www.uppermichiganssource.com After Ishpeming’s Labor Day parade, union members and community members gathered at the Lake Bancroft Park for a picnic, family entertainment and a beer tent, manned by Senator Scott Dianda and two Democrat candidates. To learn more about donating to the ease efforts, click here.
Pothole ease? California deal includes 12-cent gas tax hike, electrical car fee
Construction crews proceed to re-build Embarcadero Bridge over the Lake Merritt Channel near Estuary Park in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. The project is part of the Caltrans bridge inspection program according the City of Oakland. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
A truck tire goes through deep potholes on Stone Court off Villa Stone Drive in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)
Construction crews proceed to re-build Embarcadero Bridge over the Lake Merritt Channel near Estuary Park in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. The project is part of the Caltrans bridge inspection program according the City of Oakland. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
Portions of Curtner Avenue off Monterey Road in need of potholes and repairs, photographed in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Josie Lepé/Bay Area News Group)
Construction crews proceed to re-build the 29th Avenue bridge over Highway eight hundred eighty in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group
Deep potholes are present on Stone Court off Villa Stone Drive which is in need of repairs, photograhped in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown and top Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday announced a major deal aimed at repairing California’s crumbling roads and bridges by raising fuel taxes, hiking vehicle registration fees and for the very first time charging electrical car owners a yearly fee.
The unveiling of the proposal to raise $Five billion annually through a 12-cent-per-gallon gas tax, a $100 annual fee on electrified vehicles and other fresh taxes and fees goes after years of debate over how to fund a transportation upgrade. The cost of backlogged repairs has ballooned to $59 billion for state highways and $78 billion for local roads, estimates Sen. Jim Beall – a San Jose Democrat who is carrying a road-repair bill.
“This is like fixing the roof on your house,” said Brown, standing on the east steps of the Capitol before a backdrop of Democratic legislators and construction workers in hard hats. “If you don’t fix the leak, your furniture will be ruined. Your rug will be ruined. The wood will rot.”
But the hard-fought deal must now be approved by the Legislature with a two-thirds vote in each house. It is shaping up to be the very first real test of how far the Democrats are able to leverage the fresh legislative supermajority they gained after the November election.
If no Republicans vote for it, the measure would need all twenty seven Senate Democrats and fifty four out of fifty five Democrats in the Assembly to vote “yes.” And GOP leaders, left out of the talks, have already come out swinging against the tax and fee increases, telling they will hurt low- and middle-income Californians.
Brown himself conceded at the news conference that “nothing is assured here. Nothing’s in the bag.”
Previous efforts to raise the state gas tax – now at about twenty eight cents per gallon – have failed, but transportation officials and millions of drivers via the state are watching the latest thrust closely. Many are hoping for a breakthrough this time, in a nonelection year – and after the February evacuation of communities near Oroville Dam exposed the risks of neglecting the state’s aging infrastructure.
“Each year as we don`t deal with it, it gets larger and larger,” Randy Iwasaki, executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, said of the repair backlog.
The governor’s office says the average motorist would see their taxes and fees rise by less than $Ten a month, or under $120 annually. Beall estimates that someone who drives 12,000 miles per year in a car that’s “not expensive” and gets twenty seven miles to the gallon would pay $78 more a year – $53 more at the pump plus a $25 registration fee for less-expensive vehicles. The maximum fee – for vehicles worth over $60,000 – would be $175, but eighty five percent of car owners would pay $50 or less.
In addition to state highway and bridge repairs, the proposal would spend $7.Five billion over the next decade on local public transportation projects and another $1 billion on infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists – investments cheered by BART board President Rebecca Saltzman. If it passes, she said, it “will be a constant and reliable anchor for the region at a time when many of our most significant institutions feel adrift, financially and otherwise.”
