What goes up must come down or have the chickens finally coming home to roost?

For curses are like arrows

San Jose Mayor
Louis S. Solari
July 1958 - June 1960

shot upright, which falling
down light on the suters
[shooters] head.

The Lamentable and True Tragedy of Arden of Feversham - 1592

Today's Roadshow column in the San Jose Mercury News led with the headline: "San Jose pothole blamed on Reed, Brown, and Pruius drivers". Well, for those of you from out of state, Reed is San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, and Brown is California Governor Jerry Brown.

San Jose resident Joe Coughlin writes to Mr. Roadshow Gary Richards:

"Mayor Chuck Reed should be ashamed of the job he is doing regarding road repair. And we all ought to be embarrassed. We are not only the worst in California, we are the worst in the NATION."

I find this readers rant somewhat timely given that the evening before I attended the city's Planning Commission meeting. On the agenda was a study session to review the city's capital budget five-year plan. One set of figures that shocked me a bit (and after seeing these numbers for a few years I don't get shocked that easily) was the total infrastructure backlog reported at $909 million. Given that this year the city budget is $2.6 billion about 35% of the cities annual budget is represented by infrastructure backlog. Of the cities $909 million in infrastructure backlog $460 million is for transportation backlog, or just over 50%. Of that $460 million, $303 million is needed just to maintain the roadways back to normal levels.

But back to Mr. Coughlin's point. Who do we blame? Do we blame Mayor Chuck Reed, Governor Jerry Brown, or those

Population estimates used to
sell large infrastructure building progam
 in San Jose in the early 60's

high and mighty, wimpy green Prius owners. Well I have a new spin on their conundrum. Mr. Coughlin the next time you go to city hall to blame Mayor Reed; as you enter the elevator to the second floor council chamber gallery, look to your left on the wall. There you will see pictures and drawings, of most of the cites mayors going all the way back to the early days. Look carefully at those mayors from about 1945 to 1973; names such as Doerr, Solari (pictured above), Moore, Welch, Pace, and others. While were at it, let's also include A. P. (Dutch) Hamann, the city Manager from 1950 to 1969, a huge player in San Jose's expansionary history.



These mayors, and many other post-war U.S. mayors set us up with a new blueprint for the design of cities that pushed cities and their boundaries outward in a rush to annex tax generating development. In those days, it appeared that as soon as a new development was built, Dutch Hamann was out to annex it; One example routinely given is the Valley Fair shopping center. Leonard McKay told it so well in a series of two blog posts in 2006. (Dutch Hamann Part I and Part II)



Photo: wikipedia (San Jose)

 

"At that time, a sales tax was a major generator of revenue, and with the council’s approval, a program of strip annexation was set in motion.  Hamann determined where future shopping centers were likely to be located, and then the city proceeded to annex a narrow band of land out along each major road and intersection, thus ensuring that the sales tax revenue would come to San Jose. 

Along Stevens Creek Road to Cupertino, Bascom Boulevard, North First Street, and Monterey Highway to Morgan Hill—each and every area was annexed.  Prior to Hamann’s tenure—more than 100 years—only 46 annexations occurred.  During his 19 years, 1,377 annexations were effected"




If you've ever looked a map of Paris it looks by its very shape, its very design that it would be easy and relatively inexpensive to administer and maintain. Compare that with a map of San Jose (shown above) and

you ask yourself, how do you effectively police a city like this, maintain the roadway system or run an efficient library or parks system? In many areas of the city that fully enclose unincorporated county areas it even becomes more puzzling. Now try to figure out how you administer an effective police force, sanitary sewer systems, roads, streetlights, schools and water systems.

Yes it is extremely complicated. Just ask anyone living in the Burbank section of San Jose, an area where most neighbhors don't know who administers (county or city) parts of their own neighborhood.

Actually the layout of the city used to be worse. That is why 40 years ago the California State legislature created a regulatory vehicle to control crazy city boundaries that were confusing even city officials. Known by their acronym LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission), these independent regulatory commissions where created to control the boundaries of cities and most special districts (such as utility, school, sewage, vector, etc.). But more on that in a later post.

Given this willy nilly style of development and city leaders gross over-projection of population growth (see graph) infrastructure building (construction) was the real growth industry when an Apple in this valley was still something you ate. Even though California, the Bay Area, and San Jose grew at astonishing rates in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's their projections show that in 2010 San Jose's population would be at 1.8 million residents. In 2010 the city population was only 952,612 per the United States Census Bureau, or just over half what was projected.

To accommodate this overly inflated growth rate, the city built new sewer systems and water treatment plants (the current plant in Alviso), realigned roadways (Nagle Taylor, Julian and the Alameda), widened streets to nowhere (Park Ave., Minnesota at Meridian), built new railway under crossings (Park Ave. near Diridon), and new satellite libraries (West Valley branch etc. which was rebuilt several years ago), and fire stations.

