Editor,
Kudos to letter writer, Jim Lawrence, who listed the avalanche of taxes our elected officials are promoting in the current election cycle. Remarkable our elected officials lament rising gas, housing and food prices but sky’s the limit for the cost of government services.
The mother of all the taxes he listed is this Bay Area half-cent transportation sales tax (November ballot), which might be the most cynical tax in Bay Area history:
1). It is a “citizens initiative“ that was actually conceived and written by the state legislature. The legislature had the clear intent to circumvent the greater scrutiny required for a two-thirds vote. (Why is this even legal?)
2). It is being sold as a “temporary“ tax despite the fact that BART, Caltrain et al have not provided any turnaround plan to fiscal solvency. Instead, both Bart and Caltrain have proposed extortion, threatening to close stations if they don’t get their money.
3). Supervisor Ray Mueller reported that he rode Caltrain for weeks and was never asked for a ticket. BART is notorious for fare evasion. So our transportation leaders are willing to go to war for a tax on the poorest among us to get more revenue, but they won’t make any such effort to collect from their passengers first. You’ll note, BART and Caltrain are quick to report any increases in “passengers” but we never see much reporting on — revenue. Maybe the fact that they’re not seeing a strong correlation between the two is worth looking into.
C.J. Keane
Redwood City
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(4) comments
Not to mention State housing policies will erode sales taxes as more retail is converted to housing (will decrease sales tax which is the primary funding source of public transit, will also decrease business taxes). There is a lot of crying over VLF, but no one sees this on the horizon.
So people will stop buying things because more housing is being built???!!!
It was over 2 years ago when Supervisor Mueller noted at a Caltrain board meeting that his ticket wasn’t checked. A lot has changed since then, but be aware that Caltrain uses European-style self-ticketing, where riders are only occasionally checked and receive $75 citations if caught riding without proof of payment (PoP).
As shown in Caltrain’s financial reports to the board published on its website, fare revenue & ridership *are* strongly correlated, as they always have been. 🤷♂️
Caltrans used to be in charge of Caltrain. Then they separated so Caltrain can focus on tracks and trains, and Caltrans can focus on streets, bridges, and tunnels.
A "grade separation" project is either a bridge or a tunnel. And it is a street.
That is Caltrans' jurisdiction and the funding MUST come from Caltrans' budget.
So someone is cheating here.
Caltrain has already right-of-way, they don't benefit a bit from these car projects. On the contrary, the faster people get to the "lexus lanes", the more it hurts Caltrain's ridership.
Basically Rico E. Medina, Julia Mattes, Mark Nagales, Noelia Corzo, Anders Fung, Carlos Romero, and Ray Mueller are funneling public transit funding and ridership away from Caltrain and towards Caltrans. And then come crying to voters in November that Caltrain's ridership is low and voters need to fix the budget problem Rico E. Medina and Ray Mueller created in the first place.
What is wrong with San Mateo Democrats? It is just one plunder after another.
(PS: 50 years and counting ... and still no bike lanes for children. How low can they go?)
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