Stephen Ellison

State, Local Officials Push $6 Billion Infrastructure Bill

A state Senate bill that promises to fix California's battered roads and bridges with $6 billion a year from gas tax and vehicle registration fee increases is set to go before the Governance and Finance Committee on Wednesday.

State and local officials held a news conference in San Jose on Monday morning to urge legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown, who supports the bill, to pass a transportation package before spring recess begins on April 6.

Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, introduced Senate Bill 1, the Transportation Infrastructure and Economic Investment Act, on Dec. 5, after two-and-a-half years of work.

"We have a terrible challenge with our roads," said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who is a commissioner on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and vice chair of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

San Jose faces a current road repair backlog of $584 million, up from $250 million seven years ago, Liccardo said. Almost one in every 4 miles of street infrastructure in San Jose is in poor condition, up from 6 percent in 2006.

"That is a serious cost to every one of our residents," Liccardo said, citing a report by the national transportation research group TRIP that says potholes cost San Jose residents $863 a year in car repairs.

"It's fiscally irresponsible to wait till roads fail," Beall said.

Orinda City Councilwoman Amy Worth said that the state has a $73 billion backlog in needed repairs for local streets, "but the money isn't there."

The bill would phase in a 12-cent gas tax increase, restore the price-based gas excise tax rate to 2010 levels, increase the diesel excise tax by 20 cents and diesel sales tax by 4 percent, charge drivers an additional $38 to register their vehicles and require zero-emission vehicles to pay an annual $100 fee for road maintenance and repair.

Those revenue adjustments would account for $5 billion a year, according to Beall's office.

The bill would also reallocate $500 million a year in existing truck weight fees to road maintenance and repair rather than paying down transportation bond debt service.

The bill was passed 4-2-1 by the Environmental Quality Committee and 8-3-2 by the Transportation and Housing Committee last month. Its Republican opponents cited the state's history of diverting gas tax funds to non-transportation programs.

"We have the highest gas taxes in the country. We have some of the highest vehicle license fees in the country," Sen. Jeff Stone, R-Riverside County, who opposed the bill in the Environmental Quality Committee, said Monday afternoon.

After billions of dollars of Proposition 42 funds were diverted to non-transportation programs, Stone said legislators should be wary of gas taxes.

"It really is a priority issue with our budget. It's not a funding issue," Stone said.

Beall said Monday that the only realistic alternative he had seen to his bill was to dip into the general fund, which would hurt public schools, a statement that Stone said was overly simplistic and misleading.

Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, opposed the bill in the Transportation and Housing Committee last month, going so far as to advocate cutting the high-speed rail project.

"California diverts $1 billion in weight fees away from transportation infrastructure every single year. Let's put that money back into road building before shaking down commuters and businesses even more," Gaines said.

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