New polling shows 54% of Bay Area voters support a half-cent sales tax that would send roughly $50 million a year to SamTrans and help prevent drastic Caltrain service cuts, according to figures released Wednesday, July 29 by the Connect Bay Area campaign.

The citizen-led initiative qualified for the Tuesday, November 3 general election ballot earlier this month after organizers gathered more than 300,000 signatures. Because it's a citizen initiative rather than a government-placed tax, it needs only a simple majority to pass, according to the Almanac.

The measure would impose a half-cent sales tax in San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties for 14 years. San Francisco would pay a 1-cent tax. Altogether, the taxes would generate about $980 million annually for Bay Area transit agencies.

The stakes for San Mateo are concrete. Caltrain officials have warned that without new revenue, the railroad will cut service to once per hour, eliminate all weekend trains, and stop running by 9 p.m. on weekdays. The agency projects an average annual deficit of roughly $75 million through fiscal year 2035, according to Seamless Bay Area, a transit advocacy group backing the measure.

Those cuts would hit a city banking on transit-oriented growth. San Mateo has three Caltrain stations (downtown, Hayward Park, and Hillsdale), all within the state's new SB 79 transit-housing development zone that took effect Wednesday, July 1. The city received its first SB 79 housing application near Caltrain in July, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported.

SamTrans's $50 million annual share would go toward improving accessibility and safety on existing corridors, including potentially converting the Dumbarton railroad corridor into a new bus route. The SamTrans Board of Directors adopted a local investment plan framework in early June to guide spending if voters approve the measure.

Adina Levin, executive director of Seamless Bay Area, said the numbers are encouraging but not comfortable. "A result in the mid-50 (percent range) means we can't go to sleep, but if we're out getting the message out, then that is a very winnable campaign," Levin said Wednesday.

Levin said her group gathered signatures at Palo Alto farmers markets and Caltrain stations, telling riders on trains to Giants games that the weekend and evening service they rely on would disappear without new funding.

The measure is separate from the City of San Mateo's own quarter-cent sales tax for city operations, which the City Council placed on the same November ballot on Wednesday, July 22. That city measure would raise about $7 million a year.

Passage of Connect Bay Area would also fully fund San Mateo County's share of Caltrain's operating costs and guarantee the county a seat on the measure's oversight committee, according to a San Mateo Daily Journal opinion column by Annie Tsai. Voters decide Tuesday, November 3.