San Mateo County needs Measure W. Traffic congestion is getting worse by the day and will continue to worsen unless we take action now. Our two public transit systems, SamTrans and Caltrain are both woefully underfunded and do not have the financial capacity to expand their services. Many stretches of our highways and their interchanges haven’t seen any improvements since I started driving almost 50 years ago. In that time the population of San Mateo County has grown from 556,000 to over 760,000. Measure W will address many of our problems. Will it solve them? It’s only 1/2 percent, so major projects like grade separations for Caltrain are beyond Measure W’s capabilities. But it will fund smaller projects throughout the county that can make an impact on reducing congestion. It will help our cities bring their road infrastructure into a state of good repair and it will push SamTrans back away from the edge of the financial cliff. All funds will go to projects benefiting San Mateo County and there will be an independent citizens oversight committee to make sure the funds are spent properly. Over 17,000 people provided their input as to how these funds should be allocated and spent. Here is an opportunity to actually do something about making it easier to move within our county. Yes on Measure W.
Peter Ratto
San Mateo
The letter writer is a member of the SamTrans Board of Directors. His views are his own.
Vote NO. NoMeasureW.org SamTrans proposed ½ cent sales tax has attracted opposition owing to its 30 year term. With rapidly evolving technological changes, that’s much further into the future than anyone can predict. 3rd grade kids will be 40 before they vote on SamTrans’s priorities again. You wouldn’t know from the $1Ms in flyers polluting your mailbox daily that W is was about a sales tax trying to lock you into the same old same old. Instead politicians are typically lying. Like Supervisor Canepa’s claim that half the measure would go toward fixing potholes. Or that bus service for the impaired will be derailed. Look at who is funding the flyers. Facebook Genentech Bohanon and their political bedmates would rather the tax payer picked up the bill for their problems. Voting no on Measure W would force a coherent plan rather than a wish list designed to please (or terrify) each interest group and jurisdiction.
I voted NO and told everyone who asked to vote NO. I'm tired of being taxed to death. Property tax, at least mine is 12k a year in SSF we have the highest sales tax on the peninsula already we are getting raped at the gas pump and car registration is gonna go up even higher than it is. How can anyone on a fixed income live here anymore?
I am voting no on W and I hope the county as a whole rejects this measure. SamTrans did collect an awful lot of input from the public, but they promptly ignored it and did what they wanted to do with this transportation plan.
The W proponents are really pushing this "congestion relief" idea because they know it polls well, but there's nothing in the plan that will improve traffic congestion.
Measure W will cause serious harm to the environment. It locks in about half a billion dollars in highway expansion spending for the next 30 years, which will only lead to more vehicle miles travelled and more greenhouse gas emissions.
Vote NO on W. Nobody ever posts statistics when asking for more money, so... here's my attempt to boil down some numbers. Note that I'm not an accountant...
Per SamTrans' website for proposed fiscal year 2018, 40% of the operating budget is to be spent on wages and benefits, and quite a bit of money ($1.7 million) is spent on advertising and travel.
Also, per SamTrans' website, fixed-route ridership has been decreasing since 2015 (almost 2 million riders).
So... we're expected to vote for an increase in the sales tax? For paying 40% of wages and benefits (and you know that SamTrans workers will want a significant raise, since there's more money), and for decreasing ridership (even though population is increasing? How about streamlining operations and reducing wages and benefits? Vote NO on W.
This is nothing but a subsidy for SamTrans. Half the money from W would go to them, diverting approx. $40,000,000 annually that could be used for the intended purpose of the measure.
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(5) comments
Vote NO. NoMeasureW.org SamTrans proposed ½ cent sales tax has attracted opposition owing to its 30 year term. With rapidly evolving technological changes, that’s much further into the future than anyone can predict. 3rd grade kids will be 40 before they vote on SamTrans’s priorities again. You wouldn’t know from the $1Ms in flyers polluting your mailbox daily that W is was about a sales tax trying to lock you into the same old same old. Instead politicians are typically lying. Like Supervisor Canepa’s claim that half the measure would go toward fixing potholes. Or that bus service for the impaired will be derailed. Look at who is funding the flyers. Facebook Genentech Bohanon and their political bedmates would rather the tax payer picked up the bill for their problems. Voting no on Measure W would force a coherent plan rather than a wish list designed to please (or terrify) each interest group and jurisdiction.
I voted NO and told everyone who asked to vote NO. I'm tired of being taxed to death. Property tax, at least mine is 12k a year in SSF we have the highest sales tax on the peninsula already we are getting raped at the gas pump and car registration is gonna go up even higher than it is. How can anyone on a fixed income live here anymore?
I am voting no on W and I hope the county as a whole rejects this measure. SamTrans did collect an awful lot of input from the public, but they promptly ignored it and did what they wanted to do with this transportation plan.
The W proponents are really pushing this "congestion relief" idea because they know it polls well, but there's nothing in the plan that will improve traffic congestion.
Measure W will cause serious harm to the environment. It locks in about half a billion dollars in highway expansion spending for the next 30 years, which will only lead to more vehicle miles travelled and more greenhouse gas emissions.
Please vote no on Measure W.
Vote NO on W. Nobody ever posts statistics when asking for more money, so... here's my attempt to boil down some numbers. Note that I'm not an accountant...
Per SamTrans' website for proposed fiscal year 2018, 40% of the operating budget is to be spent on wages and benefits, and quite a bit of money ($1.7 million) is spent on advertising and travel.
Also, per SamTrans' website, fixed-route ridership has been decreasing since 2015 (almost 2 million riders).
So... we're expected to vote for an increase in the sales tax? For paying 40% of wages and benefits (and you know that SamTrans workers will want a significant raise, since there's more money), and for decreasing ridership (even though population is increasing? How about streamlining operations and reducing wages and benefits? Vote NO on W.
This is nothing but a subsidy for SamTrans. Half the money from W would go to them, diverting approx. $40,000,000 annually that could be used for the intended purpose of the measure.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.