BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                            Senator Kevin de León, 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)
          Page 1


          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.