Bay Area voters jack up taxes to pay for struggling public transit systems

Voters in five Bay Area counties — San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Contra Costa and Alameda — decided to throw a lifeline to the region’s public transportation after approving two tax measures Tuesday intended to help raise money for the bus and rail systems.

The Regional Transit Measure — a half-cent sales tax that would fund more than 20 transit agencies, including BART, Muni, and Caltrain, for 14 years — was leading with 61% in initial election returns posted Tuesday.

The tax will be one cent in San Francisco.

San Francisco voters also resoundingly approved Proposition H, a parcel tax funding Muni for 15 years, with 72% of votes as of Tuesday evening.

Prop. H would impose a $129 tax on single family homes in the city, with multi-family residences, larger homes and non-residential properties paying more. The tax would be adjusted annually for inflation.

Bay Area transit agencies warned that without the taxes, they will need to make deep service cuts to close budget deficits driven by rising costs and plummeting fare revenue since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Bay Area voters rightly and resoundingly recognized that our region can’t function and flourish without a strong transit system and that’s just what the passage of Measure RTM will help ensure,” said Libby Schaaf, President and CEO of the Bay Area Council, which backed the regional funding measure.

BART has a deficit of $375 million, while Muni has a growing $307 million gap. Caltrain has a $75 million shortfall. 

BART officials even laid out an “Alternative Service Plan” that would close up to 15 of the system’s stations, end daily service at 9 p.m. and make other cuts. Fares and parking fees could rise by up to 50%.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has threatened to cut 20 bus lines, run half as many buses and end cable car service.

However, multiple taxpayers’ associations have called bluff on the dire warnings. The transportation agencies already receive around $6 billion a year in taxes, tolls and government grants, opponents noted.

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“Does anyone really believe that this will be the last tax increase for transit?” Marc Joffe, president of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association, said on Tuesday.

“Unless and until we have a reckoning, US transit agencies will just continue to require greater and greater taxpayer subsidies.”

Joffe has instead proposed diverting $1 billion in cap-and-invest funds from California’s long-delayed high-speed rail project to San Francisco’s transits.

Local voters have approved some tax increases in the past to help out public transit. In 2020, voters approved Measure RR, a one-eighth-cent regional sales tax to fund operations after the pandemic gutted ridership.