The Board of Supervisors voted 6-4 today to put on November's ballot a charter amendment that would increase the share of general funds devoted to transportation, based on population growth.
Supervisor Scott Wiener introduced the measure as a backup plan to generate transportation revenue -- 75 percent of which would go to Muni, 25 percent to pedestrian and bike upgrades -- after Mayor Ed Lee dropped his support for putting a vehicle license fee increase on the ballot this year. If passed by a majority of voters in November, Wiener's charter amendment would provide a $23 million budget boost in the first year by retroactively accounting for the last ten years of population growth. Annual funding increases, commensurate with population growth, would follow.
"For too long, City Hall has been slow to prioritize transit funding," Wiener said in a statement. “We are a growing city, and we need to take firm steps to ensure that our transportation system keeps up with that growth. Improving transit reliability and capacity, and making our streets safer, are key to that goal."
The six supervisors who voted in support of the measure were David Chiu, London Breed, David Campos, Malia Cohen, and Jane Kim. The votes against came from Supervisors Katy Tang, Norman Yee, Mark Farrell, and Eric Mar. Supervisor John Avalos was absent.
At a recent committee hearing, Supervisors Tang and Yee voiced their "discomfort" with the measure, because it could siphon off general funds that could be used for other city services. Tang also said asking voters to pass the measure, in addition to the $500 general obligation bond for transportation, may be too much of a burden. According to reports from staff at City Hall, Mayor Lee also opposed it for those reasons.
When asked for comment on the supervisors' approval of Wiener's measure, mayoral spokesperson Francis Tsang only said, "Mayor Lee’s transportation priority for November is for approval of the City’s first ever $500 million general obligation bond for transportation."
Wiener's measure includes a provision that would allow the mayor to nix the charter amendment, if the vehicle license fee increase is passed in 2016.
