NATIONAL
AMTRAK SHUTDOWN COULD AFFECT STATE ROUTES AS EARLY AS JULY
With Amtrak on the
brink of bankruptcy, the railroad's incoming President, David Gunn, is
warning of a complete shutdown as early as this week.
Though Congress had originally mandated that the national railroad be
self-sufficient by 2003, Gunn now says that if Amtrak doesn't win a $200
million loan in the next couple of weeks, all trains -- including
related commuter services -- will stop
running.
California's intercity
train routes -- now among the busiest in the nation after several years of
steep ridership growth -- may also be affected by the shutdown.
Amtrak operates the Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin and Pacific Surfliner
trains with the state kicking in a substantial portion of the
financing. But while other agencies might be able to step in as
alternate operators if Amtrak suspends service, it might take months for
such operators to negotiate the same right Amtrak has with Union Pacific
and BNSF to use their tracks (Amtrak only owns it track between
Washington DC and New York; everywhere else it leases operating rights
from the major freight railroads).
Matters
weren't helped any by the Bush administration's announcement late last
week that Amtrak ought to be sold to competing private train operators
if it can't become self-sufficient. While virtually no railroad in the
world operates at a profit, Amtrak has become an easy target for
Congressional budget hawks because it lacks its own trust fund, can't
get access to any federal transportation funding due to
opposition from the highway lobby, and must compete annually in general fund budget fights in
Washington, DC. Amtrak tried,
but failed, to win some funding as part of the $15 billion bailout of
the airlines after the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
"It's
probably even worse than the media's making it out to be," says
Richard Silver, Executive Director of the Rail Passenger Association of
California. "We could lose the long haul routes (trains running
from California to Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Texas and Florida) this
week or next. The California trains could stop running soon
thereafter." Experiments in privatizing passenger railroads have
been mixed, with several high profile accidents in Britain turning
sentiment against the idea among many rail advocacy organizations.
Others believe Amtrak must be drastically overhauled or replaced
altogether for a new generation of modern high speed passenger
rail service to thrive.
Visit
www.trainweb.com for the latest
news on the fate of the national railroad.
ANNUAL
CONGESTION STUDY RANKS CA WORST; FINDINGS CALLED INTO QUESTION
The
Texas Transportation Institute's (TTI) latest study on traffic
congestion doesn't hold any surprises for anyone commuting on
California's highways: congestion is bad, probably worse than in any
other state. Those were among the findings of the sixteenth
annual congestion study which once again grabbed headlines by ranking Los
Angeles #1 and the San Francisco-Oakland region as #2 in the nation
terms of time spent stuck in traffic.
But
this year's study was released amid new doubts over the
study's methodology and its relevance for states like California. The
annual TTI report ranks cities based on a complex formula including
lane-miles of highways, the amount of driving and other factors.
But the analysis is only a prediction of traffic, not a real world
measurement. Furthermore, the methodology isn't sophisticated enough to
take into account operational efficiency improvements like ramp
metering, intelligent transportation technologies, and accident removal
programs (accidents cause the vast majority of traffic back ups).
Indeed, the methodology likely overvalues the addition of new lanes to
combat traffic, undervalues efficiency improvements, and has absolutely
no ability to take into account mass transit usage, carpooling or land
use strategies.
"At
a minimum you're not getting credit for improvements," Caltrans
Director Jeff Morales told the Sacramento Bee (6/21). "At worst
you're getting dinged." STPP and others have long raised
concerns over the study's methodology, and this year for the first time STPP did
not use the TTI data to issue a companion analysis. Last month, the
Washington state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) decided to pull
out of funding the study for exactly the same reasons. "This
report has been used for years by the highway lobby to whip up support
for more road building," said STPP President David Burwell in a
issued last week.
See STPP's statement,
read WSDOT's critique
of the study as well as the related article in the Sacramento
Bee.
LEGISLATION
FACING UPHILL BATTLE; SEVERAL 'SMART GROWTH' BILLS PENDING
With the state scrambling to fill the $24
billion budget deficit -- a situation so dire that
lawmakers may well forgo their typical July recess this year -- 2002 has
become a particularly difficult year for legislation in Sacramento.
Among the measures with recent action taken:
SB1636
(Figueroa): an STPP-sponsored measure to relax traffic 'level of
service' standards around infill development and along bus rapid transit
corridors. Approved by Assembly Transportation Committee June 17th; to
be heard in Assembly Local Government June 26th.
