Robbing Peter to Build for Paul: Rural/Urban Divide over Bond Money

The bottom (8.00 / 1)

line is that there is not enough money to go around.  The bonds only knockoff a small portion of all of the projects that need to be completed in the state.  We will need to find a way to finance them.

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by: Julia Rosen @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 12:42:28 PM CST

That's exactly it (8.00 / 1)

Over 10 years of delays to specific projects added to the underfunding of basic infrastructure maintenance since the Jerry Brown administration has combined to leave the state with a staggering bill to pay to catch up. And we will need a way to finance them, but ideally a way that will not pit urban against rural.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 15:40:43 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Choices (8.00 / 1)

taxes, bonds or privatize.  We don't just have the money to pay for it lying about.  The budget is a mess already.

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by: Julia Rosen @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 16:44:08 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Nice post (8.00 / 1)

And I agree totally with your points, and my diary here is intended as further evidence of why it's important that we make those more fundamental reforms to the budgeting process, and do it soon - otherwise the fighting over the scraps will make a very bad situation much worse.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 17:47:46 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Absolutely (8.00 / 1)

I was looking at the long term.  The short term will be a battle over this relatively small pot and the dynamics at play will almost always be the same, even if there is more money.

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by: Julia Rosen @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 18:20:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

there's plenty of money to go around (8.00 / 1)

if the government has the will to raise taxes to pay for a california that works for all californians.

that being said, it's a big "if." but one of the reasons why inland and rural californians don't tend to vote for these bonds is that they know in their bones that in the end, it's not going to benefit folks like them.

if we could demonstrate good faith by funding both urban and rural projects, we'd go a long way towards easing the regional and urban-rural resentment that makes things so hard for democrats outside of the bay area and LA, but first we'd have to have the will to do so.

surf putah, your friendly neighborhood central valley samizdat

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by: wu ming @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 19:11:18 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It will take more than money (8.00 / 1)

It's not just a matter of there being enough money to go around; we have to be smart about what we do with it. Most of the proposed projects would make the problems worse by encouraging greater use of our freeways.

Traffic planners need to stop thinking about how to accomodate more cars on the roads, and need to start thinking about how to reduce the total number of cars in the first place.

But I do agree that our revenue generation is screwy and inefficient....

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by: rdm24 @ Sat Mar 03, 2007 at 13:08:49 PM CST

[ Parent ]

yup (0.00 / 0)

i mean, on the one hand, we need to make our infrastructure function, and in parts of the state, especially the rural ones, mass transit is just not going to fit the bill, but wherever it can be pout into place, itd be a better use of money than freeway expansions.

that being said, the root problem is in housing and location of jobs. were we to spend some serious change (and perhaps some eminent domaain powers) building adequate enough high density public housing close to centers of emplyment so that people wouldn't have to commute for hours and hours, i suspect the pressure on highways would subside.

surf putah, your friendly neighborhood central valley samizdat

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by: wu ming @ Sat Mar 03, 2007 at 23:49:21 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The inevitable problem (8.00 / 1)

Is that there will always be more potential projects than money to fund them.  Yes, there isn't enough to go around right now and deserving projects suffer. But people aren't really ever going to get everything they want, it's just human nature- always wanting more.  An objective determination of the point at which projects are optional or gratuitous is really tough to come by.

I proudly work to re-elect Barbara Boxer

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by: Lucas O'Connor @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 13:03:17 PM CST

Well, there are some objective evaluations (8.00 / 1)

The CTC had asked that the projects that receive funding be able to be designed and permitted so that construction can begin by 2012. The Willits bypass was the only project, of any that has been funded, where construction can begin immediately. Yet it got cut.

I agree with you and juls that, obviously, there's not enough to go around, but that sort of begs the question of how we determine who gets what. I am left uncomfortable by the idea that we leave it up to legislators and allow the metro areas to muscle out the rural areas. The CTC exists expressly to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

If we must choose winners and losers...why not adopt a fairer method of making that choice?

