Editorial: Marin calls out vague regional transportation sales tax plan

Marin political leaders are understandably cool to the proposal for a Bay Area-wide sales tax increase for transportation.

Not only are they worried that they are getting too close to testing taxpayers’ support for another tax on their transactions, but the proposal advanced by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is light on details.

Of concern to local officials is that Marin’s sales tax – due to the addition of several local increases – is close to the state’s 9.25% cap.

Four cities – San Rafael, Larkspur, San Anselmo and Sausalito – are already at the limit. State lawmakers would have to approve an extension of that threshold.

There are other local priorities to which officials envision that remaining room for a quarter- or half-cent increase could be reserved.

Novato city officials, for example, have been talking about going back to voters to increase the local municipal sales tax.

In addition, Marin taxpayers’ sales taxes are already going to two transportation efforts – ongoing support for the work of the Transportation Authority of Marin and for the completion and operation of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit bi-county train and its parallel bike path.

MTC is also considering other options, among them a 0.36% payroll tax, a 0.17% income tax and a 1.52-cent-per-mile road usage charge.

Local voters have not shown much interest in those options.

MTC has already won Bay Area voters’ support for two increases, which are levied when crossing the bay’s state-run bridges, with that revenue going to transportation improvements. Those were spelled out when MTC sought voter passage of the measures.

At this point, MTC’s proposal for a regional sales tax is pretty vague. It says the revenue would be spent on long-term funding for transit services and improvements, pedestrian and bicycle safety measures, connectivity and climate resilience.

That’s too much of a blank check.

If Marin officials are cool to the idea after seeing that shopping list, it’s likely going to be a tough sell for voters.

We agree with Mill Valley Councilmember Urban Carmel, the city’s representative on TAM, when he says MTC’s tax measure “would really need to demonstrate what people are to get from this and in very, very concrete terms.”

MTC’s costly and failed bike-lane trial on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge likely isn’t going to help interest voters in giving more money. Its political role in the erosion of local control over land-use decisions also isn’t going to help in Marin.

It also needs to look ahead and have a vision for short- and long-term shifts and changes in the ways Bay Area residents – after the pandemic and growth in the commute-free advantages of working online – are getting to and from their jobs.

There remains, however, a strong argument for regional taxation and funding for the Bay Area’s transportation network. We travel on other counties’ roads, as their residents do on ours.

The voter-approved toll increases have been examples of this regional rationale. But part of the success of those measures has been the fact that most of the voters aren’t regularly crossing those bridges and paying the increased tolls.

They have been asked to increase a charge that other people are paying, not them.

When it comes to another sales tax – a charge everyone would pay –  MTC should be aware of the yellow “warning light” reaction its idea is getting from Marin leaders.

The list of special taxes and fees Marin taxpayers have to pay is already pretty long.

The nine-county agency needs to proceed with caution, slow down and strive to come up with a plan that specifically spells out what it plans to do with the revenue and how long the tax would be on the books.

Rushing a proposal to the ballot would be a costly political mistake.