James Corless
Two events in Washington, D.C., last week carried important implications for every Californian who relies on public transportation or navigates our increasingly rutted highways and besieged bridges.
First, a U.S. senator attempted to obstruct a jobs bill extending both unemployment aid and the federal highway trust fund. For the first time since it was created in 1956, the federal program that pays for transportation projects and highway safety literally shut down. For several days, ready-to-go California projects worth $37.5 million were in jeopardy, and construction firms made plans to keep their beleaguered workers at home.
A 30-day extension eventually passed, but the core problem remains: While Congress keeps our nation’s infrastructure on life support through stopgap measures and last-minute extensions, states like California suffer, and the nation as a whole falls farther behind our international competitors.
Decades ago, California led the nation into the era of freeway building, which means today we have an immense need to rebuild and repair our roads. Some major highways – Interstate 80 over Donner Pass, for example, or I-880 through Oakland – are so jarring to traverse that they could dislodge a kidney stone. In Long Beach, the Gerald Desmond Bridge has a “diaper” on it to catch falling pieces of concrete.
The federal government historically has covered up to 80 percent of highway work, but that has become less and less reliable. In 2006, California voters agreed to take out billions in bonds to keep our infrastructure intact, but the blow to our economy has devastated that effort. We – like most other states – desperately need a stable federal partner.
Californians who rely on public transportation know our agencies are bleeding right now. Up and down the coast and into the Valley, officials are reducing routes, raising fares and cutting workers at a time when we need every possible job. For the first time in memory, employees at Sacramento’s Regional Transit are bracing for layoffs, and many commuters already have seen their routes to work cut and their fares increased as RT struggles to cut $36 million. Agencies in Southern California and the Bay Area have raised fares 17 percent or more. Congress, meanwhile, overlooked transit when providing emergency aid to preserve essential services, and has dallied on passing a new transportation program that could provide more stable funding.
California is ready to lead the nation in high-speed rail, but we can’t do it alone. While Congress and the administration included a starter fund for inter-city rail in the economic stimulus, the current transportation law – the one just extended for another month – contains zero federal support for what ought to be a national effort. Los Angeles County, too, needs changes in the federal program in order to make the best use of the funds local voters approved to build out the much-needed rail and rapid-bus network. With those changes, L.A. could be moving in 10 years, rather than dragging out construction for 30.
The instability of funding for public transit and for rail is doubly bad news, because our future requires us to have more and better alternatives to driving everywhere for everything, as metro roads max out with population growth, and as we work to reduce carbon emissions and our dependency on imported oil. There is a glimmer of hope for a new national vision, and that brings us to the other D.C. development this week. Our own Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate committee that must write the bulk of a new transportation bill, announced that she is pulling this critical issue off the back burner at last and is pressing ahead. She held her first hearing on the bill, which she has aptly dubbed “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century.”
Already the conventional road lobbyists are lining up to battle for continuing the status quo, only with more money. We Californians owe it to ourselves and the nation to let Boxer know we will support her if she will fight for a new national vision that helps us fulfill our goals of rebuilding our aging highways; expanding clean public transportation options; building a high-speed rail system; making our communities safe for walking and biking; and reducing our dependence on petroleum and the oil companies. It would be a home run for our senator and make California’s transportation system – once again – the envy of the world.
Stuart Cohen
