BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 378
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Date of Hearing: January 11, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Jim Frazier, Chair
AB 378
(Mullin) - As Amended January 4, 2016
SUBJECT: State Highway 101 corridor
SUMMARY: Directs the California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans), in coordination with others, to develop an
integrated corridor management team to address traffic
congestion in the State Route (SR) 101 corridor located within
the County of San Mateo. Specifically, this bill:
1)Makes legislative findings and declarations regarding the
economic importance of the
SR 101 corridor between San Jose and San Francisco, the
inadequacy of the transportation capacity within the corridor,
and the need for "swift and decisive" action by transportation
agencies to relieve commuter congestion within the corridor.
2)Further finds and declares that the SR 101 corridor can
operate more effectively with a coordinated response from
transportation agencies within the corridor to integrate
carpool or express lane development and operations, adaptive
ramp metering technology and operations, and ridesharing.
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3)Directs Caltrans to create an integrated corridor management
team, along with the City/County Association of Governments of
San Mateo County and the San Mateo County Transportation
Authority if these two agencies choose to participate, to
consider transportation projects to address congestion relief
in the SR 101 corridor, including connecting SRs 82, 92, and
380 within the County of San Mateo.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Vests Caltrans with the responsibility to design, construct,
operate, and maintain the state highway system.
2)Prohibits the state budget from including specific
appropriations for specific transportation projects, and
provides that the Legislature should not enact legislation
containing specific individual transportation projects.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS: AB 378 is intended to focus transportation resources
to address congestion on the SR 101 corridor and connecting
corridors in San Mateo County. According to the author, the SR
101 corridor "is the most economically productive region in
California, connecting the rapidly growing economies of San
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Mateo County, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley." Furthermore,
the author states, "The growth in this region has generated
significant tax receipts for the State budget, but is strained
by an increasingly large number of commuters flooding the area's
highways, roads, and transit systems."
Congestion in the region is, in fact, increasing. According to
a just-release report by the Metropolitan Transportation
Commission (MTC) from its Vital Signs performance-monitoring
initiative, freeway congestion around the Bay Area is increasing
faster than either population or employment. MTC reports that,
since 2000, per-commuter congestion delay has risen by 23% while
the region's population has grown by 10%.
SR 101 in San Mateo County may be congested; however, elsewhere
in the region traffic congestion is much worst. According to
MTC's Vital Signs, 40% of the all Bay Area freeway congestion is
on the region's top ten congested corridors. SR 101 in San
Mateo County is not among the top ten most congested corridors.
Still, the author believes the SR 101 corridor in San Mateo
merits unique consideration given the economic prosperity the
corridor brings to the state. AB 378 directs Caltrans to
establish an integrated corridor management team, in
coordination with the City/County Association of Governments of
San Mateo County and the San Mateo County Transportation
Authority, if those agencies choose to participate. The team
would be expected to consider transportation projects on SR 101
and also on connecting routes SRs 82, 92, and 380, all located
within San Mateo County.
The integrated corridor management approach is an emerging,
collaborative approach to managing transportation corridors.
Integrated corridor management looks comprehensively at an
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entire transportation network - including freeways, arterial
streets, transit, parking, travel demand, agency collaboration,
and more - and considers all opportunities to move people and
goods in the most efficient and safest way possible. Rather
than focusing on improving only specific elements such as
freeways or transit, an integrated corridor management approach
considers the corridor as a total system to be managed as an
integrated and cohesive whole; it seeks to address the
corridor's overall transportation needs rather than the needs of
particular elements or agencies alone.
Caltrans has embarked on a pilot program to develop the
integrated corridor management approach to manage traffic
operations. Its Connected Corridors Program represents a
significant departure from traditional transportation management
practice and promises to fundamentally change the way the state
manages its transportation corridors for years to come. The
pilot is led by the Caltrans in partnership with Partners for
Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH) at the University of
California, Berkeley. Caltrans started pilot deployments within
the Connected Corridor Program on Interstate 210 in the San
Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles and on Interstate 80 between the
Carquinez Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The
department expects to expand the Connected Corridors Program to
multiple corridors throughout California over the next ten
years. (In addition to the two pilot corridors under Caltrans'
Connected Corridor Program, the San Diego Association of
Governments is piloting one of two integrated corridors chosen
as part of a national pilot program to study the effectiveness
of this traffic operations approach.)
When it began the Connected Corridor Program, Caltrans
originally evaluated five corridors, including the SR 101
corridor in San Mateo County. Corridors were evaluated based on
criteria such as levels of congestion, available alternative
routes and travel modes through the corridor, willing partners,
and available technology already in the corridor. In the end,
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Interstate 210 and Interstate 80 were thought to offer the
greatest potential benefits of the corridors evaluated.
Some of the benefits that the Connected Corridors Program
expects to realize include:
1)Reduced congestion and improved mobility, travel-time
reliability, safety, and system efficiency.
2)Better use of existing capacities across all transportation
modes (car, bus, train, bicycle, pedestrian, etc.) to increase
the throughput of vehicles, people, and goods with minimal or
no new infrastructure.
3)Improved availability and quality of data on travel conditions
in the corridor to better understand corridor behavior and
improve performance.
4)Timely, accurate information for corridor users so they can
make informed choices about when, how, and by what route they
travel.
By directing Caltrans to establish an integrated corridor
management team for SR 101 in San Mateo County, the author seeks
to expedite improved operations in the SR 101 corridor.
AB 378 is supported by the Bay Area Council and Google. Writing
in support of the bill, Google suggests that AB 378 is necessary
to address the "untenable" traffic congestion in the SR 101
corridor. Citing statistics from MTC's Vital Signs, Google
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notes that congestion has increased nearly 40% from 2010 levels,
averaging 2.7 minutes per commuter in 2014. Google suggests AB
378 will "encourage and support the state-level initiative
needed to help ensure the Peninsula continues to remain a
dynamic driver of California's economy and a great place to
live."
Committee concerns: The committee has the following concerns
with the bill:
1)AB 378 is essentially a project bill, the likes of which are
prohibited under existing law. The Legislature initiated this
prohibition to ensure decisions regarding the use of
transportation funds were made strategically, not politically,
within the context of thoughtful planning, engineering, and
prioritization. AB 378 essentially directs Caltrans to spend
resources in San Mateo County, regardless the relative need,
feasibility, cost, or priority of that effort.
2)This bill is not necessary. Caltrans could administratively
choose to develop an integrated corridor management team for
SR 101 in San Mateo County, just as it did for the two pilot
projects within the Connected Corridor Program. However,
integrated corridor management teams involve considerable
staff and technology resources, among other things. To
implement AB 378, the department would most likely have to
pull resources from other corridors, projects, or programs or
secure additional funds, as it did for the two pilot projects.
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Bay Area Council
Google
San Mateo County Transportation Authority
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Janet Dawson / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093
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