A sweeping plan to upgrade Riverside County’s transportation infrastructure is on hold after elected officials decided Wednesday, July 10, not to ask voters in November to approve a new sales tax that would have financed the plan’s projects.
The Riverside County Transportation Commission’s vote shelves — at least for now — a proposed 1-cent sales tax that would have raised an estimated $20 billion over 30 years in western Riverside County for new freeway lanes, enhanced bus and rail service and other improvements.
A new funding source is key to many of the projects in the commission’s Traffic Relief Plan, a master transportation planning strategy crafted with public input. Without the money, many of the plan’s priorities can’t be addressed.
If approved by a required two-thirds majority of voters, the tax would have been the second of its kind in Riverside County.
Measure A, a half-cent sales tax, has been on the books since voters approved it in 1988 and has generated more than $4 billion for transportation projects.
While more than 60% of the public supported a new tax after learning about its benefits, it’s not clear whether two-thirds of voters would have approved it in November, David Knudsen, the commission’s deputy executive director, told commissioners Wednesday.
An ad-hoc committee of commissioners recommended keeping the new tax off the November ballot. The commission, which consists of all five Riverside County supervisors and councilmembers from each of Riverside County’s 28 cities, voted 28-0 — five commissioners did not vote — to wait at least another year before pursuing a ballot measure.
Commission Executive Director Aaron Hake compared the process to running a marathon.
“And I think today, we need to recognize what mile we’re in and know that miles 25 and 26 are still ahead and we’re still running in that direction, but we need to pace ourselves appropriately,” Hake said. “When the time is right, we’ll accelerate towards the finish line.”
Commission chair and Beaumont City Councilmember Lloyd White agreed.
The commission “has been successful because we make decisions based on facts and data,” White said. “Here today, the facts and data demonstrate that we are best served by looking at a future election day.”
While agreeing now is not the time to offer the ballot measure, Riverside City Councilmember Chuck Conder said he and other elected officials “are going to continue to take phone calls from angry residents complaining about traffic (and) complaining about all the issues that the Traffic Relief Plan would have answered.”
“It’s pretty tough to pretty much get up to the plate (and) the referee says (the) game’s over,” Conder said.
“I think the future is bright. I think that there is a chance down the road, maybe in (2026), to spend two years to educate these people about why we need this. We just can’t snap our fingers and the fairy builds it. We have to have the funding from the people and the support.”
Hake said the plan “will continue to be a fixture of our culture” at the commission.
“We have the blueprint and the framework for our economic and transportation future,” he said.