What these leaders failed to realize was that the future money needed to maintain all this growing infrastructure base could not be recouped by the low yields (nowadays we call this sustainable) on a tax base reflected in the form of bedroom communities and urban sprawl. Many of these projects would not pencil out, or pay for themselves; and this was before Californians (not Mayor Reed or Jerry Brown) decided to severely restrict cities ability to maintain it all by passing Proposition 13 in 1978. So since 1978 cities have had to become very creative to tax these essentials of suburban living; investments in sewer pipe, pumping stations, wide Almaden neighborhood streets, or cul-du-sac living of the Evergreen area.

These leaders threw away the old tried and traditional rules of building cites and went on to build over 4,000 miles of municipal roadways. Now the potholes are coming home to roost (oh well I tried), or the archers arrow has returned to earth only to strike the shooter in the head.

As I have mentioned in many a post we, and many other California cities were built in the postwar era without a thought to how we would maintain these roadways. We have $303 million in unfunded road backlogs. We need around $100 million per year to maintain the system. We have no room in the general budget for repair. What funds are used to fix potholes, at about $16 million per year come from federal and state sources. We are now starting to receive the benefits of the recently enacted $10 vehicle fee but these amounts are nowhere near enough to cover the repair and maintenance of our roadways. State and federal gasoline taxes do not directly finance our maintenance program. Those funds are for building and maintaining  the federal and state highway systems.

Yes we do have a huge pothole problem, a problem that many has grown immensely in the last few years. However until residents and motorist realize how complex, how expensive, and how poorly funded our roadway system is, the problem is just not going to get any better anytime soon.

The chickens have come home to roost.



Creating a nonprofit to enhance profits. Or is this road paved with good intentions?

Everybody wants good roads but paying
 for them is a whole other story.

In a San Jose Mercury News column written by Gary Richards titled Mr. Roadshow, a reader asks after describing the conditions of local roads and the abundance of potholes:

"I'm wondering. Has anyone looked into what that ends up costing all drivers in added maintenance costs?"

Mr. Roadshow responds quoting "a nonprofit group known as The Road Information Project (TRIP)" that the additional vehicle operating costs due to road conditions in San Jose are the highest in the nation (TRIP's Urban Road Report 9/22/2010). This may be so, but what he fails to clarify is that TRIP (and it's California affiliate, Transportation California), although a non-profit, is organized to enhance the business growth of its member companies which build and maintain transportation infrastructure (also known as roads, highways, bridges, and tunnels). There is a reason they are located in Washington D.C. (and Sacramento), and that is to influence federal and state construction funds and transportation financing to benefit their companies.

Now there is nothing wrong with that (influencing public opinion to benefit the construction industry). But to give readers a false sense of security that they are some altruist nonprofit tasked with providing Americans with the complete picture on transportation, confuses readers, many of which have no idea how our roads are built, maintained and financed.

The board of directors of TRIP reads like a who's who of the construction industry (and you have to be a company to join, no individuals please) but this is no different than the California Transportation Commission that (outside of Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Learderhip Group representing the tech industry) has its fair share of commissioners from the real estate development and construction industry.

For the last 60 years, since the construction of the federal interstate system, we have built a transportation system that relies exclusively on automobile travel and consisted of large and expensive infrastructure projects. Now the maintenance bill is coming due and our information is coming from the very industry that stands to profit from it. Mr. Roadshow, all I am asking is that we balance this view with other voices.We should be more transparent in the future when a "nonprofit" issues reports which will bolster their bottom line long before it will improve our lives.

Thank you.

For more on the current status of California Roads see my series "Road's Cost"

TRIP Urban Road Report 9/22/2010
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D

Good roads or good jobs?

Tomorrow, the San Jose City Council will consider "an agreement" between the city and Samsung Semiconductor to allow for up to $7 million in incentives. As many of you know I have been writing a series of posts describing California cities desperate attempt just to keep their roads maintained. San Jose needs to spend $100 million each year over the next 10 years just to maintain the current level of road quality, but in the last few years the city has roughly averaged about $5 to $ 10 million from the general fund to maintain our roadways. So one way to look at the incentive package proposed for Samsung is about the same that the city commits to road repair each year, or about 10% of what is needed.

The fear is that Samsung will take its R&D proposal and move to Austin where they will, according to city officials offer even greater financial incentives. But Texas officials already have a track history of huge giveaways to large corporations. According to a database of state incentive packages published on the New York Times website Austin has already granted Samsung alone $232 million, through the Texas Enterprise Fund, the Tax Refund for Economic Development, and Texas' Chapter 313/Economic Development Act.

So in preparation for tomorrows meeting I have included a link to a great series of articles written by Louise Story, an investigative journalist for the New York Times. The series is titled "United States of Subsidies" and examines business incentives and their impact on jobs and local economies.

Here is a radio interview with Louise on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

That's a big piece of pie

Amongst the headlines in this mornings local newspaper about the five felony counts thrown at disgraced former County Supervisor George Shirakawa ("DA:Supervisor George Shirakawa deceived public for years, had a secret slush fund"), I spied an article written by John Wolfolk ("San Jose' officials propose $11 million in raises") highlighting easing San Jose city budget shortfalls due to recovering revenues and gains from previous austerity measures.



