Bay Area bridge toll increase going on June ballot

Bay Area voters will decide in June whether to raise tolls by $3 on all bridges but the Golden Gate to pay for $4.5 billion in transportation improvements.

The Bay Area Toll Authority voted unanimously Wednesday to place a regional measure on the June 5 ballot asking voters to increase tolls over a span of six years with $1 boosts in 2019, 2022 and 2025.

With federal funding uncertain and state money limited, Bay Area commuters need to look to their own wallets, or FasTrak accounts, to pay for the region’s needed transportation improvements, supporters of Regional Measure 3 said.

The measure would fund a collection of transit and highway projects, including transit extensions, new railcars and rebuilt freeway interchanges and new connections.

“We know the public is desperate for these transportation improvements,” said Emily Loper, policy director for the Bay Area Council, a regional business advocacy group. “They are

eager to see these projects improve their commutes as soon as possible — and they’re willing to pay for it. Regional Measure 3 is the only way to make a meaningful impact on congestion in the foreseeable future.”

The Bay Area Council has joined with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, another business organization, and SPUR, an urban think tank, to mount a regional campaign for the toll measure.

“Bay Area residents need to know about the projects that RM-3 funds and how these projects will deliver relief to their horrible commutes,” said Chris O’Connor, of the Leadership Group. “We will deliver that message to every single county in the nine-county Bay Area.”

Marin County Supervisor Damon Connolly, a member of the Toll Authority, said the ballot measure could have a lasting effect.

“We have an opportunity to make a generational impact on transportation in the Bay Area,” he said.

Not everyone is in favor of the measure, however.

David Schonbrunn, who heads the pro-transit Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, vowed to campaign against it, saying the measure continues the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s “failed strategy of encouraging solo driving.”

Schonbrunn said he would work with other opponents, likely including taxpayers’ groups, to fight the measure.

“We will turn Regional Measure 3 into a referendum on the job MTC is doing,” he said. “Voters will hear about the insane amounts of toll money MTC has wasted on the Bay Bridge and your palatial headquarters.”

While there’s been plenty of grousing on social media and in coffee shops about higher tolls, public opinion polls have shown strong support for the toll measure.

A poll of 4,151 likely voters, conducted in November and December, found that a majority would cast a ballot in favor of the toll increases.

Supervisors in each county still need to vote to place the measure on their respective ballots but that is a technicality.

If a majority of those voting in all nine counties approve, tolls would rise to $9 during peak hours on the Bay Bridge and $8 at all times on the other state-owned toll bridges. The Golden Gate Bridge is owned, operated and governed by an independent district that sets its own tolls, so it is not included in the measure.

In return for handing over an extra three bucks, drivers and everyone else will help pay for a BART extension to downtown San Jose and Santa Clara, a Caltrain extension to the nearly completed Transbay Transit Center, expanded fleets of new BART and Muni Metro cars and ferryboats, and a series of redesigned interchanges and direct links between busy freeways.

Along with the bundle of transportation projects, the measure would also require the hiring of an inspector general to keep watch over how BART spends its money and runs its operations. And it would include a 50 percent discount for long-distance commuters who cross more than one toll bridge on a single trip. It also includes an independent oversight committee.

Bay Area voters have twice approved toll hikes to fund transportation improvements but this is the first time that a toll measure will appear simultaneously on ballots in all nine counties.