A Balanced Approach to Traffic Congestion

Orange County transportation officials became painfully ballot-shy in 1984 after watching Measure A rejected by voters by a lopsided 70% to 30% vote. Now faced with what the Orange County Transportation Commission calls an unprecedented transportation crisis, commissioners are asking voters once more to consider an increase in the local sales tax to raise money for highway and transit projects. Their hope is that the same crisis will prompt taxpayers to see the ballot proposal in a new light when they vote on it Nov. 7.

There are at least two major differences between the new ballot proposal and the old. The tax increase would be smaller. The need for the money is even greater, as motorists stuck in increasingly congested and slower-moving traffic are well aware.

The new proposal is for a 0.5% increase in the sales tax, compared to the 1984 request for a full 1% increase. That should help make it more palatable to voters who voted against the 1984 measure on cost alone. The proposed 0.5% increase will cost residents only $50 to $75 a year and raise a total of $3.1 billion to help finance $11.6 billion worth of transportation improvements.

That is a reasonable and acceptable price to pay to help avoid gridlock and give life to a carefully drawn plan that balances the transportation needs of most people throughout the county.

For example, although 43% of the money raised by the sales tax increase would be earmarked for freeway widening projects, the 20-year transportation plan recognizes that the growing number of vehicles will make freeway and street traffic unbearably slower unless alternative means of travel are provided.

So the plan includes additional commuter rail service, “super streets” that move traffic at a faster clip with such things as improved signal synchronization, commuter lanes and transitways to encourage and accommodate more bus and car-pool use, as well as planning for monorails and other advanced technologies. It even contains a growth-management feature that requires cities to follow strict growth-control programs to be eligible for the transportation tax revenues.

The plan is not perfect. But it does offer a balanced approach that has won support from many environmentalists and slow-growth advocates, some of whom opposed the 1984 sales tax measure.

Voters this time should not be duped into believing that the county can get by without a sales tax increase, that the money would not make a difference, or that the measure is a nefarious scheme cooked up by and for developers. None of that is true.

Keith McKean, who as Caltrans’ Orange County director has no local political ax to grind, warns that little can be done to avoid additional traffic congestion without the money the proposed 0.5% increase can provide. That congestion has now become worse in Orange County than in any other heavily populated area in the state. Orange County stands alone among urban counties in not having a special transportation sales tax to finance the construction and expansion of transportation networks. In approving their versions of the tax, voters in other regions not only raised more local money for traffic improvements but also increased the amount of money they qualify for in matching state and federal funds.

The Times Orange County Poll released last Sunday showed residents almost equally divided with 48% supporting the sales tax increase, 46% opposing it and the rest undecided. That leaves less than four months for residents to make themselves aware of the urgency of the need for the higher sales tax. The degree to which traffic has worsened since they voted down the proposed sales tax increase in 1984 is one of the strongest arguments for not making the same mistake again Nov. 7.