Necessary road expenditures
total over 10% of the general budget

 In the article was the following table:

Projected General Fund Expenditures / Incremental General Fund Surplus/(Shortfall) / City General Fund Retirement Contribution Costs (San Jose Mercury News)
2013-14 $858.2 million / ($5.5 million) / $275.8 million
2014-15 $893.1 million / ($13.7 million) / $295.1 million
2015-16 $916.8 million / $2 million / $301.6 million
2016-17 $952.4 million / ($4.7 million) / $312.6 million
2017-18 $991.2 million / ($6 million) / $329.6 million

I've added the the $100 million in deferred maintenance the city needs to spend just to get the city's 2,000 plus miles of roadways back to normal to highlight just how much of the city's general fund this represents (See: "There's no more change in the sofa - Fixing San Jose's Roads").

Anyway you look at it, its a big piece of pie.

Well I pay taxes and....

"I pay taxes and...."

At a public meeting last month a woman in the audience shouted out "Well I pay taxes, I pay taxes for the roads and bicyclists don't". Well here is a breakdown of roads and the agencies that maintain them, courtesy of the California Transportation Commision.

As you can see gasoline (excise) taxes which are collected at the pump only pay for a small amount of the roadways we drive on, about 17%. This is not counting for the fact that gasoline taxes do not cover the complete cost of maintaining our roadways.

Roadways in cities and counties are paid by property and sales taxes which are not dependent on automobile ownership or useage. Therefore cyclists, pedestrians, and transit users also pay for the roads they use.

http://www.catc.ca.gov/reports/2011Reports/2011_Needs_Assessment_updated.pdf
California Transportation System Needs Assesment.

http://www.sjcog.org/docs/pdf/media/shortfall,11-6-11.pdf


California’s 58 counties and 4,803 cities own and maintain 141,2354 miles of local streets and roads. This is an impressive 82 percent of the state’s total publicly maintained centerline miles (see Figure 2-6 below). About 146.4 billion vehicle miles are traveled on this street network annually. That’s approximately 45 percent of the total miles traveled every year in California.

Conservatively, this network is valued at $271 billion. Figure 2-6. Breakdown of Maintained Road Centerline Miles by Agency Table 2-2 shows the breakdown of lane-miles by functional classification, for local streets and roads and for unpaved roads. Arterials or collectors are categorized as major streets or roads, while residential streets and alleys are categorized as local streets and roads.

Roads worse than San Jose? Look to the south.



San Diego's roads are crumbling.
The city has the money to fix potholes
 but hasn't proven it can efficiently spend it.
 Photo: Sam Hodgson

 In a continuing look at San Jose's road conditions along with other Bay Area cities I have highlighted the need for urgency in our own city and around the Bay Area. Now, with the wonderful work of  the Voice of San Diego we have a look at just how bad their problems are in comparison with San Jose's.

San Jose's Director of Transportation has been up front with city residents when he says that it will take $100 million each year just to maintain local roadways. In fact road repair funds are lacking so much that the director has had to outline a program of maintenance triage with the moniker "Priority Street Network". In essence only key arterial roadways, bus routes and commercial districts will be maintained.

In San Diego the situation is much worse; not only in the condition of their roadways but the cost to fix the road network. According to Carl DeMaio, a San Diego City mayoral candidate, "San Diego already has the eighth worst roads in the country and under the current plan at City Hall the roads will get worse" (
San Diego's Road Problem Fact Check).

At a San Diego City Council committee hearing in February it was revealed that San Diego's road repair problems have reached breathtaking new depths according to engineering officials. According to the Voice of San Diego, "simply maintaining the status quo would cost $160 million a year. That's more than the annual budgets of the parks and rec, library and environmental services departments combined. The city's plan to borrow $500 million won't provide enough money to reverse the decay or even preserve the status quo. Under its current proposal, the city won't begin making progress until 2017." (Streets will worsen for the next 5 years, report says)

These are difficult times, with housing still searching for new lows (US Housing Rebound Could Take An Entire Generation: Shiller), gas prices continuing to climb, and the astronomical amounts needed just to maintain our local roadways (gas taxes, state and federal highways are another matter). But here, as well as in other U.S. cities, we continue to satisfy increase road demand with new, expensive projects with no thought as to their expected return on investment or future required maintenance costs.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, we seem to have a knee jerk reaction to the increase in road capacity followed by immediate approvals to build even more auto centric retail developments (City to proceed with 45 acre" Mega Mall" on Almaden Expressway), that put even more pressure on our roadways in a vicious circle of big box retail expansion, roadway expansion, big box retail expansion, etc.

What are your thoughts?

San Diego's Road Problem Fact Check

How the Mayoral Candidates want to fix the roads.

Streets will worsen for the next 5 years, report says.

Roads Officially worse under Sanders, report says

The rules of modern politics - with a transportation spin

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

I've written many times about three main themes that seem to be running through transportation circles in the Bay Area; but believe me it also extends beyond the bay. These themes are a nationwide themes that seem to repeat and resonate with the political seasons. They are;

1. The critical need just to maintain local roads and other infrastructure
2. The need to channel money to maintain existing (not to mention new) auto-oriented infrastructure at the expense of non-auto (rail, transit, bike way, and walkways), also known as complete streets.
3. The third rail in transportation politics, the sanctity of freezing gas tax rates at 1990 levels.

