Measure Would Double Tax in Alameda County to Fund County Transportation

Alameda County elected officials and transportation leaders are asking voters on Nov. 4 to approve a measure that would double the county’s transportation sales tax, two years after a similar measure failed by only a small number of votes.

Proponents say Measure BB, which needs a two-thirds majority for approval, would generate nearly $8 billion for important transportation improvements over the next 30 years, stimulate $20 billion of economic activity in the region and create nearly 150,000 jobs. Alameda County voters approved a half-cent sales tax measure in 1986 that helps pay for transportation and transit projects in the county and in 2000 they approved extending the tax for another 20 years to 2022.

But county leaders and transportation officials want to increase the tax by another half cent and extend it because they say more money is needed to help pay for the operating costs for the transportation and transit projects that the tax has helped fund. In 2012, Measure B, which would have doubled the transportation tax permanently, received 66.53 percent of the vote but fell 721 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.

In order to address the concerns of those who voted against the 2012 measure, transportation officials said they have tweaked Measure BB so that it expires in 30 years, in 2045, and have included strict accountability measures to ensure that the money raised by the tax is spent on approved projects. The measure calls for 48 percent of the money raised by the tax to be spent on BART, bus service and subsidies for seniors and youths, 30 percent to be spent on improvements to local streets and roads, 9 percent on traffic relief on highways in the county and 8 percent on local bicycle and pedestrian paths and safety.

In addition, 4 percent would go toward community development investments and 1 percent would be spent on technologies to manage the transportation system. Supporters, including Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who chairs the county’s Transportation Commission, say in a ballot argument that, “Measure BB will expand BART, keep fares affordable for seniors, the disabled and young people, fix roads, fill potholes, restore bus transit services and reduce traffic congestion to manage our aging infrastructure and provide good transportation for county residents.” But opponents, including former BART director Sherman Lewis, allege in a ballot argument that doubling the sales tax would “saddle Alameda County’s struggling middle class, seniors, poor and small businesses with the highest county sales tax in California.”

Opponents say the measure “would buy nothing but a $7.8 billion mixed bag of unrelated projects” and charge that the measure’s plan to contribute $400 million toward the projected $1.2 billion cost of extending BART to Livermore is “not a prudent use of tax dollars” because there are more cost-effective ways of providing transit service to outlying areas. Measure BB opponents also criticize the plan to award $1.5 billion to Alameda-Contra Costa Transit.

They say that instead of simply restoring its previous service levels, the bus agency “must be required to improve its operating efficiency, streamline its routes, reduce duplicative service and coordinate better with BART.”

By Bay City News

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