San Francisco task force recommends $10 billion investment in city's transportation infrastructure

A San Francisco transportation task force last week recommended a $10 billion investment in the city's transportation infrastructure over the next 15 years.

Mayor Edwin Lee's SF2030 Transportation Task Force's draft report calls for the $10 billion investment, with recommendations to generate $3 billion in new revenue for the long-underfunded system by 2030, according to a press release issued by the mayor's office.

Aging, outdated infrastructure and insufficient vehicles are a major cause of service delays and performance challenges for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), task force officials said.

"San Franciscans deserve a reliable, safe and affordable world-class transportation system for the 21st century, and for too long we have systematically under invested in our rails, our roads and our public transit vehicles," Lee said.

The task force's report "provides a comprehensive, coordinated roadmap" for a transportation system that can meet the city's growing needs, he added.

The recommendations address a core problem of SFMTA: long-term, underfunded investment in the system's deteriorated infrastructure and a state of good repair, said Scott Wiener, a task force member who serves as County Transportation Authority vice chair and Metropolitan Transportation Commission commissioner.

The task force recommends potential tools for new revenue to generate the $3 billion by 2030, including a vehicle license fee increase of 1.35 percent, sales tax increase of 0.5 percent, and two General Obligation Bonds, each for $500 million, all subject to voter approval.

The plan would increase local investment to transportation infrastructure by 79 percent, which would put the city in a strong position to leverage additional state and federal funding for the remaining $3.3 billion gap, the task force recommended.

The task force called for investments in maintaining the city's existing transportation system (54 percent of funding), enhance the existing system (32 percent), and expand the system to meet growth (14 percent).