The New York Times this week captured all three, in highlighting New Jersey's governor Chris Christies refusal to move ahead with a much needed tunnel linking Manhattan with New Jersey, even though the independent auditing agency the Government Accountability Office issued a 29 page report criticizing the governor's actions.

The  story first broke in October of 2010 during Governor Christies first few months in office. The tunnel would help a system that hasn't seen any new tunnels built for over 100 years.

Not only is there a need nationwide to maintain existing infrastructure; our current transportation infrastructure is inadequate to serve the needs of a growing population that continues to move to urban areas. The newly planed tunnel would have relieved congestion on the only two tunnels that connect Manhattan to New Jersey.

The need to channel money to maintain existing (not to mention new) auto-oriented infrastructure at the expense of non-auto is evident both in New Jersey and here at home (I am currently researching a post on this very issue in San Jose).

With the combination of increased average gas mileage on American cars and a freeze on federal and state gas excise taxes, the inflation adjusted amount of tax revenue apportioned to the Highway Trust Fund as been reduced dramatically and there is a unwillingness by motorists to match the expected costs to maintain existing roadways with gas taxes. From an article in yesterday's Charlotte Observer:

That's the last thing a public that's paying $4 for a gallon of gasoline wants to hear, and elected officials, from members of Congress to President Barack Obama, aren't likely in an election year to propose that motorists pay higher gasoline taxes or tolls. But many transportation experts and officials agree that if Americans want to drive on good roads, they're going to have to pay more for them, or do without.

Most of the 46,000-mile interstate system has been toll-free for its 56-year history. But pavement and bridges on the system's oldest sections are reaching the ends of their life spans and need to be replaced. A 2009 report by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recommended an annual investment in U.S. highways and bridges of $166 billion. Charlotte Observer 4-17-2012

Until Americans understand the real cost of auto mobility there is a genuine sense of denial on the amount of funding required to keep the system going. Until then we're just kickin' the can down the road.

Additional Links:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/tunnel-of-idiocy/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/krugman-cannibalize-the-future.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/gov-chris-christie-and-the-tunnel-project.html

Chuck Marohn with Strong Towns brings the Curbside Chat to California

Chuck Marohn of
SmallTowns.org

Yesterday amidst late-season hail, lighting, and blustery rain, Chuck Marohn of the non-profit Strong Towns visited the city of Rancho Cordova, California. Chuck is making a (big) swing through California, starting in Redding and finishing up in San Diego to promote his "Curbside Chat".

The Curbside Chat (companion booklet) is a presentation, followed by a community-specific discussion, about the financial health of our towns and cities. Some of the questions discussed are;

• Why are our cities and towns so short of resources despite decades of robust growth?
• Why do we struggle at the local level just to maintain our basic infrastructure?
• What do we do now that the economy has changed so dramatically?

Chuck is a Professional Engineer (PE) licensed in the State of Minnesota and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). He has a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute.

Like James Kunstler, another noted planning critic he studies our post World War II suburban experiment, which is now over 50 years old. But unlike Kunstler who attacks the experiment based on urban design and its effect on its residents well-being, Marohn views it from a financial sustainability and resiliency standpoint.

Chuck's words ring well with me. As a former commercial banker I agree in his analysis of how cities evaluate infrastructure projects. Many times, cities are more than willing to absorb the low upfront costs of a project (offset by grants, developer fees and mitigations) without carefully considering what the future costs of maintenance and repair.

Without revenue generating business tied to many streets (street, sidewalk, lighting, street furniture, signage, curbs and gutters) many projects will never pay for themselves given the usefull life of a street is rarely more than 30 years. His financial analysis is similar to that of Joe Minicozzi out of Ashville,  North Carolina. I also plan to do a post in the future on Mr. Minicozzi.

But without giving to much away about Chuck's mission and presentation, check out his webiste, blog, and podcast. Start at http://www.strongtowns.org/.

Prioritizing our roadways - suburbs vs. city centers

In a post in November of last year titled "There's no more change to be found in the sofa - Fixing San Jose's Roads", I mentioned that San Jose's Director for the Department of Transportation went before the council to consider alternative means of funding basic road repair. The next day in a San Jose Mercury New article ("San Jose''s DOT Director discusses the state of the city's roadways and how to repair them".) highlighted the dilemma that the city faces. As I mentioned in my post of November, 18, 2012 I stated:

The article highlighted several responses from local residents commenting on the proposed ways to raise funds to support a $100 million a year maintenance budget. All but one respondent was opposed to spending money to support the roads. Several had stated they believed the money is there and that we should look a little closer at departmental funds. A few would like to initiate a formal look at the department's finances. As the article states "he cautions that before anything else is done, the city council and auditor should look into how DOT money is being spent."

