BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2090|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2090
Author: Fong (D), et al.
Amended: 8/4/14 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE : 10-0, 6/17/14
AYES: DeSaulnier, Gaines, Beall, Cannella, Galgiani, Hueso,
Lara, Liu, Roth, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Pavley
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 71-2, 5/1/14 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : High-occupancy toll lanes: San Diego County and
Santa Clara
SOURCE : San Diego Association of Governments
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
DIGEST : This bill allows local agencies to restrict
high-occupancy vehicle access to its high-occupancy toll (HOT)
lanes contingent on the vehicle having an electronic
transponder, and replaces level-of-service (LOS) requirements
for those lanes with new performance measures.
Senate Floor Amendments of 8/4/14 expand the allowable uses of
excess revenue generated by the HOT lanes beyond transit
operations and additional high-occupancy lanes in the HOT lane
corridor to include any transportation improvements within the
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corridor consistent with the language in SB 1298 (Hernandez),
which relates to HOT lanes in Los Angeles County.
ANALYSIS : In 1970, the Legislature passed and the Governor
signed AB 1 (Biddle, Chapter 1295) which, among other things,
authorized the state to construct preferential freeway lanes for
high-occupancy vehicles (HOV) lanes. AB 1 specified that it was
the intent of the Legislature to encourage individual citizens
to pool their vehicular resources and thereby lessen emission of
air pollutants.
The theory behind carpool-only lanes is that, in heavily
congested areas, these lanes should be less congested than
all-purpose lanes and therefore faster, inducing people who
might otherwise not carpool to do so in order to avoid the
heaviest congestion. Increasing the number of carpools, in
turn, should reduce the overall number of cars travelling in the
corridor (as drivers leave their cars at home in favor of
sharing a ride with someone). In order to be effective, HOV
lanes must be less congested than other lanes, otherwise the
incentive is lost. Highway lanes with lower congestion
typically are able to accommodate more vehicles and still
maintain their allure. This additional capacity has value.
AB 2032 (Dutra, Chapter 418, Statutes of 2004) authorized the
San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the Sunol Smart
Carpool Lane Joint Powers Authority, the Santa Clara Valley
Transportation Authority (VTA), and the Alameda County
Congestion Management Agency (now known as the Alameda County
Transportation Commission or ACTC) to construct HOV lanes and
convert them to HOT lanes. HOT lanes are HOV lanes in which the
administering agency sells any extra capacity to toll-paying
single-occupant vehicles. AB 2032 declared the Legislature's
intent that these HOT lanes increase efficiency of the
transportation system by taking advantage of existing capacity
without forfeiting the congestion mitigation and air quality
benefits provided by HOV lanes.
HOT lanes typically employ a pricing method known as value
pricing or congestion pricing. Under this scheme, the amount of
the toll varies in accordance with the level of congestion in
that particular lane, such that as congestion increases, so too
will the toll amount. As the price to use the lane goes up,
fewer people presumably will choose to use it, thereby reducing
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demand for the facility and maintaining free-flow travel
conditions. With this mechanism, an agency can attempt to
ensure that operation of the toll facility does not undermine
the intended benefits of promoting carpooling with access to the
faster HOV lane.
Existing law requires that HOVs have unrestricted access to the
HOT lanes authorized by AB 2032 at all times. Existing law also
requires that SANDAG, VTA, and ACTC operate their HOT lanes such
that they maintain a particular LOS as determined by the
Department of Transportation (Caltrans).
This bill:
1.Allows SANDAG and VTA to restrict HOV access to its HOT lanes
contingent on the vehicle having an electronic transponder for
law enforcement purposes.
2.Deletes LOS requirements on HOT lanes operated by SANDAG and
VTA and requires these agencies instead to develop appropriate
alternative performance measures with Caltrans' consent.
3.Expands the allowable uses of excess revenue generated by the
HOT lanes beyond transit operations and additional
high-occupancy lanes in the HOT lane corridor to include any
transportation improvements within the corridor consistent
with the language in SB 1298 (Hernandez), which relates to HOT
lanes in Los Angeles County.
Background
Currently, any vehicle with two or more occupants can enter into
the HOT lanes operated by SANDAG and VTA without paying a toll.
This bill may result in that no longer being the case, as
passage of the bill would enable SANDAG and VTA to adopt a
policy in which only vehicles with switchable transponders would
be able to access for free their HOT lanes. A switchable
transponder is like a FasTrak device with a switch on it that
allows the driver of the vehicle to signal the number of
occupants in the vehicle. In this way a driver can switch from
a toll-paying single-occupant driver to a non-paying carpooler
with a flip of the switch on his/her transponder.
SANDAG and VTA will not be the first public agencies in
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California to restrict carpool access by requiring a
transponder. The express lane on SR 91, operated by Orange
County Transportation Authority, as well as the toll bridges in
the Bay Area, requires carpoolers to use transponders to take
advantage of the free or reduced fares on their facilities. The
HOT lanes operated by Los Angeles County Metropolitan
Transportation Authority (LACMTA) on Interstates 10 and 110
require switchable transponders for carpools. Existing law
authorizing these entities to operate toll facilities does not
require them to provide carpoolers unrestricted access, enabling
them to require transponders.
According to LACMTA, their market research found that more than
70% of existing carpoolers would continue to carpool even with a
transponder requirement because they like the idea of reducing
the number of cheaters in the lanes. LACMTA's finding also
suggests that nearly 30% of carpoolers responded that they would
not continue to carpool with the transponder requirement.
