Metropolitan Transportation Commission: State Route 37 Toll Bridge Act.

Existing law creates the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) as a local area planning agency to provide comprehensive regional transportation planning for the region comprising the City and County of San Francisco and the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. The California Toll Bridge Authority Act makes the California Transportation Commission (CTC) , together with the Department of Transportation, responsible for building and acquiring toll facilities and related transportation facilities. Existing law authorizes regional transportation agencies, including MTC, and the department to apply to CTC to develop and operate high-occupancy toll lanes or other toll facilities, as specified. This bill would authorize MTC to apply to CTC for high-occupancy toll lanes or other toll facilities to be developed and operated on State Route 37, as provided. If CTC approves the application submitted by MTC, the bill would create the SR-37 Toll Authority as a public instrumentality governed by the same board as that governing the Bay Area Infrastructure Financing Authority. The bill would require the authority to operate and maintain tolling infrastructure, including by installing toll facilities, and to collect tolls for the use of the Sonoma Creek Bridge, and would authorize the authority to design and construct improvements on the bridge and a specified corridor of State Route 37 in accordance with programming and scheduling requirements adopted by the authority. The bill would authorize the authority to issue bonds payable from the revenues derived from those tolls. The bill would authorize revenues from the toll bridge to be used for specified purposes, including capital improvements to repair or rehabilitate the toll bridge, to expand toll bridge capacity, to improve toll bridge or corridor operations, to reduce the demand for travel in the corridor, and to increase public transit, carpool, vanpool, and nonmotorized options on the toll bridge or in the corridor, as specified. The bill would require the authority to develop and approve an expenditure plan for the revenues of the toll bridge, and any related toll bridge revenue bonds, and to update that plan at least every 3 years. The bill would require that the authority's toll schedule provide a 50% discount to qualifying high-occupancy vehicles and between a 25% and 50%, inclusive, discount to low-income drivers, as defined, who subscribe to the electronic toll collection system administered by the Bay Area Toll Authority. If CTC approves the application submitted by MTC, the bill would create the SR-37 Toll Account and provide for the deposit of toll revenues and all other income derived from the toll bridge into the account. The bill would authorize the moneys in the account to be used by the authority, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the purposes described above. If CTC approves the application submitted by MTC, the bill would require that any action or proceeding to contest, question, or deny the validity of the tolls, the issuance of the toll bridge revenue bonds, or the incurrence of any other related obligations be commenced within 60 days from the effective date of the bill.