Voters narrowly approve sales tax
Funds will go toward bus and Caltrain operations, highway interchange improvements and road repairs
SAN MATEO COUNTY » In the end, it came down to 541 votes.
That was the margin of victory for Measure W — a half-cent sales tax that is expected to generate $2.4 billion over 30 years to pay for bus operations, Caltrain service, improvements to highway interchanges and road repairs in San Mateo County.
The official election results will not be certified until Dec. 6, but with just 296 votes left to be counted out of more than 270,500 cast, the outcome for this measure won’t change, Jim Izzary, the chief elections officer for San Mateo County, said on Tuesday. Elections this close are not unheard of, but are becoming more common, he said.
“That’s just the nature of this election environment that these measures are hotly debated,” Izzary said, “and people will vote accordingly.”
But transportation advocates lauded the measure’s passage — albeit narrowly — as a resounding show of support. The mea- sure required a two-thirds vote to pass, or 66.67 percent, which was already a high bar to meet, said Randy Rentschler, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the region’s transportation planning agency. It received 66.87 percent.
With increasing traffic congestion continuing to choke highways and slow commutes, it’s clear voters are looking for a solution to growing gridlock, he said.
“In any other state, you’d call this a smashing success,” Rentschler said. “It’s only in California where it’s the thinnest of margins.”
The measure’s passage was even more significant because it lacked the kinds of flashy ex-
pansion projects that often draw voter’s attention and focused instead on ensuring there is adequate funding to support bus and Caltrain services that already exist, said Edie Irons, a spokeswoman for TransForm, a transportation advocacy nonprofit. That support for existing services will be important if regional transportation leaders decide to come to voters with a proposed “megameasure” to pay for large expansion projects, she said, such as a new transbay tube for BART.
“We’re going to be advocating for big, bold projects,” Irons said, “that really move the needle on equity, mobility, and sustainability.”
The measure, however, wasn’t without its critics. The Sierra Club, which typically endorses measures that improve transit, took no official position out of concerns it included too much money for highway improvements, said Michael Ferreira, chairman of the club’s political committee.
Nearly a quarter of the funds, or 22.5 percent, will be dedicated to highway improvements aimed at reducing traffic congestion, 12.5 percent will go to road repairs that improve the flow of traffic, 5 percent will go to bicycle and pedestrian improvements, 10 percent will be earmarked for improving transit connections to neighboring counties, and the re- maining 50 percent is dedicated to maintaining and enhancing bus, paratransit and Caltrain services.
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, the San Mateo County Republican Party opposed the measure because it invested too much in transit, among other issues, said party member Thomas Weismiller. The GOP chapter is considering calling for a recount.
“The real intent of this measure was to bail out the inefficiencies of SamTrans operations,” he said.
The beleaguered bus agency was facing a structural deficit that would have resulted in drastic service cuts, said Charles Stone, the chairman of the San Mateo County Transit District’s governing board. Nearly all public transit agencies in the country run on a deficit and use taxpayer funds to subsidize operations, but Stone said the problem is particularly acute in the Bay Area. Living costs are some of the highest in the nation, necessitating larger salaries to attract and retain workers, and construction costs continue to rise, he said. There’s also a $20 million debt payment annually for the district’s share of the Millbrae BART station.
“That’s a pretty big credit card bill to pay every year,” Stone said.
Years of under-investment, a red-hot jobs market, not enough housing near job centers that forces people to drive long hours to and from work, and more people piling into the region, all conspired to create the Bay Area’s current quagmire, he said: a transportation network that needs more money to maintain the services it already provides, while still investing in new services to address growing demand.
“We were not prepared for the effects of one of the most vibrant economies of the world,” Stone said. “This is us finally starting to make a robust attempt to catch up.”
The funding is divvied into categories of spending — rather than outlining specific projects — that will be awarded at the discretion of the San Mateo County Transit District’s board of directors. A citizens’ oversight committee will be established to ensure the money is spent wisely.
Too often, transportation sales tax measures promise projects that could take decades to fully fund, design and build, resulting in projects that stay on the books but no longer make sense for the county’s current transportation needs, said Adina Levin, the co-founder of Friends of Caltrain, a transportation advocacy organization. The advent of Uber and Lyft, the proliferation of shared bikes and scooters, and the emergence of autonomous vehicles are all indications that future transportation choices will be very different from those of the past, Levin said.
“We don’t have a way to predict how these services will mature,” she said. “Especially now with emerging technology, it’s important to have more flexibility.”