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 15:43:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It is quite frustrating... (0.00 / 0)

And I hate having to see the LA, OC, SD, the IE, and the Bay Area fight these bloddy battles over and over again over who gets more road money...
And meanwhile, all the rural folks in Mendocino and Imperial and elsewhere always seem to lose out.

I've heard all this talk lately about plans for "bullet trains" or some type of high-speed rail line to connect the entire state, and I've heard other talk about expanding regional transit options. Now if only we can get our legislators in Sacto to stop ignoring our transportation problems (or just defer them to these bond deals that only result in the same region v. region turf wars for funding), and start working on real transit solutions...
And if only we can get our fellow Californians to get interested in real solutions to out VERY REAL transit problems.

: )

Had enough of the "red county" right-wing crazy-talk bulls***? Well, then come and visit us at The Liberal OC! Yes, there ARE liberals in The OC! : )

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by: Andrew Davey (atdleft) @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 13:36:19 PM CST

What I am seeing... (8.00 / 1)

...is that these turf wars are essential to the larger questions you ask. Can we really come together as a state and provide infrastructure solutions that address everyone's needs, or will we instead allocate things in a piecemeal fashion?

My concern is, having seen this first from an urban perspective, and now from a "rural" one (as much as Monterey can be considered rural), is that the more these kinds of power politics shape the allocation of highway funds, the less likely it is that the rural folks will support such projects. If you let mistrust fester, it will eventually get in the way of providing comprehensive solutions.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 15:46:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Yep, and we're now allowing that mistrust to grow... (0.00 / 0)

Now that the rural folks are being ignored and kicked to the curb yet again. Yes, we need a comprehensive, statewide transportation solution ASAP...
Or LA and OC, and SD and the IE, and the Bay Area and Sacto, and urban and rural will all rip each other apart for bond money.

Had enough of the "red county" right-wing crazy-talk bulls***? Well, then come and visit us at The Liberal OC! Yes, there ARE liberals in The OC! : )

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by: Andrew Davey (atdleft) @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 16:08:46 PM CST

[ Parent ]

So very true (8.00 / 1)

As I note above, Fontana is feeling left out of the spoils, and they haven't been "rural" for many decades. Yeah, the parts of the metro areas will eventually "rip each other apart" as you describe, and I think that simply creates mistrust and a lack of confidence in the system that'll just make it more difficult to create the kinds of lasting solutions that we need.

*Especially* for SoCal - whose transportation problems are not so much about how many lanes the 405 has over the Sepulveda Pass, but instead are a direct outcome of land use patterns that have a regional impact. If there's ever going to be a way to stop creating conditions where people are commuting from Moreno Valley to Irvine and back every day, there has to be region-wide planning, and you'll never get it if the local politicians are eyeing each other as if on the eve of a knife fight.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 16:27:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Well (0.00 / 0)

Isn't that what the upper house of a bicameral system is supposed to be for?

I proudly work to re-elect Barbara Boxer

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by: Lucas O'Connor @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 16:41:58 PM CST

[ Parent ]

This bond (0.00 / 0)

never should have passed

The Silent Consensus

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by: thelibertariandemocrat (VF2005) @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 15:49:25 PM CST

I have NO sympathy (2.00 / 1)

Rural communities have traffic problems. But they do NOT approach the enormity of the problem here in LA. They might get congestion a few hours a day on a few roads. But in LA it's EVERY freeway in ALL directions, at nearly every hour of the day.

The people of Fontana are at least in the same region, so they know we aren't shitting them.

But here's a challenge for the people of Willits:
Drive 10 miles on the 10 at 10 pm, and then the same on their most congested freeway. Then you can tell me you have problems too.

