Responding to the state crisis in financing transportation systems in California, the Institute of Transportation Studies delivered three educational workshops in Sacramento to legislative staff and aides, to promote understanding and evaluation of transportation finance options for the state. Speakers included government leaders, experts in transportation and finance from academic and research institutions, and senior level administrators from state agencies.
This three-part series of workshops, “Financing California’s Transportation System: Strategies for Moving from Crisis to Stability,” explored the current state of transportation finance, offered and evaluated various options, and set a roadmap for responding to and leading the way out of our state’s current fiscal crisis.
“The key to the success of this series was that it was the right mix of academics and real-world practitioners,” said Carrie Cornwell, chief consultant for the California Senate’s Transportation and Housing Committee. “Having them all in the same room at the same time talking about the same topic created a lot of opportunity for insight.”
Allison Yoh, Asociate Director of the Lewis Center and the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, said the series was needed because “For decades, traditional sources of revenue, like the gasoline tax have been falling woefully short, and there has been no political will to raise them. Instead, we have resorted to an ad hoc system of borrowing, bonding, and relying on local sales tax options to make up for the shortfall.”
These stop-gap public funding measures, she said, are not keeping up with needs that include construction and maintenance of highways, improvements in the efficient and safe transport of goods, and the expansion of mass transit operations and infrastructure.
“We’ve resorted to a series of band-aids that haven’t addressed the underlying issue, which is the need for a stable system of finance,” said Yoh, who moderated a discussion during the introductory session. “And, these problems have become more evident in an economic downturn.”
Brian Taylor, Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation and Associate Director of the Lewis Center, was a featured speaker in the second session of the series, which concentrated on obstacles and opportunities for sustainable financing. He gave an overview of the pros and cons of the four primary transportation options: raising fuel taxes, increasing subsidies—particularly local-option sales taxes, seeking bonds, and instituting user fees and tolls. Included was whether the methods had been successful and reliable in the past, the level of difficulty and speed in implementation, the impact on the public’s transportation choices and the environment, and previous public reaction.
“A good transportation-finance system would be simple to implement and administer, widely perceived as fair, encourage growth and sustainability, and reflect and positively influence travel behavior,” Taylor said. “Deciding which system to choose, however, is not so simple. Yet doing nothing may be the worst option of all.”
The third session focused on the path forward. Susan J. Binder, former majority senior policy advisor for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and former senior policy official for the U.S. Department of Transportation, discussed federal transportation funding: the likelihood of it continuing, what form it should take, and how extensive it should be, given the federal government’s own fiscal difficulties. She stressed the need for a bi-partisan solution, and that there is now “an historic opportunity to revolutionize” federal transportation programs.
Cornwell concluded that the series created an opportunity to think through the options and move to educate the public about the critical need for transportation financing.
“People are very aware of what’s happening to the small portion of the system they use every day, things like neighborhood potholes,” she said. “But how widespread and how much worse degradation of the system could get is not well known. It’s reached a point with a lot of freeways and major roads that we have to invest in repaving or we’ll have to rebuild them. The same thing applies to the tremendous backlog of maintenance work for public transportation systems.”
For background materials and presentations from the first two events, or for a live webinar link, visit the event website. Transportation Finance Solutions
The series was sponsored by the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency; with funding from the California Transportation Commission, the California Department of Transportation, the University of California Transportation Center, the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and the Lewis Center.
Heffler is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and former UCLA editor.