The Bay Area 5-county regional transit funding measure can pass with a signature-gathering effort, according to new polling shared by MTC at its legislative committee meeting on Friday November 14.
The poll showed overall support at 56%, which would pass with the 50%+1 threshold required with a signature gathering effort, which was enabled by the legislation that authorized a 5-county transit tax. The poll indicates it would be more difficult for a measure to pass if it was put on by a government agency, which requires a two-thirds vote.
Bay Area voters highly value public transportation and perceptions have improved since 2025, according to the new poll.
A majority of people ride transit at least some of the time, and consistent with previous polling, the more people use public transit, the more they support it. This implies that the more people try out transit, and the more people experience increased convenience with upcoming improvements like open payments and free transfers, the greater the likely support at the polls.
So promotion by agencies and by popular destinations such as parks, museums and sports to draw people to get there by transit can implicitly increase political support.
Strong supermajorities of people continue to value transit that is clean and safe, faster and well-connected, and want to avoid service cuts.
Importantly, voters in San Francisco, which needs two ballot measures to maintain service for Muni, BART and Caltrain, continue to be supportive when they are informed that a second measure will be needed to save Muni service. SFTMA has greater financial challenges because large amounts of its funding come from San Francisco’s General Fund and downtown parking, both of which were badly hit by the pandemic and very slow recovery of the downtown office market.
Do you want to help get the word out about the need for transit funding? Sign up here to volunteer.