The comments in the article share a common thread, a belief, a wish that there is money there, we just need to look harder. Somewhere there is a sofa with just the enough road repair change, just waiting to be scooped up between the sofa cushions. And somehow it seems as though these residents feel that this is only a San Jose problem; if we could just get our house in order. I doubt most of the residents surveyed for the article or most any San Jose residents realize that this is not just a San Jose problem, and certainly not just a California problem, but a growing national problem as well. Critical lack of funding in our surface transportation infrastructure is a problem, but the biggest problem may be our collective denial that a structural problem exists.

Well the problem continues to exist but on an even larger scale. Estimates provided by SJDOT stated that if we continue down the road were on, by 2020 we will have grown our deferred maintenance liability to $860M with approximately 54% of the city's 2,400 miles of roadway in "poor" condition compared with $293M now and only 21% of total roadway in poor condition.

Mayor Reed made a comment during the discussion period that if the city was able to control its retirement costs we could have easily covered the city's estimated $100M road repair bill each year.

The proposal before today's city council was to prioritize scare funding by designating a "Priority Street Network" representing approximately 400 miles of the City's street system of 2,400 miles (16%) based on the criterion set forth in the Envision 2040 policies related to Grand Boulevards and Main Streets, economic development areas (business), transit and bicycle corridors, traffic volumes, and major roadways in residential areas.



Click on the map to see priority streets in your area.

  Additionally SJDOT seeks to secure a total funding investment of $100 M annually by considering the following:

1. Evaluation of a possible San Jose parcel tax, bond measure and/or sales tax to substantially address pavement maintenance funding needs;
2. Evaluate extending and amending the current 1/2-cent sales tax for transportation in Santa Clara County, allowing use of funds for local pavement maintenance consistent with many other counties in California; and
3. Advocate for timely approval of a new Federal transportation bill that increases overall investment for transportation with support for local pavement maintenance.

According to Hans Larsen, SJDOT's Director although $100M is needed each year to maintain the city's extensive road network on average each year the city has only been able to come with $18M, creating an ever growing liability in the form of deferred maintenance.

Additionally SJDOT plans to come to the council during the next three months with the following asks:

• April - Downtown bicycle lanes ($1M)
• May - Further refine priority street network ($6M)
• June - Apply Federal grants to use for resurfacing roadways ($6M)

 When the votes were tallied all council members approved the measure to seek additional funding sources with Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen absent.

Council member Nancy Pyle asked Director Larsen about the threshold needed for a referendum to pass. The director replied that currently tax measures require 2/3 approval to pass (Proposition 13) but that there are currently two bills in the state legislative that address this concern; one will apply to broad infrastructure measures and another that would apply to transportation measures. Each would require only a 55% approval margin.

Council member Donald Rocha asked the SJDOT director why all downtown streets were included in the Priority Street Network. The director responded that just about every street in the downtown core absorbs bus traffic as well increased wear due to traffic density serving downtown businesses. Since there is less use on low volume residential streets, these streets would not be prioritized in the new maintenance cycle.

Also in an affirmative nod to pedestrians and cyclists, Council Member Oliverio suggested a white shoulder line (also known as a fog line) or a bike lane (per the current bike plan) be painted on the newly resurfaced roadway. Council member Oliverio stated that the slight narrowing of the lanes would by a very inexpensive way to help calm traffic.

For every Yin there is a Yan, for every supply there is a demand

Over the last six months a resounding call by presidential aspirants have demanded a reduction in gas prices by drilling for more domestic oil. Much of this call mimics candidate Newt Gingrich's 2008 (pre-BP) book titled Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.

His book, a brief 142 pages in large print, only shows that Mr. Gingrich should stick to history and stay away from economics. If Mr. Gingrich ever took Econ 101, he must have skipped out just before the lecture on the demand portion of the supply and demand curve.

All but two of the 142 pages speak about supply (two pages highlight what Ford, Exxon/Mobil, and GE are doing to conserve energy), the theory being that all you have to do is take care of supply and that alone will take care of the rest. No taking into account that it is a non-renewable resource that gets more costly to produce each year.

However I don't completely fault Mr. Gingrich and friends. We see this all the time in transportation, land use, and even parking policy. Several examples can easily be demonstrated here in the Silicon Valley.

Introduced in October of 2010 after repeated customer complaints about long travel times, the local transit agency created a non-stop express service from South San Jose to downtown during the commute hours. Three months later Santa Clara County announced an increase of 33% in auto capacity on the southern portion of the Almaden Expressway which parallels the light rail line, significantly negating any relative advantage that transit may have had.

Likewise just several miles north, Caltrans announced that they would increase capacity and update highway design to increase capacity on freeways 280 and 880 after two very large shopping centers were allowed to build and expand. Now with upcoming construction there is talk of further expanding one of the shopping centers with at least two anchor tenants.

In this part of the San Francisco Bay it seems that just about every year a major big box mall (also known in the biz as auto oriented retail) is built, further decimating downtown retail. The City of San Jose mandates mixed use retail and housing but wonders why street level retail remains vacant while it approves even more big box retail. Is your college economics coming back to you now?

For every ying there is a yang

Large transportation and land use policies here will almost always have unintended consequences nearby.

And so, the can just keeps getting kicked down the road.

