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Voters Approve Transportation Tax Measure

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OAKLAND (BCN0

Two years after a similar measure failed by only a small number of votes, Alameda County voters have approved a measure that will double the county's transportation sales tax to pay for a variety of improvement projects.

Measure BB, which needed a two-thirds majority to pass, got nearly 70 percent of the vote in final semi-official returns in Tuesday's election, prompting supporters to declare victory today.

Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who chairs the county's Transportation Commission, said in a statement, "Passing Measure BB is a tremendous accomplishment, one that will be seen as a game changer for Alameda County and the Bay Area for decades to come."

Haggerty said, "Yesterday, Alameda County voters said yes to improving our roads, yes to better BART and buses, yes to supporting the mobility of students and seniors, yes to a cleaner and more sustainable transportation system and yes to creating 150,000 good- quality local jobs."

In 2012, Measure B, which would have doubled the transportation tax permanently, received 66.53 percent of the vote but fell about 721 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.

In order to address the concerns of those who voted against the 2012 measure, transportation officials tweaked Measure BB so that it expires in 30 years, in 2045, and included strict accountability measures to ensure that the money raised by the tax is spent on approved projects.

Proponents said Measure BB will generate nearly $8 billion for important transportation improvements over the next 30 years, stimulate $20 billion of economic activity in the region and create nearly 150,000 jobs.

Alameda County voters approved a half-cent sales tax measure in 1986 that helps pay for transportation and transit projects in the county and in 2000 they approved extending the tax for another 20 years, to 2022.

But county leaders and transportation officials said they wanted to increase the tax by another half cent and extend it because they say more money is needed to help pay for the operating costs for the transportation and transit projects that the tax has helped fund.

Measure BB calls for nearly half of the money raised by the tax to be spent on BART, bus service and subsidies for seniors and youths, 30 percent to be spent on improvements to local streets and roads, 9 percent on traffic relief on highways in the county and 8 percent on local bicycle and pedestrian paths and safety.

In addition, 4 percent will go toward community development investments and 1 percent will be spent on technologies to manage the transportation system.

Measure BB supporters said today that the tax will expand BART, keep fares affordable for seniors, the disabled and young people, fix roads, fill potholes, restore bus transit services and reduce traffic congestion to manage our aging infrastructure and provide good transportation for county residents.

Opponents, including former BART Director Sherman Lewis, alleged in their ballot statement that doubling the sales tax would "saddle Alameda County's struggling middle class, seniors, poor and small businesses with the highest county sales tax in California."

Opponents said the measure "would buy nothing but a mixed bag of unrelated projects" and charged that the measure's plan to contribute $400 million toward the projected $1.2 billion cost of extending BART to Livermore is "not a prudent use of tax dollars" because there are more cost-effective ways of providing transit service to outlying areas.



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