BRIDGE TOLL HIKE JUST FIRST STEP?
Much larger and more comprehensive region-wide improvements will be needed to solve the Bay Area’s traffic congestion crisis, experts say
Voters in the Bay Area have agreed to raise bridge tolls by $3 over the next six years, but that’s just the first step in what they’ll likely be asked to pay as business leaders and transportation planners sketch out a fresh series of new measures to solve the area’s traffic gridlock.
As more residents move farther away in search of affordable housing, they’re driving longer distances to continue working here, leading to worsening commutes, air quality and quality of life— a trend that’s puttingmore pressure on the Bay Area’smajor highways and packing BART cars to the brim.
Something has to be done, said Oakland resident Judith Shahvar.
“With howmany people aremoving here and how many people are living here, we’ve got to do something or we’ll just crumble,” she said. “People are already gettingmore and more frustrated.”
Even before the new bridge tolls were proposed, transportation planners already had started thinking about a multibillion- dollar measure aimed at providing commuters with viable alternatives to driving. The bridge toll measure approved Tuesday
was a precursor to a much larger investment strategy, said Jim Wunderman, the president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, one of three organizations that spearheaded the campaign to bring the toll increase to the ballot.
“The really big projects are going to be way more expensive,” he said. “And they aren’t likely to be things that Washington or even Sacramento will pay for, in whole or in part.”
One of those “really big projects” is almost certain to include a second transbay crossing for BART, he said. It also will most likely include more interconnected rail and regional express bus networks, along with vastly expanded ferry service, said Gabriel Metcalf, the president and CEO of SPUR, an urban planning think tank. So it’s no coincidence those initiatives all got big funding boosts from the toll hike, which is expected to raise $ 4.45 billion over the next decade.
But it may even include big future investments that stretch outside the Bay Area, Wunderman said. Already, the Bay Area Council is examining the growing interconnections of the Bay Area to the wider region as more workers commute from the Central Valley, Sacramento and Santa Cruz, a trend that could play into a “mega measure for the mega region,” he said.
Ironically, the lack of an overarching vision prompted some of the strongest critiques of the toll increase, as opponents argued such an approach is desperately needed.
David Schonbrunn, president of the transportation advocacy group TRANSDEF, pointed to the mega- billion funding measure Seattle voters approved in 2016 to vastly expand their region’s transit network and lamented the bridge toll’s focus on relieving highway congestion. It was a critique echoed by U. S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, DConcord, who said the toll measure wasn’t based on a purely data- driven approach but was influenced by politicians lobbying for projects in their districts.
“The dif ference between Seattle and the Bay Area is that Seattle is very consciously attempting to achieve a specific outcome, and the Bay Area, by contrast, is only trying to throw money at a politically popular problem,” Schonbrunn said. “One is oriented toward outcomes and the other on how we divide up the money.”
But just how such a measure will be funded is anyone’s guess. The cities of Cupertino, Mountain View and East Palo Alto are all considering new levies on large employers, taxes that would fall heavily on Apple and Google, to help subsidize transportation and hous- ing projects. It’s an approach that’s publicly popular, but it could run into widespread opposition from businesses.
At a smaller regional level, residents in Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties will be asked in November to approve a 1/8- cent sales tax for Caltrain as part of an effort to raise $100million annually for the transit agency, which lacks a consistent funding source.
Whatever the approach, a number of voters this week said they support investing in transportation but were tepid about the toll hike because it placed the funding burden solely on bridge commuters. Oakland resident Kara Union, a self- described progressive, called her vote a “meek no” but said she’d likely vote for future transportation funding measures.
“I’d love to see public transportation improved, but I was concerned there weren’t enough funds going toward public transit,” she said. “And I had heard there’s the possibility for more infrastructure investments that will make a real difference a little bit further down the line.”
“So, it was a meek ‘ no,’ not an emphatic ‘ no,’ ” she said.