transportation

California is at risk of losing a bunch of federal funding because our carpool lanes are so clogged. Caltrans is contemplating a list of unappealing options to lessen the traffic. Meanwhile, folks across the country, but especially in LA are leaving their houses earlier and earlier to try and beat the rush and make it to work in a reasonable amount of time. LADN:

Jammed by growing traffic congestion, motorists across the country - particularly in Los Angeles County and city - are leaving home earlier and earlier just to try to beat the rush and get to work on time.

In ever-lengthening commutes, last year one out of every eight drivers said they left for work every day by 6 a.m. - up from just one in nine six years ago, according to new census data released today.

In Los Angeles County, where one out of every eight commuters already left for work before 6 a.m. in 2000, the number rose to one in seven as congestion grew from 3.7 million drivers to 4.2 million.

This trend is having a negative impact on the quality of commuters lives as they spend an increasing amount of time away from their friends, family and community.

Tim Lomax, a research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute, a research agency in College Station, Texas, said research suggests civic involvement is down in suburbs where workers have long commutes.

"After a long commute, people are less interested in going to a city council or Parent-Teacher-Association meeting," Lomax said. "(Commutes) mean time away from family and time in a stressful environment, which results in a toll on people."

CalTrans is talking about upping the $341 minimum fine for carpool lane violators and increase the CHP patrols to catch offenders. The CHP is strapped for manpower as it is and such a move may require more overtime or officers.

The Federal Highway Administration requires carpool lanes to move at speeds of at least 45 mph during rush hour. Things are so bad that the bus drivers are now complaining about the slow rates of speed. Two of the obvious solutions are to build more carpool lanes and clean up accidents faster. Here are a few other ideas they are considering, none very popular.

One of the rider bills that passed the Assembly with the budget allocated $150 million in state bond money for the synchronization of traffic signals in Los Angeles. The Republicans have now pitched a fit about it, despite the fact that they agreed to this back when the bonds were initially proposed last year. They are now trying to include it in the budget negotiations. LAT:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he was confident, after assurances from Nuñez, that the money was not in jeopardy.

"The millions of commuters who are stuck in traffic every day should not be further stalled by partisan bickering in Sacramento," Villaraigosa said Monday.

"The people were promised traffic relief when they voted for the bond, and we will continue to fight to make sure that the promise is kept."

City officials said signal synchronization would reduce traffic delays by 32% and reduce emissions by more than 900,000 metric tons per year, benefiting the entire region.

Talk about a measurable improvement and improving the quality of life for Los Angeles area residents. This is exactly the type of project that the voters had in mind when they passed the bond. The battle over this money is one of many examples of how the Republicans are using the dispute to try and leverage other changes that are beyond their power as the minority party. And it cannot be under emphasized that they are going back on their word.

Democrats say that the governor and legislative leaders, including Ackerman and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, agreed before putting the transportation measure on the ballot that the bulk of the $250 million set aside for street signals would go to Los Angeles.

But the agreement was never put in writing, and the bond measure that came before voters did not mention any specific portion for the city.

Now, some discussion of the propriety of these types of backdoor deals may be in order, but one cannot ignore that they made that deal and now they need to stick with it. I am sure they got other things they wanted in separate side deals. It is doubtful that they want the Democrats to retaliate and pull those agreements.

At 4 am this morning the Assembly passed the budget. The Senate is hearing it right now, and is expected to pass it, though not without some rancor. The budget was passed mostly on the backs of cuts to transit funding, the poor and teachers. The Democrats appear to have caved on most issues, but not to the extent that the Republicans and Arnold wanted.

Let's run down a few details as to the actual program cuts.

• The Republicans wanted $2 billion in cuts. They got $1.4 billion
• The government will pay $2.5 billion in bond obligations. That is $1 billion more than required. Arnold had proposed $1.6 billion in early payments originally.
• $1.257 billion in gas taxes, which were intended to go to public transportation have been rerouted to the general fund. This is a one time shift. It has led many people to say that the budget has been passed at the expense of transit, which will lead to increased pollution and traffic. This may cause LA to put off plans for expanding the Expo light rail line. BART may have to delay expanding the line to the Oakland Airport.
• The Democrats had declared that eliminating the cost of living increases for the Supplemental Security Income/State Supplemental Payment (SSI/SSP) was unacceptable. They have agreed to suspend the increase for four or five months. This along with CalWORKS cuts saves $247 million.
• They have cut $25 million intended to treat drug offenders from Prop 36 funding.

