California’s transit systems are a robbery in progress. The victims are California’s taxpayers, and soon may include anyone who owns a single-family home within a half-mile of a transit stop.
Los Angeles County residents are already paying four separate half-percent sales taxes to fund the financial sinkhole that is Metro, officially known as the Los Angeles County Transportation Authority.
A 2018 report prepared for the Southern California Council of Governments noted that despite the heavy investment — L.A. County’s 2016 Measure M tax increase was $120 billion by itself — “in absolute terms the region’s transit ridership reached its postwar peak in 1985.”
Ridership in Southern California continued to bounce along at a lower level in the 1990s and 2000s, trended down in 2007 and then further down in 2012. “In California overall, per capita ridership was flat until 2009, when it began a decline from which it has not recovered,” the report said.
In February, Metro officials excitedly announced that 2024 ridership was up 8% from 2023 ridership, bringing it back to the pre-pandemic level. However, the pre-pandemic level was far below the ridership of Metro’s 1980s heyday when it was just a bus system.
One problem is the prevalence of crime, drug use and homelessness on the trains and at the stations. “Ensuring the Metro system is being used for the purpose of transit contributes to a safer transit system,” the agency cheerfully acknowledged in its February update. How do they ensure that transit is used for transit? That’s a work in progress.
Making Metro functional for the 2028 Olympics is on the things-to-do list for Los Angeles officials. The first thing they want is more money. Assembly Bill 1237, introduced in February, proposed a $5 charge added to the sale of tickets to major sporting events, with the money going to the transit system.
The $5 ticket charge (don’t call it a tax) has since been amended out of existence.
In the Bay Area, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission said in March that it would support a higher sales tax to “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.”
To enable this additional tax increase, the legislature is considering Senate Bill 63. It would authorize placing an additional 0.5% sales tax on the ballot in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties. San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have also opted in for the proposed half-percent sales tax increase, which could go as high as 1% in San Francisco “in recognition of the significant funding gap facing SF Muni.”
In addition to sales taxes and ticket charges, the legislature has another idea: massive debt.
Assembly Bill 939, introduced in February by Burbank Democrat Nick Shultz, is a $20 billion bond to pay for “sustainable transportation” in California. That’s more than double the amount of the bonds voters approved in 2008 to build the California High-Speed Rail project, which has a massive funding gap of its own.
Following the loss of $4 billion in federal grants, Gov. Gavin Newsom is hoping the legislature will give high-speed rail $1 billion per year from the fees the state charges energy producers and manufacturers for emitting greenhouse gases. Newsom has renamed this program “Cap and Invest” (don’t call it a tax) and wants to renew it through 2045.
As big a robbery as that is, it’s still not enough to build the bullet train. So the legislature is considering Senate Bill 545 by Sen. Dave Cortese of San Jose. It would commission a study to “Assess funding potential across a variety of funding mechanisms that can support the high-speed rail capital program.” What is a funding mechanism? (Just don’t call it a tax.)
It’s impossible to defend the cost of the state’s transit systems as necessary for transportation, especially when people choose not to use them.
That’s why “sustainability” and “carbon neutrality” have become billion-dollar buzzwords. The threat of “climate doom” justifies merry and unlimited larceny through the tax code.
“Transit will be a necessary component of the state’s goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2045,” declares the legislative analysis of AB 1237, the “ticket tax” bill. According to the California Air Resource Board’s (CARB) 2022 Scoping Plan, “the path to carbon neutrality by 2045” requires reducing the amount people drive by 25% within five years and 30% within ten. “These goals heavily hinge on a reliable and convenient public transit system,” the analysis warned.
“Sustainability” is also cited to justify the legislature’s scheme to create riders for the transit stations. The plan is to allow construction of high-rise apartment buildings on streets zoned for single-family homes if they’re near transit.
Senate Bill 79 would allow the construction “by right” of a high-rise apartment building in place of a single-family home on any lot that is within one-half mile of a transit stop. Inside the transit “radius,” there would be no limit to the number of these projects, no requirement for off-street parking spaces or infrastructure upgrades, and no approval process. Cities would be required to sign off on these developments “ministerially,” regardless of the impact of the projects on everybody else.
Consider the long-promised Sepulveda Transit Corridor Project, which is supposed to connect the San Fernando Valley to the Westside. The circles drawn around planned transit stops could cause single-family homes there to be surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings.
Although the Bay Area sales tax hike and the statewide transit bond would have to go on the ballot for voter approval next year, SB 79 could become law this week if nothing is done to stop it. You can find the names and phone numbers of your representatives at findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov. If it matters to you, call soon.
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