The agreement includes oversight from an inspector general and a constitutional amendment to ensure the money is spent on transportation and not diverted to other state priorities. If it passes, California will join a growing number of states, including Colorado, Washington and Virginia, that have levied fees on electrical cars. That fee wouldn’t kick in until 2020.
California has not raised its gas tax in twenty three years, according to the governor’s office, and proponents say the shortfall is evident to anyone who drives in the state.
The funding “is needed in the worst way in San Jose,” said Jim Ortbal, the city’s director of transportation. A quarter of the city’s roads have fallen into poor condition, he said, because San Jose doesn’t have adequate funding to keep them up.
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Ray Ruiz, a bail bondsman who traverses the Bay Area in his Toyota Camry, said the roads are so bad he has actually taken to wearing mouth guards on unacquainted streets to protect his tongue – a safety precaution he adopted after one excruciating clash with a pothole “that was more like a trench.” Ruiz estimates he drives toughly two hundred fifty miles per day, so he knows he will pay more than the average Californian if the tax is hiked, but he supports the idea anyway.
“The way the roads are now, I`m afraid to drive,” he said. “I have a daughter who drives, and I worry about her driving with the road conditions the way they are.”
The deal hammered out by the governor’s office, leaders of the Senate and Assembly, Beall and Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, will be plunked into Beall’s Senate Bill 1, which has already cleared three Senate committees.
The governor’s office and the Legislature have set a deadline of April six for approving the deal, before the Legislature adjourns for a weeklong spring recess – and before state budget negotiations consume the Capitol. Beall said it will be heard by the Senate Appropriations committee on Monday.
Cities and counties, labor unions and business groups have formed the Fix Our Roads Coalition to promote legislation to fix roads and bridges. Coalition leaders argue that the state needs to create an adequate funding stream to maintain roads, funded mainly by drivers, so that costly and dangerous backlogs don’t pile up in the very first place.
«Raising extra revenues for transportation will not be an effortless vote when the time comes,” said California Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Allan Zaremberg in a statement Wednesday, “but doing nothing will only ensure deterioration in the system necessary to stir people and goods.”
Assembly Republicans – who say the state should better manage the car-related tax revenue it already has – went on the offensive Wednesday, posting a movie critical of the Democrats’ proposal.
Ordinary Californians spend days stuck in traffic. Now Capitol Democrats want to raise your taxes… again. #CADeservesBetter #FixOurRoads pic.twitter.com/1ZsBvtzjUB
The GOP caucus has advanced its own proposal, carried by Assemblyman Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield. Assembly Bill four hundred ninety six would pay for road repairs without raising taxes by redirecting billions of dollars from such sources as vehicle sales taxes and truck-weight fees to road repairs.
“Every dollar that is paid by the motorists should go to transportation,” Fong said.
But Brown characterized the Democrats’ proposal as a responsible, common-sense measure. “The only choice is: Do we borrow from the next generation, or do we truly belly up to the bar and say `Here’s what it costs, and we’re going to pay it.'”
HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE RAISED
$24.Four billion by enhancing gasoline excise tax twelve cents
$200 million from an annual $100 «zero emission vehicle fee» beginning in 2020
$7.Three billion by enlargening diesel excise tax by twenty cents
$Three.Five billion by enhancing diesel sales tax to Five.75 percent
$16.Three billion from an annual «transportation improvement fee» based on a vehicle`s value
$706 million in General Fund loan repayments.
HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE SPENT LOCALLY
$15 billion in «Fix-It-First» local road repairs such as fixing potholes
$7.Five billion to improve local public transportation
$Two billion to support local «self-help» communities that are making their own investments in transportation improvements
$1 billion to improve infrastructure that promotes walking and bicycling
$825 million for the State Transportation Improvement Program local contribution
$250 million in local transportation planning grants
HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE SPENT STATEWIDE
$15 billion in «Fix-it-First» highway repairs, including smoother pavement
$Four billion in bridge and culvert repairs
$Trio billion to improve trade corridors
$Two.Five billion to reduce congestion on major commute corridors
$1.Four billion in other transportation investments, including $275 million for highway and intercity-transit improvements.
