BILL ANALYSIS Ķ
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: SB 468
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: Kehoe
VERSION: 4/26/11
Analysis by: Art Bauer FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: May 3, 2011
SUBJECT:
Transportation projects in the coastal zone
DESCRIPTION:
This bill establishes priorities for constructing transportation
projects in the coastal zone.
ANALYSIS:
The Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is responsible for
the development, operations, maintenance, and reconstruction of
state highways, and it also plans and operates through contracts
with Amtrak, California's intercity passenger rail service.
When Caltrans develops capacity increasing projects, it usually
carries out this activity in concert with the regional
transportation planning agency for the area in which the project
is located.
The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is the
regional transportation planning agency for the County of San
Diego, a single county planning region. SANDAG is responsible
for long-term, multi-modal transportation planning, the
prioritization transportation projects, and developing fundable
transportation capital outlay program. SANDAG also oversees the
operation of public transportation services in the county.
The California Coastal Commission, established by voter
initiative in 1972 (Proposition 20) and later made permanent
when the Legislature adopted the California Coastal Act of 1976,
is a twelve member, independent, quasi-judicial state agency
with regulatory responsibility for permitting projects
constructed in the coastal zone. It oversees the implementation
of various policies that address issues such as shoreline public
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access and recreation, lower cost visitor accommodations,
terrestrial and marine habitat protection, visual resources,
landform alteration, agricultural lands, commercial fisheries,
industrial uses, water quality, offshore oil and gas
development, transportation investments, development design,
power plants, ports, and public works. The Coastal Act
establishes a band along the state's coastline that varies in
width from several hundred feet in urban areas to as much as
five miles inland in rural areas of the state, which constitutes
the jurisdiction of the commission.
Currently, two major state highway projects are under way in the
coastal zone. One is a high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane
project in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Segments of this
project are under construction or have received permits from the
commission. The second and more significant coastal zone
transportation project is the 27-mile widening of I-5 from
Oceanside to La Jolla, a district in the City of San Diego.
This project, referred to as the I-5 North Coast Corridor
Project (NCCP), is intended to address the long-term mobility
needs of travel in the corridor between the residential
communities of northern San Diego County and the employment
centers found primarily in the City of San Diego. After a
variety of studies, Caltrans and SANDAG concluded that demand in
the corridor would increase from 200,000 vehicles in 2000 to
300,000 vehicles in 2030. Currently I-5 in this corridor is an
eight-lane freeway with some segments of the corridor already
having two HOV lanes, one lane in each direction. The
environmental analysis considered five options for the NCCP:
1. No-build: eight lanes with some segments currently
operating High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes.
2. Twelve lanes: eight free-flowing lanes and four
HOV/managed lanes, separated by pavement stripes from the
free flowing lanes, for carpools and single-occupant
vehicles that would pay to drive in the lanes. (A managed
lane is a lane for car-pools, van-pools, and buses. A
single occupant vehicle is permit to use the lane provided
they pay. The charge can vary, depending on the amount of
transit on the managed lane as well as on the adjacent
conventional lanes).
3. Twelve lanes: eight free-flowing lanes and four
HOV/managed lanes concept separated by concrete barriers.
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4. Fourteen lanes: ten free-flowing lanes and four
HOV/managed lanes concept separated by pave stripes.
5. Fourteen lanes: ten free-flowing lanes and four
HOV/managed lanes concept separated by concrete barriers.
This project will cost between $3.3 billion and $4.4 billion and
may be implemented over a period of thirty to forty years.
According to SANDAG, the improvements would occur in twenty-year
stages.
This bill :
1. Makes findings and declarations about the coastal
zone, including recognizing the coastal zone as a unique
resource with both its natural and built environment
destination for people to enjoy its recourses. In
addition, it declares that transportation investments in
the coastal zone should not erode the very qualities that
make it an attractive setting in which to live, work, and
recreate. Further, to meet the goals for greenhouse
emission describe in AB 32 (Nuņez) Chapter 488, Statues of
2006, and the objectives of SB 375 (Steinberg) Chapter 728,
Statutes of 2008, several activities are necessary,
including transportation investments that minimize vehicle
miles traveled and reduce the geographical disparity in the
location of jobs and housing.
2. Defines "multi-modal" to mean transportation
options that are "part of the project design, including,
but not limited to double tracking of existing rail,
pedestrian walkways and bike lanes, extensions of existing
commuter transit services, and incased frequency of public
transit services."
3. Requires Caltrans for capacity increasing projects
on the state highway system that widen the existing highway
located in the coastal zone to:
a. Collaborate with all local stakeholders, including
locale agencies situated in the coastal through which the
highway will traverse, the regional transportation
planning agency, and the commission to ensure that
multimodal are evaluated and included in the project
design.
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b. Include in the environmental analysis for the
proposed project other local projects and state highway
projects.
c. Construct capacity increasing projects concurrently
with multi-modal transit projects.
d. Ensure that the environmental impact documents
evaluate the traffic impacts of a proposed
capacity-increasing highway project on city and county
streets and roads within the coastal zone and provide for
mitigation of those impacts.
e. Monitor the environmental consequences of any
proposed highway expansion project to ensure the benefits
of mitigation, as described in the project's
environmental documents, are being achieved.
f. Conduct public hearings on the implementation plan
that the commission requires, called the public works
plan (PWP), prior to its adoption, every twenty miles of
project length.
