| Over the last 20 years, transportation finance in California has become increasingly balkanized. State and federal gas tax rates have not kept up with inflation, and, increasingly, counties have raised their own sales taxes to improve local transportation facilities, resulting in more county-level decisions and less regional coordination. Yet current literature indicates that regional transportation planning is a necessary element in reducing VMT and our carbon footprint.;Looking at a unique instance where the 26 transit operator San Francisco Bay Area was able to develop a single transportation financing plan funded by a ;It expands the concept of the political entrepreneur to the multi-state process of passing a regional transportation finance measure, and concludes that the current county sales tax law is not sufficient to accommodate regional transportation funding proposals, without direct legislative approval and the strong initiative of an entrepreneur. Absent a change in state law, regional measures are likely to be infrequent—dependent on a political entrepreneur to take the initiative needed to pass them. |