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by: rdm24 @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 17:01:28 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh yeah? (0.00 / 0)

So Willits and El Centro and Lompoc are now required to STOP EVERYTHING AND LANGUISH IN GRIDLOCK, JUST SO THAT LA CAN WIDEN THE SEPULVEDA PASS??!! So how do you know that their traffic issues are also enormous? Personally, I think that the problems that Orange and Riverside Counties are facing on the 91 are more pressing than the usual whining about the 405 in LA...
But does that give me the right to tell all of you in LA to fuck off because "YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE ENORMITY OF OUR TRAFFIC PROBLEM IN OC"? Yeah, I didn't think so.

OK, so this is a tough issue. And yes, WE ALL have traffic problems throughout the state. That's why I agree with Eugene that we need to start thinking about good STATEWIDE solutions that stop pitting region against region...
As unfortunately, you are proving right now.

Just my $0.02 : )

Had enough of the "red county" right-wing crazy-talk bulls***? Well, then come and visit us at The Liberal OC! Yes, there ARE liberals in The OC! : )

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by: Andrew Davey (atdleft) @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 17:13:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Well, see (8.00 / 2)

This is why it's an exercise in futility to argue one area's problems aren't as bad as someone else's.

Willits really only has one road - Highway 101. When it's backed up, everything is backed up. There are no alternative routes; the entire city shuts down. This affects everything up the North Coast; making delivery times to Eureka hours longer, costing people a ton of money.

Yet nobody would argue that LA faces similar problems when the 10, or its own portion of the 101, is backed up.

If we start arguing that rural areas are less important than urban areas, we're going to be making a lot of people very angry, and cause a lot of unnecessarily political trouble down the line. California progressivism has been strongest when people across the state, urban and rural, inland and coast, north and south, work together on common problems.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 17:51:20 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Whoops (0.00 / 0)

3rd para should read "Yet nobody would argue that LA DOES NOT face similar problems when the 10, or its own portion of the 101, is backed up."

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 18:01:23 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Precisely! (0.00 / 0)

We need to stop fighting these ridiculous turf wars, and we need to start thinking about how we can fix this STATEWIDE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM. Eureka and Willits have just as many serious congestion problems as West LA and Anaheim...
That's what we have to realize, and that's what we need to remember when we're thinking about solutions that help THE WHOLE STATE (not just LA and the Bay Area).

: )

Had enough of the "red county" right-wing crazy-talk bulls***? Well, then come and visit us at The Liberal OC! Yes, there ARE liberals in The OC! : )

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by: Andrew Davey (atdleft) @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 18:04:52 PM CST

[ Parent ]

and they wonder why rural voters (0.00 / 0)

"vote against their interests."

surf putah, your friendly neighborhood central valley samizdat

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by: wu ming @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 19:30:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I agree with the other posters here (0.00 / 0)

We have a big problem with hyper-local solutions to regional problems, like transportation.
I don't think widening the sepulveda pass will help the people of LA any more than the people of Willits.  I think rural communities are no less deserving of traffic improvement than rural. I don't think the worst traffic jam in Willits holds a candle to anything in LA (we are talking about MILLIONS of person-hours a day wasted in traffic.), but that doesn't mean their problems can be ignored.

I think the priorities the CTC used to first fund projects was bad. But I think it's terrible that their priorities all but vanished under the slightest political pressure, indicating that nobody is really thinking about how this money needs to be spent. These prioritizations have absolutely no basis other than expediency.

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by: rdm24 @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 18:01:57 PM CST

[ Parent ]

well, as a local I can assure you that comparing (8.00 / 1)

traffic in Willits to Los Angeles is breathtaking overstatement. LA and Bay Area TV came up here week before last and filmed our "congestion" -- they laughed. the only time there really is gridlock is on the 4th of July, when we close the highway for the parade. (and there is an alternate route, check the maps east of the highway).  Fridays, especially on a three-day weekend, can get bad at the bottleneck on the south end of town where the two northbound lanes merge into one - maybe a 20 minute crawlalong? and then 20 minutes through town, instead of 15. (it's not true there's no other way to get through, btw, check the maps east of the hwy, 2-lane rural highways already can get you around Willits, but they're curvy and hilly and not suitable for routine use by big trucks).

