[Date]
The Honorable Jim Beall
Co-chair, Transportation Infrastructure
Conference Committee
State Capitol, Room 5066
Sacramento, CA 95814
The Honorable Jimmy Gomez
Co-chair, Transportation Infrastructure
Conference Committee
State Capitol, Room 2114
Sacramento, CA 95814
URGENT: Take Action to Support Public Transit!
Dear Co-Chairs Beall and Gomez:
On behalf of [Your Organization], I write to thank you for acknowledging the vital role that transportation
infrastructure plays in facilitating the health, safety and economic vitality of our state, and to urge you to
consider making a significant and sustained investment in public transit that helps ensure our public
transit systems, as component of the larger transportation network, are maintained in a state of good
repair and are capable of achieving the various policy objectives in California´s landmark environmental
legislation
As has been reported throughout this legislative year, California faces a transportation infrastructure
funding crisis. According to recent estimates by the Brown Administration, our state highway system
alone faces a funding shortfall of approximately $5.7 billion per year, or $59 billion over ten years, for
maintenance of state highway facilities, including roadways and bridges. At the same time, municipal
governments have estimated that the funding shortfall for maintenance on existing local streets and
roads is $78 billion over the same time period. Left unaddressed, these funding shortfalls are expected to
grow by billions of dollars a year, resulting in potentially catastrophic impacts to our population’s health,
safety and economic competitiveness.
As you look to shore up these funding shortfalls during the special session, we wish to remind you that
California’s infrastructure funding crisis is not limited to state highways and local streets & roads. Public
transit which serves as an affordable and efficient alternative to automobile travel for millions of
Californians, similarly faces a $39 billion in deferred maintenance costs. These deferred maintenance
needs, like those of our state highways and local streets & roads, unnecessarily put the health and safety
of Californians at risk, threaten our state’s economic competitiveness, and undermine the ambitious
environmental and air quality objectives the state is striving to achieve.
Failing to include transit in the special session’s compromise transportation funding package would be a
shortsighted decision with disastrous long-term implications. As is the case with state highways and local
streets & roads, the cost of inaction is the further, and accelerated, deterioration of existing capital
assets, leading inevitably to replacement over rehabilitation. Additionally – and unique to transit – the
costs of deferred maintenance are compounded by the foregone environmental and air quality benefits
that would otherwise result from well-maintained infrastructure.
For these reasons, we believe the newly created conference committee should advance a funding
package, which addresses the state’s immediate infrastructure needs across all transportation modes,
and which lay the foundation for a more sustainable California. We support Governor Brown’s draft
framework for a $3.6 billion transportation funding package, which would benefit state highways, local
streets & roads, and transit. In this framework, supported by Assembly Speaker Atkins, an investment of
$400 million annually was proposed for transit, with an additional $100 million for complete streets
projects that promote transit and support bicycling & walking. We applaud the Governor for putting this
framework on the table, and urge the conference committee to continue this momentum by keeping
transit in the discussion as you work to craft a long-term funding solution.
Below, we offer a number of potential funding mechanisms the Legislature could consider to provide
transit with additional revenues at a level called for by Governor Brown in his $3.6 billion proposal:

Increase the Transportation Development Act’s Contribution to Mass Transit AND to Local
Streets & Roads in Rural and Suburban Areas: In 1971, then-Governor Ronald Reagan and
the Legislature dedicated one-quarter per cent of the state’s sales tax to counties agreeing to
spend those funds on public transportation, on a situs basis; rural and suburban areas were
allowed to spend their share of these funds on improving local streets & roads. Increasing the
sales tax by 0.25 percent and dedicating those funds to this existing, well-understood program
instantly provides $1.7 to $1.9 billion annually in new transportation investments, including for
streets & roads, and could be done with no net new impact on taxpayers.

Diesel Sales Tax: Transit operators receive direct state funding subventions via the State Transit
Assistance (STA) program, which is generated solely by the sales tax on diesel fuel. In 2011, as a
result of the gas tax swap, which mostly eliminated the sales tax on gas and therefore all other
sources of STA funding, the STA was initially bolstered by an incremental increase in the diesel
sales tax. However, this incremental rate, which peaked at 2.17% in 2012-13, has fallen to 1.75%
-- and the STA program’s revenues have declined concurrently. With Proposition 1B now fully
appropriated, the STA program is the sole source of state funding that can be used for transit
capital maintenance and rehabilitation.
Increasing the sales tax would provide new flexible funding for transit operators statewide;
trebling the current incremental sales tax rate on diesel fuel to 5.25% would generate about $300
million, which could be directed to the STA program, on the existing formula.

Cap and Trade: The transportation sector is responsible for 38% of the greenhouse gas
emissions in the state, yet only 15% of Cap and Trade revenues are guaranteed to local and
regional public transit programs on an ongoing basis to reduce these emissions. Additionally, an
overwhelming majority of the revenue generated from the Cap and Trade allowance auctions is
attributed to the fuel sector and these revenues should be reinvested in transportation programs
that mitigate the impacts of transportation fuels on our environment. If California is to achieve the
ambitious greenhouse gas emission reductions called for in Governor Brown’s recent executive
order and the petroleum reduction target originally called for in Senate President pro Tem de
León’s SB 350, it is time to acknowledge the role that public transit must play in curbing vehicle
miles traveled. We suggest the legislature increase from 10% to 20% the Cap and Trade
revenues continuously appropriated to the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, and
increase from 5% to 10% the Cap and Trade revenues continuously appropriated to the Low
Carbon Transit Operations Program.
We look forward to working with you to ensure the passage of a comprehensive transportation funding
package that acknowledges the current and growing needs of our public transit network. We hope that,
with your support, the transportation funding package that is ultimately sent to the Governor will provide
significant funding to address public transit’s deferred maintenance as well as the need to expand our
public transit systems. We appreciate your consideration.
Sincerely,
[Your name and title]
CC:
The Honorable Jerry Brown, Governor, State of California
The Honorable Ben Allen, Transportation Infrastructure Conference Committee
The Honorable Connie Leyva, Transportation Infrastructure Conference Committee
The Honorable Anthony Cannella, Transportation Infrastructure Conference Committee
The Honorable Ted Gaines, Transportation and Infrastructure Conference Committee
The Honorable Autumn R. Burke, Transportation Infrastructure Conference Committee
The Honorable Melissa Melendez, Transportation Infrastructure Conference Committee
The Honorable Kevin Mullin, Transportation Infrastructure Conference Committee
The Honorable Jay Obernolte, Transportation and Infrastructure Conference Committee
Brian Kelly, Secretary, California State Transportation Agency