Transportation Plan Warrants Support

Over the next several months the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the 28 city councils in the county will be reviewing the 20-year transportation plan unanimously approved last Monday by the Orange County Transportation Commission. The plan should be supported.

The commission’s approval, and ratification by a majority of the county board and city councils representing a majority of the cities’ populations, will legally clear the way to put a proposed half-cent transportation sales tax before voters and in essence, the 20-year plan along with it.

It is time that the sales-tax proposal was put back on the ballot. The one thing any traffic solutions sorely lack is adequate funding, regardless of whether residents favor freeway improvements, local street and road projects or increased rail service, transitways and car-pool lanes.

There simply is not enough money now available from federal, state and local sources to provide the $11.6 billion in traffic improvements that are needed to help ease the traffic congestion that residents, according to public opinion polls, have considered for years to be the county’s main problem.

And federal and state transportation funds will be even more difficult to come by in the future if Orange County, unlike all the other major urban counties in the state that have already approved sales-tax increases for transportation, continues to reject local tax support as it did so overwhelmingly in the 1-cent transportation sales-tax election in 1984.

A half-cent sales tax would raise about $3.1 billion in local money in addition to improving the chances of getting more in matching state and federal dollars. And while some may quibble about the percentage of money apportioned to each project, the proposed 20-year plan does offer a generally balanced approach that recognizes that other alternatives, such as transitways and increased rail use, are a must if the county is going to use its freeway lanes to their maximum efficiency. The plan even includes a growth management feature that withholds transportation tax revenues from cities that do not adopt and follow strict growth-control programs.

One weakness, added at the last minute when the OCTC unanimously approved the plan, was an amendment that calls for the Orange County Grand Jury to conduct financial reviews of the way sales-tax money is spent. The commission realized that it had to include some community review to gain voter confidence and passage in light of current public opinion polls that show residents do not believe that government spends tax proceeds wisely, and surveys after the 1984 election showed that distrust was a key factor in the large no vote.

A review committee made up of community representatives, as originally proposed, would be much more preferable to the grand jury. As it is the grand jury has to work nearly full time to do its job. And with the panel changing each year, it would take jurors too much time to get up to speed and fully understand the complicated transportation issues before it was time for another jury to take office.

The proposed 20-year plan isn’t perfect. Given the factions and conflicting interests, it is doubtful that any plan could draw across-the-board support. But for the first time since 1984, there is a concrete proposal for transportation improvements and financing before public officials that takes a balanced approach toward addressing the county’s worst problem. It should be approved and placed before voters as soon as possible.