Get Us Moving Launches Interactive Budget Challenge
The Get Us Moving Budget Challenge is part of a public education and outreach effort launched in the fall and led by the San Mateo County Transit District and the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. It is a community-driven solution to reduce traffic and address complex transportation issues in our county.
Get Us Moving launched in November 2017 and has collected feedback from over 14,000 residents about what funding categories should be included in a potential plan for the creation of new transportation revenues. So far, residents’ top choices include investments that would:
- Reduce traffic congestion on Highways
- Maintain and expand countywide transit services
- Reduce Local Congestion and Repair Potholes
Now, Get Us Moving has launched an Interactive Budget Challenge, so residents can build their own budget, dividing up to $80 million/year in new funding among categories that were identified as important by fellow San Mateo County residents over the last few months.
Categories include relieving traffic on county highways and interchanges, repairing potholes, reducing congestion on local streets, improving public transit options and services, separating Caltrain tracks from roadways, improving bike and pedestrian safety and accessibility, and improvements in the Dumbarton Corridor.
Residents can register and complete their personalized budget on the Get Us Moving website through late June. June
Get Us Moving was launched after the Governor signed legislation by Assemblymember Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, that allows the District Board of Directors and the County Board of Supervisors to ask voters to raise new sales tax revenues for transportation solutions.
Poll results released in March showed that support for new transportation investment has grown by more than eight percent over the last year, with nearly three-quarters of county voters in favor of creating new local sales tax revenue to invest in countywide public transportation and traffic congestion solutions. Information gathered through the Budget Challenge, as well as community input from workshops, meetings and other forums will help inform the creation of an expenditure plan that the San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors and the County Board of Supervisors will consider for the November 2018 ballot.
