A plan to extend the Bay Area Rapid Transit system to Silicon Valley scored a come-from-behind victory this week, as the Santa Clara County registrar of voters certified that an eighth-cent sales tax to operate the new line was approved by voters last month.
The measure, which required approval by two-thirds of Santa Clara voters, passed with 414,328, or 66.78%, of 620,431 votes cast. That gave it a 707-vote margin of victory in an election that required a two-thirds majority.
The referendum seemed to have failed in early vote counts on election night and the days thereafter, but it pulled ahead late last month, as provisional and mail-in ballots were counted.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority asked voters to approve the sales tax to cover operating costs for a 16-mile extension of BART to San Jose, the Bay Area’s biggest city. The system has long connected San Francisco and Oakland to surrounding communities, but San Jose opted out of the system when it was built in the 1970s.
Santa Clara County voters approved a half-cent sales tax to pay for the extension almost a decade ago, but after the Internet dot-com stock bubble burst in 2000, the region’s sales tax collections fell short of expectations. Federal transit planners refused to provide needed U.S. tax dollars for the project because they didn’t believe the authority had enough money to operate it once it was built.
The passage of the additional sales tax levy clears a major hurdle to construction of the 16-mile, $6.1 billion BART extension. The tax will only go into effect once the federal government agrees to pay $750 million of construction costs that it withheld due to the lack of adequate operating revenues.
The Valley Transportation Authority will build the extension, which will be operated by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. Officials hope to open the line in 2018.
