Voters warm to tax boost for roads, but measure may take a while

Drivers tired of dodging potholes and transportation officials weary of fighting for funding got a bit of promising news with a recent poll showing that Bay Area voters may be willing to raise their gas taxes by a nickel a gallon to fix roads. [...] the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, responsible for regional transportation planning and finance, is in no hurry to put a nine-county gas tax measure on the November ballot for fear it might weaken other potential efforts to coax voters to help pay for a variety of transportation needs and other projects. “We’re extremely mindful that if we put another measure on the ballot, that could, for some voters, make a difference,” said Randy Rentschler, an MTC spokesman. [...] half-cent sales tax measures to improve roads, highways and public transportation are being contemplated in San Francisco, Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties. While the need to invest in the Bay Area’s transportation system is obvious, as anyone who’s packed onto a BART or Muni train or sat at the Bay Bridge toll plaza can attest, Bay Area leaders are concerned that they could risk alienating voters with too many disjointed requests to help improve the region’s transportation mess. “There may be tax exhaustion before the time Bay Area voters get to the end of their ballots,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. State and federal gas taxes, the traditional way of funding transportation, haven’t been increased in two decades, and revenue is falling as gas consumption declines. Gridlock in Congress has cut transportation funding to a trickle, and a strange twist in the way California collects the gas tax that requires an adjustment to the tax rate when prices rise or fall has also prompted cuts in projected funding. “We’re not getting the help we used to out of Washington and Sacramento,” said Ross Chittenden, chief deputy executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, which is leading the effort for the Contra Costa tax measure. [...] nobody is sure how voters might react to a long ballot that proposes a regional gas tax, a BART bond measure and a transportation sales tax. Carl Guardino, a member of the state Transportation Commission and chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, has worked to pass several transportation measures. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco supervisor and MTC member, said similar talks are going on among all the Bay Area counties and transportation agencies about how to keep, or get, the region moving — with the help of transportation taxes.