Pothole ease? California deal includes tax hike, electrified car fee
Pothole ease? California deal includes 12-cent gas tax hike, electrical car fee
Construction crews proceed to re-build Embarcadero Bridge over the Lake Merritt Channel near Estuary Park in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. The project is part of the Caltrans bridge inspection program according the City of Oakland. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
A truck tire goes through deep potholes on Stone Court off Villa Stone Drive in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)
Construction crews proceed to re-build Embarcadero Bridge over the Lake Merritt Channel near Estuary Park in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. The project is part of the Caltrans bridge inspection program according the City of Oakland. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
Portions of Curtner Avenue off Monterey Road in need of potholes and repairs, photographed in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Josie Lepé/Bay Area News Group)
Construction crews proceed to re-build the 29th Avenue bridge over Highway eight hundred eighty in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group
Deep potholes are present on Stone Court off Villa Stone Drive which is in need of repairs, photograhped in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown and top Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday announced a major deal aimed at repairing California’s crumbling roads and bridges by raising fuel taxes, hiking vehicle registration fees and for the very first time charging electrical car owners a yearly fee.
The unveiling of the proposal to raise $Five billion annually through a 12-cent-per-gallon gas tax, a $100 annual fee on electrified vehicles and other fresh taxes and fees goes after years of debate over how to fund a transportation upgrade. The cost of backlogged repairs has ballooned to $59 billion for state highways and $78 billion for local roads, estimates Sen. Jim Beall – a San Jose Democrat who is carrying a road-repair bill.
“This is like fixing the roof on your house,” said Brown, standing on the east steps of the Capitol before a backdrop of Democratic legislators and construction workers in hard hats. “If you don’t fix the leak, your furniture will be ruined. Your rug will be demolished. The wood will rot.”
But the hard-fought deal must now be approved by the Legislature with a two-thirds vote in each house. It is shaping up to be the very first real test of how far the Democrats are able to leverage the fresh legislative supermajority they gained after the November election.
If no Republicans vote for it, the measure would need all twenty seven Senate Democrats and fifty four out of fifty five Democrats in the Assembly to vote “yes.” And GOP leaders, left out of the talks, have already come out swinging against the tax and fee increases, telling they will hurt low- and middle-income Californians.
Brown himself conceded at the news conference that “nothing is assured here. Nothing’s in the bag.”
Previous efforts to raise the state gas tax – now at about twenty eight cents per gallon – have failed, but transportation officials and millions of drivers across the state are watching the latest shove closely. Many are hoping for a breakthrough this time, in a nonelection year – and after the February evacuation of communities near Oroville Dam exposed the risks of neglecting the state’s aging infrastructure.
“Each year as we don`t deal with it, it gets larger and larger,” Randy Iwasaki, executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, said of the repair backlog.
The governor’s office says the average motorist would see their taxes and fees rise by less than $Ten a month, or under $120 annually. Beall estimates that someone who drives 12,000 miles per year in a car that’s “not expensive” and gets twenty seven miles to the gallon would pay $78 more a year – $53 more at the pump plus a $25 registration fee for less-expensive vehicles. The maximum fee – for vehicles worth over $60,000 – would be $175, but eighty five percent of car owners would pay $50 or less.
In addition to state highway and bridge repairs, the proposal would spend $7.Five billion over the next decade on local public transportation projects and another $1 billion on infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists – investments cheered by BART board President Rebecca Saltzman. If it passes, she said, it “will be a constant and reliable anchor for the region at a time when many of our most significant institutions feel adrift, financially and otherwise.”
The agreement includes oversight from an inspector general and a constitutional amendment to ensure the money is spent on transportation and not diverted to other state priorities. If it passes, California will join a growing number of states, including Colorado, Washington and Virginia, that have levied fees on electrified cars. That fee wouldn’t kick in until 2020.
