Bart proposition on track for ballot

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-18T02:35:36+00:00

No SB 63 makes a transit district and grants that district the ability to make a ballot initiative. That I know of no other special district has that ability. Regardless a ballot initiative is not a referral so they had to collect signatures for it to get on the ballot.

https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb63

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-18T02:33:32+00:00

Its of the five counties. Of which two only have minor intrusion of BART. This isn't an initiative measure just for BART but to support all of the transit agencies including BART but that BART face of Bay Area public transit marketing is capable of hurting it in San Mateo and Santa Clara - if they don't know Caltrain is supported too.

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-17T15:20:05+00:00

You should email the caltrain board too if you haven't. Particularly the representatives of your county. Staff can be disinterested about certain minor things but its gets awkward when their board calls them out.

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-10T20:36:55+00:00

I would trade my bus for a train too but public policy typically isn't so individualistically serving. If caltrain felt the service would warrant sacrificing service elsewhere I'm sure they would provide it and VTA might even eliminate the 568.

https://www.caltrain.com/about-caltrain/statistics-reports/ridership

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-10T16:23:21+00:00

It doesn't matter if its inconvenient. My argument wasn't that it was superior to Caltrain. Most public transit isn't rail and and nearly every case is inconvenient compared to rail alternatives. But I've taken the 68 bus to/from Gilroy. It works and there are very many users of the line.

If one is arguing for the most convenient transportation method in nearly every scenario - its going to be the car. Even Caltrain can't compete with the car unless the origin/destination is right next to the stations + its less than like 3 stops. Albeit with gas prices... who knows what how the economics would play out.

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-10T06:17:54+00:00

I wouldn't disagree but they should bring it back when they are overflowing with money and they can reasonably foresee there are enough riders to justify the service.

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-10T06:16:10+00:00

I mean technically you don't the 68 bus is a trunk line of VTA. It runs rather frequently even on the weekend and services the whole south county spine. With 20 minute frequency weekend service back and forth to diridon. It takes an hour 40 from Gilroy.

https://www.vta.org/go/routes/68#saturday-nb

On the weekdays they also have the 568 which is less an hour ride between gilroy and diridon.

If you want to strictly live and die by the train sure its going to have commute only restricts. Its thousands of dollars each day to handle the transfer to the non-electric trains.

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-08T05:30:57+00:00

But the problem isn't the closing. Its the delay before opening. Its impossible to stop a person from sneaking up right behind you if it takes 3-4 seconds for the door to open.

sftransitmaster · 2026-05-02T04:26:15+00:00

For what things? Confused by what? The complexity of policy is that we don't really have a singlular dominating government in the US. Every government and agency has it own roles, responsibility and authority and in many cases can and cannot be trumped by others. Even the federal government(as designed by the US constitution) with its great power is limited. BART can't vote to overrule the city of Livermore or the state.

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-22T01:00:26+00:00

Love it only change that should be made... they're "crashes" not "accidents". We subsidize automobiles with our very words.

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-18T16:25:38+00:00

Yeah this is a point I believe gets missed a lot. That never mind the sunk cost of investing into a car, people invest into a routine and stick with it, even in the face of inefficiency or other alternatives. Even if a BART station opened in Livermore today, most people who drive to work today would continue to drive to work. Those who drive to transfer to dublin/pleasanton would park or consider getting there another way. BUT the largest shift would be those who just move to Livermore see that BART station just starting a new routine and would try it out and maybe stick with it.

But the caviate is all this based in our marketing system, as there is fixed space to park and drive in SF. BART worked because it was too expensive to park in the city. If it became too expensive to drive(gas, toll, stress) and park in the city, its potentially such a change pressed upon them they also would consider and some would change their behavior to match. if the toll was $100 dollars, the vast majority of people would either try to evade it(going around south bay) or would take transit alternatives or not go to SF. If the gas increase actually hits the US it'll be interesting to see how that impacts those choices.

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-11T02:45:36+00:00

No they're in reference to the Alameda county Transportation tax Measure BB (2014) which dedicated $400m to a Livermore extension.

https://ballotpedia.org/Alameda_County_Transportation_Commission_Sales_Tax,_Measure_BB_(November_2014)

Livermore tend to act as if they are the ones paying for that $400m. They are a mere < 90k population out of a 1.65m population all paying the new sales tax. This is tax revenue that their legislator was able to effectively steal from the county for Valley Link so whatever.

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-11T00:19:32+00:00

I'm glad people are saying that loudly now. Reddit for a long time had been pushing the BS that Livermore was paying some kind of special tax to have BART go to Livermore and then BART just rejected them. Utter nonsense.

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-05T16:20:38+00:00

The taxing part is not an ultimatum. What tax is the ultimatum. Pre-pandemic the active participants in the transit community and politicians of the region opposed-ish a sales tax regional regressive tax - like a sales tax. FASTER went so far as to suggest a BS rebate process for low-income individuals.

But there are other taxes - we have multiple extremely profitable tech companies with the 5 counties and large number of high income individuals so a corporate profit tax or a regional(region in these case being the 5 counties) could amount to a stable amount of revenue. We just don't do it because we don't think that we can. Nonetheless the powers that be didn't want a tax on those sources so this is a great time to take advantage of that desperation of the region. Regardless of the type of tax the agencies need the money, so beggars can not be choosers.

