Measure RTM: Another Tax Is Not the Answer to BART's Failure to Reform

SMARTMoraga recommends a NO vote on Measure RTM, the 14-year regional sales-tax increase that would raise approximately $1 billion annually for Bay Area transit agencies.

Measure RTM would increase the sales tax by one-half percentage point in Contra Costa County for 14 years. While supporters describe the measure as necessary to prevent devastating transit cuts, we don't believe BART and the region's other transit agencies have demonstrated the fiscal discipline, good governance, urgency or operational reforms that should precede another long-term tax increase.

The allocation of Contra Costa's money is itself cause for concern.

Of the approximately $130 million the tax is expected to collect annually in Contra Costa County, nearly 60%—roughly $76 million—would go to BART. Less than one-fifth, approximately $25 million, would go directly to the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, while about 11%, approximately $15 million, would be allocated among County Connection, WestCAT and Tri Delta Transit. Another nearly 5% would go to AC Transit and SF Muni.

In other words, less than one-third of the money raised in Contra Costa would be controlled directly by Contra Costa transportation agencies.

For CCTA, the approximately $25 million represents a relatively modest addition to an agency whose FY 2026–27 expenditures are approximately $260 million. Meanwhile, nearly 60 cents of every RTM tax dollar collected in Contra Costa would go to BART.

That allocation might be easier to accept if BART had spent the years since the pandemic aggressively restructuring itself around permanently changed commuting patterns, cost containment and operating efficiencies. We don't believe it has.

Former State Senator Steve Glazer, who represented Moraga and describes himself as a transit supporter, has made much the same argument. He has criticized BART for increasing spending and staffing while ridership remains far below pre-pandemic levels and has called for greater operating efficiencies, labor concessions and management accountability before taxpayers are asked for additional money.

Former BART Board President Debora Allen has been even more pointed. Allen, who served eight years on the BART Board, argues that the agency's financial problems are not simply the result of lost post-pandemic fare revenue, but also reflect years of spending decisions, escalating operating costs and a failure to sufficiently restructure the system as commuting patterns changed.

She has opposed RTM as another taxpayer bailout that postpones rather than forces the operational and financial reforms BART needs.

Allen's criticism carries particular weight because it comes from someone who spent eight years inside BART's governing structure, including service as Board President—not from an outside critic unfamiliar with the agency's finances and operations.

Despite years of warnings about an approaching “fiscal cliff,” we believe BART's response has been woefully inadequate to justify a new 14-year tax largely designed to sustain existing operations.

A Recent "Traffic Study" Deserves Its Own Scrutiny

Supporters of the measure recently added another argument for its passage: rejecting RTM, they say, would produce enormous increases in Bay Area traffic.

A September report from SPUR and engineering consultant Jacobs forecasts severe congestion and other consequences if transit agencies implement their threatened service cuts. The Yes on RTM campaign prominently promotes the study as evidence of the consequences voters could face if the measure fails.

But voters deserve important context about who produced the study and the assumptions behind it.

Former BART Board President Debora Allen subsequently examined who was behind the study and identified relationships that were not disclosed in the report itself. Allen served eight years on the BART Board, including as its president, giving her substantial familiarity with the agency, its finances and the network of consultants and organizations involved in Bay Area transportation policy.

Allen found that Jacobs, the consulting firm that performed the traffic modeling, contributed $150,000 to the Yes on RTM campaign and has more than $120 million in identified authorized contracts with BART and other Bay Area transportation agencies.

SPUR, which published the report, is itself a sponsor and active supporter of Measure RTM. Jacobs also financially supports SPUR.

Those relationships were not disclosed in the report: not Jacobs' $150,000 campaign contribution, nor its financial relationship with SPUR, nor its substantial contracts with the transportation agencies that stand to benefit from the measure.

The study's methodology deserves context as well. Jacobs modeled the traffic consequences of service-cut scenarios supplied by the transit agencies seeking the additional funding. In other words, the study estimates what would happen if those particular cuts occur; it does not independently establish that those cuts are inevitable or that agencies have exhausted other financial or operational alternatives.

We find the report authors' and sponsors' omissions and representations troubling. A consultant with substantial existing business relationships with the agencies benefiting from a tax measure—and which has itself contributed $150,000 toward passage of that measure—may still produce technically sound work. But voters should have been told about those relationships when presented with its conclusions.

The study should not be presented to voters as though it were disinterested, independent validation of the campaign's claims. Because it isn't.

Our View

We support viable public transportation, including BART. But supporting transit does not require accepting every proposed tax offered as the solution to years of unresolved structural problems, particularly one that will last 14 years and send nearly two-thirds of every dollar collected in Contra Costa to BART, AC Transit and even San Francisco Muni while offering comparatively modest direct benefit to Contra Costa's own transportation agencies.

Measure RTM asks Contra Costa residents and consumers to pay approximately $130 million more each year in sales taxes. Yet less than one-third of that money would be controlled directly by Contra Costa transportation agencies, and less than one-fifth would go directly to CCTA.

If Contra Costa's transit needs justify another tax, we would rather see Contra Costa residents fund Contra Costa transportation priorities directly than accept the relatively meager allocations the measure's backers have devised.

More fundamentally, we have seen too little urgency from BART to adapt its costs and operations to the post-pandemic reality. After years of warnings about its approaching fiscal cliff, taxpayers are now being asked to provide another long-term revenue stream without the meaningful structural reforms we believe should have come first. And still should.

A long-term tax increase should follow meaningful reform—not substitute for it.

SMARTMoraga recommends a NO vote on Measure RTM.