Yes Willits wants logging trucks and highway traffic, noise, exhaust off Main Street.

but many of us would prefer a 2-lane bypass, or even a truck route east of the highway to Caltrans's $356 million Taj Mahal of a 4-lane bypass (up on pylons at the north end of the valley (they don't call it Little Lake Valley for nothing!) Not just enviros, or peak oilers, or pot growers feel this way: the director of the Chamber of Commerce has said a two-lane bypass would be better, and even the Employers Council wrote a letter last year (before the bonds were proposed) suggesting that Mendo County just give up on Caltrans' grandiose plans and spend the $30 million of State Transportation Improvement Program money reserved for the bypass in previous years as "matching funds" be spent instead for a north/south arterial. (Which is what I hope happens now).

But the guy you quote: Phil Dow (executive for Mendocino Council of Gov'ts, the group that decides how to spend STIP and other transporation money) quickly herded the Council back into supporting Caltrans' "4 lanes or nothing" position, with news that the bonds could provide funding.

Dow is calling himself "naive" now for not thinking "politics" would affect "good planning." well setting aside the argument as to whether "4 lanes all the way" is good planning or not, it certainly should've been obvious to Dow the first day the draft CTC staff list came out, with no funding for LA's Interstate 405, the "most congested highway in the nation", that the big pols would raise a ruckus, and the rural projects would bite the dust. As George Skelton's LA Times column reported, Schwarzenegger, Nunez, and Villagaroisa all personally made radio and TV ads for the bonds for the LA area last fall, practically promising LA voters if the bonds passed, they'd get congestion relief for 405. The CTC staff must've known that, they just didn't want to be the ones to inflict the damage.

btw, as an ironic note, Phil Dow was also co-author of the ballot pamphlet argument AGAINST Measure Y on November's ballot -- Measure Y being Mendo's "withdraw from Iraq" measure which (as espected) passed by a large margin.

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by: jennifer poole @ Sat Mar 03, 2007 at 13:16:22 PM CST

Thanks for this backstory (0.00 / 0)

Although it may shift some of the ground from underneath my argument, I'm happy to have that happen in the interest of getting it right.

For heavily traveled routes, I am inclined to support a four-lane option. I live part-time in Monterey these days, will become full time as of June. Highway 156, the 2-lane road that connects Monterey to Highway 101 and therefore to the Bay Area, is a literal deathtrap. There's only two lines of yellow paint separating all the oncoming traffic, and it's led to some horrific crashes. The road is only 4 miles long, widening it would be worth it.

Anyhow, I note it because Arnold visited this road not once, but twice, to make the pitch to voters to pass the bonds. Yet 156 isn't getting funding, nor was the Willits bypass. And it would be one thing if the CTC voted against funding the Willits bypass because of the questions about whether a 4-lane option or a 2-lane option should be chosen - instead it was basically a quick decision to screw the rural areas in favor of the urban locations.

Ultimately I think that sort of decision making will come back to haunt us, even if we think in the specific instance it has some justification.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Sat Mar 03, 2007 at 22:59:40 PM CST

[ Parent ]

you're welcome, Eugene. It's a long and complicated (0.00 / 0)

story, for sure. Yes, a 4-lane highway is safer than a 2-lane highway as far as headons, as far as merging on, as far as recovering from accidents, etc. but if you're going to decide on safety issues, how about getting that North Coast Railroad operating again up to Willits? And pragmatically, more lives will be saved by fixing safety problems in other more "heavily traveled" areas. This is NOT a "heavily traveled" area, even coming into Willits. And north of Willits, Caltrans' own figures don't show enough traffic to officially require 4 lanes for 100 years. And that 100-year estimate of future development doesn't take into account one very important factor: WATER.

There isn't enough water on the North Coast to do what some people think is the "inevitable" sort of residential development / bedroom communities built in once-rural Marin and Sonoma Counties that require the big huge commute highways -- City of Willits just turned down a housing development due to lack of water.

