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.
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| 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:
- Evaluation of a possible San Jose parcel tax, bond measure and/or sales tax to substantially address pavement maintenance funding needs;
- 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
- 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.
