Mobilizing for Mobility

Gov. George Deukmejian will face a remarkably unified group on Wednesday when he meets with California’s transportation Establishment to discuss ways to pay for the state’s highway and transit network over the next decade. Most of the 30 or so delegates already are on record for a substantial gasoline-tax increase without any requirement that it specifically win approval of the state’s voters.

Governors often call such meetings to woo delegates over to their viewpoints. On Wednesday Deukmejian may get the feeling that he has been set up--that everyone else is ganging up on him. So far Deukmejian has opposed a tax increase for additional highway construction and transit assistance. In the wake of his failed $1-billion highway bond issue last year, the governor relented to the extent that he would be willing to consider a gas-tax boost, but only if it was submitted to voters for ratification.

The governor and his guests will address a full range of transportation issues during their two-hour session on Wednesday. But the key point may be to persuade the governor of the urgency of a gas-tax increase without the need of exposing it to the risk of failure brought about by a small but well-heeled opposition that could blitz the measure with a distorted advertising campaign. The governor hates tax increases, but if ever there was a tax increase with urgency, logic and consensus behind it, this is it.

Most Californians have their own freeway horror stories to tell, but the sum of the state’s problems is staggering. According to the Assembly Transportation Committee, traffic jams and bad roads cost Californians more than $2 billion a year in wasted time, fuel and vehicle damage. Californians spend more than 400,000 hours a day in traffic jams. Without relief, the average freeway speed in Southern California will decline to 11 m.p.h. by the year 2010, compared with the present 31 m.p.h.

As traffic and road conditions have worsened, the effect of the state’s gasoline tax has been in decline. The tax has been raised only once since 1969. The current 9-cent-a-gallon tax compares with a national state average of more than 14 cents. State spending on highways peaked in 1969 with an outlay of $3.2 billion. Since then, state funds have declined by 56% in constant dollars. California now ranks 50th among all the states in per-capita spending for road work. The relative value of the tax is only a fraction of what it was 20 years ago because of the erosion caused by inflation and increased auto fuel efficiency.

Even without a vote on the gas tax itself, there still would be an indirect plebiscite of sorts. Since the new revenue would put the state over the Gann limits on spending, there would have to be a statewide vote on easing the Gann restrictions, thus providing the vehicle for a debate on the tax.

The governor and the delegates to his summit meeting will not solve all of California’s transportation problems in two hours on Wednesday. But they will take a major step forward if they can agree on the priority of a gasoline-tax increase in the 5-to-10-cent-a-gallon range, with as few strings attached as possible.