It’s a pivotal moment for public transit in the Bay Area. This Wednesday, the SamTrans Board of Directors will decide whether to opt in to a regional funding measure that would protect and improve transit service across the region.
Transit in San Mateo County is at risk, and we need to find reliable funding to make sure Caltrain, SamTrans, BART and other transit services that our residents rely on don’t face catastrophic cuts.
The path forward is Senate Bill 63, a bill authored by state senators Scott Wiener and Jesse Arreguín. SB 63 would place a regional transit funding measure on the 2026 ballot to provide essential funding for the next 14 years to prevent service cuts while agencies work to rebuild ridership.
San Mateo County will only fund transit agencies that provide service in our county — Caltrain, SamTrans, BART and Muni — and only in proportion to our county’s share of their ridership. And each year, another $45 million in “return to source” funds will flow back to San Mateo County for our own local use to improve transit. This funding will allow us to maintain service and make transformative investments in more reliable, frequent and connected transit.
Our state delegation has played an essential role in representing San Mateo County’s voice in conversations on the regional measure, consistently emphasizing the need for strong accountability measures to ensure our tax dollars are used appropriately. It is true that San Mateo County does not have BART board representation or representation on Muni. Additional accountability is necessary to ensure that these agencies adhere to commitments they have already made to San Mateo County stakeholders, and to ensure fair levels of service, fare policies and station cleanliness in San Mateo County.
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San Mateo County leaders have secured a strong and unprecedented regional accountability framework that’s been recommended by staff at the San Mateo County Transportation Authority and SamTrans. Under SB 63, San Mateo County would have equal representation with the other participating counties across the region on a new Accountability Committee. The Accountability Committee would have real power to withhold a transit agency’s funding if it inconsistently applies adopted standards, policies or commitments in a given county. For San Mateo County, this means more oversight on BART and Muni spending than we’ve ever had and a stronger voice at the regional table.
This approach will help build greater regional trust as representatives from across the region discuss concerns that may arise as we work together to sustain and improve transit service. It is a path that has support and buy-in from the bill authors, as well as other counties who are wary of and do not support any one county having the ability to potentially unilaterally destabilize a transit system’s finances or be able to force a transit operator to treat them more favorably than other parts of the region. It does so while providing a fair venue that the county can use to constructively approach accountability.
San Mateo County has been thoughtfully strengthening its partnerships with transit partners across the region, and it’s yielding results. We’ve started a strong dialogue with Muni, which provides service to more than 2 million riders in San Mateo County each year and has shown a clear commitment to maintaining and improving service in our county. With BART, we’re already seeing the benefits of a stronger relationship with the agency. San Mateo County recently partnered with BART on fare gate upgrades, and in return BART improved cleanliness, security and reliability at our local stations. BART and Muni have made written commitments to San Mateo County stakeholders related to financial transparency, public outreach and service changes. To continue this progress, San Mateo County needs to be seen as a constructive regional partner, which we can’t do by acting in isolation.
The regional transit measure is an opportunity for our county to have a voice and a seat at the table. It’s an opportunity to protect our transit system from cuts that would have wide-reaching impacts on all of us, not just transit riders. The choice is straightforward: work with our regional partners to move transit forward, or risk setting it back when we can least afford it.
Noelia Corzo represents District 2 on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, including the cities of San Mateo, Foster City and Belmont north of Ralston. Carlos Romero serves on the East Palo Alto City Council and serves as the chair of the San Mateo County Transportation Authority. Views are their own.
(9) comments
Vote no, since April we have been hearing how bad tariffs are and will be for everyone. Some have gone so far as to call tariffs a sales tax. If it is bad in one instance is should be equally as bad in another. Sales Taxes are actually worse since they are assessed 100% at the retail price level, where as tariffs are at the wholesale level and may be less than 100% of the wholesale price, only applying to certain components. Not to mention public transit does not provide the flexibility needed by users, one must limit their working hours to when transit operates. For many buses the last bus is 6pm, so depending on where one lives it might not be possible to work an 8 hour shift.
What is your solution for funding public transit? Are you suggesting that we cut service? What will that do to congestion? What will that mean for those who are not wealthy enough to afford cars?
Neither BART nor Caltrain are underfunded - just mismanaged.
