SAUNDERS: A new tunnel, or just another hole?

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 10/24/6 | Debra J. Saunders

[SmithL]

BEWARE BIG bond ballot measures. They frequently go "oink."

Consider Proposition 1B, the $20 billion bond measure -- oops, I should say $19.925 billion because they priced it below $20 billion as if it were a sold-on-TV appliance -- which promises to improve congestion on California's freeways. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, his Democratic challenger Treasurer Phil Angelides, and the Legislature, all support the measure -- which tells you that it is either really good or really bad.

Think bad, because the measure is not so wonderful that backers are above misleading the voters. Schwarzenegger signed the bill, standing in the middle of Highway 24, in May. Ads tell you that Proposition 1B will help complete the fourth bore the Caldecott Tunnel.

Funny, the measure only promises to spend money on a different road project. It earmarks $1 billion to upgrade Highway 99 in the Central Valley, although experts believe that it will cost some $6 billion to bring the highway up to interstate-highway standards.

Proposition 1B doesn't guarantee a dime for the Caldecott Tunnel. Regional and state agencies would decide how to spend the bond money. While Team Arnold did dangle $140 million for the fourth bore, that doesn't get you to the total tunnel tab of around $400 million.

Oh, and remember the 2004 Bay Area bridge-toll increase that was supposed to help fund the fourth bore, too?

If it hadn't been for that toll increase, Mark Watts, executive director of the pro-1B Transportation California, told me, "we wouldn't be in a position to actually capitalize on the expenditures" to compete for the 1B money.

So means voters may have to pass more big measures to complete the project.

[SmithL]

Your Tax Dollars at Work?

[edcoil]

We have been paying huge taxes on gas that was specifically to go toward freeways and improvements. It didn't.

We do not need anothere bond. We simply allocate the tax dollars to what is was said it was going to do.

[Gay State Conservative]

Our new tunnel...the one under Boston Harbor that leaks and breaks apart killing motorists...was proposed by Mike Dukakis (yes,*that* Mike Dukakis) at about $2 billion.

It's now up to $14 billion.And it leaks.

So,using the same multiples,this one should come in at about 140 billion.But at that price,it probably won't leak.

[calcowgirl]

In September, the Associated Press reported that "more than 40 percent of the nearly $20 billion will not go toward the well-advertised road projects. Rather, billions of dollars will go toward projects that have tenuous connections to relieving the state's worst traffic jams." [ref AP article at FR]

GOP state Board of Equalization member Bill Leonard is telling people to vote against Proposition 1B, because . . . while the measure promises to improve congestion, "25.1 percent of the bond funds are explicitly dedicated to public transit systems that are used by approximately 1.4 percent of the state's population."

State Sen. Tom McClintock . . . opposes Proposition 1B because a number of items on its list -- for example, $200 million for school buses -- won't be around in 30 years, when the bonds are supposed to be paid off. The $20 billion "ought to be used for projects that are going to be there for our kids 30 years from now" . . .

There is only one thing to say about Prop 1B: VOTE NO!