Posted on 09/09/2006 11:13:04 AM PDT by calcowgirl
SACRAMENTO - When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced an ambitious transportation bond in January, he touted the plan as way to improve more than 1,000 miles of state roads and build hundreds of miles of carpool lanes on California's busiest freeways.
Democrats later shrank that pavement-laying proposal and substituted billions for bus, rail and other urban transit projects, but supporters have stuck to their public message since the latest version was placed on the November ballot. The bond, they say, would largely build roads and ease the lives of California's legions of freeway commuters.
On Web sites and in fliers soon to be mailed to California voters, a coalition supported by Schwarzenegger and his Democratic opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, hundreds of state and local officials, contractors, labor unions and others reinforce the message: According to the coalition's Web site, the bond will provide funding first and foremost to "fix the state's most dangerous highways, clear freeway bottlenecks and help prevent air pollution."
Proposition 1B, the largest single bond ever placed before California voters, would certainly provide billions to do just that.
But a detailed review by The Associated Press also shows that more than 40 percent of the nearly $20 billion will not go toward the well-advertised road projects. Rather, billions will go toward projects that have tenuous connections to relieving the state's worst traffic jams.
New fences around ports in Long Beach and Oakland, school buses for Los Angeles, and security cameras and disaster-plan studies for San Francisco's subway and ferry terminals are just a few of the projects that would see a slice of the money if voters say yes.
Billions also would go to buying land for railroad crossings, expanding programs to reduce harmful emissions and perhaps even building a new border crossing into Mexico.
"Will it make your commute better? That's a tough question to answer and a promise we're not ready to make," said John Barna, executive director of the nine-member California Transportation Commission, which would be charged with deciding how almost $12 billion of the bond money would be spent.
That much of the money would go to projects that will not have a direct effect on easing California's notorious freeway congestion is a consequence of political reality in a state with a Republican governor and Democrat-controlled Legislature.
The compromises also were a way to ensure the bond made it on the November ballot as part of a $37.3 billion package of public works measures. The other infrastructure bonds would raise money for levee repairs, school construction and affordable housing.
The transportation bond's official title, the "Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality and Port Security Bond Act of 2006," should serve as much as a description for voters as a disclaimer that it contains money for far more than road repairs.
The AP's examination found that it spreads money across so many potential projects that some experts question if there will be enough set aside for any one region to make a noticeable dent in highway traffic.
In one example of the something-for-everyone approach, the bond guarantees each of California's 478 incorporated cities at least $400,000 for transportation projects - regardless of whether they have been approved as regional or statewide priorities.
"I would say there is a question of can this very large package - broken up in a lot of components and spread out across all the regions of the state - really make a difference over the life of the bond?" said Mark Baldassare, director of research at the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California. "I think it's a big question, and I don't think the proponents want to oversell this."
Among the key findings in the AP's review of the bond:
• At least $8.7 billion - about 43 percent - will not go directly for road work. Instead, the money will pay for bus, rail, freight, air quality and security projects.
• Of the $11.3 billion that could go for roads, less than half is dedicated to reducing congestion on what the state considers to be "high-priority corridors" on highways and other major routes.
• The only road project guaranteed funding is Highway 99 through the Central Valley. It will get $1 billion, although experts say it will take six times that amount to bring it up to interstate highway standards.
• Despite the reference to highway safety in the bond's title, less than 4 percent of the money would go to the state's main fund for highway safety projects. Supporters say additional lanes and other such projects also would improve safety.
• The bond also invests $1 billion for transit security. But some experts question whether that's an appropriate use of borrowed bond money because the state is supposed to be receiving federal homeland security funds for such improvements.
To Barna and other members of the California Transportation Commission, there is no question the transportation bond is needed. The agency estimated recently that unfunded transportation needs in the state would hit $160 billion by the end of the decade.
They consider the $20 billion provided by Proposition 1B as a mere down payment on fixing the state's road system.
Indirectly, almost all the money would go to easing congestion, Barna said. That's because in California, one size doesn't fit all for helping commuters. Some take buses, others use rail. As a result, improvements to an array of public transit agencies are needed to alleviate congestion, just as new lanes are.
James Earp, executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs, which represents 1,700 construction companies and is a major backer of the bond, said that is especially true as California's expanding population threatens to make traffic jams even worse.
He likened passage of the bond to "taking out a home-improvement loan for California."
But in borrowing billions, Proposition 1B also would mark a major policy shift in funding transportation projects in California.
For the past two decades, the state has paid for road projects largely through ongoing taxes and fees on gasoline. Under the bond measure, the state would borrow against its general fund to pay for improvements that may be obsolete by the time they're paid for.
For example, buses and rail cars purchased with bond money could end up in the junkyard before the bond would be paid off in 2037.
I'd rather get rid of the illegal alien drivers.
That would help ease congestion significantly.
Ping! You seem to have missed this one.
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