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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 03181986 - X.10 X /O TO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FROM: Supervisor Tom Torlakson Contra CW DATE'. March 18, 1986 COQ,,!* SUBJECT: INVESTIGATION OF BART 1/2-CENT SALES TAX SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDED ACTION: Refer to the County Administrator, the Public Works Director and the Community Development Director the matter of the 25% allocation of the current 1/2-cent sales tax to investigate where this money has gone since the inception of the 25% formula in the mid-70-Is. We should communicate directly with MTC for an accounting of these funds and with AC Transit. ( It is recognized that AC Transit � serves West Contra Costa County and deserves some county tax dollars for ,thiskurpose. We should find out how much their Contra Costa County operationscost and also how much Contra C, sta County property tax = --is collected from West County communities anetermine what net operations are not covered by the property tax and fair box collection in Contra Costa County. ) BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Refer to the attached letter to the Eastern Contra Costa Transit Authority, specifically the section on Page SIX pertaining to the Current 1/2-cent Sales Tax. TT:gro Attachment CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT; J� YES SIGNATURE: /fth, RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S): p ft G 86 ACTION OF BOARD ON _March 18, 19APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED _X_ OTHER X The Board also agreed to request that the Bates Bill , AB 3123, be monitored, and in time the Board be brought a recommendation with respect to a position thereon. The Bates Bill deals with allocation of an additional portion of the 1/2-cent sales tax to AC Transit. VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE UNANIMOUS (ABSENT AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. cc: County Administrator ATTESTED Public Works Director PHIL BATCHELOR, CLERK OF THE BOARD OF Community Development Director SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR M382/7-83 BY ,DEPUTY 5 E- L 45 Civic Avenue Tom Torlakson � _ piMburg,Califomia 94565 =s• 14151439.4138 Supervisor,District Five Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors np�r`3' STA Ice6o ti March 18, 1986 Leo Fontana, Chairman Eastern Contra Costa Transit Authority (Tri-Delta) Board of Directors 2400 Sycamore Drive Antioch, CA 94509 Dear Leo: We are all aware of the crisis on Highway 4 and the impending gridlock on the Willow Pass bottleneck. We are all too aware of the broken promises regarding the extension of heavy rail BART to East Contra Costa County. I am writing at this time to share some of my thoughts that have evolved over the past few months and were further stimulated by the Community Forum on the Willow Pass Grade sponsored by the Highway 4 Task Force/East County BART Coalition. Action Plan. I would like to inform you of our next task force meeting on Monday, March 24, 1986, 7: 30 p.m. , at the Antioch City Council Chambers. I sincerely urge you and your Board to be present as many of the issues relating to future East County traffic and the Willow Pass Grade project will be discussed. Since the Community Forum, I have worked to develop an Action Plan and Strategy of Attack with the help of Bill Gray, special transportation consultant hired at my urging by the county to work on the Willow Pass Grade and Port Chicago Highway projects, county engineers in the Public Works Department and transportation planners in the Community Development Department. The first complete discussion of the Action Plan will be held at the next Highway 4 Task Force/East County BART Coalition meeting. Furthermore, we will be discussing the on-going petition drive to support developing funds for the Willow Pass Grade project. We very much need your support and direct help in promoting this petition drive and in helping circulate the petitions. Leo Fontana March 18, 1986 Page TWO Light Rail. I have discussed with you, the Tri-Delta manager, and several of your fellow board members the need for a thorough and detailed analysis of the possibilities of a light rail system for East Contra Costa County., In 1984 I toured and studied the operating light rail system in San Diego and the plans for a major expansion of that system. Last month, I toured the Guadalupe Corridor Light Rail System currently under construction in San Jose with Bill Gray and engineers and planners from Parsons, Brinckerhoff Engineers, Inc. , the lead transit design managers implementing the $.700 million project. The rail portion of the Guadalupe Project will cost approximately $400 million for the 20-mile system through downtown San Jose. This breaks down to about $20 million per mile. Sacramento and San Diego's light rail systems cost out at an even lower figure per mile. Light rail train systems usually have a lesser capacity for carrying passengers during peak hours but a heavy rail system (a la current BART) may not be needed for the level of growth we are envisioning for East County. Given the dismal funding realities of federal funding under the current Administration in Washington, D.C. , the possibilities for heavy rail extension of BART in East County have diminished considerably in the past year. At the staggering cost of $40 million to $44 million per mile, none of us may ever see the extension of the heavy rail system in our lifetime. Light rail may be a better alternative for more than just economic reasons. Together with the cities in East Contra Costa county, we must examine the light rail