4. Requires Caltrans for projects affected by this bill
that receive environmental clearance after January 1, 2011
and January 1, 2012, Caltrans is required to suspend the
notice until it is determined that the environmental
documents are consistent with the provisions of this bill.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . This bill endeavors to establish a framework for
reconciling competing visions of the goals of the Coastal Act
and Caltrans' highway development goals and to ensure that
transit is given consideration when highway projects are
proposed for the coastal zone.
2.Backgroun d. The author introduced this bill in response to
the proposed widening of I-5 in San Diego County. This bill
applies to the entire coastal zone, but the most significant
highway project is the San Diego project. In November 2010,
the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee held an
informational hearing on the project, which over 200 people
attended, in Solana Beach, a city in the NCCP area. Caltrans,
SANDAG, and the chair of the Air Resources Board participated.
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In comments to Caltrans on the I-5 draft environmental impact
report (DEIR), the author wrote: "Simply proposing to
construct wider freeways to get us through the next 40 years
will not do when the level of service would not be improved to
a significant level. The public clearly wants realistic
transit options and is committed to reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, as evidence by the strong vote in November, 2010,
rejecting Proposition 23 that would have suspended
implementation of AB 32 in California".
The initiation and development of highway projects is a joint
effort between Caltrans and the local regional transportation
planning agency, SANDAG in the case of improvements to I-5 in
San Diego. I-5 is an important interregional and intracounty
highway. Currently, about 200,000 vehicles use the highway on
a daily basis, and SANDAG forecasts in 2030 that usage will
increase to 300,000 vehicles, a 50 percent increase. Caltrans
and SANDAG initiated defining various freeway improvement
options in late 1997, with Caltrans approving the actual
project alternatives in January, 2000. The environmental
analysis of the project alternatives began in 2004. Today,
the travel time during commute hours from end-to-end of the 27
mile corridor is 38 minutes. If no improvements are made,
SANDAG forecasts the travel time to be 70 minutes in 2030. On
the other hand, if a fourteen-lane freeway (ten conventional
lanes and for managed lanes) is constructed, the travel time
will be 37 minutes, while constructing a twelve lane freeway,
travel time will increase to 45 minutes. The passenger rail
service is expected to offer 32 minute service.
3.Local definition of the project . SANDAG included NCCP as an
early action project in a local transportation sales tax
funded program, referred to as TRANSNET, which the voters
approved in 2004. TRANSNET is a forty-year program that
SANDAG estimates will raise $14 billion. The TRANSNET program
allocates $1.670 billion to NCCP. The TRANSNET Ordinance and
Expenditure Plan was made available to the voters prior to the
election. A section of that document entitled "Congestion
Relief Program-Major Transportation Corridor Improvement"
contains a list of highway capital improvements, including
$6.8 billion budgeted for managed lane/high-occupancy vehicle
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lane additions and general purpose lane additions. The third
project on the list is identified as follows:
Interstate 5 North: Add four managed lanes from I-805
to Vandergrift Boulevard in Oceanside, including HOV
to HOV connectors at I-5/I-805 interchange and freeway
connectors at the I-5/SR 56 and I-5/SR78
Interchanges-$1,234 million.
SANDAG has represented to staff that the fourteen-lanes: ten
free-flowing lanes and four HOV/managed lanes concept is the
preferable option. Indeed, SANDAG's Draft 2050 regional
transportation plan identifies the improvements to be the
fourteen-lane option, which appears to be inconsistent with
the ordinance the voters adopted.
1.Limited discussion of transit in environmental document . One
of the criticisms of NCCP that SB 468 endeavors to address is
encouraging transit development in the coastal zone. In the
case of the NCCP, the project does not consider a transit
option in the I-5 corridor, even though the rail tracks
adjacent to the highway are used by the commuter rail service
between Oceanside and San Diego and the Amtrak intercity
service, sponsored by Caltrans. The DEIR includes planned
improvements to the rail facilities as a category of "Other
I-5 Projects," although a program environmental document has
been completed for the rail corridor and project level
environmental documents are being prepared for some specific
passenger rail projects. The DEIR lists eleven passenger rail
projects and categorizes ten of them as "vision" projects.
Only, one project, double tracking on Camp Pendleton, which is
outside the corridor, is an identified as "immediate." The
rail corridor appears to have been excluded from the project
area, as there is no discussion in the DEIR of the role of
rail commuter service for addressing congestion in the
corridor.
The four managed lanes, which are the common feature of all
the build alternatives, are to provide access to bus transit
services, yet there is limited discussion about bus service in
the corridor. For example, the DEIR does not appear to
discuss the frequency of service, the communities served by
the buses, the capital and operating costs of the services
using the lanes, or other operating concerns. There is no
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discussion of the likely frequency of service, the origin and
destination of the service, or other practical considerations
of deploying buses to take advantage of the managed lanes.
