Whether they are sitting in traffic during a busy commute or sitting in the Capitol building in Sacramento, there aren’t many Californians who think the states highways, bridges and streets don’t need fixing.
How to set priorities and, more importantly, how to pay for the work is another matter and the ideas have been flowing faster than a carpool lane during rush hour lately.
Earlier this month, local Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Solano, laid out his action plan as Chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee.
“As Chair, I have a vision that will rebuild California’s once great transportation infrastructure system,” said Frazier. “This long-term plan will put California back in business by focusing on the customer and treating transportation as a valued commodity.”
Frazier’s plan calls for a comprehensive, corridor-wide approach that sets clear “goals for Caltrans,” he said.
But with a gaping shortfall in road and highway maintenance costs — estimated at $59 billion — his plan was less concise on how to pay for it all. Frazier noted that his plans call for developing an expenditure plan that would “encourage private industry investment” in the state’s transportation system.
“Businesses, shippers and manufacturers need skin in the game to have a meaningful say in which projects we build,” said Frazier. “We need to form a trusting relationship between private industry and State. We will do this by exercising principles of good government to provide deliverable results that will incentivize business to invest and succeed in California.”
Others have been proposing more direct action.
They are considering everything from a dollar-a-week fee on most drivers, a temporary gas tax hike, redirecting money used to pay off state debt back to road projects and converting carpool lanes into paid toll ways.
Most recently, Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, suggested a new “road user fee” as part of a $2 billion annual plan to pay for street and highway repairs for five years.
Atkins plan would dump the fuel tax and instead charge a fee per mile driven — a flat fee of $52 a year, she said. It’s an idea being looked at in other states including Oregon, where a test run will be conducted this summer.
Why not just increase the gas tax or increase vehicle license fees?
The state gas tax is at 36 cents a gallon, but it’s bringing in less and less money with increased fuel efficiency and the growing popularity of cars powered by electricity, compressed natural gas or even hydrogen.
And voters are consistently averse to increases in vehicle license fees. Transportation groups took steps to place a vehicle license fee hike for infrastructure on the November 2014 ballot, but abandoned the effort after finding little support for the plan.
Atkins plan has possibilities.
Right now, electric vehicle drivers don’t pay gas taxes. Every car, regardless of how it’s powered, should pay something to fund the transportation system, and a per-mile charge is a fair way to assess that cost.
And fees could be higher on trucks, she noted, adding that in addition, her plan would bring in $1 billion per year by returning truck Weight Fees to transportation instead of using them to repay general obligation debt. That part of the proposal was greeted with enthusiasm by the California Trucking Association, though its CEO said only that they look forward to working with legislators on funding transportation and infrastructure in the future, meaning a higher flat rate fee isn’t going to be an easy sale.
That may be where Frazier’s proposal to work more with businesses, shippers and manufacturers comes in.
The bottom line is California must come up with some plan for improving roadways and bridges that is fair and equitable to everyone who uses those roadways and bridges. Fraziers and Atkins proposals are worth watching.