Congress, we can do better than this

Here in the San Francisco Bay area I, like many other employees have the opportunity to purchase transit passes (although we are slowly moving towards the Clipper Card payment system). Depending on your commuting needs these passes can be purchased for BART, Caltrain, several ferry lines, light rail, or one of the many bus systems in the Bay Area.

Three things are great about the program (in my case the administration is handled by WageWorks);

1. My company will pay half of the cost of my pass or Clipper Card purchases.
2. My contribution is deducted from my income over the year reducing my taxable income.
3. It's all handled through my paycheck. No need to make a separate payment.

Although I only purchase $70 in transit passes each month through my employer, there is a limit on the amount the IRS will allow an individual to reduce their income. Car commuters are also allowed to deduct car parking expenses from income but I was completely floored when I found this note included with my monthly statement from WageWorks.

Important Note: The temporary $230 monthly pre-tax transit limit set by Congress in 2009 will expire at the end of 2011. Beginning with the January 2012 benefit month, the pre-tax transit limit will decrease to $125 a month and any election amount over $125 will be deducted from your pay on an after-tax basis. Beginning with the January 2012 benefit month, the monthly pre-tax limit for parking will increase from $230 to $240.

So beginning next month solo (or not) vehicle drivers will have a greater tax advantage to use our streets, bridges, and freeways than public transit users

Contact your congress member today to tell them how wasteful this policy is, while also increasing traffic congestion and air pollution. Better yet go to this link on the Transportation for America website

Yet another Bay Area city faces costly road repair decisions

With recent headlines highlighting our transportation woes, we typically think of highways, bridges, and high speed rail when we speak of "infrastructure", but as I have tried to highlight in other blog posts, while the major national headlines focus on those big ticket items what is really needed is money to maintain your city streets; yes those streets right outside your widow, the residential street.

The East Bay city of Orinda has gone back to the drawing board after two recent attempts to finance a much needed road repair program. The city announced that they will be conducting a citywide survey to see if residents will support measures to fund a road maintenance program.

In a recent Contra Costa Times article ("Orinda my poll residents on how to finance road repairs") it was mentioned that "since 2000, Orinda has spent $15.5 million repaving arterial and collector streets. However, the city's residential roads remain rough. In 2006 and 2007 (Voter Information Pamphlet), bond measures of nearly $60 million fell short of voter approval. Orinda annually allocates an average of about 10 percent, or $1 million, of its $10 million operating budget to road and storm drain repairs."

In the Metropolitan Transportation Commission Report  ("The Pothole Report - Can the Bay Area Have better Roads?"), Orinda's 193 miles of roadway rank in the lowest category with a PCI (Pavement Condition Index) of 49 in 2010. At over $1 million per year that works out to over $5,000 per mile which is extremely low for road repair work. Depending on whether the city wants to maintain or improve conditions it typically takes from $8,000 to $17,000 per lane mile. With the increasing backlog the city's Citizens Infrastructure Committee has now estimated it will take as much as $95 million to keep the city's roads and pipes up to standard. If you amortize this over 10 years ($95million / 10 years) this just about equals the current city budget of $10 million; just for the city's roads!

So we can now add Orinda to the growing list of cities that are caught in that though spot of paying for road maintenance now or major road overhauls later. Stay tuned.

There's no more change to be found in the sofa - Fixing San Jose's Roads

In a recent article in our local community newspaper ("Potholes, potholes everywhere and not a financial fix any time in the near future - Chances of passing parcel tax or bond measure seem unlikely") the reporter summarized a recent presentation given by Hans Larsen, Director of the City of San Jose's Department of Transportation to the regular Tuesday meeting of the city council. His presentation repeated an earlier presentation I heard him give just three weeks earlier putting a yearly price tag on maintaining the city's roadways. I summarized many of his comments in a October 28, 2011 post titled "San Jose''s DOT Director discusses the state of the city's roadways and how to repair them".

The article highlighted several responses from local residents commenting on the proposed ways to raise funds to support a $100 million a year maintenance budget. All but one respondent was opposed to spending money to support the roads. Several had stated they believed the money is there and that we should look a little closer at departmental funds. A few would like to initiate a formal look at the department's finances. As the article states "he cautions that before anything else is done, the city council and auditor should look into how DOT money is being spent."

The comments in the article share a common thread, a belief, a wish that there is money there, we just need to look harder. Somewhere there is a sofa with just the enough road repair change, just waiting to be scooped up between the sofa cushions. And somehow it seems as though these residents feel that this is only a San Jose problem; if we could just get our house in order. I doubt most of the residents surveyed for the article or most any San Jose residents realize that this is not just a San Jose problem, and certainly not just a California problem, but a growing national problem as well. Critical lack of funding in our surface transportation infrastructure is a problem, but the biggest problem may be our collective denial that a structural problem exists.

