Gov. Scraps $1.3-Billion Transit Cut

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday abandoned his plan to cut state transportation spending by $1.3 billion, and will instead call for full funding of California’s freeways, local roads and commuter trains for the first time in years.

The money could jump-start dozens of stalled projects throughout California, such as widening the Santa Ana Freeway in Orange County and extending a commuter train line from San Francisco to San Jose.

The announcement before hundreds of applauding city officials offered the first indication of how the governor wants to use more than $2 billion in unanticipated revenue that has flowed into state coffers as a result of a surge in California’s economy.

“We’re going to create an infrastructure that reduces the gridlock on our roads, builds the facilities that our cities need, speeds up the movement of goods in our state and creates more jobs,” Schwarzenegger told a gathering of the League of California Cities. “I want a California where people spend less time sitting on the freeway and more time with their families at home.”

The transportation proposal will be included in the revised budget the governor is scheduled to unveil Friday, which will raise what the governor wants to spend in that area from $7.7 billion to $9 billion.

Democrats in the Legislature expressed enthusiasm about the governor’s proposal. But they said he would also have to roll back billions of dollars in proposed cuts in education and social services before they would agree to any budget -- even if the only way the state could afford those things was with a tax increase.

“Our priorities have been schools, seniors, transportation and getting a truly balanced budget,” said Assembly Budget Committee Chairman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz). “He just went a quarter of the way to our goals. We would like to figure out a way to accomplish all of them.”

The spending plan the governor will present Friday is unlikely to do that, analysts said.

California faces a budget shortfall of $8.6 billion. The uptick in the economy will help the governor erase only a small portion of the cuts he proposed in January to balance the budget. With the new transportation proposal, he has used up a large share of the unexpected revenue.

School groups, healthcare organizations and advocates for the poor, meanwhile, are calling for the governor to invest billions more in those areas.

“The real problem is that there are too many demands and too little money,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonprofit group that works as an advocate for low-income Californians.

Democrats are calling on the governor to abandon proposed reductions in teachers’ pensions; a suspension of cost-of-living increases for the poor elderly; a cut to workers who provide care to the disabled; new limits on subsidized healthcare for the poor; and the reduction of a renter’s tax credit used by thousands of senior citizens.

The proposed cuts have contributed to the governor’s sagging approval ratings since January, but the transportation announcement brought him loud praise from across the state.

“It’s huge news,” said Jim Earp, executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs, an advocacy group that represents unions and contractors involved in road building. “There was a lot of talk about transportation, but the governor is putting his money where his mouth is.”

California was home to three of the 10 most congested areas in the country in 2003, according to a report recently released by researchers at Texas A&M; University. In the study, Los Angeles and Orange Counties ranked as more congested than anywhere else in America, with drivers wasting an average of 93 hours sitting in traffic that year.

The San Francisco-Oakland area was ranked the second worst in the nation. And Riverside and San Bernardino counties tied for ninth place with Orlando, Fla.

As of late Wednesday, transportation agencies were still sorting out what projects the proposed money could revive. According to documents from the California Transportation Commission, scores of projects in Southern California are eligible.

They include widening the Santa Ana Freeway, construction of an overpass near the Port of Long Beach, the addition of carpool lanes in Orange County and the purchase of environmentally friendly low-emission buses in Los Angeles County.

“We can finally show the business community that California can address its transportation problems and we are on our way to unclogging our freeways and ports,” said Brendan Huffman, director of public policy at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.

The money the governor is proposing to restore comes from the sales tax on gas. In 2002, voters passed Proposition 42, which requires that tax revenue be used only for transportation projects. But legislators have suspended the measure every year since then, diverting the money to help pay off multibillion-dollar budget shortfalls.

State spending on transportation has grown by about 2.5% a year since 1998, when $5.6 billion was spent on roads and other projects. Business groups and economists say that increase is not nearly enough because road use is increasing much faster.

The governor’s announcement came as transportation advocates also got welcome news from Washington. The U.S. Senate voted to add $11 billion in spending to its transportation bill. The amendment got support from nearly three dozen Republicans despite opposition from the White House, which is trying to keep a cap on road spending amid the federal government’s own budget problems.

The bill would bring $500 million in new federal road money to California over the next five years.

“Congress needs to do much more ... but at least this provides a start,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “California has some of the most congested roads in the country, and some of the worst air quality problems.”