BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 680 (Salas) - State Highway Route 43: interregional highway
funding.
Amended: March 19, 2013 Policy Vote: T&H 8-2
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: July 1, 2013 Consultant: Mark McKenzie
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 680 would add State Highway Route (SR) 43 to
the list of eligible interregional and intercounty routes on the
state highway system that are eligible for state interregional
transportation improvement project (ITIP) funding.
Fiscal Impact: Unknown future cost pressures, in the millions
beginning in 2014-15, to provide state ITIP funds for
improvements on SR 43 (State Highway Account), potentially
displacing funding for other interregional projects.
Background: Existing law requires that 25 percent of funds
appropriated for capital improvements programmed into the state
transportation improvement program (STIP) be spent for
interregional improvements, while the remaining 75 percent must
be spent for regional improvements, as specified. The
Department of Transportation (Caltrans) recommends projects that
facilitate interregional movement of people and goods for
inclusion in the ITIP, and 60 percent of ITIP funds must be
dedicated to highway projects outside of urban areas or
intercity rail projects.
Existing law specifies 93 state highways that comprise the
interregional road system (IRRS), and within this network there
is a subset of 34 high-emphasis routes consisting of most of the
interstate highways, and ten non-interstate "focus routes" that
represent the most critical interregional corridors with the
highest priority for upgrades.
SR 43 connects Hanford, the county seat of Kings County, to
other south-central San Joaquin Valley communities over a
distance of 98 miles through the Counties of Kern, Kings, and
into Fresno, from southwest of Bakersfield in the south to an
interchange with SR 99 in Selma at the northern terminus. The
AB 680 (Salas)
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highway roughly parallels SR 99 and primarily traverses
agricultural areas. Caltrans guidelines require that
interregional routes carry large volumes of traffic into or out
of the state, serve corridors of substantial statewide
interstate or international significance, connect metropolitan
and urban areas, and all county seats, and serve other
destinations of statewide or regional importance not otherwise
served.
Proposed Law: AB 680 would add SR 43 to the statutory list of
interregional and intercounty state highways that are eligible
for ITIP funding.
Related Legislation: AB 2143 (Parra), introduced in the 2005-06
legislative session, would have added SR 43 to the IRRS. That
bill failed passage on the Senate Floor.
Staff Comments: Due to a variety of external pressures, total
STIP funding has declined significantly over the last decade.
The 2012 STIP includes approximately $1.1 billion in funding for
IRRS projects over the five-year planning period. Adding the
approximately 100 miles of SR 43 to the IRRS would exacerbate an
already severely overburdened program for funding interregional
projects. As such, the bill would create significant new cost
pressures that could result in the diversion of funding from
interregional projects that would otherwise receive funding,
absent the bill. Staff notes, however, that the bill is not
likely to result in the appropriation of any new funds for the
ITIP, and Caltrans is not likely to include SR 43 as a focus
route eligible for priority funding in the near future.
To the extent that highways are reclassified as interregional
routes instead of regional routes, there are increased cost
pressures on the state's share of capital improvement funds.