Tucked within an analysis of this year’s state budget by the
California Legislative Analyst’s Office are some facts that will
hardly surprise most California drivers.
Tucked within an analysis of this year’s state budget by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office are some facts that will hardly surprise most California drivers.
Between 1998 and 2004, the state government reduced pavement-maintenance spending (adjusted for inflation) by 39 percent. Caltrans repaved only 1,000 lane miles this budget year, compared to 3,850 lane miles in 2000-01. As a consequence, according to a Federal Highway Administration study, some 26 percent of California’s roads rate as unacceptably rough.
Obviously, too much of the kind of maintenance that should be simply routine has been neglected in recent years.
Part of the problem has to do with the state’s current financial crunch. Former Gov. Gray Davis raided the highway trust fund – which comes mostly from taxes on gasoline and is supposed to be dedicated to highway building and maintenance – to pad the general fund by about $2 billion and pretend to paper over the deficit.
Gov. Schwarzenegger is reaching for the appearance of a balanced budget by raiding about $1 billion from the highway trust fund. There’s another problem, too. The highway trust fund comes mostly from gasoline taxes paid by motorists, and it is supposed to operate almost as a user fee, with the money going to build and repair highways used by motorists.
But officials have siphoned off increasing amounts of money for trains and other varieties of “mass transit” that continue to be favored by social planners but not commuters. As Gov. Schwarzenegger reviews priorities in every state department, he should spare a moment or two to get the highway trust fund – paid for by drivers – operating as it should, building and maintaining roads.