alternative in a very specific and thorough manner. This could be run as part of the BART system or as a separate system operated by Tri-Delta Transit or as a joint powers with other transit agencies. I am urging my representatives and the entire Tri-Delta Board of Directors to pursue this action. I appreciate the initiative that has been taken by your Board in studying the possibilities to this alternative. BART Alternatives Analysis. To guarantee a full investigation of all the light rail alternatives, immediate action must be taken to make sure the scope of work of the Alternatives Analysis for the West Pittsburg extension includes such a full analysis. In my opinion, the scope of work should be expanded to include a look at not only light rail to the present terminus of BART in Concord but also of the costs and ridership if light rail went all the way to Leo Fontana March 18, 1986 Page THREE San Ramon and Livermore (connecting with BART at Concord, Pleasant Hill, and Walnut Creek) via the Southern Pacific right-of-way and possible use of freeway easements in certain locations. Also, the possibility of light rail via the "to-be-abandoned" Santa Fe tracks in East County to Martinez and Richmond (connecting with BART in Richmond) . Immediate action must also be taken to get the Alternatives Analysis approved and moving. This $1 million study is critically needed for us to be able to move ahead in analyzing the possibilities of light rail. The Alternatives Analysis has been held up for well over a year. This delay is unacceptable to me. We must demand that this study begin at once. We need to work with our Congressional delegation to move the responsible federal agency, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMPTA) , into action. Alternatively, if it is determined that it is not possible to change the scope of work at this time without a significant delay, Tri-Delta Transit, the east county cities, and the county should work with CCTAC, BART and MTC to fund this analysis in a separate but parallel study that would accomplish the same generation of information within the same timeframe. Finally, the scope of work should contain a very complete series of community workshops and public forums to discuss the study findings and gather public input to the alternatives. In addition, I suggest Tri-Delta sponsor and conduct some preliminary forums to share iwth the public the basic concept of light rail as it has been implemented in different forms in different parts of the nation. MTC may have some funds or staff available to provide the personnel and materials for these forums. Funding Problems. The prospects for a near-term fiscal solution to the Willow Pass Grade project are also threatened by the federal retreat from support for transportation and by the unwillingness of the current governor to support a gas tax increase and a bridge toll increase which could bring in the necessary revenues to address our funding problem. Under any scenario, however, it is clear that more local share dollars will be demanded to leverage what state and federal transportation dollars are available. It is for these reasons that I have initiated the establishment of a Regional Traffic Mitigation Fund. Leo Fontana March 18, 1986 Page FOUR The Board of Supervisors has supported me on this matter, and we' are systematically levying conditions on office projects in Central County. Our efforts alone in the unincorporated area should yield at least $3 million in the next ten to fifteen years. The Board of Supervisors has further referred this concept to the City-County Engineers Group for an expanded application to our Central County cities and to all parts of the county. When joined by Central County cities and cities from other areas, the Regional Traffic Mitigatiion Fund should be able to generate an additional $6 million to $10 million over the next ten to fifteen years. (This amount could be considerably greater if an alternative concept to collect annual parking assessment fees from office parks is developed. This idea has arisen out of the discussions over how to best collect monies for the Regional Traffic Mitigation Fund. ) Initially, several Central County city officials have countered with the question: What is East County itself doing in terms of development fees for regional highway projects? I have for some time believed that we should apply a fee of at least $100 for every new home constructed in East Contra Costa County to put into a "Highway 4 Fund" to address the Willow Pass Grade Project and the construction of extra lanes through Pittsburg and Antioch. There are parts of Highway 4 going through far east county that also need local matching funds for improvements. If the 40,000 housing units currently planned in all East County jurisdictions over the next fifteen to twenty years are constructed, a $100 fee would produce $4 million. One immediate significance of implementing the $100 Highway 4 fee for East County is that it would identify a "revenue stream" beyond what the county is conditioning in central county office parks. This "revenue stream," I believe, could be used as the basis for borrowing $1 million from this county's Federal Aid urban Fund and would be the source of the loan repayment. Near-Term Funding Needs. Why is this $1 million loan so greatly needed at this time? Is .it enough? I estimate that a total of $4 million needs to be available for commitment in the next year for two Willow Pass Grade projects: Leo Fontana March 18, 1986 Page FIVE 1. First, there is the $1 million needed to do the EIR work plus the engineering and design for the ultimate $30 to $40 million grade lowering and highway widening. This work will itself take approximately two and a half years. (After com- pletion. of this phase, construction will take about three years. ) Because of STIP shortfalls, CalTrans seems unlikely to have any funds for this project for the next two to three years. If we wait, we not only lose two to three years' time but we may lose other co-funding opportunities that could materialize during that time. If we wait, we will be looking at 1994-1995 for project completion. This is totally unacceptable! Even if we can identify and commit $1 million of non-CalTrans funds, we will be looking at 1991-1992. It is my opinion that we cannot wait that long either. 