I didn’t own a car, so California’s proposed $400 rebate per registered vehicle looked like the wrong way to help people cope with high gas prices. EV owners qualified too, even though they weren’t buying gas. Vehicle registration was an easy way to distribute money, but it was a poor measure of who needed relief.
The governor’s March 2022 proposal also set aside money for transit agencies to offer three months of free fares. My original claim that transit riders got nothing was wrong. The transit help still depended on agencies participating, while vehicle owners had a direct payment on the table. I would rather target relief by income and actual travel cost than by the number of vehicles someone owns.