For more see this run-down on CPR.

Education has been fully funded to the Prop 98 requirements and the budget also includes a cost of living adjustment. That is the good news. The bad news is that the legislature agreed to go along with the governor and eliminate a tax credit for teachers. It was intended to help off-set the money teachers spend on out-of-pocket classroom supplies. Teachers routinely spend hundreds of dollars a years on supplies for their classroom that their districts can't afford to provide. This would have allowed them to deduct the expenses from their taxes. It's a little thing that makes all the difference for our hard working teachers.

The elimination of this tax credit is all the more disheartening with the news that the Assembly has agreed to go along with $600 million in tax breaks for corporations and movie studios. Senator Perata was steamed this morning and sent a letter to Speaker Nunez.

Dear Mr. Speaker:

I am alarmed and dismayed by rumors that you are considering a half a billion dollars in tax breaks for special interests.

As you and I well know, Democrats have sacrificed funding for education, have postponed a meager cost-of-living increase for the state’s most vulnerable disabled residents – the aged, blind and disabled, and have barely thwarted deeper cuts to education and higher education. Even the increases we proposed to the state’s Prop 36 program – aimed at keeping non-violent drug offenders out of prison and putting them into treatment programs – has fallen victim to concerns about the state’s long-term deficit.

But most ironic, we have surrendered $185m in teacher tax credits to balance the budget!!! How could you now throw them over for Hollywood movie moguls and multi-national corporations???

Our out-year budget problem is already $5.5 billion dollars. We cannot continue to fund education, higher education and crucial human services issues, such as the in-home supportive services program, childcare, or funding for the aged, blind and disabled by providing tax giveaways.

I am deeply disappointed and saddened by your actions – and hope you will reconsider.

The Senate is taking up the budget right now. SpeakOut and Calitics are calling on people to contact their legislators and encourage the Senate to take a stand against these tax credits and budget cuts. The tax credits were passed in stand-alone bills, not part of the main budget. They could be rejected by the Senate, without dooming the entire budget.

Let me take this opportunity to rant a bit about this AP story:

The state Assembly on Friday ended a stalemate over California's overdue budget with a surprise deal to give tax credits to movie studios, tech firms and other companies.

The tax-relief package — the state's first since 2001 — emerged as the key piece of legislation that prompted Assembly Republicans to end a standoff over a spending plan worth $145 billion. It now goes to the Senate, which was scheduled to meet later Friday.

The budget deal, approved 56-23 shortly after 4 a.m., was made possible by the compromise on tax credits, a separate move that was assailed by the Senate leader.

Excuse me...tax-relief?! How about tax credits, tax cuts, tax reductions. Anything but the politically loaded term tax-relief. That implies that taxes are a burden from which we deserve to be relieved. It is a complete right-wing frame that does not deserve to be in an AP story. I would expect the conservatives to get upset if tax giveaway was used instead. There is no cause for this language to be used in a straight news story.

Expect to hear more on the budget as the day progresses and the Senate takes up the budget. Given the tone of Perata's letter, it will not go smoothly.

UPDATE 12:15 Who knows if my post had anything to do with it, but the AP story has now been edited. "The tax-relief package" is now "The tax package". Wow. Notice that the WaPo still has "tax-relief" in its story. That means that the Chron deliberately edited it.

In a party-line vote, Senate Democrats rejected Arnold's proposal to divert $1.3 billion in public transportation funding. The issue was heard in a Senate subcommittee and is just the first in a series of votes the more controversial pieces of the governor's budget will face. Chron:

Transportation officials and environmental groups have argued that the money should go toward projects to increase bus and rail service that also will help the state's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing the number of cars on the road. Bay Area agencies have complained that riders are getting shorted by the governor's plan. Golden Gate Transit, for instance, had planned to use some of the money to help refurbish a berth at the San Francisco Ferry Building. And BART had hoped to use the state money to hire more police officers and boost service on nights and weekends.

