$10 vehicle fee in the mix as fix for roads and transit

Mar 13, 2010 — Contra Costa Times

Denis Cuff

Mar. 12, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Transportation agencies in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Santa Clara and other Bay Area counties are considering seeking local voter approval to increase vehicle registration fees by $10 per year to fix potholes, improve public transit and take other measures to fight congestion.

Officials said they believe voters were so fed up with poor road conditions and public transit service cuts because of reduced state funding that they might agree to higher fees in economic hard times.

A simple-majority approval of voters would be needed for counties to raise the car registration fee, and to keep the money, under a bill signed into law in October.

"We need to make progress in dealing with the very large backlog of unfunded local street maintenance," said Dennis Fay, executive director of the Alameda County Transportation Authority. "We have public transit operators making serious service cuts because of cuts in state assistance."

A $10-per-car annual fee, he said, would provide local funds for local measures designed by county transportation authorities.

"The state can't take away these funds," Fay told the BART board of directors Thursday in the first of several public presentations on a ballot measure. "Our polling shows us that is very important to voters."

Funds from the fee must be spent on gridlock and pollution-reducing measures such as repairing roads, improving bus and train service, funding buses to deliver riders to

BART stations and adding sidewalks to roads.

Several transportation authorities -- consisting of council members and county supervisors -- are at various stages of looking into possible November ballot measures.

The Sonoma County Transportation is moving even faster. It is holding a special meeting this morning to consider placing the fee increase on its June ballot.

Alameda County's authority has created a committee to draw up the legally required plan for how the county would spend $11 million a year it would get from the measure. A poll commissioned by the authority suggests that 61 percent of likely voters in Alameda County would approve the fee, Fay said.

"There's about a 95 percent chance we're going to the ballot," he said.

The Contra Costa Transportation Authority is preparing to poll local voters about a $10 fee that would raise about $8 million per year.

"It makes sense to find out what local residents want," said County Supervisor Susan Bonilla, a transportation authority member. "There is a history in this county of having voters decide their priorities for transportation projects, and stepping up to pay for them."

In Santa Clara County, a committee of the Transportation Authority recommended Wednesday that the full authority consider a November ballot measure.

A poll of 900 Marin County voters found 65 percent in support of a $10 per auto fee, according to the Marin County Transportation Authority, which is investigating a ballot measure.

The Solano County Transportation Authority is looking at a November ballot measure because it would provide local "self help" funds to offset the increasingly unreliable state transportation funds as the Legislature grapples with budget battles.

"(Money from the state) isn't dependable," said Daryl K. Halls, executive director of the agency.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is looking into the feasibility of putting something on the November ballot, officials there said.

Senate Bill 83, signed into law in October, gave county transportation planning agencies the authority to seek local voter approval to impose a $10 per vehicle fee on top of the regular state vehicle license fee. The state would collect the local money, and then turn it over to the counties.

Despite what the law says, government critics have hinted they might go to court to assert that any new county vehicle fees are really a tax requiring two-thirds approval.

To make the fees legally defensible, agencies must provide a strong case the fees benefit car owners through reduced traffic and pollution, said Fay of the Alameda County agency.

Vehicle license fees have been a political lighting rod in California.

Then-Gov. Gray Davis' decision to triple the statewide auto license fee in 2003 fed public resentment that led to his recall.

However, Davis' successor -- Arnold Schwarzenegger -- signed the bill giving the counties the authority to have the local ballot measures to increase the fees.

Reporters Janis Mara and Gary Richards contributed to this story. Contact Denis Cuff at 925-943-8267. Read the Capricious Commuter blog at www.ibabuzz.com/transportation.

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