Many of you who read this blog know that I have featured James H. Kunstler and Charles Marohn of StrongTowns.org. Mr. Marohn goes on to state that the unbridled growth in suburban development at the expense of our central cities was one big development Ponzi scheme, saddling us with unbearable infrastructure maintenance costs 30 to 40 years into the future. [Podcast: The Growth Ponzi Scheme]

During San Jose's huge post war growth spurt [San Jose Population - read-only Excel file] city development moved away from an efficient grid system to a street system of cul-du-sacs, collector roads, and homes that were built far from stores, schools, and jobs. Not only did this lead to a requirement of one car for just about every adult driver but families were driving more each year just to meet basic family needs, even to make those short trips to the store just to pick up a gallon of milk. Also a cul-du-sac style roadway systems is costly to maintain than the traditional grid system (not just for roads but sewers, tree trimming, trash pick-up etc.

Flicker:TaxiDriver

But this is not just a San Jose problem. In a recent post ("The looming showdown in surface transportation funding"), I mentioned the failure of our gasoline excise tax program to adequately fund construction and maintenance of the automobile infrastructure. The tax has never been truly effective because, on "Day One" the tax has never been adequate enough and the amount collected  is reduced with each passing year due to inflation, the increasing gas mileage of American automobiles, and the recent trend of driving less during these tough economic times.

Recently the city of Napa has passed a sales tax to cover road repair as well as reallocate construction funds for road maintenance, a rather unusual request to the MTC. The city of San Francisco just passed Measure B giving that city ability to incur $248 million of bonded debt. Also other major California cities such as Los Angles and San Diego have recently garnered media attention on the deteriorating state of local roads.

So we need to move away from past myths about our local streets, local transportation funding, and the view that the motorist is the only user of our streets. Historically cities built and maintained our streets. But with the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, cities and counties which have historically used property taxes to fund roadways were now in a dilemma. With this long lasting recession impacting sales tax revenue and city budgets (along with pensions and other HR costs), less and less of the cities general fund is being used for street repair. In recent years money has also come in the form of grants, sales tax revenue from recently passed measures, vehicle license fees (VLF also which were voted in with a 2/3 vote), along with other creative means. But in Hans Larsen's recently released numbers this may only solve 15% of the problem. Very little money dedicated to street maintenance comes from user fees or gas taxes.

Typically when we speak of "mode share" we highlight whether the users are single occupancy autos, transit user, pedestrians, or cyclists, but these percentages only take into consideration commute options. Since other trips (errands, church, school, coffee shop, farmers market) typically are taken by transit, cycling or walking these numbers tend to overestimate automobiles usage. However up until now, the overwhelming amount of road funds went to add vehicle capacity and move traffic faster. Very little money was spent to make our cities streets safer, more convenient, and more accessible to pedestrians, transit users, and cyclists.

All of the local residents interviewed for the article are exclusively motorists who feel that there is money in the system somewhere; we just need to look for it. These city residents are no different from other motorists in that they are in a state of denial concerning local streets. The perception is that in the future all local roadways will continue to be in good to fair condition and it will not cost us much more than it does now, so why burden their budgets with the additional costs of gas taxes, sales taxes, property taxes or any other type of tax.

In fact, San Jose's inability to find financial support to maintain roads (also known as "kicking the can down the road") has been going on for at least eight years. In a March 26, 2004 memo to the Building Better Transportation Committee then DOT director James Helmer stated that although 70 was the citywide Pavement Maintenance Index (PMI) at that time (San Jose's PMI is currently at 63) he needed over $30 million each year but only had $3.2 million from the general fund. His concern at that time was that he was going to have to rely on capital funding to support the city's maintenance program (similar to Napa's dilemma; use funds dedicated to construct for maintenance).

So just who's job is it to wake the city up from its long dream of beautiful but underfunded streets. Hans Larsen has only been in his current position for about six months but it looks like this responsibility has fallen upon his shoulders. He has a big job ahead of him, but one that is sorely needed nonetheless.

Maybe in future presentations he can wheel around that big old sofa and just show everyone that there is no change in that sofa.

Links to recent "pothole" related stories around the state (and other references):

• The Pothole Report: Can the Bay Area Have Better Roads - Metropolitan Transportation Commission

• Roads Officially Worse Under Sanders, Report Says - Voice of San Diego

• San Jose ponders where to get money to fix pothole-ridden streets - Mercury News

• Pitfalls of Mayor Antonio Villaragosa's pothole project - Los Angles Times

• Hans Larsen Presentation
• Measure B (Santa Clara 11-11)
• Measure B (Santa Clara 3-02)
• California Proposition 42

The looming showdown in surface transportation funding

Or "How I learned to stop worrying and love my car.

Although presidential candidates in the last election tried to ease the pain of the gas tax by temporarily suspending it (the federal excise tax that is), the problem is that desperately needed funds derived from a gas tax have less of an effect with each passing year. The last time the state of California raised the state excise tax was 21 years ago. Although the total miles driven by California's has begun to peak the addition of alternatively powered and fueled vehicles (hybrids and electric) on the roadways means that gas tax collection is going done far faster than our use of the roadways. 

In a recent Los Angles Times opinion column "It's time to raise California's Gas Tax" (see links below), the author highlights comments by the current state treasurer and governor.

"California's infrastructure was designed for 25 million people, but we're fast approaching a population of 40 million.We've got a lot of needs, but we're never going to be able to finance them with the General Fund," State Treasurer Bill Lockyer says. "It's too big a price tag."