Arnold had wanted the money to go to early payments on the transportation bonds and to switch responsibility for school bus funding. The issue now moves on to a conference committee, which will tackle "the most controversial issues in the budget."

You know, it would be an miracle if I could go a week with out an Arnold sucks and here is why post. It isn't my fault. The man just doesn't stop with the stupid.

Take his proposal to take away mass transit money and use it to pay off debts. Oh yeah, and he is trying to call it a "stabilization" move for transit funding. The proposal is probably DOA in the legislature, but here is what Arnold wishes he could do. It isn't exactly green.

The change to be debated this week in state Assembly and Senate budget subcommittees is part of $1.1 billion worth of money diverted in the governor's budget from the spillover and other sources that would ordinarily pay for transit.

The new beneficiaries do pay for buses, vans, and their maintenance and drivers, but these vehicles transport schoolchildren and the disabled and are traditionally budgeted with education and social services.

To hear the Schwarzenegger administration's budget people explain it, the budget allows for more stable funding for public transit. Although the recent spillover estimate for the 2007-2008 budget year is $617 million, as recently as the 2002-2003, gas sales tax receipts did not grow enough to create any spillover.

Using spillover and other transit funding, the proposed budget puts $627 million into home to school transportation and $144 million into transportation of clients to developmental centers and $340 million to pay debt service on old bonds used mainly for public transit projects.

We do need to stabilize funding for public transportation, but this is not the way to do it. Arnold is attempting to move responsibility for a large portion of transportation funding from the general budget to Prop. 98 funds. That effectively reduces the amount of money available for actual education our students. This is the time to shore up our public transportation system as high gas prices are driving people out of their cars.

The passage of Prop 1A locks down gas tax revenues to transportation funding. It will, as the Schwarzenegger administration points out, put more pressure on the legislature to diverting public transit funding for other needs. It is a very bad habit of our legislature to raid that particular kitty, rather than planning ahead.

We do need a solution to this problem, but Arnold's would do more harm than good.

The $42 billion in bonds that the voters passed last fall were merely a down payment on a long list of deferred transportation projects. The battle over the first $4.5 billion turned into an exercise of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" as eugene notes. That was inevitable. The fights between inland and costal, north and south will continue as the rest of the funds are doled out. The fund will be empty soon and there will still be projects that need to be completed. California has been underfunding its infrastructure for decades. Clearing that backlog will be expensive and take many years.

Here is Walters in the SacBee:

When California more or less stopped building infrastructure, especially highways and water facilities, three decades ago on the mistaken assumption that its growth was slowing (an "era of limits," then-Gov. Jerry Brown proclaimed), the state had about 22 million people. Now it has more than 37 million and is adding human beings at the rate of 5 million-plus a decade.

Both transportation and water officials are blunt about needing infinitely more money -- perhaps 10 times as much in the case of highways -- to do what's required. And in his State of the State address in January, Schwarzenegger called for doubling up on last year's bonds during the next couple of election cycles as part of a long-range infrastructure improvement program that could reach a staggering $500 billion.

Not all of the infrastructure are roads and mass transit, only about $140 billion. You know...chump change. From yesterday's LAT:

The commission staff estimates that California requires up to $140 billion in highway and mass transit improvements to keep the state moving.

According to Caltrans, the percentage of highways in the state deemed congested rose from 32 to 43 from 1992 to 2002. Caltrans defines congestion as rush-hour traffic that moves at 35 mph or less.

At about the same time, the state's population grew by 21% while the number of miles in the highway system rose by only 3%.

Our budget is already structurally imbalanced, so there is not exactly a bunch of money laying around to spend. There are three ways this could go. Arnold wants to borrow. Democrats generally prefer to raise taxes. Republicans want to privatize everything. Or I guess there could be a fourth, which is doing nothing. That is what we did to end up with this backlog in the first place. Somehow I dont think that is the best option.

Expect a lot of public debate on the issue. Despite what Arnold thinks, the public won't put up with putting everything on the state's credit card that he supposedly cut up years ago.