GILROY
– On the ballot Tuesday, local voters will be asked to hike
bridge tolls to pay for improved Bay Area public transit. Some top
public and private sector officials ask you to vote yes, but some
locals are wary.
GILROY – On the ballot Tuesday, local voters will be asked to hike bridge tolls to pay for improved Bay Area public transit. Some top public and private sector officials ask you to vote yes, but some locals are wary.
Measure 2 would raise bridge tolls on Bay Area bridges by $1 – except on the Golden Gate – and use bridge-toll revenue to pay for the following:
• expanding Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) rail to San Jose from the East Bay,
• implementing a Dumbarton Bridge rail line from Redwood City to Union City, which Caltrain would oversee,
• expanding bus and ferry service.
Measure 2 is on the ballots of seven Bay Area counties – Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin, Solano, Contra Costa and Alameda – and requires more than 50-percent approval.
Don Gage – chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, a Santa Clara County supervisor and a Gilroy resident – says he thinks the projects are worthwhile and that raising bridge tolls is a good way to fund them.
“The only way to solve them is with additional revenue,” Gage said. He likes having this revenue come from a user fee.
“People who use it pay,” Gage said.
Gage proposed freezing $170 million worth of preliminary engineering for BART as recently as the fall. By January, he wanted to do the engineering and then shelve the project until the economic outlook improves.
On Friday, Gage defended Bay Area transit expansion in general.
“Future growth in this state is expected to double in 30 years, 20 years, whichever it is, and you’ve got to move people,” Gage said. “(If not,) it won’t be a viable state.”
Critics – including several grassroots riders’ advocates – warn that BART-to-San Jose is a black hole that will require much more of taxpayers than the 30-year, half-cent sales tax set to begin in 2006. The VTA polled people in the fall about adding a second half-cent sales tax for BART and other projects; a majority said yes, but less than the required two-thirds.
Former Gilroy mayor and VTA board member Tom Springer thinks BART-to-San Jose is a good idea, but he voted no to Measure 2 in his already-cast absentee ballot.
“I saw so many negatives and so few positives,” Springer said Friday. “It doesn’t do anything directly for Santa Clara County.”
Springer said the bridge tolls would not fund BART enough to get it from Fremont to San Jose – only to Warm Springs. As for the Dumbarton rail crossing, he said it would more likely take workers out of this county and into San Mateo and Alameda rather than the other way around.
“There’s already ACE taking people into Santa Clara County,” Springer said.
The Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, which represents the biggest business interests in the area, supports the measure. Transportation Director Laura Stuchinsky described the Measure 2 projects as “very critical” and said it is typical of Bay Area residents’ “can-do” attitude to step in and do what’s necessary when governments are strapped for funds.
The SVMG hasn’t surveyed its members’ employees to find out how many of them would use the transit expansion Measure 2 would support. To conduct such a poll now would lack relevance, Stuchinsky said; it would not represent people’s thoughts when the projects come to fruition.
Estimates for BART-to-San Jose completion range from 10 years to 22 years, depending on the economy, according to the VTA. Critics say it could be longer still. The Federal Transit Administration called the project “not recommended” for $830 million in its report to Congress, and new California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would suspend $630 million in state aid.
But proponents like the SVMG and San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales stand by the 71-percent voter approval for BART-to-San Jose in 2000.