Some people up north of here who want "4 lanes all the way" are business interests in Eureka who want to develop that North Coast city as an alternative deep water port to San Francisco. and then have "4 lanes all the way" to truck the consumer goods and other imports down to the Bay Area. In theory, this would be "cheaper" than unloading goods in expensive SF with its union Longshoremen, but it's a terrible idea, IMO, and certainly doesn't take into account the very real issues of peak oil in the future.
 

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by: jennifer poole @ Sun Mar 04, 2007 at 10:53:47 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Good points (0.00 / 0)

I'm aware of peak oil, and am a big advocate of moving away from automobile-based transportation. At the same time I see the benefit, in terms of economy and safety, to making immediate improvements on routes like 101 in Willits, or 156 near the Monterey Peninsula, as we can expect another few decades of people trying to squeeze more and more out of the oil bonanza. Besides, those roads will still be useful when we're running horses and buggies up and down them in a few decades! ;)

I'm all in favor of reopening the North Coast Railroad. It would require an intensive capital infusion to maintain the infrastructure - one reason it's been closed is because the line along the Eel River is prone to flooding - but to me that's money well worth spending.

I used to work for an environmental non-profit in SF that dealt with redwoods, and through that I saw some of those Caltrans studies regarding 101. They had plans to bypass the Richardson Grove State Park, for example, but Caltrans scrapped that and most other plans for 101 during the Davis Administration, focusing instead on Willits and Hopland. Which I think is the right strategy.

As to water, Monterey faces the same problems. I'm a bit surprised the North Coast is facing it too, and it's a chilling example of how overdeveloped and unsustainable things truly are. Anyhow, there's been a development moratorium on the Monterey Peninsula for about 10 years, which has made housing costs nearly unaffordable.

I've still not yet been able to reconcile these issues in my mind. I recognize the need to be environmentally sustainable in our land use, but I also know that too often this becomes "slow growth" or "no growth" policies that are deeply socially and economically regressive. Greater urban density seems to be a good solution, but it still means we need to find new water resources. If I ever figure out the answers to this, it'll be a huge breakthrough... :)

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Sun Mar 04, 2007 at 11:54:06 AM CST

[ Parent ]

re: the railroad, I wrote "up to Willits" -- as I wrote (0.00 / 0)

elsewhere I'm skeptical about getting the RR up and running north of Mendocino County.

just for the record, Caltrans has not scrapped its "4 lanes all the way" policy. Here's the latest (12-06) update to Caltrans' "Corridor Mobility Plan - Route 101 - Golden Gate-Oregon Border," which states in the Executive Summary: "The ultimate corridor concept for the Route 101 is continuous 4-Lane Freeway/Expressway." it's a pdf link so beware:

http://www.mendocino...)Corridor%20Mgmt%20Plan%20by%20Caltrans.pdf

obviously, and especially with this latest setback of no $$ for the Willits bypass, getting more mobility around Richardson Grove and other tricky areas north of here is even less likely to happen in the 20-year "planning horizon," but they're working on it nonetheless: see the "Richardson Grove STAA Truck Access Feasibility Study" in that same document.

I covered the bypass issue (and the NCR) for the local papers in the 1990s, and still follow things pretty closely. I have sympathies all over the place, and am all for getting the traffic off Main Street. I hope this setback spurs Mendo Cty to get on with an innovative local solution.

where the water goes is a big issue -- PGE just acknowledged to regularly diverting 3 times more water than they were permitted to divert from the headwaters of the north-flowing Eel to power its Potter Valley project (water then going into the east fork of the Russian River and south). But the current water "shortage" in Willits and rural subdivision Brooktrails (no building there either for 4-5 years, due to no water permits) is mostly due to lack of capacity, and lack of funding to build more capacity, than lack of water in the watershed.

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by: jennifer poole @ Sun Mar 04, 2007 at 16:43:09 PM CST

[ Parent ]