Samtrans is 95% covered by Sales taxes already. After the public approved that sales measure to secure revenue, Board Members like Jeff Gee - employed by developer Swinerton - 'reimagined' Samtrans, reduced service for residents, bought a second HQ and started a few more real estate projects.
With 95% funding secured Gee could have 'reimagined' better service and no rider fees at all, but that is not how a rich Redwood Shores politician thinks.
A Bay Area Democrat always schemes on how to make the area even less affordable.
Case in point Rob, Adam, Lisa, Danielle, Nicole in San Mateo taking away healthy, sustainable, money saving bike lanes in San Mateo.
These supervisors talk a good story but are not interested in a regional approach, except for taxing us. For starters, why are running two trains to San Francisco? CalTrain should stop at the Millbrae station where passenger would transfer to BART. There is plenty of duplication the East Bay as well, a fight that has been going on for some time. These are just some ideas and we need someone to take a look at optimizing our systems and keep the politicians and unions out of it.
currently the county has setup several competing agencies serving the same target customer:
- Caltrain runs from SF to Gilroy
- BART is/will be competing between SF and Millbrae and also in Santa Clara
- Samtrans took away local east/west connections and replaced with north/south Express Buses . .. competing with Caltrain
- more public transit funding is taken away and given to Ferry Service absolutely no one asked for ... again competing with Caltrain.
- But most importantly Rico E. Medina and David Canepa increased capacity on 101
- this directly affected Caltrain's ridership.
No friend of public transit would set up a system like this.
It's almost as if the Supervisors, SMCTA and the Transit District are out to sabotage Caltrain after they are done with Samtrans.
If you think federal deficits, federal tariffs, federal corruption is bad, don't forget about your locals.
A few facts here:
- San Mateo County is top 3 in richest counties in US
- If school districts are poor, why would Mullin, Papan, Becker supporting education funding (ExcessERAF) going to the county instead?
- Public Transit is overfunded. It's why they keep splitting agencies instead of merging. It's 28 now with 28 CEOs and 100s of overpaid 'directors' buying real estate.
- If agencies were poor, why aren't they merging?
- If public transit was poor, why is MTC's David Canepa (Samtrans) supporting the rerouting of public transit funding?
- Rico E. Medina (Samtrans) wanted a resident off a transportation board because he was Pro-public transit.
Voters approve every bond and tax measure, keep voting for obviously corrupted politicians, mortgaging the future of our children and then complain about the high cost of living and affordability crisis.
San Mateo politicians will keep fleecing voters until the start paying attention to local 'tariffs', local 'deficits' and how Bay Area democrats have 'mismanaged' your county.
The absolute never failing Litmus Test is:
"Could your children take a bus or bicycle to school?"
If your answer is NO vote NO and check your politicians. They have a horrible smell, toss them out.
If you want to see how to run public transit and bike lanes properly - go study the Netherlands. I lived in Utrecht for a year and I never had a need for a car other than when I was moving furniture.
exactly. our myriads of agencies can pretent to be poor because SMCTA (eg Romero) and the Board of Supervisors (eg Corzo) constantly reroute Active and Public Transportation funding to car-centric projects by naming them 'Traffic Calming' or 'Grade Separation'.
This gives SMCTA enough funding to then use eminent domain for highway widening and expensive interchanges like 84/101 and 92/101. This then brings more pollution to low income neighborhoods like East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks or North Central.
This then allows 'equity candidates' (like Romero, Corzo, Fernandez) to rant about the inequality while really just increasing pollution and therefore discrimination.
Scamming their voters is all just a game for them.
Time to remind voters how your politicians really think:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Los_Angeles_City_Council_scandal?wprov=sfla1
LittleFoot - as a native of the Netherlands, I can attest to their quality of public transportation. What I found out while serving on the Civil Grand Jury is that we are inundated with a "District" structure. We have districts for everything; schools, water, transportation, health. None is coordinating but all have high administrative costs that are not quite obvious to the public. They have other issues in the Netherlands but District proliferation is killing us here. Notice that many council members are also members of these district boards and get a stipend for their 'additional' service. That is where the real rub lies, and it explains why these supervisors and former mayors are in favor of maintaining the status quo as it lines their pockets and possible political upgrades. In the Netherlands most public transit systems, except those in the major cities, are either national or regional. Funding is dictated by the national government, not by individual systems or local tax payers. It provides for economies of scale, constant optimization and accountability. All of those attributes are missing in our systems.
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