Alarming state report predicts $294 billion shortfall for transportation over next decade

California faces a staggering $293.8 billion shortfall over the next decade to maintain its crumbling roads, outdated freeways and cash-strapped transit agencies.

The California Transportation Commission's first review of state transportation needs since 1999 paints a scenario through 2020 that is beyond bleak and suggests that today's jammed and pothole-riddled roadways may one day seem like the good old days.

"Today, California's transportation system is in jeopardy," says the 2011 Statewide Transportation System Needs Assessment. "Investments to preserve transportation systems simply have not kept pace with the demands on them, and this underfunding – decade after decade – has led to the decay of one of the state's greatest assets."

California needs $536.2 billion through 2020 for transportation needs, but it can expect only $242.4 billion over that time from federal, state and local sources of revenue.

And that does not include the $98.5 billion needed to build high-speed train tracks from Southern California to the Bay Area.

The $30 billion-a-year gap drew barely a murmur at the transportation commission meeting last month, perhaps because the state budget woes and the gridlock in Congress makes it difficult to figure out what new sources of funding are possible. 

"The report provides a high-level, bird's-eye view of the statewide transportation needs, hoping to convince policy makers in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to do something about them," said Art Dao, executive director of the Alameda County Transportation Commission. "However, you and I both know that the current politics at both places do not allow for these policies to be discussed in any substantive or productive fashion."

Dao and others expect the political gridlock to continue for many years. Worried transportation officials say the huge shortfall may lead to a push to raise the state gasoline tax for the first time since 1994, or to try to index it to inflation, even though repeated surveys show voters are unlikely to support a hike in the gas tax.

In 1953, as California began its freeway building boom, drivers paid six cents a gallon in state gasoline taxes. Adjusted for inflation, that figure would be 51 cents today. The state gas tax is currently 35 cents, and officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission say it would have to be raised to 55 cents to meet today's needs just on city and county roads.

"The gas tax is a dying revenue source," said Hans Larsen, head of San Jose's Department of Transportation, "since politically it has not been indexed to match inflationary cost increases, and the trend toward higher rates of fuel efficiency and electric vehicles is further reducing transportation revenue."

Local agencies for years have shifted general fund money to transportation improvements, but the poor economy has deeply cut into that pot of money. San Jose used to allocate $10 million a year for local streets from its general fund. Now that's down to $1 million annually.

To fill the funding gap, efforts to raise money through the opening of more carpool lanes to solo drivers willing to pay a toll, hiking vehicle or license fees or charging motorists a vehicle mileage fee may be considered.

Voters, however, have been willing to pass countywide sales taxes for transportation needs. Recent measures have twice passed with a two-thirds supermajority in Santa Clara County, as well as once in Alameda County. In 2006, statewide voters passed a $20 billion measure for infrastructure, followed by a $10 billion bond measure two years later for high-speed rail.

Every option, officials say, should be on the table.

"Deteriorating transportation infrastructure is a hugely expensive problem, and the state of our politics and economy only exacerbate the challenges," said Graham Brownstein, state policy director for TransForm, a public transportation advocacy organization. "But it's not a rational option to allow the system to collapse."

The shortfall costs drivers and threatens their safety. Congestion costs Los Angeles-area motorists $807 a year on average in higher gas costs and loss of productivity – the highest figure in the nation. The cost to each Bay Area motorist is around $760 a year.

The transportation commission's report concludes that the funding gap could lead to delays in completing safety improvements at 3,280 locations, and 58 percent of projects designed to reduce the severity of collisions may take longer to complete.

"We've been living for a long time off the transportation investments made by previous generations, and there is a very good reason people think of the 1950s and 1960s as a golden age for California transportation," said John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "We have the transportation system we're willing to pay for."

The most likely recourse may occur at the local level. Next year, the Alameda County Transportation Commission will ask voters to pass another half-cent sales tax.

"We cannot expect Uncle Sam or the state to come to our rescue anytime soon," Dao said. "So instead of relying on others, we must continue to help ourselves."