Survey suggests uniting Bay transit authorities

Residents of Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties expressed the most support for the idea, whole residents of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties were less enthusiastic, according to the poll.

The poll also found that 85-percent of Bay Area residents support Proposition 42, but that 73-percent thought the law had been used improperly by the state government to balance the budget. Proposition 42, which passed in 2002, dedicated gasoline tax revenues for transportation purposes. Among partisan lines, 82 percent of Bay Area Republicans and 70 percent of Bay Area Democrats opposed the state's use of the tax revenues, the poll reports. Seventy percent of those polled said the money should go to transportation issues.

Potential increases in bridge tolls were also covered in the poll. When asked if they would prefer a variable price increase, where tolls would increase by $2 during commute times, to a fixed price increase, 58 percent of respondents stated that they prefer an increase of $1. Only 32 percent preferred variable pricing, according to the poll.

The poll was conducted by Field Research Corporation. Survey respondents were selected at random to give list and unlisted telephones an equal chance of being selected. Findings are subject to a sampling error of plus or minus four-percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.