Caltrain Board Chair and San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine’s Statement on the Passage of Measure RR

South San Francisco, CA  November 4, 2020 Submitted by David Burruto, Chief of Staff, Supervisor Pine’s Office

San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine

Today is a new day for Caltrain and the communities it serves. With the passage of Measure RR, Caltrain now has for the first time in its nearly 30-year history a reliable and dedicated funding source. Measure RR funds will allow Caltrain to weather the COVID pandemic with continued service and provide faster, more frequent, and affordable service in the future.

With this victory Caltrain has a bright future as it will now be able to provide congestion relief throughout the corridor by serving tens of thousands of new riders with a vastly improved, modernized rail system. With new electric trains powered by clean energy, more frequent service, and stable and affordable fares, Caltrain will be able to realize its full potential as the backbone of public transit on the Peninsula.

While the pandemic has temporarily changed how we work and how we commute, our region will recover and our roads will become crowded again. With funds from Measure RR, Caltrain will continue to be a critical component of our public transit network and will help sustainably and equitably drive our economic recovery.

I want to extend my thanks to the voters and taxpayers in Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties who understand that Caltrain is critical to our region’s economy and is a proven way of relieving traffic, and reducing carbon emissions, by removing the equivalent of multiple lanes of cars from our highways.

I want to particularly thank the many leaders in public office, business, labor, and the environmental and transit advocacy communities who stepped up to advocate, raise funds, organize and do the hard work of campaigning to ensure that Measure RR was a success. This team truly left it all on the field to pass Measure RR, and Caltrain and its riders are indebted to these individuals for their extraordinary efforts.