Unfair fairness

There are long nets slung under the Gerald Desmond Bridge at the Port of Long Beach to catch the chunks of concrete that periodically fall off the crumbling 1968 span, which is built too low to the water to allow the new generation of giant container ships to pass beneath. Throughout Southern California, roads are clogged and freight trains are slowed because the tracks are built at the same level as surface streets, a problem that could be solved with grade separations, while many freeways, notably the 710, are jammed with trucks spewing diesel exhaust because they lack effective connectors. The emissions produced by this inefficient system kill an estimated 1,200 Southern Californians every year.

When voters approved nearly $20 billion in transportation bonds last year under Proposition 1B, they expected matters to improve. The $2 billion dedicated to trade-corridor infrastructure under the initiative would be a boon for both the state’s economy and its environment. But a funny thing happened to the money on the way to the ports: On Tuesday, the California Transportation Commission decided that a big chunk of it should instead go to remote areas that play a tangential role in goods movement.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle 85% of the cargo passing through California, yet the commission decided to give only about 60% of the bond money to the five-county region through which most of the goods are carried. This was perhaps to be expected from a commission dedicated to ensuring that transportation dollars are distributed in a geographically fair way. Yet what commissioners fail to grasp is that the rules for highways don’t apply to goods movement, an industry in which Southern California overwhelmingly dominates. Geographic fairness, in this case, amounts to monumental unfairness.

Moreover, the allocation approved by the Transportation Commission is bad for the entire state’s economy. Hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on Southern California’s trade industry, whose heretofore steady growth can’t continue without hefty infrastructure investments because the region’s capacity for moving goods is nearing its limit. Spending bond money where it isn’t as badly needed, like the Central Valley, will stall one of California’s economic engines and hit Sacramento with lowered tax revenues. This region carries the burden -- in the form of traffic and pollution -- of nearly all of California’s trade industry and much of the nation’s. It deserves an investment commensurate to the size of that burden.

Fortunately, the commission doesn’t have the final say. Bond allocations must be approved by the Legislature as part of the budget process, and lawmakers such as Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), chairman of a key subcommittee on transportation, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) have rightly vowed to seek a more equitable distribution. Others should join them in fixing the mess created by the Transportation Commission -- and doing it early enough to avoid worsening what is already shaping up to be a bruising fight over next year’s budget.