2. Therefore, and secondly, we must have an interim solution to this Highway 4 bottleneck--and this is estimated to cost roughly $2.5 to $3 million. The Highway 4 Task Force and the East County BART Coalition several meetings ago asked Contra Costa County and CalTrans to explore interim measures. My county engineers and transportation planners have come up with a tentative proposal for adding both an extra westbound land and an extra eastbound lane over the summit of the grade. They are checking the feasibility of this proposal with CalTrans and with federal officials--and examining their potential willing- ness to help us accomplish this project. The particulars of the project will be discussed at the Highway 4 Task Force meeting next Monday evening. Funding Sources. What sources for the estimated $2.5 to $3 million construction costs can we foresee being available? Besides the possibility of an east county residential fee and a Federal Aid Urban Fund loan of $1 million, we have the following other potential sources: 1. Section 9 Federal funds that Tri-Delta Transit could apply for--approximately $400,000 to $500,000 (and more if Gramm-Rudman doesn't eliminate this fund after this year) . Leo Fontana March 18, 1986 Page SIX 2. Navy/Port Chicago Highway Closure fund--$500,000. 3. Deferral of lower priority, smaller projects currently allocated funds in the county Federal Aid Urban projects list developed by the city-county enginers --$1.4 million. 4. Last, but not least, BART should contribute $1.5 to to $2 million. With these combined sources, it is possible to generate up to $5 million--more than the $4 million total for the two critically needed near-term projects. If some of these sources cannot be generated, the county fee-benefit areas (West Pittsburg, Oakley, Discovery Bay, and the proposed East Diablo road fee areas) and the city redevelopment agencies could be additional sources of a small amount of funding. This option has been previously explored with city and county officials and appeared to be feasible on a loan basis.. (It should be stressed in any applications or negotiations for funds that any local sources of funds should be credited as "local share" in the ultimate project cost-sharing accounting. ) Current 1/2-cent Sales Tax. Another major source of funding has not been available for our area and our promised transit extension. I am speaking of 25% of our current 1/2-cent sales tax which has been almost entirely allocated by MTC to AC Transit and the San Francisco Muni. In other words; in the current year nearly $7 million of Contra Costa County taxpayers' sales tax will go to subsidize transit systems in Alameda and San Francisco counties. I believe this is a rip-off of the first order. This is an outrageous appropriation of money that flies in the face of the historic promise for a rail extension to east county. Even more absurd is a proposal by Assemblyman Tom Bates to allocate an additional portion of the 1/2-cent sales tax to AC Transit. The vehicle for this maneuver is apparently AB 3123 . An AC Board Member, Mr. Wiggins, indicates that he is interested in seeing a new formula which would give BART only 50% of the 1/2-cent sales tax with an additional 25 cents being peeled off as an additional subsidy to AC Transit. We must vehemently and vigorously oppose any such legislative maneuvers. This bill should be monitored carefully and we should express our concerns to our entire legislation delegation on this matter. Leo Fontana March 18, 1986 Page" SEVEN I am urging our county transportation staff, CCTAC and MTC and our legislative delegation to investigate this issue very carefully and propose that we develop some source of origin protection for those sales tax dollars generated in Contra Costa County--the county whose 5th District Supervisor in 1962 made possible the entire BART system in a 3 to 2 vote that joined our county with Alameda County and San Francisco County to form the BART district. For at least the last three years, BART has received no part of this 25% of the 1/2-cent sales tax where it has clearly had transit needs in East Contra Costa County alone (e.g. , the lowering of the Willow Pass Grade is mainly to accomplish a rail transit and makes up the vast majority of the cost of the project) . In the last years of the 19701s, BART received a small part of the 25% but apparently the bulk of it has always gone to AC Transit and S.F. Muni. Please join me in asking for full investigation of this issue. Here' s the bottom-line: I believe with aggressive, coordinated action--in cooperation with east county cities and county government--we can accomplish these two projects and save around $2 to $3 million on the ultimate project. I further believe your Tri-Delta Transit Board can play a leading role in these important endeavors. I look forward to working with your Board on these matters as the chair of the Highway 4 Task Force/East County BART Coalition and also this years as chair of the Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee. Sincerely, Tom Torlakson TT:gro