Advocates Rally to Revive Transit Loan

On Monday morning, over 200 advocates rallied and marched in San Francisco and helped revive negotiations in Sacramento about a $750M loan to keep transit running in the Bay Area before a regional transit funding measure would go on the ballot. Last week, the governor’s office was backing away from the budget deal to provide the $750M loan.

As covered in Monday’s Chronicle, Senator Wiener said that over the weekend, the discussions may have come back from the dead “onto life support.” Hundreds of transit riders and supporters have been calling the governor in the last week demanding that the administration keep the agreement to keep transit funding while the Bay Area works to pass a regional transit funding measure.

Thanks to the partners at Transbay Coalition, San Francisco Transit Riders, Seamless Bay Area and SPUR who got the word out for the rally and the campaign to hold the governor accountable to the budget deal.

We need to keep up the pressure. If you haven’t yet, please take a moment to call Governor Newsom’s office. Click here for instructions.

SB63 passes Assembly Transportation Committee

That afternoon in Sacramento, the Assembly Transportation Committee passed Senate Bill 63, the bill authorizing a regional transit funding measure for the Bay Area. The measure would be put on the ballot by a signature gathering initiative in 5 counties (San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara). The measure would be a half-cent sales tax outside of San Francisco, and a full percent in San Francisco.

Advocates carpooled to Sacramento after the rally to show support for the bill, which would provide funding to prevent deep cuts to BART, Caltrain, Muni and AC Transit.

The vote was 11-5, on a party line except with Diane Papan from San Mateo County voting no.

The next step will be votes on the Assembly and Senate Floor on Thursday or Friday.

What were Assembly Member Papan’s concerns? What can SMC transit supporters do now?

The bill had been amended to strengthen accountability provisions that San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties had been advocating for. However, Papan wanted stricter terms than other leaders in San Mateo County and other counties.

For accountability, the bill would provide a process with adjudication ad hoc subcommittees that would meet as needed to adjudicate complaints from participating counties about the performance of agencies getting substantial funding by the measure (BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit), up to once a year per agency. The Ad Hoc subcommittee would have Brown Act public meetings, and include 2 commissioners from each of the counties providing funding to an operator through SB 63.

Complaints could come from the bodies that provide funding to the agency, for example SamTrans in San Mateo County and VTA in Santa Clara County. The committee would be able to withhold up to 7.5% from an operator for persistent lack of compliance with standards for service.

This has even more teeth than previous versions of the bill, but Assembly Member Papan still isn’t satisfied - she wanted San Mateo County to be able to unilaterally withdraw their funding at their discretion, a power no other county has, and that San Mateo County wouldn’t want any other county to have.

If you want to reiterate your support for San Mateo County staying in the measure, please click here to send a letter to the editor to the San Mateo Daily Journal. You can draw on points from this page. For San Mateo County residents we’ll keep you posted with more ways to continue to keep San Mateo County in the measure so it includes all the counties served by the multi-county agencies. Letters to the editor reach policymakers and help convey the truth that many county residents want San Mateo County to participate.

Advocates rally to revive transit loan; Revised SB63 transit funding bill passes assembly committee