Building the first phase of BART to Livermore and completing the Iron Horse Trail ranked as the top two projects identified by two dozen residents at a Valleywide workshop.
That support is enough to bring the two capital projects to the attention of the screening committee that will be making recommendations to the Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC) board, said consultant Bonnie Nelson.
Those present at the ACTC-sponsored meeting in Dublin last Wednesday also favored funding four program categories. November 2012, Alameda County voters will be asked to approve a one cent permanent sales tax measure for transportation, known as B3. A two-thirds majority will be required to approve the measure.
If the vote fails, the current one-half cent sales tax would remain in effect until 2022. Most of the projects authorized for it have been completed or will be completed within a few years. Completion of the projects, and sentiment expressed around the county for more projects have motivated the push for a permanent tax.
The four program categories favored for funding by the 24 potential voters at the Dublin meeting were local streets and roads (21), bicycle and pedestrian safety (18), transit operations (15), and paratransit for seniors and disabled (14).
In the capital improvements category, BART's first phase, which would take it to near Isabel Avenue, received 18 votes, as did completing the Iron Horse Trail. BART's second phase to Livermore, which is slated for Greenville Road, garnered 16 votes.
Nelson told The Independent that the second phase of BART did not rise to a level sufficient to be presented to the committee. The cut-off is really about money, she explained.
Phase 1 will cost an estimated $1.2 billion. Adding phase 2 brings the cost to $4 billion, she said. The revenue expected to be raised during the next project and program period is $7.7 billion. It's politically unlikely the remainder of the county would stand for spending more than half of the total allocation on a Livermore BART extension.
However, county money won't be the only financial source, as some federal and state funding is expected for the BART extension.
Nelson emphasized that the meeting was only one of many input sources providing the committee information on how the public wants to spend the county transportation sales tax. ACTC has also polled the entire county, and found that 79 percent have responded that they are likely to support the permanent tax extension, she said.
If voters do approve the tax in November 2012, the one-half percent would rise to 1 percent six months later. Although the tax would continue in perpetuity, voters would vote on a list of new capital projects and operating programs every 20 years. Only a simple majority would be required to approve the projects.
Asking for a transportation sales tax of 1 percent in perpetuity is a way to ensure programs and capital projects that no longer can rely on federal and state programs with any regularity, ACTC executive director Art Dao told the Independent.
"Forty percent of the congestion in the Bay Area goes through Alameda County. There is also an unfunded state mandate to reduce greenhouse gases. Another plus is that the construction projects will create new jobs," said Dao.
After a committee looks over polling data and the feedback from five meetings around the county, it will make recommendations to the ACTC board on which projects to ask supervisors to put on the ballot. The ACTC board's decision is slated for a meeting Dec. 16.
Some $30 billion worth of projects and programs have been suggested. That will have to be whittled down to the $7.7 billion that ACTC expects would be generated by the increased tax rate.
Livermore Mayor Marshall Kamena and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty are members of the ACTC board.
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