Budget agreement saves transit funding, secures $750M in new short-term funding

Today, Governor Newsom and the state legislature announced a budget agreement to save public transit – at least in the short-term. Today's budget agreement comes ahead of the June 30 deadline Governor Newsom had to sign or veto the state budget. If he took no action by June 30, the budget would have automatically become law.

The approved state budget includes: 

  • Full restoration of the remaining $1.1 billion in flexible transit funds committed in the 2023 budget deal that Newsom proposed eliminating this year, but the state legislature voted to save

  • $1 billion in loans to Los Angeles-area local governments for general budget relief, including for transit agencies

  • $750 million in loans to Bay Area transit agencies to avert immediate service cuts

  • A commitment to negotiate a long-term Cap-and-Invest transit funding deal within the next 4 weeks where currently $3 billion in long-term climate funds supporting transit, including the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, the Low Carbon Transit Operations Program, and the Affordable Housing for Sustainable Communities.

Thanks to public pressure from you, tens of thousands of Californians, and the Move California coalition with 120+ partner organizations, helped motivate the state legislature to reject Governor Newsom's initial budget proposal and then to get the Governor to sign the deal. Together, we sent in tens of thousands of calls and letters, organized rallies, banner drops, and all sorts of other actions. Whether you sent an email, called your elected representatives, put up flyers, donated, shared the alerts, or did something else to help speak out for transit, this victory wouldn’t have been possible without the work you and everyone else put in. Thank you for being part of this big team effort.

Next State-Level Action: Securing transit funding in the Cap-and-Trade Reauthorization Process

Legislators want to finalize decisions about the Cap-and-Invest program within a month, in time for the next auctions. However, the Cap and Trade debate could run all the way through the legislative session, in which the legislature passes bills by the end of September and the Governor has an October deadline to approve or veto. 

Next Bay Area Action: Long-term funding and reforms through a transit regional measure

While California transit service still faces an uncertain future in 2027 and beyond, this victory stops massive cuts in the near-term to the transit service our communities depend on. But we still have lots of work to do to put Bay Area transit on sturdy footing for the long-term and make service as frequent, reliable, affordable, and accessible as possible.

We need to protect the long-term health of our transit systems by passing a regional funding measure that covers as much of the Bay Area as possible, raises as much money for transit as possible, and ensures people can seamlessly travel throughout the region on transit. That measure gets finalized this summer and will go to voters next year. 

That's why we are organizing a big rally to get San Mateo County and turning out public comment at SamTrans, VTA, and MTC in the coming week.

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Adina Levin