Research related to prior bills involving the privacy aspects of
transponders suggests that there is a segment of society who
prefer not to use transponders for fear of the government or
others tracking their movement and location. Others are
distrustful of or uncomfortable with technology in general and
oppose using electronic transponders for those reasons.
Finally, visitors from out of town likely do not own
transponders and therefore would be restricted from using the
HOT lanes.
Regardless of the reason, adding this restriction for carpoolers
to accessing the HOT lanes will likely lead to a reduction in
high-occupant vehicles in the lane. The only carpoolers
accessing the lane will be those who are intentional carpoolers,
drivers of vehicles who preemptively obtained a new switchable
transponder for the purpose of accessing the HOT lane.
Incidental carpoolers, drivers who might not want transponders
for some reason, and carpoolers from out of town will be forced
into the general-purpose lanes.
Switchable transponders . SANDAG and VTA contend that switchable
transponders are needed for HOT lanes in order to improve
enforcement of non-paying single-occupant vehicles accessing the
lane. LACMTA reports that, by requiring switchable
transponders, their violation rate is 10-15% lower than what
other HOT lanes experience (from 20-25% violation rate to 10-15%
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violation rate). Administering agencies suggest that
enforcement is important because drivers who either pay the toll
or appropriately access the lane by carpooling get very
frustrated and upset when they see "cheaters" who access the
lane illegally. It is hard to understand, however, how one
driver may know that another driver in a single-occupant vehicle
did not pay the toll for accessing the lane and is therefore
cheating the system.
Another potential reason for requiring transponders and
improving enforcement is to reduce the number of vehicles
illegally accessing the lane and therefore creating increased
capacity and improved travel times for those appropriately using
the facility. Reducing the number of violators also increases
the number of toll-paying vehicles that can access the lane
before the lane slows down so much that it no longer provides an
incentive for use. Increasing the number of toll-payers
ultimately increases the amount of revenue the administering
agency can collect. Finally, improved enforcement can help
reduce the amount of leakage in the HOT lane's revenue stream.
Reducing the number of free riders by 10% could equate to
essentially a 10% increase in revenues.
The potential danger of HOT lanes . Many transportation experts
suggest that HOT lanes represent good transportation finance
policy because they can accomplish two aims - namely,
encouraging carpooling and selling access capacity to generate
much-needed transportation revenue. By accomplishing these two
goals, however, HOT lanes also create a tension between
competing interests. At some point, operators have to choose
between the two objectives, because successfully filling the
lane with carpoolers will adversely affect revenue, and vice
versa. The Legislature has clearly indicated in past
legislation that encouraging carpoolers is its priority.
Administering agencies operate these toll facilities and keep
the revenue for their own use, potentially tempting them to
operate the lanes to maximize revenue instead of the number of
carpoolers. SANDAG, VTA, and others adamantly object to the
idea that they would do so, but the temptation remains.
Local agencies administer these toll facilities based on the
authority the Legislature grants them in enabling statute. At
the time it passed AB 2032, giving SANDAG and VTA the authority
to operate HOT lanes, the Legislature required unrestricted
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access for carpoolers to the lanes. This bill allows these
agencies to institute a relatively minor restriction for
carpoolers. Further changes to HOT lane policies have the
potential of eroding the facilities' ability to encourage
carpooling for the sake of increasing HOT lane revenue
generation.
Changing LOS requirements . As mentioned previously, this bill
also changes the LOS requirements for the HOT lanes operated by
SANDAG and VTA. LOS is a commonly used, nationally recognized
measure of the "density" of vehicles traveling in a given
highway lane. LOS standards incorporate several measurement
components, including maneuverability, driver comfort, effects
of minor incidents, average travel speed, and spacing between
vehicles. Unfortunately, in the case of HOT lanes, LOS may not
be the best method to manage traffic flow. The complicated LOS
standard can lead to unintended consequences, like closing the
lane to toll-payers because of a minor incident even though
traffic in the lane is otherwise free-flowing.
Further, federal law more efficiently protects the flow of
traffic in HOT lanes by essentially creating a speed floor.
Federal law requires HOT lane operators to constantly monitor
their systems and discontinue toll-paying single-occupant
vehicle access when traffic flow has degraded to an average
operating speed of 45 miles an hour. The federal government has
determined that this requirement ensures that the HOT lanes
remain free-flowing enough to induce carpooling. With this in
place, and as long as Caltrans is involved in and agrees to any
further LOS requirements, it seems reasonable to allow local
agencies to determine the best way to manage their HOT lanes, as
they ultimately deal with the consequences of the lanes'
performance.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/5/14)
San Diego Association of Governments (co-source)
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (co-source)
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
San Mateo County Transportation Authority
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ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 71-2, 5/1/14
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Buchanan, Ian Calderon, Campos,
Chau, Chávez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly,
Dickinson, Donnelly, Eggman, Fong, Fox, Frazier, Beth Gaines,
Garcia, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gorell, Gray, Grove, Hagman,
Harkey, Roger Hernández, Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Linder,
Logue, Lowenthal, Maienschein, Medina, Melendez, Mullin,
Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Nestande, Olsen, Pan, Patterson, Perea,
V. Manuel Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Rodriguez,
Skinner, Stone, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wieckowski,
Wilk, Williams, Yamada, John A. Pérez
NOES: Gatto, Levine
NO VOTE RECORDED: Bocanegra, Brown, Hall, Mansoor,
Ridley-Thomas, Salas, Vacancy
JA:e 8/6/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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