Transit tax measure bill moves closer to Senate approval

State Senate Bill 63, which would authorize placement of a ½-cent sales tax to support transit operations on the November 2026 ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties while also allowing the counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara to opt into the measure, moved two steps closer to passage in April after winning approval from both the Senate Transportation Committee and the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. The bill will next be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

MTC Chair and Pleasant Hill Mayor Sue Noack traveled to Sacramento last month to testify in support of  SB 63. The Commission originally took a "support-if-amended" position on the bill, with a recommendation that the text be amended to make clear that the expenditure plan will only include funding commitments for the specified counties in the bill and any additional county that chooses to opt into the measure. 

Introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Sen. Jesse Arreguín of Berkeley, SB 63 would authorize a ballot measure to fund rider-focused improvements to the transit rider experience and avert major service cuts from BART, SF Muni, AC Transit and Caltrain, which collectively face an annual deficit of over $700 million starting in the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2026. 

MTC in February adopted six advocacy principles for SB 63:

1. Be passable: Stakeholder feedback and polling indicates a sales tax is the most viable source of revenue. Input also suggests tax rate should be no higher than 0.5 percent (1/2-cent) unless a county requests a higher amount and polling indi­cates it is viable; that the ballot measure be focused and easy to understand; and that enabling legislation establish a clear path placing a measure on the ballot via signature gathering, which would enable passage by a simple majority.
2. Prevent major service cuts for regional operators: A measure must raise enough money to prevent unacceptable service cuts by multi-county transit operators and must also allow all transit operators that serve a county included in the measure and face an operating deficit to receive funding if needed to avert major service cuts.
3. Advance Transit Transformation: Bay Area residents and voters want and deserve a user-friendly and connected public transportation network. For MTC to support a measure and for it to succeed at the ballot, it must fund concrete rider-focused improvements and require operators to report on and comply with policies and programs related to improving the customer experience (generally referred to as transit transformation) that are adopted through the Bay Area’s Regional Network Management frame­work to be eligible for funding from the new measure.
4. Include meaningful accountability provisions: Enabling legislation should include provisions to ensure transparency about how the funds are spent and should provide greater oversight of transit agencies' financial information so members of the public can more easily access the agencies' budget information and the agencies are encouraged to manage their funds efficiently.
5. Ensure Fairness: A multi-county measure must be considered fair by all participating counties. All counties whose residents are served by regional transit service should contribute their fair share toward an agreed-upon funding level for those operators; and taxpayers in participating counties need assurance that they will benefit fairly from the measure.
6. Take local transportation needs into consideration: To balance the need for new regional funding with the need to maintain funding for local priorities, decisions about the duration of a multi-county tax measure should be developed in coordination with participating counties that also have local transportation sales tax measures that expire within the next 10 years.