Caltrain sales tax increase draws huge voter support

A proposal to increase sales taxes in three Bay Area counties to bankroll a huge expansion of Caltrain service has the backing of 3 out of 4 voters in a new poll, a business group reported Monday.

Voters in Santa Clara County, San Mateo County and San Francisco were asked in the poll if they would support a sales tax increase of one-eighth of a cent to double the ridership capacity of Caltrain — and 74 percent of the voters said they would, according to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Twenty-three percent said they would vote no and 3 percent had no opinion.

“With successively worse traffic, we are seeing people looking for solutions and willing to pay for them,” said Carl Guardino, the

group’s president. “Bay Area residents don’t like taxes, but they dislike traffic even more.”

The business group announced last week that it is sponsoring Senate Bill 797 by Sen. Jerry Hill, DSan Mateo. The measure — supported by many state legislators from the Bay Area — would authorize county governments and transit authorities to place a 1/8-cent sales tax hike on a future ballot.

The revenue would generate roughly $100 million annually for Caltrain as it electrifies and expands its capacity to shuttle riders between San Francisco and San Jose, creating a steady funding source for a train that now depends on voluntary payments from three counties.

J. Moore Methods Public Opinion Research surveyed 1,200 voters from May 3 through May 9 for the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percent.

For the tax hike to take effect, two-thirds of voters in Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties — their votes tallied together — would have to endorse it.

“Modernization would include investments like longer platforms, grade separations, additional train cars and more frequent service,” said Gabriel Metcalf, chief executive officer of SPUR, a nonprofit group. “It all adds up to more people on the train and fewer people crawling along the congested Highway 101 corridor and our local streets and roads.”

Over the last 10 years, ridership on Caltrain has increased from 27,000 to 62,000.

Caltrain will soon begin a $2 billion project that will electrify the 51mile stretch of track between San Jose and San Francisco. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2021.

Studies say the project will increase ridership to 110,000 daily. And the Silicon Valley Leadership Group contends that even more improvements funded by a sales tax increase would boost daily ridership to roughly 250,000.

“This potential measure would be a game changer for our residents and commuters,” Guardino said.

Greg Hall, a Sunnyvale resident and property manager, expressed some reservations about whether Caltrain would spend the additional funds wisely.

“I’m always a little bit leery of the quality of leadership in some of these entities such as Caltrain,” Hall said. “Are they spending money responsibly. Are they accountable. What happens if the actual ridership is less than they project? Would that money be diverted.”

Nevertheless, the concept of paying more to upgrade Caltrain system is a good one, in Hall’s view.

“We need to invest in infrastructure. That’s very important,” Hall said. “I would support this.”

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group points out that the Caltrain corridor between downtown San Jose and downtown San Francisco packs a big economic punch, with 1.6 million jobs, 13 percent of California’s economy and 20 percent of all the sales tax revenue generated statewide.

One taxpayers group, however, believes that improving Caltrain is a waste of money.

“Bottom line is Caltrain is outdated, and it’s a waste, even if they modernize it from its Civil War-era passenger train status to an overhead electrification system from the 1930s,” said Omar Chatty, a board member of the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association. “Caltrain is dangerous. It has no business being perpetrated. It would be better to close the last 30 miles loop for BART between downtown San Jose and Millbrae.”

Chatty estimated that the BART extension would cost about $12 billion, or $400 million a mile.

The poll results were revealed amid an ongoing push by Google and real estate developers to create a transit village in the Diridon Station area of downtown San Jose, where potentially 20,000 employees of the tech giant could be employed. The array of train connections at the transit hub is touted as one of the reason’s for Google’s interest.

“If Silicon Valley is going to be a sustainable valley, we need to fix the parking lot we call the 101 Caltrain corridor,” Guardino said.