BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: SB 734
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: Lowenthal
VERSION: 2/27/09
Analysis by: Jennifer Gress FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: April 28, 2009
SUBJECT:
General transportation clean-up
DESCRIPTION:
This bill makes several clean-up, clarifying, and
non-controversial changes to law.
ANALYSIS:
According to the Legislative Analyst, the cost of producing a
bill in 2001-02 was $17,890. By combining multiple matters into
one bill, the Legislature can make minor changes to law in a
more cost-effective manner than authoring multiple bills to
address each provision separately.
This bill includes the following provisions. The sponsor of
each provision is noted in brackets.
Section 1 of the bill: Clarifies that any interest earned on
the investment of funds from the Local Streets and Road
Improvement, Congestion Relief, and Traffic Safety Account, as
established by Proposition 1B of 2006, must be used for
transportation facilities. The State Controller's Office (SCO)
had received numerous calls from cities seeking clarification
regarding the use of interest income, thus prompting the SCO to
clarify in statute that any interest earned must be used for
transportation purposes. According to the SCO, it is common
practice for the interest earned on funds to be used for the
same purposes intended for those funds. [SOURCE: State
SB 734 (LOWENTHAL) Page 2
Controller's Office]
Section 2: Deletes an obsolete deadline for adopting STIP
guidelines. Existing law requires the CTC to adopt guidelines
for the development of the STIP. One subdivision of that law
requires that the guidelines be adopted by May 1, 1999. This
date has long since passed, and this subdivision is now
obsolete. [SOURCE: Committee staff]
Section 3: Deletes unnecessary language describing the
violation that a sign warning of a minimum penalty refers to.
The provision of law this bill amends requires that a sign be
posted to indicate the minimum fine amount. The violation is
already described in the section of law that authorizes the fine
amount and so it is unnecessary to repeat in the section
regarding signage. [SOURCE: Committee staff]
Section 4: Conforms the Public Utilities Code with the
Government Code regarding the time by which transit operators
must file annual reports with the Controller's office under
Proposition 1B. [SOURCE: State Controller's Office]
Sections 5-7: Sections 5 and 6 of the bill add definitions of
"bicycle path" and "bicycle path crossing" to clarify the types
of facilities that bicycles are permitted to use, and Section 7
clarifies that state law does not prohibit bicycles from
operating on sidewalks and crosswalks, where permitted by local
ordinance. [SOURCE: California Bicycle Coalition]
Section 8: Adds a missing cross-reference, in the section of
law prohibiting a person from parking in a space designated for
a disabled person, to the section of law requiring state
agencies to provide one parking space for disabled persons for
every 25 parking spaces it provides. [SOURCE: Committee staff]
Sections 9 and 10: Delete unnecessary language describing the
violation that a sign warning of a minimum penalty refers to.
The provision of law this bill amends requires that a sign be
posted to indicate the minimum fine amount. The violation is
already described in the section of law that authorizes the fine
amount and so it is unnecessary to repeat in the section
regarding signage. [SOURCE: Committee staff]
Section 11: Applies the minimum and maximum fine amounts that
relate to criminal parking citations to civil parking citations
SB 734 (LOWENTHAL) Page 3
because most citations are issued as civil violations, not
criminal infractions. State law seeks to set minimum and
maximum fine amounts for parking in a disabled spot. This was
meant to apply to all violations, but it does not apply to the
civil citation for which local governments set the fine amounts.
This provision is intended to ensure that the fine amounts set
by local governments for these violations are consistent with
the range intended by the Legislature. [SOURCE: Committee
staff]
Section 12: Changes required notice of penalty waiver for
parking ticket administrative hearings. If a person who
receives a parking ticket contests the ticket within a specified
period of time, current law requires the issuing agency to
conduct an initial administrative review. If the person seeking
the review is dissatisfied with the results, he or she may,
within 21 days, request an administrative hearing. To receive
an administrative hearing, the person must first pay the parking
penalty, unless the person can provide satisfactory proof of an
inability to pay in which case the penalty is waived. Current
law, however, requires the issuing agency to notify alleged
violators of this waiver only when they request a hearing,
rather than at the close of informal review. In other words,
persons who request an administrative hearing only receive
notice of the waiver provision after they have requested the
hearing. Concern is raised that people who cannot afford the
penalty may not seek the administrative hearing and simply let
the ticket go unpaid, in which case the person would accrue
substantial penalties in addition to the original fine.
Requiring that notice of the ability to seek a waiver be
provided at the close of an informal review is a logical change
to the law. [SOURCE: Committee staff]
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . The purpose of this bill is to combine multiple,
non-controversial changes to statutes into one bill so that
the Legislature may make minor amendments in a cost-effective
manner.
2.Previous legislation . Most of these provisions were also
contained in SB 432 (Lowenthal) during the last legislative
session. That bill was passed by the Legislature but vetoed
SB 734 (LOWENTHAL) Page 4
by the Governor with the following message:
The historic delay in passing the 2008-2009 State Budget
has forced me to prioritize the bills sent to my desk at
the end of the year's legislative session. Given the
delay, I am only signing bills that are the highest
priority for California. This bill does not meet that
standard and I cannot sign it at this time.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
April 22, 2009)
SUPPORT: None received.
OPPOSED: None received.