MTC Meeting Outlines Options for Regional Transportation Measure
On July 29, 2024, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) held its second select committee hearing to discuss a new transportation revenue measure for the Bay Area.
If MTC and Bay Area legislators craft a bill that garners wide enough support, the enabling legislation can pass in 2025, and the measure can go to Bay Area voters in 2026. An effort to pass enabling legislation in 2024 fell apart after MTC threatened to withdraw support, so the stakes are high.
Debating a sales tax to raise the needed revenue
Sales taxes are the most common method to fund transportation, and some voices — especially in the business community — are advocating for a regional sales tax as the funding mechanism. In fact, Select Committee member Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council openly threatened to fund opposition to a transportation measure if it was funded by a payroll or income tax.
However, the burden of a sales tax falls disproportionately on poorer residents who spend a greater percentage of their income purchasing goods. Transform and Voices for Public Transportation (VPT) have pressed MTC to move forward with a more progressive revenue source, such as a payroll or per-square-foot parcel tax.
MTC has done polling to try to determine what provisions in a regional transportation funding measure would make it most likely to gain the two-thirds majority needed to pass a ballot measure with a new tax. It showed no clear preference for the funding mechanism, but when talking to participants during the poll, MTC noted that cost of living seemed to be the biggest concern; a sales tax would increase the cost of living inequitably, leaving the lowest-income Bay Area residents to shoulder more than their share of the burden.
Earlier polling done by Transform’s partners showed a sales tax being less popular than an income tax.
Potholes vs. new lanes
MTC’s polling showed funding for road maintenance such as filling potholes is popular. Transform supports a fix-it-first policy and has encouraged MTC to limit road spending to a state of good repair with safe and complete streets improvements. We are strongly opposed to using funds to build or expand highways.
More lanes, even new HOV or paid express lanes, don’t reduce congestion but do lead to more vehicle miles traveled, more greenhouse gas emissions, and more deadly air pollution, often in neighborhoods already environmentally burdened. And building new lanes is expensive
— the money from this measure will serve many more Bay Area residents if it’s spent on transit and active transportation.
A smaller measure?
The regional transportation funding measure was initially envisioned to cover the nine Bay Area counties: Napa, Sonoma, Marin, Solano, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. However, one of the challenges of crafting a measure with broad support is divergent transportation needs among those counties.
More rural areas have different priorities from dense, urban cities and counties. And transit agencies like VTA in the South Bay don’t have the same transit fiscal cliff that BART and Muni are facing. Thus, there are questions about how much of the tax revenue collected within a county will return to that county.
As an alternative, the committee is considering a measure that would cover either three or four counties: San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, and potentially San Mateo. Additional counties could have the option to opt in at a future time if they’re not included in the initial measure.
In the spirit of regional collaboration and advancing the best, biggest measure possible, Voices for Public Transportation urges the inclusion of all nine counties in the regional transportation measure. It’s not clear whether a plan that doesn’t include all nine counties will raise enough revenue to save BART, and it certainly will not be able to deliver on transformational transit investments voters want to see. On the other hand, it’s likely that more of the revenue from a smaller measure would go to public transit and wouldn’t fund new highway lanes. What is non-negotiable is that a smaller measure, or one with fewer counties, must still provide essential transit investment, even if that means shrinking other expenditures within the measure.
What you can do
The road to a regional transportation funding measure is long and full of twists. Thank you to those of you who’ve been on this journey with us for the past year; your support has made a huge difference.
In the next few weeks, MTC could make some decisions that shape the future of transportation funding in the Bay Area. Please scroll down to send an email to MTC Commissioner James T. Spering, the influential chair of this committee. It just takes a moment to send a note. And stay tuned for opportunities to speak out at upcoming MTC hearings. Every voice matters.