"I surely didn't expect California to grow like it did," Jerry Brown told me last year as he was starting to run for governor again. "We had tremendous growth. And when you have growth, you've got to build: energy, water, roads, transit, schools, jails."

But the Democratic candidate added a caveat: "We need a design change. We can't just keep paving over. We've paved over the San Fernando Valley. We've got to use the land better. We've got to use our energy better — the natural resources, the wind, the sun, geothermal."

The big argument has always been that the huge investments required to build roadways designed mostly for solo vehicle trips are funded by the oft used term "user fees". Gas taxes and highway trust funds gave us the illusion that each mile driven was more than covering the cost of our massive expansive roadway system. But the highway trust fund is nearly insolvent, and state, regional, and local governments are finding that user fees do not even come close to building and maintaining roadways.

That gap has been cobbled together with a patchwork (depending on the funding level) of general fund revenue, sales taxes, payroll taxes, vehicle registration fees, and property taxes. Just last November, Santa Clara County residents approved Measure B, which would add a $10 vehicle registration fee to each auto. This fee would be apportioned to each Santa Clara County city passed on roadway miles and population.

In a recent post I highlighted a presentation this week that San Jose's Director of the Department of Transportation needs $1 billion over the next 10 years just to keep his city's roads at an average maintenance level. Only about $2 to $3 million of the $100 million needed each year will come from the city's general fund. Measure B funds mentioned above will only contribute about $5 million each year. The rest of the funds which will come from State Proposition 42 funds as well as other grants will only total approximately $15 - 20  each year for the next 10 years, leaving an $80 million dollar shortfall each year.

Just to maintain the city's roadways at the same levels over the next 10 or 20 years will require additional revenue. San Jose city staff have recommended a parcel tax to cover these expected roadway maintenance shortfalls. Additionally it was mentioned in the tail end of an article yesterday in several Bay Area Newsgroup papers that a regional gas tax is being considered ("Bay Area transit agencies could save $235 million a year, analysts say"). Although traditional gas (excise) taxes are raised at the federal and state level (and in Oregon at the local level), this would be the first time that a regional gasoline tax will be initiated.

All in all, you can expect the costs of our expensive and aging roadways to go up. It's just that the costs, in the form of property, sales, and other taxes will go up but those costs won't necessarily be born solely by the users.

What are your thoughts on this subjects? Any comments.

It's time to raise California's gas tax - Los Angeles Times - 10-27-2011

Bay Area transit agencies could save $235 million a year, analysts say - Contra Costa Times - 10-27-2011

San Jose's DOT Director discusses the state of the city's roadways and how to repair them - One Square Mile -10-27-2011

Transportation for America - The Fix we're in for; The state of our bridges

San Jose's DOT Director discusses the state of the city's roadways and how to repair them

Last month the City of San Jose's Director of the Department of Transportation, Hans Larsen spoke to a full crowd of residents at the monthly Willow Glen Neighborhood Association meeting. Hans gave a presentation outlining some of the many challenges facing his department given the city's fiscal constraints. San Jose with a population just now surpassing 1,000,000 residents currently has 4,182 lanes miles of roadway to maintain.

The bill to fix this amount of roadway is now about $100,000,000 per year or $1,000,000,000  (thats $1 Billion) over 10 years. With the cities general fund being decimated by pension costs, only $2-3 million is the most that is available from this source. Federal, state, and regional monies are available but this will only total around $15 million per year. Of this $15 million $5 million dollars are proceeds from last November's Measure B that was passed by Santa Clara County voters. Funds from this measure will be available in the next fiscal year. This fee which is a flat $10 charge, is collected from every registered vehicle. The proceeds from the fee will be apportioned to Santa Clara County Cities (based on population and amount of roadway) as well as to the county's Roads Division. San Jose portion per year is expected to be at around $5 million.

This underfunding of repairs and maintenance is estimated to contribute to the growing backlog of necessary maintenance. Yesterday Director Larsen presented this scenario to the San Jose City Council urging the city to inialize a parcel tax to fund the growing gap in the maintainence deficit.  The proposal is to raise an additional $60 million over 10 years by way of a parcel tax. The city will be closely watching San Francisco's November 2011 election to guage that city's appetite for increased spending on roadways. The city of San Francisco is putting Measure B (the Road Repaving and Street Safety Bond) on the ballot to improve their own roadways and finance sizeable streetscapes as well.  Director Larsen's propsed parcel tax is estimated to average $300 to $400 per parcel.

San Jose mulls new parcel tax to fix city streets (San Jose Mercury News October 26, 2011)

San Jose Department of Transportation presentation to the Willow Glen Neighborhood Assn.

Originally a Power Point Presentation it has been uploaded as a pdf file with some mistakes in rendering the image.

MTC - The Pothole Report: Can the Bay Area Have Better Roads?

California State Propostion 42 - March 5, 2002 (passed 69.1%)

Santa Clara County Vehicle Registration Fee - Measure B (passed 51.93%)

San Francisco upcoming election for Measure B (San Francisco Department of Public Works)