State Senator Scott Wiener leading a January rally to kick off the signature gathering effort. Photo: Streetsblog/Rudick
Advocates for a regional measure to fund BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit and other Bay Area operators announced Tuesday morning that they had succeeded in gathering enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot. The final count came in at 305,895—only 186,000 valid signatures were required.
“Three years ago, I teamed up with this amazing coalition to save BART and Muni from financial collapse,” said Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). “The challenges facing BART and Muni are existential, but failure is not an option here. The Bay Area runs on transit, and we must step up to save it for all our sakes.”
In 2022, Wiener and others began sounding the alarm about the threat to Bay Area transit, leading the efforts to secure $1.1 billion in emergency state funds that year and an additional $500 million loan in 2025. After three years of negotiations, Senators Wiener and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley) passed Senate Bill 63 in 2025 to authorize the Connect Bay Area ballot measure and create a sustainable long-term source of funding to stabilize Bay Area transit. Now, thanks to the signature gathering and the hard work of advocates, the measure will be on the November ballot.
Advocates during a transit-funding event in September 2025. Photo: Streetsblog/Rudick
Assuming it passes in November, here’s the breakdown of what it would do (provided by advocates):
A Regional Transportation Ballot Measure to reimagine and reinvest in a system that serves today’s riders and inspires the next generation.
Includes 5 Bay Area Counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara
Half cent sales tax all counties except 1 cent in San Francisco for 14 year duration Averts catastrophic service cuts for the largest operators, many facing fiscal cliffs: BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit
Funds transit improvements to safety, cleanliness, convenience, and seamless integration of transit services Provides roughly $1B a year in new funding for transit throughout the Bay Area via a 1% sales tax in San Francisco and 0.5% cent sales tax in all other counties
Additional funds for capital projects within specific counties
Signature-gathering efforts continue, meanwhile, for a concurrent parcel tax to provide additional funding for Muni operations. Advocates tell Streetsblog that signature gathering is going well with this measure, too. An announcement should be coming within a few weeks. This measure would also be on San Francisco’s November ballot.
“The overwhelmingly positive response to the signature campaign shows that Bay Area voters know the importance of protecting services that countless residents throughout the region depend on every day,” said Arreguín. “We’re blown away,” said advocate Lian Chang. “This is the largest grassroots signature-gathering effort in the history of the Bay Area, and represents thousands of hours of time from people from all backgrounds and all corners of our five-county region to protect transit—this thing that matters so much to us, and to millions of Bay Area voters.”
Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.
