How Bad Are State’s Roads? Burton Says $16 Billion Bad

For all his nearly three decades in office, state Senate leader John Burton cannot recall ever introducing a bond bill--much less a $16-billion blockbuster to brace California’s deteriorating transportation system.

Burton, a liberal known best as an advocate for the poor, concedes that his bond proposal--the biggest in state history--would not fill every pothole, fix every aging bridge or conquer urban congestion.

“But it definitely will get us on the right path,” says the veteran of 28 years in the Legislature and Congress.

In his first venture into the transportation finance business, how did Burton arrive at such a staggering price tag, which would be fed to voters in bites of $4 billion in the next four general elections?

The answer, the San Francisco Democrat says, is by political instinct and research, but not precise measurements.

The level of borrowing had to be “acceptable” not only to the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis but also to the state’s voters--it had to be an amount that “would not scare the electorate,” Burton said.

“It could have been $12 billion, but that would have been too little. It could have been more, but that would be too much. [Sixteen billion] just seemed kind of there,” he said.

Burton said he is betting that if voters see immediate improvements between the first and second bond elections, they probably will vote for the remaining bond issues. And he has promised that before the first bond reaches the ballot next year, voters will see a list of projects to be built with the money.

While Burton weighed the political considerations, his staff reviewed current research on the state’s transit needs, including studies by interests that stand to benefit from infrastructure projects. The conclusions in at least some of those reports closely resemble the Senate leader’s.

But although nearly everybody agrees that the state’s transportation is “a mess,” as Burton puts it, no one knows the actual extent or cost of unfinanced transportation needs.

“Sixteen billion happens to be divisible by four. I don’t think it is much more complicated than that,” said Dave Ackerman, a lobbyist for road builders and other business interests, including the California Chamber of Commerce.

And Ackerman says $16 billion won’t be enough: “Everyone knows the need will exceed those dollars.”

One recent private study suggested that needs for the next decade will run from $42.8 billion to $52.8 billion, conservatively calculated. An estimate by the state Department of Transportation in 1996 put the cost at an astronomical $122 billion for the first 20 years of the coming century.

The Senate, meanwhile, has directed the department and the California Transportation Commission, which approves state transportation construction, to submit by May 10 a “careful” assessment of unfinanced improvements necessary over the next 10 years.

Topping the list are rehabilitation, maintenance and operation of state highways and local roads, and improvements needed in urban, commuter and regional transit systems.

The Senate also asked for a list of high-priority projects whose completion could be advanced as “expeditiously as possible,” especially those that will reduce congestion and those offering “economic and environmental benefits.”

Traditionally, gasoline taxes are the chief means of financing highways in California. But Burton said he ruled out a fuel tax increase because “Republicans will not vote for increasing gas taxes.”

Burton’s staff examined a report issued last summer by the Business Roundtable, composed of leading corporations, which concluded that California should spend $15 billion to $25 billion over the next decade to improve the highway system. That would be on top of $27.8 billion that the state Department of Finance had forecast in 1997 would be available from existing taxes for transportation projects during the same period.

But the Finance Department warned that even its projections would not provide enough to “end current traffic congestion or prevent it from increasing in the future.” An updated analysis adjusted the 1997 figure to $27.6 billion.

Burton’s staff also considered a report by Californians for Better Transportation, whose members include regional transportation agencies, transit operators, regional planners, businesses and highway contractors, whose numbers the bond proposal closely matches.

In a partial update of a 1995 report, Arthur Bauer, executive director of the nonprofit organization, calculated unfunded needs of the state’s highways, streets, roads, bus and rail systems at about $17 billion over the next 10 years.

One study rejected by Burton’s staff as wildly unrealistic was a 1996 “exercise” by planners at the state Department of Transportation. It was their scenario, in which money was no object, that showed $122 billion worth of transportation needs.

That document was intended to provide then-Gov. Pete Wilson with what department planners called a “ballpark idea” of transportation needs during the first 20 years of the coming century.

One department source recently dismissed the document as hastily compiled and severely flawed. “It’s a wish list of give me your tired, poor, huddled projects yearning to be born,” the source said.

The bond bill, which includes blank spaces where dollar figures will eventually be inserted, does identify specific categories where the money, if voters approve it, would be spent.

Rehabilitation of state highways leads the list, followed by repair of storm-damaged local roads, assistance to local bus and rail operations, and “high priority capital projects of statewide significance.”

When all the special interests come forward with their “wish lists,” Ackerman said, “I guarantee you that it will exceed $16 billion. Then, you start paring it down and you look at priorities.”

The bond measure has a companion bill that would reduce from two-thirds to a simple majority the margin required for local voters to increase their sales taxes for transportation purposes, chiefly mass transit. Both need a two-thirds vote of the Legislature before they can be placed on the ballot next year.