A Plan That Could Help Unclog the Freeways

SACRAMENTO

California’s highway system is bad and getting worse. No politician or professor needs to tell you that. Just get out and drive.

Too many new people. Not enough new pavement. More’s being poured, but not fast enough to keep up.

Gov. Gray Davis has been working at it and is sensitive to public griping. To underscore his efforts, the governor--like some county supervisor--even attends formal openings of carpool lanes, as he did Friday on the southbound 405 through the Sepulveda Pass in L.A.

In 2000, Davis signed a $6.8-billion “Transportation Congestion Relief Program,” which temporarily required all state sales taxes paid by motorists on gasoline to be spent for major highways, local roads and public transit. It’s a six-year program that Davis suspended after one year because of the recession, grabbing back the money for non-transportation purposes. The program is supposed to resume in 2003 and run five more years.

Now Davis is supporting Proposition 42, which would permanently require that the state sales tax paid at the pump be used for transportation.

You may have thought it already was required. Most people do. But that 6% tax is deposited into the state general fund for other purposes such as prisons, parks and politicians’ pork projects.

“I asked an audience of tow-truck drivers, ‘How many think this sales tax is going to transportation?’” says Assemblyman John Dutra (D-Fremont), who authored the bill placing Prop. 42 on the ballot. “Essentially everybody raised their hand.

“‘How many think it should?’ Everybody’s hand popped up.”

They, like most people, confused the gasoline sales tax with the 18-cents-per-gallon state fuel tax that does go directly to transportation. Some county sales taxes also are used for local roads and transit.

Prop. 42 is projected to deliver $36 billion over a 20-year period for highways, streets and transit, $7.7 billion of it in L.A. County.

“A massive long-term investment that’s sorely needed,” Davis said last August in announcing his endorsement at a freeway opening in Fontana. The major Republican gubernatorial candidates also support the measure.

Politically, this proposition goes down easy because it’s not a tax increase. It’s a spending shift.

The rub is it would mean less money for other programs, maybe even schools. But K-14 schools are guaranteed roughly 40% of the general fund by Prop. 98, approved 14 years ago. Prop. 42 money would amount to only about 1.5% of the general fund.

Any hit to schools by Prop. 42 would be to the extra money they sometimes receive above their Prop. 98 guarantee.

The California Teachers Assn. opposes Prop. 42 but decided not to mount an opposition campaign. The union is saving its millions to promote a massive school construction bond in November.

Also, the CTA was not eager to pick a fight with the governor or a wide coalition of business and labor interests whose backing it will need for the bond measure.

“We have other fish to fry--bonds,” says Gale Kaufman, a CTA political consultant.

One argument against Prop. 42 is that voters today can’t be certain what the state’s spending priorities will be six years from now. But they can be certain that traffic will continue to worsen if we stay on the same course.

Some complain about “ballot-box budgeting”--voters tying the hands of future governors and legislatures. (Actually, lawmakers could suspend Prop. 42 with a two-thirds vote.)

These complaints seem specious. Nobody’s demanding the repeal of Prop. 98, the behemoth of ballot-box budgeting.

The key point, however, is that this tax-spend nexus is logical. It’s fair, like a user fee. Pay at the pump to pour pavement. Add lanes. Fill holes. Extend rail.

Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, says it’s hard to persuade out-of-state corporations to invest long-term here--and treat us as a community, not just a market--if Californians themselves won’t invest in better transportation.

Polls show a slight majority of voters favoring the measure. Many are undecided. Sponsors--basically road builders--have kicked in around $3.5 million for TV ads.

Davis winces when he sees one spot that begins: “It’s official, folks. California now has the worst, most congested roads in the nation.”

That’s the finding of a Washington D.C. highway group, using data collected by a Texas think tank from each state’s transportation department. The study was paid for by a group pushing Prop. 42.

So don’t believe it. Believe your eyes. And your increasingly longer commute.

Worst in the nation is not the preferred message of a governor running for reelection. But traffic’s bad and Davis can’t truthfully say it’s getting better. Someday he may if Prop. 42 passes.