CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : On the Road Again With Props. 111, 108 : Voters no doubt thought they were giving a boost to transit, but mostly they’ll be getting pig-in-a-poke highways.

If you didn’t read the fine print in Proposition 111 (and who did?), you probably thought a “yes” vote on the most-publicized measure in the June primary was a vote for more and better transit--more trains, more buses, more trolleys to cut through the horrendous traffic jams that have come to plague ever-growing urban California.

Certainly it was transit that the vocal and well-heeled advocates of Proposition 111 and its junior partner, Proposition 108, chose to stress in the campaign. The tone was set by Gov. George Deukmejian, who launched the ballot drive not with a press conference on an overpass looking down on a crowded freeway, not by taking a tour of some ragtag collection of unfinished highway projects, but with a ride on Sacramento’s shiny and successful light-rail system--one of the very rail projects the governor was scornfully disparaging not too long ago as an “exotic transportation alternative.”

But the Duke can read polls as well as anybody else, and the polls show that in transportation these days, for most urban dwellers (that is, most Californians), transit--not more cars, not more freeways--is where it is at. And if you want to persuade voters that higher taxes are a good thing, it just makes sense to tell the public that those taxes will buy what the public wants.

Thus, the strategy for selling Proposition 111. Talk loudest and longest about transit. When you’re not doing that, remind the audience of the need to do something about potholes on existing roads and about how the highways need to be strengthened to withstand earthquakes. As for new highway construction, frame the issue, if it comes up at all, as a matter mainly of wrapping up projects already planned but stalled for lack of funding.

The media swallowed the sales pitch. News stories skipped over the complexities that characterize the murky world of transportation finance, where much is not as it seems. Editorial support was almost universal. On election day, the public gave its blessing.

So with all the talk of transit, what did we actually vote to buy with the largest single tax hike in California history? For the most part, more roads.

Oh sure, we’ll get some transit too. But unless sustained and organized pressure is brought to bear on those charged with deciding exactly how the new funds are divvied up, the share of overall state transportation spending devoted to transit is likely to remain just a fraction of what goes into the highway building program. And the huge infusion of funds into highways, combined with quirks in existing laws that mandate how highway money is spread around, may well lead to the construction of many expensive road projects of very questionable value.

Propositions 111 and 108 raised the amount of money directed to transportation by $16.5 billion over the next 10 years (not the $18.5 billion we heard so much about before the vote). Of this, $15.5 billion will come from higher gas taxes and other fees triggered by 111, and $1 billion from a bond issue for rail projects authorized by 108. (A third transportation measure, Proposition 116--separately sponsored and not included in the 111 package--will generate an additional $1.99 billion for rail projects.)

Of the $16.5 billion, just $1.5 billion--or 9%--is firmly committed to transit. And most of this will come out of the Proposition 108 bonds. Funding for streets, roads and associated niceties (landscaping, etc.) is pegged at a minimum of $10 billion. That amounts to 60% of the revenues generated by 111 and 108 combined, 65% of the revenues from 111 alone.

Put otherwise, for every $1 earmarked for transit, close to $7 is earmarked for roads.

So how did the backers of 111 get away with marketing it as a transit measure? By pointing, if asked (and they weren’t asked often), to the portion of the measure’s proceeds--$5 billion, or 30%--that is technically available for allocation to either roads or transit, through two specific categories, the Flexible Congestion Relief program and the State-Local Partnership program.

But unless there’s a dramatic change in who participates in the games of transportation decision-making, where the most influential players traditionally have been land developers who stand to benefit from road construction, not many of the unrestricted dollars in either of these programs are likely to end up in transit.

Right now, the process of picking projects for funding in the two unrestricted categories is under way. Transit isn’t doing very well in either case. Under the Flexible Congestion Relief program, for which planning is done on a seven-year basis by regional agencies, projects totaling $3 billion are competing for a $2.1-billion set-aside. Of these projects, only $100-million worth involve transit. In the State-Local Partnership program, where planning is a year-by-year exercise conducted by local governments, transit is faring somewhat better, but it’s still way behind streets and highways ($48 million proposed for transit, compared to $202 million for roads.)

As for the new state highways that will soak up a major part of the increased gas taxes and fees, it’s hard at this point to piece together exactly what we’re going to get. Highways are eligible for funding under the two unrestricted categories and a third exclusive category, Interregional Roads. Certainly the projects being suggested for financing in this third group, which Caltrans recently submitted to the California Transportation Commission for approval, don’t look as though they’re going to win any awards for cost-effectiveness.

Caltrans is asking the commission to endorse, at a total cost of $1.1 billion, the construction over the next seven years of 87 Interregional Road projects. Sixty-one of these projects are being carried over from previous funding plans, while 26 are new. These new projects have a combined price tag of $621 million, meaning their average cost is $27 million--more than three times the average for the carry-over projects.

But just because the new projects are expensive doesn’t mean they’re going to do much to improve the state’s traffic picture. The existing roads where 16 of the new projects would be constructed currently operate at less than 80% of capacity during peak hours; several at less than 50%. One of the planned projects is a 2.5-mile, two-lane expressway costing $10.8 million in the vicinity of Dorris in Siskyou County. The existing road in this location operates at 20% of capacity at peak, which amounts to just one hour per week.

Campaign hype and hoopla aside, Proposition 111 basically was a giant boost to road-building--and not necessarily road-building of the highest order. Making it more than that is going to take some heavy pressure from people who are willing to pay more than lip service to the notion of balanced transportation. Unless and until this pressure develops as an effective political force, Propositions 108 and 116--both one-shot bond measures, not ongoing cash cows--are likely to be the primary source of funding for those new trains and trolleys so many voters thought they were buying with 111.