Mayor and Council
100 Gregory Lane, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523-3323 – (925) 671-5270 www.pleasanthillca.org
August 7, 2023
State Senator Scott Wiener
Capitol Office
1021 O Street, Suite 8620
Sacramento, CA 95814-4900
District Office
455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 14800
San Francisco, CA 94102
RE: Opposition to Senate Bill 532: San Francisco Bay Area Toll Bridges, Tolls, Transit Operating Expenses
Dear Senator Wiener:
The City of Pleasant Hill City Council and I must respectfully oppose Senate Bill 532, which would raise tolls on the seven state-owned Bay Area bridges by $1.50 to fund transit operations effective January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2028.
Bridge tolls are already costly and are set to increase to $8.00 in 2025, as required by Regional Measure 3 that voters approved in 2018 when tolls were $5.00. The tolls are overwhelmingly paid for by non-San Francisco residents, but the funds would inequitably and largely fund Muni and BART operations into San Francisco, which may not serve the toll payers’ commute corridors.
Senate Bill 532 would bypass the voters to levy a bridge toll increase on the commuters who can least afford it. In a post-pandemic world, those who continue to drive across our bridges and pay tolls are statistically lower income, have lower levels of education, and are disproportionately people of color. Many of those who cross our bridges can neither work remotely from home nor reasonably take transit, and the cost of providing transit to them would be prohibitively expensive.
The City of Pleasant Hill City Council acknowledges the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a steep decline in public transit ridership and revenue. The federal government stepped in to provide $4.4 billion in emergency relief funds to Bay Area transit operators, which allowed agencies to continue to deliver transit services over the past three years. In addition, recognizing that transit operators must exhaust those federal relief funds in the coming years, and in response to this fiscal crisis facing the agencies, the Newsom Administration and State Legislature restored $5.1 billion of transit capital and operating funding – including $1.1 billion of new funding – in this year’s state budget. These funds give transit agencies across the state more time to recover ridership and make adjustments to adapt to post-pandemic travel patterns. The entire $5.1 billion was made flexible to be used to cover operating shortfalls, and all together, allows transit to avoid any fiscal cliffs until 2027.
The state budget relief package provided the region valuable time to maintain service while transit agencies find ways to operate more efficiently, collect fares from existing riders, and provide a more attractive service to build ridership and revenue. The Bay Area should observe how transit agencies use the relief funding to improve their services in response to rider concerns before the region reevaluates the need for new revenue options.
For these reasons, the City of Pleasant Hill opposes Senate Bill 532.
Sincerely,
Timothy M. Flaherty
Mayor
cc: The Honorable Bill Dodd, Senator
The Honorable Timothy S. Grayson, Assembly Member