BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 1259 (Runner) - Vehicles: toll payment: veterans
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|Version: April 21, 2016 |Policy Vote: T. & H. 10 - 1 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: May 9, 2016 |Consultant: Mark McKenzie |
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This bill does not meet the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 1259 would exempt vehicles with specified veterans
license plates from paying tolls, charges, and related fines
when accessing specified toll facilities.
Fiscal
Impact:
Unknown, likely minor revenue losses to various local tolling
and regional entities that operate toll facilities. (local
funds)
Unknown, likely minor foregone state revenues, to the extent
the Department of Transportation (Caltrans) develops and
operates state toll facilities. (State highway Account) See
staff comments.
SB 1259 (Runner) Page 1 of
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Background: Existing law makes every vehicle using a toll bridge, toll
highway, high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane, or other toll facility
liable for any tolls or other charges that may be prescribed,
and prohibits a person from evading or attempting to evade the
payment of those tolls or charges. Existing law exempts
authorized emergency vehicles from paying tolls when responding
to or returning from an urgent or emergency call, as specified.
Existing toll facilities are generally administered by local or
regional transportation entities, and toll revenues are retained
at the local level to cover administrative and maintenance
costs, to pay off debt for capital improvements, or for other
authorized expenditures within the corridor of the toll
facility. Existing law, as enacted by AB 194 (Frazier), Chap.
687/2015, authorizes Caltrans and regional transportation
entities to develop and operate HOT lanes and other toll
facilities, upon approval by the California Transportation
Commission.
Existing law authorizes the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
to issue various specialized license plates, including certain
plates that are only available to qualifying veterans.
Proposed Law:
SB 1259 would exempt vehicles registered to a veteran and
displaying certain veterans license plates from tolls or other
charges on a toll road, HOT lane, toll bridge, toll highway,
vehicular crossing, or any other toll facility. This exemption
would apply to vehicles displaying a specialized license plate
for disabled veterans, Pearl Harbor survivors, members of the
Legion of Honor, former American prisoners of war, Congressional
Medal of Honor recipients, and Purple Heart recipients.
Staff
Comments: DMV indicates that there are 24,672 vehicles
currently registered with specialized license plates that
qualify for this bill's toll exemption. Revenue losses to
individual tolling entities are unknown, but likely relatively
minor, considering the exemption would only apply to a limited
SB 1259 (Runner) Page 2 of
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subset of the motoring public, and a small percentage of those
vehicles would access any particular toll facility. Currently,
all toll facilities are administered by local or regional
transportation entities, so there would be no immediate state
fiscal impacts.
To the extent Caltrans develops and operates toll facilities in
the future, this bill could result in foregone revenues by
exempting vehicles with certain veterans plates from paying
tolls. Future impacts would be determined by the number of
vehicles accessing state-administered toll facilities, and the
amount of the tolls that would otherwise have been paid for
accessing those facilities. Since the amount of individual
tolls would likely be established based upon a projection of the
number of toll-paying vehicles, any foregone revenues resulting
from this bill would be covered by a proportionate increase in
the amount of tolls paid by the drivers of other vehicles.
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