SBCTA wants to extend Measure I for future transportation projects

The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority is seeking support to extend Measure I, a tax that generates funds for transportation-related projects.

Measure I, which levies a half-cent sales tax in San Bernardino County, was first approved by voters in 1989 and was extended in 2004. It is set to expire April 1, 2040. Funds generated by the sales tax measure are allocated to cities for major streets, freeways, traffic management and local projects.

SBCTA is seeking support from city councils for a ballot measure that would ask voters in November to extend the sales tax beyond 2040. If approved by voters, extending Measure I would generate about $7.5 billion over the next 30 years, according to SBCTA.

Otis Greer, SBCTA’s deputy executive director of strategic partnerships, said an extension of Measure I would continue to provide a reliable local funding stream to help handle population growth, cutting congestion, supporting transit and investing in cleaner transportation projects to benefit San Bernardino County residents,

“It’s a way of just kind of putting a stake in the ground to say, ‘This fund is just for San Bernardino County and will be used only for San Bernardino County benefit,’ ” Greer said Friday, March 6, by phone.

Extending the sales tax has been well received by the San Bernardino County cities, Greer said, adding that SBCTA looks only to extend an existing sales tax, not increase it.

“We’re not raising taxes at all,” Greer said. The goal for extending the measure is to “maintain” the current sales tax, he said.

Greer said the ballot measure would also change how SBCTA allocates the funds.

The updated expenditure plan would allocate 50% to regional priorities that focus on major transportation projects, such as highway improvements or bus and passenger rail projects; 25% to local priorities like fixing potholes or street rehabilitation; and 25% to operational costs, including student, senior and disabled transit services.

SBCTA officials are seeking approval of an updated expenditure plan for Measure I from a majority of San Bernardino County’s municipalities, Greer said, as per state law. They are presenting details about the extended tax measure to city councils through April.

SBCTA needs support from “a coalition of cities whose combined populations make up a majority” of county residents, Greer said. “It’s how many residents are represented by those cities, and does that constitute a majority?” he said. However, Greer said SBCTA’s approach is not just about meeting the minimum requirement.

“Our objective is let’s make sure every city feels good about it, right, so that they all want to support it, because I think that’s our intention,” he said.

Once a majority of councils sign off, the plan returns to the SBCTA board for review, he said. It will then head to the county Board of Supervisors, which has until August to decide whether to put it before voters.

“One of the things that we’ve learned, especially in this time, is that technology has advanced so rapidly that it’s really difficult to prepare for what the needs of the region will be in 2050, in 2060,” Greer said during the Redlands City Council meeting Tuesday, March 3. Greer was at the meeting presenting SBCTA’s plan as part of the Measure I tour.

During the meeting, Greer also mentioned the ill-fated 4.2-mile underground shuttle system that would have served Ontario International Airport. He said the revised expenditure plan would be better suited to support future projects driven by technological advances.

Despite committing $36 million toward the project in recent years, SBCTA board members decided to abandon the ONT Connector in December. The connector was planned as an underground, self-driving, all-electric, rubber-tired transit system intended to improve air quality and reduce traffic between the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink Station and ONT.

“Future measures would allow a little more flexibility to do projects like that,” Greer said, elaborating days later, by phone.

Rising costs doomed the project. Initial costs were estimated at $696 million. Two subsequent bids of $1.28 billion and $2.46 billion exceeded initial estimates.

“But one of the reasons that that project didn’t move forward is just good governance by our board. The board was interested. They wanted to see this project move forward,” Greer said.

“It doesn’t mean we can’t think about it in the future, but for right now, there are other priorities that we want to focus on, and that’s just being a good steward of the taxpayer dollar, which is, I think, why residents have been so supportive of Measure I, because it’s managed well,” Greer said.