Proposition 91- What's it all about?

Photo courtesy of Mess of Pottage.

Are you ready for Super Tuesday? Don't forget the state propositions, especially the one about transportation funding- Prop. 91. The official summary from the California Attorney General is:

Increases stability of state funding for highways, streets, and roads and may decrease stability of state funding for public transit. May reduce stability of certain local funds for public transit.

Our friends at the IGS Library provide an even handed look at the proposed legislation. The League of Women Voters also provide a summary of the proposition.

As the IGS Library guide notes:

Proponents of transportation funding protection have declared that the success of Prop. 1A in November, 2006, makes Prop. 91 irrelevant. They urge voters to reject the proposal. There is no official argument for Proposition 1A. However, the Southern California Transit Advocates have come out in favor of the measure. They claim that the legislature still took funds for non-transportation purposes after the passage of Prop. 1A and Prop. 1B, a transportation infrastructure expansion proposal also passed in 2006. The SCTA believes that prop. 91 will close a loophole that the legislature and governor have exploited.

What does it all mean? Well, apparently that Prop. 91 isn't needed any more that Prop 1A is working. The San Francisco Chronicle examines the sordid tale of Prop. 91, trying to flesh out what's going on.

Happy voting!

AC Transit's Van Hool débacle

AC Transit (Alameda County, California) in recent years has eliminated bus routes (from 157 to 93), raised fares (to $1.75 local without a transfer, with a plan to raise fares to $2) and increased taxes for county residents all to facilitate the purchase of Belgian made buses against the advice of experts and to the detriment of riders and the agency's own drivers. A recent article by Robert Gammon in the East Bay Express details the saga of AC Transit administration's extraordinary expenditure on Van Hool busses. The agency has recently spent $97.2M in public funds on 236 buses, which one AC Transit driver describes as, "the worst buses we have."

The reasons given for purchasing the Van Hools are the low floors and the extra set of doors, both of which facilitate boarding and leaving the bus. With the low floors, however, come sections of seating on raised platforms which have resulted in a post-boarding injury rate 100% higher on those buses. The third set of doors requires a shorter wheelbase which results in a much bouncier rider -- especialy for passengers sitting behind the rear wheels -- so AC Transit is now ordering some new Van Hools to be custom made with a longer wheelbase and only two sets of doors ... just like the old domestic buses.

In the second part of this two part story, Gammon tells us that to purchase the Van Hools AC Transit has spent over $1 million on employee trips to Western Europe and paid for a bus inspector to live near Antwerp for over five years, at more than $500,000 -- including $2,637 a month for his auto allowance -- on top his $121k annual salary. Since 2001 general manager Rick Fernandez, who earns $260k/yr., has made seven trips to Europe at taxpayers' expense totaling $22,983. During that period, 2001 through 2007, AC Transit employees filled out 163 travel vouchers for trips to Europe for a total of $947,238. And AC Transit has just increased the meal allowance from $50 to $134 per day.

U.S. Senate Approves of Some Things, Disapproves of Others

Yesterday the United States Senate passed a transportation spending bill that will now be returned to the House of Representatives for approval. The bill was passed without a proposed waiver of Davis-Bacon Act, a law that requires fair wages for federally-funded public works projects, for bridge renovation projects. The bill has added US$1 billion for such projects in an amendment to an earlier version. Funding was also augmented for the I-35W bridge due to efforts by the junior senator from Minnesota.

LA Looks to Update Long-Range Transportation Plan, Finds Huge Funding Shortfall

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority board met to review the financial aspects of its long-range transportation plan - how much money is, or could be, available to fund a wide range of transit and highway improvements. The Los Angeles Times reports a shortfall of about $26 billion dollars between projected revenue and the cost of various projects.

Full funding for the proposed projects would largely reshape the Los Angeles County landscape, as shown in Transit Corridors, a map that illustrates future project lines and modes. Commuters crawling along the freeways can only dream of such a scenario.