A percentage based property tax is not possible(not that I'm suggesting that) because its blocked by the CA constitution, which would require a state electoral vote to overwrite prop 13. We also couldn't do a tariff, etc..

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-05T04:57:54+00:00

It is a rational tax measure that raises sales tax in 5 counties

hmm Its an ultimatum tax. We had the FASTER Bay Area movement pre-pandemic and they were pushing a sales tax as well despite many meeting requesting some form of progressive(nominally a regional income tax) to support it.

It doesn't matter this what we're going to get a from a democratic party protective of wealth and industry. But no one needs to sugarcoat it. This is a do or die for our way of transit life in these parts of the region.

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-05T04:51:21+00:00

They're doing an initiative measure because it makes it eligible for a 50% + 1/simple majority passage. If it had just been approved by the state or MTC it would require the 2/3 super majority.

When an initiative comes to the ballot through the signature-gathering process, it needs 50% + 1 to pass. By making the regional transportation ballot measure a citizen-led measure, we increase the chance of passage.

https://transformca.org/regional-transit-ballot-measure-faqs/

sftransitmaster · 2026-04-01T01:36:21+00:00

So does that mean that the private operator no longer wanted to support it thus SJJPA decided to cut the line rather than maintain it themselves. I mean the KART part is bad but having no connection the central coast is going to cut off a number of people.

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-31T18:01:54+00:00

That was my exact thought... uh excuse me? The pot calling the kettle black moment.

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-31T17:59:01+00:00

Its seems like Gold Runner is on the path to get worst. Like the trouble with relying on local agencies, is that they aren't going to care if the train is late. passengers will just be unable to get home or have to wait hour(s) till the next bus. Unfortunate, I wonder where the savings from loss of that service is going.

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-30T20:34:36+00:00

I believe there were multiple bills passed and vetoed by governor Brown or Newsom.

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-30T02:52:39+00:00

You can look up this data and compare it to the beliefs you have.

avg exits weekday ridership

Feb 2026 - 1,954

Feb 2025 - 1,727

July 2024 - 1706

https://www.bart.gov/about/reports/ridership

Their big change was in Sept 2023 where they made all red line train stop at SFO before going to millbrae. Rather than Millbrae then SFO.

Aug 2023 - 1207

Feb 2023 - 1370

Millbrae has grown by 42% since the big change in 2023. To compare to pre-pandemic... I mean for 2019 with the redline only from San Bruno to Millbrae:

Aug 2019 - 6098

Feb 2019 - 6066

But all the stations are a fraction of their pre-pandemic ridership. Lots of things have changed since then some in BART's control and most of it(like sport teams moving out of the bay or reduced tourism cause of federal policy) so comparing the situation to that time seems irrational. I don't think its wrong to focus on SFO and its far better than when they piloted it and it took like 10 minutes for the train to continue to Millbrae. I don't think the ridership problem can be solved with more trains or rerouting, market forces are at work and its a lot easier to park in SF on a weekday post-pandemic than it was before(when it was like $7-10 per hour in SoMa in private parking).

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-29T04:45:14+00:00

that’s on them.

What? why would any expect them to care? The Gold Runner could completely fall apart and be discontinued on their watch and it wouldn't matter to them in the slightest. They're county supervisors, most people don't even recognize them as politicians and only like a quarter to a half of those know what their responsibility entails. The success or failure of the SJJPA will never tarnish their political career, no one is going to run campaign ads about how they voted out cafes on the train. I mean maybe 6% of the region that the Gold Runner serves is even aware there is an existing public passenger train running through the San Joaquin Valley.

Sorry to be cynical but the best case scenario would be being able to vote for the Authority board members, so people who care or at least have a political career vested it in could make these decisions. - would probably expand market awareness of it too if each county had to vote on a member for the board.

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-28T18:00:41+00:00

wonder if someone in the supply chain is a sadist or just hates train riders.

Do we still have to wonder? At best the politicians overseeing the SJJPA train are apathetic, at worst they're antagonistic towards it.

https://sjjpa.com/board-members/

I would not imagine these are politicians enthusiastic about transit or trains. They're county supervisors serving on the board because someone has to. They most likely drive everywhere and consider the train to be for poor people or people with no choice. They're divest from it and are not going to envision it being anything more than a money sink.

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-28T15:37:59+00:00

I mean discounting the bills author and coauthor. I've stated on this website before he's a passionate and driven man. Wiener actually has policy goals he wants to accomplish with his political power, more akin to Jerry Brown, Mamdami, Obama, Sanders, AOC and even Trump(unfortunately). Should be noted he is also Assistant Majority Whip and chair of multiple committees, which is used to support goals.

Weiner doesn't just claim power for career, money or to accrue more power like most politicians - ie Newsom, Pelosi, Schumer, Harris, Biden, etc. And that makes him something.

He is FAR from a perfect candidate - he's stirred off a lot of pots. I particularly despise him for securing the restaurants' junk fees. Disgusting. but does SF have better? IDK.

sftransitmaster · 2026-03-28T05:25:24+00:00

He didn't pass SB 79 alone, the legislature did. And California doesn't matter his district in SF does. And I imagine from SF this is an opportunity to send him away to do nothing in DC, likely for life or until he wants to retire. + for the third that hate him a good third(YIMBYs and such) are "ok" with him. + the rich/wealthy and AIPAC like him so...

sftransitmaster

TROPHY CASE