Extreme Makeover, California Edition

California’s packed roadways, flood-prone riverbanks, polluted ports, crammed schools and insufficient housing stock would receive the most extensive renovation and expansion in four decades under a $116-billion public works proposal that the Legislature voted Friday to put before voters.

If the electorate approves the plan’s core -- $37.3 billion in new borrowing -- in the Nov. 7 general election, the state will make the most concerted investment in infrastructure since the 1960s. Then, under Gov. Pat Brown, California doubled its capacity to store water, laid thousands of miles of freeways and added campuses to the state’s college and university system.

The spending would be focused less on growth than on accommodating the consequences of California’s extensive development over a generation. State officials said that as early as next year, some of the money could jump-start already planned projects, including upgrades to 479 bridges and widening of freeways.

“We’ve made a major down payment on 40 years of neglect of California’s infrastructure, which is really the foundation for both our economy and our educational system,” said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland).

Months of negotiations in the Capitol ended early Friday morning with an election-year package that gives Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators literally a concrete accomplishment that could help lift their dismal public approval ratings. Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders plan to fly to Los Angeles, Orange County, Oakland and San Diego on Monday to trumpet the package.

For all the fanfare, the deal could also be a new strain on the state budget for the next 30 years. If voters approve the package of four general-obligation bond measures, within a decade the state would have to pay as much as $2.5 billion annually toward the debt. Should California face another fiscal crisis, the burden -- along with other changes lawmakers approved to protect gas tax money from any use besides transportation -- could put a substantial squeeze on school operations and healthcare programs.

Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders heralded the deal as a refutation of the Capitol’s reputation as myopic and paralyzed. Republican lawmakers, who held veto power over the plan because their votes were needed to reach the two-thirds majority required to place a measure on the ballot, reluctantly signed on after winning concessions on how the money would be spent.

“We’ve proved all the naysayers wrong,” said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles).

The first stab at a deal dissolved in March, and legislators were able to resurrect it only by excluding Schwarzenegger from the negotiations.

Until the votes were taken early Friday, it was not clear the measures would pass. Negotiators had to add $2 billion for levees and county roads to secure support.

“A lot of people got to the edge of the pool, but they couldn’t bring themselves to jump in,” Perata said. “So some jumped, some were pushed.”

The political stakes were high, and several lawmakers felt immediate repercussions from their votes.

A few hours after Assemblyman Juan Arambula (D-Fresno) refused to support the bonds because they lacked funds for new reservoirs for his agricultural district, Nunez told him he would be moved to a cramped office known by some legislative staffers as “the doghouse.”

The abode’s current inhabitant, Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), will get Arambula’s more spacious office. Blakeslee was one of 15 Republicans to vote for the flood protection bond. In an indication of Schwarzenegger’s reduced influence on the Legislature after his special election defeat last year, the final borrowing package is substantially different from the $68-billion proposal that Schwarzenegger announced in January.

Cut nearly in half, the version that will go before voters does not include money for jails or courts or for above-ground water storage, one of the GOP’s most important goals. Key components of the package bear the imprint of the Democrats who lead the Legislature -- and who first proposed the idea of a public works package last year.

Still, Schwarzenegger embraced the package Friday, noting that because of the state’s booming population, “we’re really bursting at the seams everywhere we look.”

“Of course it’s not easy to do those things,” he said about the deal, speaking at a school outside Sacramento. “We worked very hard since January.... And finally yesterday it happened.”

At the moment, there appears to be no substantial opposition with the resources to oppose the ballot measures. A coalition of contractors and unions is already pouring money into funds to promote the package. Even Jonathan Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which typically opposes government borrowing, credited lawmakers for reducing the size of the package and said that, “although these proposals are not perfect, we’re not going to write them off automatically.”

The largest of the bonds would allot $20 billion to transportation projects, with $2 billion to widen roads used by commercial traffic to deliver goods from California’s ports. Los Angeles County would receive at least $1.9 billion, including $1 billion for public transit such as buses, Metrolink and the subway system.

“Lots of money could come to us that wouldn’t be available for a long, long time,” said Roger Soble, chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

San Bernardino County expects to receive funds to help widen the 215 and 10 interstates and Interstate 15 over Cajon Pass, while Orange County would probably direct the money to improving all its major freeways. Riverside County wants to relieve congestion on the Riverside Freeway, Interstate 15 and Interstate 215.

Statewide public transportation would get a $4-billion infusion of cash, and for the first time $1 billion would go toward purchasing equipment to protect the state’s transportation nexus from natural and man-made disasters.

Lawmakers directed $100 million to improve security at the ports, which many terrorism experts consider the weakest link in California’s borders. They also allotted $1 billion to improve the ports’ air quality.

“In a region that’s so critical to not only goods movement but [as a] population center of the state, we should get our fair share,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “I’m happy to say that the Legislature understood and heard.”

The transportation bond is unprecedented in modern state history. The last time Californians approved borrowing for transit needs was in 1990, with a comparatively meager $3 billion for rails.

As a result, road projects have started and halted with the sputter of a dying transmission, based on how much money officials allotted each year.

The California Transportation Commission warned in its annual report this year that “California’s state transportation program is in shambles, the victim of five years of neglect and abuse.”

A second bond would raise $10.4 billion for schools. Of that, $5.2 billion would pay for new buildings and an overhaul of dilapidated old ones, with $1 billion to relieve overcrowding.

Substantial pots of money are reserved for small high schools, technical educational facilities and charter schools. The state’s universities and community colleges would receive $3 billion.

Still, the education spending would be half of what Schwarzenegger says the state needs.

The third bond allots $4.1 billion to shore up the levees that prevent flooding along Northern California rivers and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Many of the levees are no longer reliable, endangering farms and new housing developments.

The final bond would devote $2.8 billion to affordable housing, including money to build multifamily units for renters and living quarters for farmworkers and homeless youths. The bond provides $1.2 billion in incentives for developers to build housing in inner cities and near public transportation in an effort to deal with sprawl.

That bond was the hardest sell to Republicans, especially after Democrats refused to approve the water storage projects they championed.

“Most of our guys don’t like subsidized housing,” said Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine, proudly noting that their pressure forced Democrats to remove rental subsidies and funds for homeless shelters.

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Road show

The largest portion of bond money subject to voter approval in November, about $20 billion, would be dedicated to transportation, including:

$4.5 billion to ease highway congestion

$1 billion to improve California 99 in the Central Valley

$2 billion to ease the movement of goods to and from ports and airports

$1 billion to reduce air pollution on major trade routes

$100 million for security at ports and harbors

$200 million to reduce school bus exhaust

$4 billion for bus, light rail and other public transit systems

$1 billion for transit safety and disaster response planning

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Times staff writers Evan Halper, Peter Nicholas, Dan Weikel, Duke Helfand and Joel Rubin contributed to this report.