The California Legislature enacted the Transportation Development Act (TDA) of 1971 to improve existing public transportation services and encourage regional transportation coordination. Caltrans administers the Act through each county’s regional transportation planning agency. As the regional transportation planning agency for Monterey County, TAMC administers the
county’s TDA funds. TAMC is responsible for authorizing funding to local agencies for the purposes outlined in the Act, and is responsible for conducting an annual unmet transit needs assessment.
The TDA provides two major sources for funding of public transportation in California. The first, the Local Transportation Fund (LTF) is derived from a ¼ cent of the general sales tax collected statewide. The second, the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund is derived from the statewide sales tax on diesel fuel. Each February, the Agency prepares an estimate of the LTF funding it expects to be available in the coming fiscal year and apportions funds to eligible uses pursuant to state law in the following priority order:
- Agency Administration and Planning (Article 3, PUC Section 99233.1);
- Bicycle & pedestrian projects through the Transportation Development Act 2% program
(Article 3, PUC Section 99233.3);
- Public transit by jurisdiction, based on population as reported by the Department of
Finance (Article 4, PUC Sections 99260(a)-(c)); and,
- For the construction and maintenance of local streets and roads (Article 8, PUC Section
99400).
Prior to allocating LTF funding for local streets and roads purposes as outlined in Article 8 of the
TDA, TAMC must provide for a public hearing and outreach to solicit comments on public transit services needed in the community, and determine if there are any “unmet transit needs
that are reasonable to meet”. After 2010, TAMC’s finding on unmet transit needs allowed MST
to claim all available funds to support existing transit operations countywide. The revised unmet transit needs process adopted by the Board in June 2018 is included in the updated TDA Guidelines.
Transit operations and capital replacement are
eligible for State Transit Assistance funds. In addition, STA funds may also be used for passenger rail pursuant
to PUC Section 99234.9. State Transit Assistance funds are distributed in two manners:
- Funds are apportioned to the Transportation Agency for allocation to operators based on County population [PUC section 99313]; and
- Funds are apportioned directly to transit operators based on the ratio of the operator's fare revenues to the total fare revenues collected statewide [PUC sections 99314].
TAMC allocates all available STA funds to Monterey-Salinas Transit, which is the sole public transit operator in Monterey County, and the only agency that is eligible to receive these funds.
Senate Bill 508 amended portions of the TDA, requiring updates to TAMC’s TDA
Guidelines. Changes from Senate Bill 508 include:
- 15% is the farebox recovery ratio for transit operators
- Transit operators must undergo an efficiency standards calculation to determine how much State Transit Assistance funds can be used for operations and capital purposes
- Discussion of the new SB 1 State of Good Repair Program
The SB 1 State of Good Repair Program provides approximately $105 million statewide of new funding annually for transit maintenance, rehabilitation and capital projects. TAMC is responsible for allocating State of Good Repair Program funds and submitting an annual list of projects proposed to Caltrans. TAMC must submit the annual project list to Caltrans by September 1 of each year. To program the annual allocation of State of Good Repair funds, TAMC must receive applications for funds by July 31 of each year.
The complete amended TDA Guidelines are included as a web attachment to this report. Staff
recommends that the Board adopt these changes to the TDA Guidelines so that they match the
most current State law.