RM3 was accepted by the voters of the Bay Area on June 5, 2018. This has created a gigantic $4.45 billion slush fund for regional planners to dispense. Considering that the “Yes on RM3” side outspent the “No” side by least 250 to 1 and yet won by a scant 53.9%, the “Yes” side has little to cheer about. Especially since the votes for successive regional transportation funding measures have been dropping.

As might be expected, non-bridge users voted mostly for RM3 and frequent bridge users voted mostly against it. All else aside, RM3 was patently unfair in terms of who pays and who gets the proceeds of the bridge toll increases.

In addition, the RM3 bridge toll increases are being improperly treated as fees (requiring a 50% vote) when they are in fact taxes (requiring a 2/3rd vote).  On November 5, 1997 the Californa voters passed State Proposition 218 which added Article 13C to the California Constitution.  According to Article 13C a bridge toll increase is a fee only “if it is imposed for the exclusive privilege of the payor (driver & passengers)…”  Since the sponsors of RM3 plan to use the bridge toll increases to pay for expensive projects scattered around the Region including in areas where most of the voters virtually never use the bridges, the proceeds of RM3 are clearly not fees.  Since this puts RM3 in direct violation of Article 13C and since the measure passed by 53.9%, not 2/3rds it should be nullified by the Courts.

Another equally fundamental defect in RM3 is that it neither reduces regional traffic congestion nor bolsters the Region’s lagging public transit networks. There are a few worthwhile projects in RM3, but there are also many turkeys.  RM3 loosely defines 35 projects. Here are some highlighted allocations:

• BART and Muni fleet replacement: $500 million and $140 million (this is needed)
  Caltrain Downtown Extension: $325 million (also needed)
• Capitol Corridor Upgrade and Dumbarton Rail Crossing: $90million and $130 million (also needed but the allocations are much too small)
• Ferrys: $300 million (incredibly, 7.3% of RM3 has been allocated to a system that accounts for only 0.05% of Bay Area trips)
• BART to San Jose: $375 million (needed perhaps, but the anticipated ridership comes no where close to justifying the cost)
• Fourteen backward-looking, traffic-inducing highway projects: $2,390 million
• Vaguely defined transit, transit access and trails improvements: 4 projects; $615 million
• RM3 allocations lavished upon non-bridge using Santa Clara County: $755 million

Do we think that RM3 will cause the highway backups and the urban congestion to ease? No….we don’t.  Do we think that the increased bridge tolls are taxes and not fees  and that therefore RM3 violates the State Constitution?  Yes we do.

This article was featured in Newsletter Issue 2. Click here to go back to the newsletter.