Abstract
Insufficient federal transportation funds have forced counties and cities to propose local taxes to fund new transportation, meaning poor coordination across jurisdictions. This article examines similar taxes conducted multi-jurisdictionally as a potential solution. This study uses archival evidence, legal statutes, and interviews to understand how a seven-county Bay Area proposal was put together, and how this process compared with what is known about local option tax processes. It concludes that this multi-jurisdictional funding measure shared a similar process to single-county ones, but lacked blanket authorization for a regional agency to place the proposal on the ballot, which made the process overly dependent on a single well-connected politician to put it together. This makes it hard to propose a regional process with great frequency, and gives the politician great influence over the projects selected. The study concludes with recommendations to facilitate institutionalization and greater use of multi-jurisdictional funding mechanisms.
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