BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 914
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
914 (Brown)
As Amended April 29, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+--------------------+----------------------|
|Transportation |15-0 |Frazier, Achadjian, | |
| | |Baker, Bloom, Chu, | |
| | |Daly, Dodd, Eduardo | |
| | |Garcia, Gomez, | |
| | |Linder, Medina, | |
| | |Melendez, Nazarian, | |
| | |O'Donnell, Santiago | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+--------------------+----------------------|
|Appropriations |17-0 |Gomez, Bigelow, | |
| | |Bloom, Bonta, | |
| | |Calderon, Chang, | |
| | |Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Gallagher, Eduardo | |
| | |Garcia, Holden, | |
| | |Jones, Quirk, | |
| | |Rendon, Wagner, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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AB 914
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SUMMARY: Grants the San Bernardino County Transportation
Commission (Commission) authority to develop high-occupancy toll
(HOT) lanes and other facilities, under certain conditions.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Authorizes the Commission, notwithstanding specific provisions
of existing law related to preferential lanes and tolling, to
conduct, administer, and operate a value-pricing program in the
Interstate 10 (I-10) and Interstate 15 (I-15) corridors in San
Bernardino County; provides that the value-pricing program may
include HOT lanes or other toll facilities.
2)Allows the Commission to extend the value-pricing program to
include the approaching and departing connectors on I-10 into
Los Angeles County and on I-15 into Riverside County pursuant to
agreements with the county transportation commission in those
counties.
3)Grants the Commission the power of eminent domain for purposes
related to the value-pricing program.
4)Grants the Commission authority to set, levy, and collect tolls,
user fees, or similar charges to use the toll facilities in San
Bernardino County. Also grants the Commission the authority to
collect any other incidental or related fees or charges in a
manner determined by the Commission and in the amount required
for the following expenditures in the corridors in San
Bernardino County:
a) Capital outlay, including design, construction,
right-of-way acquisition, and utilities adjustment;
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b) Operations and maintenance;
c) Repair and rehabilitation;
d) Loans, advances, and related financial costs;
e) Reserves; and
f) Administration, not to exceed 3% of the toll revenues.
5)Directs any excess revenues to be used pursuant to an
expenditure plan adopted by the Commission's governing board and
to the benefit of the corridors, including the following:
a) To enhance transit service designed to reduce traffic
congestion within the corridors in San Bernardino County,
including transit operating assistance, acquisition of
transit vehicles, and transit capital improvements; and
b) To make operations or capacity improvements to reduce
traffic congestion or improve the flow of traffic in the toll
or non-tolled segments of the corridors.
6)Requires the Commission to carry out the value-pricing program
authorized by these provisions in cooperation with the
California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) pursuant to a
cooperative agreement.
7)Authorizes the Commission to issue bonds to finance any costs
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related to implementing the value-pricing program and other
capital outlay, operations, maintenance, repair, rehabilitation,
indebtedness, reserve set aside, and administration purposes
related to the corridors; also allows the Commission to issue
bonds for purposes otherwise identified in the expenditure plan.
8)Limits bond indebtedness to no more than may be serviced from
projected revenues generated by the value-pricing program.
9)Provides that bonds may be issued pursuant to a resolution
adopted by a majority vote of the Commission's governing board.
10)Requires San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG) to
report to the Legislative Analyst on its findings, conclusions,
and recommendations concerning the value-pricing program.
11)Explicitly provides that this bill does not limit the authority
of Caltrans or any local agency to construct improvements in the
corridors that compete with the Commission's value-pricing
program.
12)Provides that the bill's provisions are severable.
13)Declares that the provisions of this bill do not authorize the
conversion of any existing non-tolled or nonuser-fee lanes,
except than a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane may be converted
to an HOT lane.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, any costs to the commission are non-reimbursable, as
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they would be incurred only to the extent the commission elects to
exercise the authority provided in the bill. Any costs to the
Caltrans would be absorbable within existing resources.
COMMENTS: Value-priced toll facilities (e.g., HOT lanes) are
increasingly being implemented in metropolitan areas around the
state and the nation, primarily to deal with increased congestion.
HOT lanes allow single-occupant or lower-occupancy vehicles to
use an HOV lane for a fee while maintaining free or reduced travel
to qualifying HOVs. Although value-pricing programs should be
primarily a congestion management tool, they may have the added
benefit of generating net revenue that can be put back into the
corridor from which it was generated for additional improvements
or other benefits.
SANBAG, which is also legally organized as the Commission, is
sponsoring this bill. The agency is responsible for cooperative
regional planning and furthering an efficient multi-modal
transportation system countywide. As the county transportation
commission, SANBAG supports freeway construction projects,
regional and local road improvements, train and bus
transportation, railroad crossings, call boxes, ridesharing,
congestion management efforts and long-term planning studies.
SANBAG also administers Measure I, the half-cent transportation
sales tax approved by county voters in 1989.
SANBAG is proposing two projects for which it is seeking authority
to impose tolls:
1)The proposed I-10 Corridor Project consists of improving all or
a portion of the existing 35-mile stretch of I-10 from the City
of Pomona to the City of Redlands. As a major regional
east-west freeway corridor, I-10 is heavily used by travelers
between Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties and it is also a
major truck route between southern California and the rest of
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the nation.
2)The proposed I-15 Corridor Project consists of improvements on
the 35-mile stretch of I-15 in San Bernardino County. As a
major regional north-south freeway corridor, I-15 is heavily
used by commuters and recreational travelers, and is also a
major goods-movement corridor.
SANBAG hopes to have statutory authority in place to develop toll
facilities (including HOT lanes) before it begins the process of
applying for financing under the federal Transportation
Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA). The TIFIA
program provides federal credit assistance in the form of direct
loans, loan guarantees, and standby lines of credit to finance
surface transportation projects of national and regional
significance. In the case of HOT lanes, the federal government
requires legal authority to be established prior to beginning the
process of applying for TIFIA financing.
According to the author, the I-10 and I-15 corridors are
increasingly urbanized, making continued expansion a challenge.
The author notes that these particular corridors are amongst the
most congested in the state, and are likely to become even more
congested as San Bernardino County's population is expected to
grow from 2.1 million to 3.4 million by 2050. The author is
pursuing this bill to provide an alternative way of managing
congestion to serve the growing needs of the area.
Supporters believe this bill will give the Commission the tools
its needs to better manage its existing congestion as well as
accommodate future growth in these commuter and trade corridors.
This bill is opposed by one individual who objects to the
imposition of debt that will be needed to finance the
value-pricing program.
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Please see the policy committee analysis for a full discussion of
this bill.
Analysis Prepared by:
Janet Dawson / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093 FN:
0000515