Bay Area lawmakers are proposing a regional sales tax to offset a potentially devastating budget deficit for public transportation agencies struggling to fill in the gaps.
Senator Scott Weiner’s solution is a one cent sales tax for San Francisco and a half cent increase for other Bay Area counties plug holes in the budget.
“It is in everyone’s interest to make sure that we have high functioning transit and devastating service cuts where we, for example, have hourly BART trains or no weekend BART service or reduction of Muni frequency by up to 50% and so forth,” Wiener said during a press conference unveiling his plan. “That is not in anyone’s interest.”
San Francisco’s Muni and BART face a combined $600 million dollar deficit within the coming years, as both transportation agencies balance reduced ridership and a sharp decline in revenue.
BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told CBS News Bay Area the agency would have to drastically reduce train commutes, halting more than 3,000 train rides daily.
“We can’t cut our way out of the crisis, because what that service would look like. No one would use it,” Trost said.
Commuters could see drastic cuts in services that may result in bloated traffic congestion that the city’s infrastructure isn’t prepared for. Trost says the both the Bay Bridge and Caltrain would need to add extra lanes to keep up with increased traffic if BART cuts rides.
Sebastian Petty, the executive director of SPUR, a research and advocacy group focused on transportation, said San Franciscans are too reliant on public transport to lose access to Muni or BART.
“Muni provides a level of transit service and frequency, and particularly in combination with Mart that allows a lot of households in San Francisco to live without a car, or to live as a one car household,” Petty said. “Car ownership is really costly.”
If the measure passes, voters will pay the tax from 10 to15 years. Petty said it would be a small price to pay for a healthy public transportation system.
State Senator Jesse Arreguin from Berkeley is also asking the legislature to provide more short-term funding for transit agencies — since the ballot measure vote would not take place until late next year.
