding need greater than $200 million per year current deficit.
MTC is also planning on polling on a concept brought forward by SFMTA to charge variable rates in different counties, in particular a higher rate in San Francisco, which deeply depends on multiple agencies facing fiscal cliffs including BART, Muni, Caltrain and Golden Gate.
The Hybrid option does better at protecting service, but includes a compromise by focusing on transit in the first 8 years, and then stepping down transit funding allowing counties to use funds for other priorities. This presumes funding from higher level state or federal sources, or defers the transit funding challenge to the mid-2030s.
Good news is that both options build in 10% to fund for better coordinated transit including fare integration, service coordination, transit priority, and more coordinated paratransit. However seamless transit depends on the baseline level of service. If the underlying funding doesn’t maintain frequent service, fare, schedule and wayfinding coordination can’t patch up a fundamentally less convenient rider experience with long waits.
Multiple Interlocking measures?
One possibility might be a set of interlocking measures in different parts of the region. Santa Clara County expressed an opinion that it favors this approach, where it would commit to contributing its share of funding for BART and Caltrain, the regional services serving the county, plus its share of regional transit coordination.
For San Mateo County, Commissioner Canepa, who had started out in support of a regional measure, expressed concerns during the Select Committee, came around to supporting the MTC’s recommendation. However, Commissioner Papan expressed opposition. Different agencies in San Mateo County have different opinions. SamTrans is open to negotiating how much to contribute to BART, since the pre-pandemic 2007 agreement is out of date.
MTC Commissioners from the North Bay were undecided and looking to polling to help decide whether to participate in a regional measure, or to advance a separate ballot measure that could fund SMART and other local services and priorities.
Citizens’ Initiative
Also, MTC is recommending an option to enable a citizens’ initiative that would allow a measure to pass with over 50% of the vote. San Francisco’s proposition L, a grassroots citizens’ initiative with a small tax on rideshare services, got 57% of the vote (but still didn’t pass because it got fewer votes than another measure that governed business taxes).
As part of the transit advocacy community that has played a key role in previous county campaigns – including contributing a large share of the volunteers for phone banking and canvassing – we are concerned that running several parallel campaigns may fragment the funding base and volunteer base.
There are many moving parts in a legislative season that is critical for the future of Bay Area Transit. The Seamless team is working with allies advocating for saving and improving our transit system. Voices of supporters of seamless transit will be critical this year.