BayRail Alliance

Time/date: May 5, 5:15-7 PM

Source:

Local and Regional Planning Challenges

Moderator:   Michael Teitz, Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, and Senior Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California

Senate Bill 375 presents enormous challenges to regional agencies and local governments as it seeks major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. A major implication of the law is the reduction of vehicle miles traveled, not only through technological improvement of automobiles, but also through changes in land use patterns and transportation behavior.

IURD brings together three respected leaders to discuss opportunities and barriers facing successful implementation. Possible issues will include finding ways to achieve modifications in land use plans, modifying regional and local transportation plans, the role of infill development, securing adequate funding for the necessary regional and local planning; and gaining local buy-in to the process.

Featured Speakers:

• Steve Heminger   Executive Director, Metropolitan Transportation Commission
• Paul Fassinger   Research Director, Association of Bay Area Governments
• Carol Whiteside   Founder and President, Great Valley Center

This is the final session in IURD's new speaker series - “Growing Sustainably in a Low-Carbon World.”

May 5, 5:15-7 PM, 305 Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley

Transit routes serving UC Berkeley

Prop. 111, passed by California voters in 1990, doubled the state gas tax and directed revenue to the state Congestion Management Program. It specified among other things that each county designate a county-wide body, i.e. a Congestion Management Agency (CMA) to put programs in place to keep traffic levels manageable. Whereas state gas tax revenue had historically been used to fund highways, the idea behind Prop. 111 was that the additional revenues would fund road, bicycle, pedestrian, and public transit projects in addition to highways to help manage congestion, i.e. they would be used for multi-modal purposes. The CMA was charged with helping to coordinate land use, air quality and transportation planning among the local jurisdictions and to prepare a Congestion Management Program to spend these funds. Among the duties they still carry out today is to monitor levels of congestion on major roads and analyze the impacts that a proposed development will have on future traffic congestion.

The creation of such a plan required creating a governing body that is representative of the local elected councils and agencies. The accepted method of ensuring this representation is to appoint elected officials from these entities to the governing board. In many cases an existing county-wide transportation agency that was already programming transportation funds from a variety of sources became the CMA after Prop. 111 passed.

In practice many CMAs only grudgingly became multi-modal agencies, and many continued to emphasize road and highway improvements to "manage congestion". CMAs did not have direct authority over land use -- only local city councils, and the county (over its unincorporated lands) had that power -- and while in theory they could deny funds to a local government whose plans were not in compliance with the coordinated land use, air quality and transportation plans, they found it difficult to enforce such. Local decisionmakers serving on these boards often engaged in mutual back-scratching so that each jurisdiction could receive funds for their pet projects. Eventually state laws were changed to weaken the enforcement power of the CMAs.

While Prop. 111 requirements for the establishment of CMAs were overturned by subsequent California state legislation, in practice it is necessary for urbanized counties to have such a governing body in place in order to program state and federal transportation funds. Additionally, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC, the Bay Area’s federally-designated Metropolitan Planning Organization) has required the preparation of a countywide transportation plan, and also a prioritized expenditure plan, to include in its regional transportation plan in order to meet federal requirements.

Through the continued establishment of a CMA, the county is able to receive state
transportation funds, federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds and other funds
that are apportioned to Urbanized Areas. It is also able to enjoy certain benefits as well
as comply with the additional requirements of being a designated federal Transportation
Management Area.

Sources:

Barbour, Elisa. Metropolitan Growth Planning in California. Public Policy Institute of  California, 2002, p. 75-76.

San Francisco CMP Nov. 2007, p. 9

MTC Library Glossary

July 10, 2007, Gilroy Dispatch

“VTA Seeks Smaller Tax Increases”

September 4, 2007, Gilroy Dispatch

“Sweeping Changes Arrive at VTA”

In 1976 voters approved, by 54%, a 100% 1/2 cent sales tax for transit. This tax is permanent and has been used primarily to fund the bus system. The problem is that buses are not very attractive to r

In 1986 voters passed Proposition 62, which sought to close a “loophole” in Proposition 13 that enabled transportation sales taxes to be passed by a simple majority of the voters. Proposition 62 required that these measures be approved by a supermajority of two-thirds of those voting, but proponents of the transportation sales taxes challenged the measure in court, and its impact was not fully felt until the early 1990s, after the measure was upheld by a state appellate court. Voters in Santa Clara County had approved by a simple majority a new sales tax to succeed the expiring tax originally passed in 1984.

Permanent Taxes
- AB 1107 Permanent 1/2¢ Sales Tax for Transit in Alameda, San Francisco and Contra Costa Counties
-           Santa Clara County Permanent 1/2¢ Sales Tax for Transit

General Sources of Transportation Funding

 

April 21, 2005

If BART supporters are willing to engage in an open and fair debate, they should reinstate Greg Perry to the panel. And if they are right, they should not be afraid to debate him on this issue.