Will voters support Caltrain tax measure?

If approved, it would generate an estimated $108M per year for the regional transit agency

An eleventh-hour deal appears to have likely saved the sales tax measure Caltrain is counting on to weather the coronavirus without shutting down.

Caltrain’s board on Thursday voted to place the regional tax measure on the November ballot, and two other agencies — the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors — are expected to do the same ahead of a deadline today for approving it.

But a victory this week sets up Caltrain for another challenge over the next three months: Can it persuade two-thirds of November voters to raise their own taxes in the midst of an economic downturn to keep the Peninsula’s commuter railroad afloat?

If approved, the tax measure would generate an estimated $108 million per year for Caltrain by increasing sales taxes by one-eighth of a cent in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

Without that revenue, Caltrain supporters and Peninsula officials have predicted disaster, saying the railroad could have to cut service or face the once-unthinkable prospect of a temporary shutdown, pushing legions of Silicon Valley commuters into their cars and creating a traffic nightmare on freeways.

The campaign appeared all but dead at the start of this week after some of the various agencies and counties that need to approve the ballot measure failed to support it amid sparring over Caltrain’s management.

On Tuesday, though, the warring camps struck a deal, agreeing to put the tax on the ballot without defining governance conditions, and Caltrain pledged to make a slate of changes to its structure to make it more independent from San Mateo County’s transportation agency, SamTrans.

The agreement set up a flurry of votes by seven agencies this week to beat today’s deadline for adding measures to the November ballot.

The board of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority was scheduled to take it up Thursday evening. And the final vote will come this afternoon from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which several weeks ago appeared to have derailed the measure when its members declined to consider it.

This time around, the board is expected to sign off.

The measure originally was pitched as a way to fund frequent,

BART-like service and build Caltrain’s ridership over the coming years. When the coronavirus struck, chasing away 95% of the railroad’s riders this spring and posing a long-term threat to ridership if former commuters work from home instead, officials said the tax instead became a matter of survival.

With this battle apparently won, Caltrain’s boosters will have to shift from winning over local politicians to winning over voters.

Opposition could come from across the political

spectrum. Conservatives are likely to oppose the tax increase, and the coronavirus recession could make others hesitant as well. Progressive critics have their own concerns about the measure, questioning whether it’s fair to fund a railroad known for ferrying white-collar tech workers — 74% of Caltrain riders make over $100,000 per year — through a sales tax, which creates a disproportionate burden for people with lower incomes.

A poll Caltrain conducted in June found that 65.6% of voters said they either supported the measure or leaned toward backing it — putting the tax just shy of the margin it would need to pass.