California has not raised its gas tax in twenty three years, according to the governor’s office, and proponents say the shortfall is demonstrable to anyone who drives in the state.
The funding “is needed in the worst way in San Jose,” said Jim Ortbal, the city’s director of transportation. A quarter of the city’s roads have fallen into poor condition, he said, because San Jose doesn’t have adequate funding to keep them up.
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Ray Ruiz, a bail bondsman who traverses the Bay Area in his Toyota Camry, said the roads are so bad he has actually taken to wearing mouth guards on unacquainted streets to protect his tongue – a safety precaution he adopted after one excruciating clash with a pothole “that was more like a trench.” Ruiz estimates he drives harshly two hundred fifty miles per day, so he knows he will pay more than the average Californian if the tax is hiked, but he supports the idea anyway.
“The way the roads are now, I`m afraid to drive,” he said. “I have a daughter who drives, and I worry about her driving with the road conditions the way they are.”
The deal hammered out by the governor’s office, leaders of the Senate and Assembly, Beall and Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, will be plunked into Beall’s Senate Bill 1, which has already cleared three Senate committees.
The governor’s office and the Legislature have set a deadline of April six for approving the deal, before the Legislature adjourns for a weeklong spring recess – and before state budget negotiations consume the Capitol. Beall said it will be heard by the Senate Appropriations committee on Monday.
Cities and counties, labor unions and business groups have formed the Fix Our Roads Coalition to promote legislation to fix roads and bridges. Coalition leaders argue that the state needs to create an adequate funding stream to maintain roads, funded mainly by drivers, so that costly and dangerous backlogs don’t pile up in the very first place.
«Raising extra revenues for transportation will not be an effortless vote when the time comes,” said California Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Allan Zaremberg in a statement Wednesday, “but doing nothing will only ensure deterioration in the system necessary to budge people and goods.”
Assembly Republicans – who say the state should better manage the car-related tax revenue it already has – went on the offensive Wednesday, posting a movie critical of the Democrats’ proposal.
Ordinary Californians spend days stuck in traffic. Now Capitol Democrats want to raise your taxes… again. #CADeservesBetter #FixOurRoads pic.twitter.com/1ZsBvtzjUB
The GOP caucus has advanced its own proposal, carried by Assemblyman Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield. Assembly Bill four hundred ninety six would pay for road repairs without raising taxes by redirecting billions of dollars from such sources as vehicle sales taxes and truck-weight fees to road repairs.
“Every dollar that is paid by the motorists should go to transportation,” Fong said.
But Brown characterized the Democrats’ proposal as a responsible, common-sense measure. “The only choice is: Do we borrow from the next generation, or do we indeed belly up to the bar and say `Here’s what it costs, and we’re going to pay it.'”
HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE RAISED
$24.Four billion by enhancing gasoline excise tax twelve cents
$200 million from an annual $100 «zero emission vehicle fee» beginning in 2020
$7.Trio billion by enhancing diesel excise tax by twenty cents
$Trio.Five billion by enlargening diesel sales tax to Five.75 percent
$16.Three billion from an annual «transportation improvement fee» based on a vehicle`s value
$706 million in General Fund loan repayments.
HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE SPENT LOCALLY
$15 billion in «Fix-It-First» local road repairs such as fixing potholes
$7.Five billion to improve local public transportation
$Two billion to support local «self-help» communities that are making their own investments in transportation improvements
$1 billion to improve infrastructure that promotes walking and bicycling
$825 million for the State Transportation Improvement Program local contribution
$250 million in local transportation planning grants
HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE SPENT STATEWIDE
$15 billion in «Fix-it-First» highway repairs, including smoother pavement
$Four billion in bridge and culvert repairs
$Trio billion to improve trade corridors
$Two.Five billion to reduce congestion on major commute corridors
$1.Four billion in other transportation investments, including $275 million for highway and intercity-transit improvements.
