Taxes Urged on Mileage, Driving at Rush Hour

Solutions to the state’s mounting transportation problems may lie in taxing motorists on how far they travel and how much they use freeways during rush hour, according to a report released Wednesday by a coalition of business, labor and transit agencies.

“State and local transportation programs are flat broke,” Arthur Bauer, executive vice president of the Californians for Better Transportation, said at a Sacramento news conference.

California’s transportation system is deteriorating from disasters, lack of maintenance and ever greater use, the group said in a report.

Citing voter rejection of a number of recent transportation funding measures, the group called for reforms designed to build political support for taxes. It backed Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to expand private contracting of government work, such as highway design.

Although the group did not recommend new or higher taxes, it identified as potential funding sources a tax of one-tenth of a cent for every mile a car rolled up on the odometer, toll roads and “congestion pricing,” a tax on motorists who use the busiest freeways during rush hour.

“As cars get more efficient mileage per gallon, and alternative fuels and electric cars come on line, our antiquated state gas tax is going to generate less and less revenue to address more and more demand for transportation services,” said Bauer, a private transportation consultant.

Despite the conservative, anti-tax message sent by voters in last year’s election, Bauer said, “Numerous polls show the public is willing to pay the price for improved transportation if they see clear specific benefits and the money is efficiently used.” The group favors a constitutional amendment reducing the requirement for voter approval of local transit taxes to a simple majority if the state Supreme Court rules this year that two-thirds approval is required.

“California is only beginning to come out of its deepest economic recession since the Depression and investment in the transportation system would contribute to a long-term recovery,” Bauer added.

Caltrans spokesman Jim Drago took exception to the group’s description of the state’s transportation system as crumbling.

“For them to imply that we’ve got this crumbling infrastructure that is being ignored, the facts just don’t bear that out,” he said.

Richard Baker, executive assistant of the Professional Engineers in California Government, called the coalition a front for private engineers--”those vultures who want to feed on the bones of Caltrans engineering”--and disputed claims that private contracting would save taxpayers money.

The coalition’s members include public transit agencies, such as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, and several labor unions.