Voters likely to pass proposed bridge toll hike
Bay Area commuters appear willing to pay as much as $3 more to ease region’s crowded roads and rails
SAN FRANCISCO >> Bay Area voters hate traffic more than they hate tolls — and they’re willing to pay to ease crowded roads and rails — a new poll released Wednesday found.
The poll, by consulting firm EMC Research, surveyed more than 4,000 likely voters across the nine-county Bay Area in telephone and online interviews, asking whether they would vote to raise tolls on all bay bridges, with the exception of the Golden Gate, by up to $3. That would bring the toll to $9 on the Bay Bridge during commute hours and $8 everywhere else.
Bay Area officials will decide next month whether to ask for the entire $3, which would be phased in over a number of years, or aim for a smaller $1 or $2 increase. That money is earmarked to fund myriad transportation expansion projects, including more BART cars so the agency can run longer trains, expanded ferry service, improved interchanges on various freeways, improved bus
service and more carpool lanes, among other projects.
There’s little difference when it comes to cost, the poll found. Support dropped by only 2 percent, from 56 percent in favor to 54 percent, when respondents were asked whether they would vote to approve a $1 toll or a $3 toll. The poll’s margin of
error is 2.6 percent.
At a coffee shop in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood on a recent weekday, self-described tech worker and dad Brian Wane expressed sticker shock at the idea of a $3 toll hike. Yes, driving from the East Bay into San Francisco is “a special form of torture,” he said. But, where is all that money going?
“I’d like to see expenditures reduced and have that fund more projects,” Wane said.
He wasn’t alone.
“It hurts,” said Antioch resident Jose Chavez. He drives throughout the Bay Area for work, as does his wife. “It hurts bad.”
But support increased when respondents were asked about specific projects the toll hike would fund. The percentage of respondents in favor of the toll hike grew to 79 percent if the money goes to projects that reduce truck traffic congestion and improve air quality,
76 percent for extending BART to Silicon Valley, 76 percent for purchasing more BART cars, and 71 percent for increasing transbay bus service.
A full 85 percent of respondents said they thought traffic had gotten worse over the past year, and there was no significant difference in support for the measure among respondents who pay the toll nearly every day and those who rarely do.
Officials at the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission, which comprises elected officials from the Bay Area’s nine counties, urged the commission’s staff to get the money out sooner, rather than later. Several commissioners asked about introducing the $3 toll hike all at once, rather than phasing it in, or if they could shorten the span between increases, so the full $8 toll would be in effect before 2027, the last year of the proposed increase. “I get the reason why it makes sense to spread it out,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who sits on the commission, “but when voters want to increase the tolls, they want to see results.”
The commission will decide in January whether to place the proposal on the June or November ballot.