The ambiguity about the role of public transit is highlighted
in the draft Public Works Plan (PWP), a commission document
discussed in the next section. Caltrans and SANDAG prepare
the PWP. After discussion of the congestion problems of I-5,
the PWP that: "Existing transportation facilities focus
primarily on moving cars, not people, through the corridor.
Passenger rail capacity and performance is constrained by the
infrastructure deficiencies, specifically the high percentage
of singe-track sections within the corridor. Parking demand at
the rail stations exceeds capacity, limiting access to the
rail corridor." It is also stated in the PWP that: "The
corridor vision encompasses a balance, integrate approach that
would implement transportation solutions for both the I-5 and
the LOSSAN rail corridors?." This statement in the PWP
underscore the critique of the highway-only focus of the NCCP
heard at this committee's informational on this topic and the
uncertainty over the role of public transit in the corridor.
2.Coordination with the Coastal Commission . Because the
purpose of the SB 468 is to reconcile competing policies of
the commission and Caltrans in the coastal zone, it is
important to examine the strategy for coordinating this
project. The commission issues permits for highway projects
in the coastal zone. The Federal Highway Administration, a
partner with Caltrans and SANDAG in developing this project,
cannot approve the DEIR unless the commission certifies to the
federal government under the terms of the federal Coastal Zone
Management Act, that the NCCP is consistent with the Coastal
Act's policies. The commission is in a key position to
influence the development of the transportation system in the
coastal zone.
To facilitate coordination between all state and federal
agencies involved with projects in the coastal zone and the
issuing of permits, the commission encourages sponsors of
large projects to prepare a PWP, which is an implementation
strategy. This avoids each project component, including
mitigation projects, having to be subject to the commission's
permitting process. The draft PWP that Caltrans and SANDAG
prepared for the NNCP is nearly 500 pages in length. It
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contains a myriad of details regarding project implementation.
The PWP endeavors to implement other transportation programs.
It is unclear how this coordination will work because funding
streams for different projects may flow at different rates and
not in a coordinated fashion.
3.NNCP was conceived and planned before SB 375 . The San Diego
region planned the NNCP well before the enactment of SB 375 or
AB 32. SANDAG is attempting to incorporate the SB 375
requirements into it's 2050 Regional Transportation Planning,
which it is currently updating. In 2050, the City of San
Diego, with a million jobs, will have about 50 percent of the
region's jobs. The cities in the I-5 Corridor will have an
estimated 227,000 jobs. Clearly, both the managed lanes and
improvements to the rail service would serve to reduce vehicle
miles traveled, but it is difficult to see how the
fourteen-lane option will meet that objective.
4.Arguments in opposition . SANDAG argues that this bill would
halt construction of any new highway project in the coastal
zone, resulting in the region being unable to accommodate
expected growth. In addition, I-5 is an interregional highway
and any constraints placed on its development would serve to
limit commerce, especially trade with Mexico. In addition,
I-5 will include managed lanes that are part of the region's
strategy to address greenhouse gases and implement SB 375.
The PWP, which is jointly being developed by Caltrans and
SANDAG for the commission review process, is underway and no
legislation related to that process is necessary.
5.Suggested amendments .
a. The bill applies to the entire coastal zone, but the
focus of the discussion is the NNCP, which is entirely in
San Diego County. It is unclear what impact this bill may
have elsewhere in the state. Recognizing this, the
committee may wish to consider amending the bill to relate
only to the County of San Diego.
b. This bill introduces a new concept for managing the
implementation of large infrastructure projects in the
coastal zone, the public works plan (PWP). The PWP have
been occasionally used to guide the implementation of
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seaports and airports within the coastal zone. The
committee may wish to amend the bill to include the
following definition: A public works plan is a plan to
manage the phase development of an infrastructure
improvement program, including transportation improvements,
which consist of multiple projects in the coastal zone.
The plan shall include the construction, implementation,
and phasing schedule of projects, including mitigation
projects.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
April 27, 2011)
SUPPORT: Alliance of Citizens to Improve Oceanside
Neighborhoods
California Public Interest Research Group
(CALPRIG)
City of Del Mar
City of Solana Beach
Cleveland National Forest Foundation
Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation
Michael Bullock
Move San Diego
San Diego County Democratic Party
Save Our Forest and Ranch Lands
Sierra Club of California
Sustainable San Diego
Torrey Pines Community Planning Board
OPPOSED: American Council of Engineering Companies of
California
Associated General Contractors
Building Industry Association of San Diego County
California Business Properties Association
California Building Industry Association
California Chamber of Commerce
California Dump Truck Owners Association
California State Association of Automobiles and
Automobile Club of
Southern California
California State Council of Laborers
City of Oceanside
Engineering and Utility Contractors Association
Mexican American Business and Profession
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Professional Engineers in California State
Government (PECG)-
San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)
San Diego Association of Relators
San Diego Port Tenants Association
San Diego Refrigerated Services, Inc.
Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation
Commission
Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation
Transportation Agency for Monterey County
Ventura County Transportation Commission
Westfields
Many more