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CONCORD — When Contra Costa County officials brought a half-cent sales tax increase before traffic-weary voters in 2016, they pledged to spend most of the money it would raise on road maintenance and improvements to freeways and streets. Environmental groups and advocates for public transportation balked at the idea of spending so much on infrastructure for cars, and the measure narrowly failed.
Now the county’s leaders are back with another request to raise sales taxes for transportation by half a cent on the March 3 ballot. But this time around, plans call for spending slightly more than half of Measure J’s expected $3.6 billion in revenues on public transit, bike, pedestrian and other projects not meant for the automobile. To supporters, this is a sign of changing priorities in the car-centric suburbs.
“We want to provide you with more options than just your car,” Contra Costa Transportation Authority Executive Director Randy Iwasaki said.
The 2016 tax “had too much for roads, it had too much for highways,” said Hayley Currier, a policy advocacy manager with the transit advocacy group TransForm who previously worked with the environmental organization Greenbelt Alliance. Both groups declined to endorse the 2016 measure and are now backing Measure J.
“It’s a substantially better measure,” Currier said. “We’re fighting against 70 years of the wrong kind of investment, but now is the time.”
Many new residents moving to Contra Costa County are drawn or pushed to its suburbs from the Bay Area’s expensive, crowded core. But they have found those backyards and more affordable homes often come with a catch: Mind-numbing commutes down choked freeways to job centers across the bay in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the North Bay and a spotty public transportation network beyond the backbone of the BART system.
The number of county residents enduring “super-commutes” of 90 minutes or more each way doubled between 2009 and 2017, according to one study. So whereas transportation taxes approved in the past paid to widen Highway 4 or build a fourth bore to carry more cars through the Caldecott Tunnel, the campaign for Measure J centers on buses, trains, ferries and bicycles.
Contra Costa is one of three suburban counties where taxes for mass transit will be on the ballot this spring. Residents in Marin and Sonoma counties are also set to vote on extending the sales tax that funds the fledgling North Bay railroad SMART. The success or failure of the measures could help predict how well a separate Bay Area-wide “mega measure” campaign to raise sales taxes for transportation projects will be received in November.
But a coalition of critics see the Contra Costa County measure’s pledge to spend more on public transit as nothing more than a sales pitch. Some are put off by increasing taxes, noting that Measure J’s increase would effectively double how much residents pay for transportation because it overlaps with a previous tax measure. Others question whether the county is really trying to reduce its car dependence.
“There is very little in the measure that actually makes commitments,” said David Schonbrunn, president of the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, or TRANSDEF.
A lengthy expenditure plan for the measure talks about making bus service more frequent and reliable, improving BART, running ferries to East County and redesigning streets to make bicycling and walking safer. But the plan mostly avoids mentioning specific projects it would fund and generally uses language that stops short of firm commitments. For instance, the plan says that Contra Costa County “may consider funding” an extension of the Antioch eBART line to Brentwood and that its “projects may include” a new connection between the Martinez Amtrak station and the North Concord BART stop.
Schonbrunn said he is concerned county officials could one day divert funds meant for transit to the freeway and road projects the measure is supposedly moving beyond. And even if the county spends the money as planned, Schonbrunn said, it would still invest too much — close to half of its funding — into car-centric projects. The plan calls for spending $1.6 billion in total on road and freeway projects over the 35-year life of the tax.
“They are using the language of sustainability without making any commitments,” he said, accusing county leaders of “greenwashing” money for roads and freeways. “They’ve shifted in rhetoric only.”
The measure’s backers say not committing to specific projects is the better strategy. They point to all the new transportation options that have emerged in recent years — the rise of Uber and Lyft, bike sharing and electric scooters — and technology emerging today such as autonomous vehicles, saying the county’s strategies need to be able to evolve rather than being limited to what planners can envision today.
“How do we know what kinds of projects Contra Costa is going to need in 2040?” said Iwasaki, the transportation authority leader. “We want to make sure there is flexibility to select the right projects.”
But it remains to be seen whether two-thirds of residents will vote to tax themselves without knowing precisely what those taxes will pay for.
“The lack of specificity is definitely a concern,” said Orinda school librarian Sarah Lee, who loved the idea of a measure to raise money for public transportation but dialed back her enthusiasm when told the money wasn’t tied to specific projects.
Mahmoud Hassan, a 66-year-old from Martinez, wasn’t in favor of the measure, saying it was already expensive to live and pay taxes in the Bay Area.
“We already pay (for) everything,” Hassan said. “Enough.”
Adam Alemnew, a 25-year-old engineer who lives in Antioch, said he would likely vote for Measure J and hoped it would improve the area’s bus service.
Transit experts say the region’s fractured web of train, ferry and bus operators is a key factor keeping residents across the Bay Area from ditching their cars for public transportation. Contra Costa County recreates that problem in miniature — four different agencies provide bus service in its east, central, northwest and southwest communities, with coverage that Alemnew said is far too infrequent to ever compete with driving.
“I stopped taking the bus because of that,” said Alemnew, who today drives to work in Walnut Creek.
Despite her concerns, Lee described herself as a “probable yes” on the measure.
“I don’t think there is enough public transportation, or maybe it’s better to say ‘good enough public transportation,’ in Contra Costa County,” she said. “We really need to get people out of cars.”
