MTC to Poll Area Residents on Options for Preserving, Improving Transit Service

MTC at a special Commission meeting today directed staff to conduct public opinion polling on several frameworks for a potential 2026 transportation tax measure that could avert deep service cuts by BART and other transit agencies; and could spur implementation of the Bay Area Transit Transformation Action Plan to improve the customer experience for transit riders. 

The first of the frameworks to be explored for a possible ballot measure in 2026 is a 10-year, half-cent sales tax that would appear on the ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, with an option for Santa Clara County to participate as well. Under this scenario, the sales tax would generate about $560 million each year, with 90 percent of the money used to support transit operations and the remaining 10 percent going to make customer-focused improvements to transit, such as fare discounts when a rider uses more than one transit agency on a single trip and projects to help buses bypass traffic. 

The second framework — which would raise an estimated $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion each year — includes a 30-year, half-cent sales tax plus a parcel tax of nine cents per square foot of any building(s) on the property. This ‘hybrid’ measure would appear on the ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, with an opt-in provision for Santa Clara, Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. As with the first framework, 90 percent of the money from the sales tax portion would be used to support transit operations and 10 percent would be invested to improve the customer experience for transit riders. Sixty percent of parcel tax revenues would be used to support transit operations with the remaining 40 percent reserved as a "county flex" available to address a range of transportation needs in each participating county.

Another framework for which polling will be conducted would involve tax rates that vary by county. Developed by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, this third option would feature a higher tax rate in San Francisco (which has proportionally higher transit operating needs than other counties), a lower rate in Santa Clara County, and equivalent rates in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties.

The Commission also approved several policy provisions for inclusion in new state legislation that would enable voters to consider a future ballot measure, including requiring stronger oversight of transit agencies’ financial information and requiring transit agencies to adopt policies to help improve the transit customer experience as a condition for receiving new funds. The Commission recommended against including transit agency consolidation as a topic for enabling legislation. 

MTC engaged Oakland-based EMC Research to conduct public opinion polling. EMC will poll Bay Area residents on the potential tax frameworks in early 2025, with results reported to the Commission in February. 

MTC’s pursuit of more information about the proposed tax frameworks and associated policy provisions follows work done earlier this year by a Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee established to help reach consensus for state legislation in 2025 that would authorize Bay Area voters consider a 2026 ballot measure to preserve and enhance public transit in the region. MTC Commissioner and Select Committee Chair Jim Spering of Solano County noted in October, “There are three things a ballot measure must eventually do. It needs to generate enough revenue to address our most immediate transit shortfalls; it needs to introduce transformative changes to our transit systems that Bay Area residents have been asking for; and it needs to be a measure that voters will support, with coordination and vision.”