SB1262
(Torlakson): an STPP-sponsored bill to provide 5 percent of a region's
transportation funds as incentives for infill development. Killed in
Senate Appropriations in late May.
AB680
(Steinberg): Sacramento's regional sales tax sharing bill. Debated at
length in Senate Local Government Committee on June 19th and will be
taken up again July 3rd. May have a difficult time being approved by
this committee in its current form. State Senator Nell Soto (D-Pomona)
has signaled her opposition, making an amended compromise bill likely.
AB2369
(Salinas): an STPP-sponsored $500 million bond measure for
transportation improvements serving seniors and the disabled. Killed in
Assembly Appropriations in late May.
SCA13
(Alarcòn): an STPP-sponsored bill recently introduced that would allow
simple majority votes for (1) affordable housing bonds; (2) county sales
taxes that provide funding in equal amounts for transportation,
affordable housing, open space and neighborhood amenities. Set in Senate
Constitutional Amendments June 26th.
SB1555
(Torlakson): a California Bicycle Coalition bill that would levy a fine
on driver license renewals for individuals with poor driving records in order to create a bicycle and
pedestrian safety fund at the state level. Funding was originally
stripped out but was recently added back. Approved by Assembly
Transportation Committee June 24th.
For
up-to-date status on any and all bills, visit www.sen.ca.gov
and enter bill numbers under the "legislation."
SAN
DIEGO EYES REGIONAL GOVERNMENT; ENABLING BILLS PASS KEY COMMITTEES
Building
on growing interest in the increasingly regional nature of
transportation, housing and land use issues in California -- highlighted
by the release of the latest report from the Speaker's Commission on
Regionalism in February -- San Diego is moving closer to establishing
one of the most ambitious efforts ever at regional governance in
California. Helped by their somewhat unusual status as a single county
"region", two state bills (AB2095 -- Kehoe; and SB1703 --
Peace) are looking to merge the San Diego Association of Governments
with several other infrastructure and environmental agencies to create
the "San Diego Regional Agency."
The
20-member agency created by the so-called "Super-SANDAG"
legislation would have responsibility for transportation planning,
housing, border issues, and other regional infrastructure. The bills so
far stop short of empowering the new agency with taxing authority,
something that some proponents have said should be required. The
legislation does, however, allow the agency to acquire critical habitat
and open space lands, and encourages the development of a regional plan
integrating both existing general plans and the regional transportation
plan.
But
perhaps the most significant new power in the "Super SANDAG"
bill would be in the new agency's ability to overrule local governments'
ability to block transportation projects of "regional
significance." Freeway fights have been the norm in many California
communities, and San Diego is no exception. While this veto power could
also be used for future high speed rail rights of way and mass transit
corridors, the prospect of the new regional agency forcing a highway on
unwilling locals has groups like the Sierra Club raising strong
concerns.
"The proposed
regional government increases the potential to push bad projects,"
notes Carolyn Chase of the San Diego Sierra Club, "the same old
sprawl ideas...that have us stuck in rising traffic and rising taxes."
Chase and others are urging more accountability for the new agency, with
the possibility of a directly elected governing board, a public vote on
the creation of the super agency, and the development of a regional plan
before the approval of the new agency. A competing proposal from county
supervisors (who are opposed to the two "Super SANDAG" bills)
would increase SANDAG's authority and standing for transportation
projects, but would stop short of giving the newly reconstituted agency
broader powers and responsibilities.
Nevertheless, for the San Diego
region to be at the point of even considering regional land use powers
speaks to the emerging consensus among both public agencies and local
stakeholders that traditional governance structures are poorly suited to
handle the complexity of 21st century growth issues. The two
bills in their current form would represent one of the most sweeping
attempts at developing a broad regional government anywhere in the
state. While many questions remain about the new Agency's land use
authority for overriding local opposition to transportation projects,
its implementation would mark a significant departure from the state's
strong history of local control over land use decisions. Decisions on
the fate of both bills are expected by September.
Read the legislative
language for AB2095
or SB1703.
Read an editorial
from the San Diego North County Times available from the California
Center for Regional Leadership (CCRL), or a critique
of the proposal from the San Diego Earth Times.
