$16 Billion in Transit Bonds Urged

State Senate leader John Burton, backed by a powerful coalition of business and labor, unveiled a plan Tuesday to issue $16 billion in bonds, the largest amount in state history, to fix California’s crumbling transportation system.

The proposal, introduced to help address what are widely viewed as long-neglected and swiftly deteriorating conditions, would cover everything from building new freeways and repairing local potholes to rehabilitating bus and other transit systems.

“We waste time in traffic, we spend extra money on car repairs and we’ve got thousands of old bridges and buses that need to be upgraded,” Burton (D-San Francisco) told a news conference.

If Gov. Gray Davis and the Democratic-controlled Legislature agree, the bond issue would go before California voters in increments of $4 billion during the next four general elections, starting next year.

The bond issue bill, SB 315, does not specify which projects would be financed. A second measure, SR 8, urges state transportation officials to make an immediate assessment of needs and recommend a priority list for funding.

Burton also introduced a measure, SCA 3, that would reduce from a two-thirds to a simple majority the percentage of votes necessary to increase local sales taxes for transportation purposes.

Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante said the governor’s office had no comment on the Burton plan. It is the new administration’s policy that “we do not comment on legislation, period,” he said.

As one of his first acts last month, Davis announced the appointment of a special task force to investigate transportation needs and report to him by May 1.

Burton said he does not foresee a “confrontation or conflict” with Davis. He said he discussed his proposal with the governor three times and would have dropped it if Davis had asked him to.

Burton first floated the notion of a $16-billion transportation repair plan shortly after the November election, in which California voters approved a $9.2-billion bond issue for school construction and rehabilitation. That bond was the state’s largest ever.

“Polls have shown across the state that transportation is second to education, and sometimes even above education, in need,” said state Sen. Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach), chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee, who supports the proposal.

California’s system of highways, streets and roads, once considered the nation’s finest, has fallen on difficult times during the past two decades, largely because of cuts in government funding at the state, federal and local levels.

In a 1997 report, the state Department of Finance estimated that a minimum of $27.8 billion would be required for California’s transportation needs over the next 10 years.

However, in an analysis of the report, the independent California Business Roundtable, composed of leading corporate executives, said last summer that the department may have underestimated the need by $15 billion to $25 billion.

Burton said his proposal would “go a long way” toward fixing the ailing system.

The package was embraced by a coalition of some of the state’s most influential labor and business organizations. They insisted that California’s surging economy is threatened by bad roads, bumper-to-bumper congestion and lost productivity.

“The California business community will be strangled if we don’t improve our infrastructure and transportation,” warned David Ackerman of the California Chamber of Commerce.

Other backers included Kaufman and Broad, a major California home builder, Lockheed-Martin and the Silicon Valley Manufacturers Group. Labor supporters include the State Building and Construction Trades Council and union locals representing plumbers, operating engineers and carpenters.

Burton said he believes that his bond bill, which requires two-thirds approval in each house, will pass the Senate.

He acknowledged, however, that he will face a tougher fight in selling his bill to reduce the vote requirement for raising local sales taxes.

Particularly in the Assembly, the GOP opposes virtually anything that would make it easier to increase taxes, especially school bonds.

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), a GOP spokesman on tax issues, criticized the Burton package as a plan of “higher taxes, crushing debt and the diversion of still more public resources into failed centralized mass transit systems.”

He said Assembly Republicans intend to propose legislation that would restore the exclusive use of highway taxes for highway purposes. This would boost highway funds without new taxes, he said.