BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1706
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 23, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Bonnie Lowenthal, Chair
AB 1706 (Eng) - As Amended: April 17, 2012
SUBJECT : Transit bus axle weight increase
SUMMARY : Suspends axle weight limits of public transit buses
until December 31, 2015. Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes findings and declarations related to public transit
systems' benefits, sustainability issues of the transportation
system's pavement, and federal study requirements.
2)Declares that the state act immediately to clarify that the
public transit vehicles currently operating in California are
permitted to continue in transit service without disruption
due to the state's outdated transit bus weight limitation,
while a study is prepared analyzing the following:
a) The appropriate transit bus axle weight limitations to
reflect current federal and state laws affecting vehicle
manufacture.
b) The availability of, and the ability of manufacturers to
utilize, lighter-weight materials in the manufacture and
integration of transit buses.
c) Other alternative strategies to ensure the long-term
sustainability of the transportation network, including the
Interstate System, state highways, local streets and roads,
and public transit systems.
d) A comparison of the costs of maintaining the status quo
versus the potential cost to state and local governments of
adopting new vehicle axle weight standards for transit
buses.
e) The requirement for the use of lighter-weight materials
in the manufacture and integration of buses.
f) Alternative strategies for ensuring the sustainability
of the transportation network.
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1)Repeals, until December 31, 2015, the existing bus gross axle
weight limit of 20,500 pounds.
2)Establishes, until December 31, 2015, that transit buses are
not subject to weight and tire load limits as specified.
3)Allows, until December 31, 2015, public transit agency
contracts for the procurement of public transit buses issued
after January 1, 2013, to purchase buses that do not exceed
the gross weight of the heaviest bus of that transit bus fleet
as of December 31, 2012.
4)Allows, until December 31, 2015, a public agency to
incorporate a new fleet class into its inventory under
specified conditions.
5)Reestablishes, on January 1, 2016, the bus gross axle weight
limit of 20,500 pounds.
6)Requires the Secretary of the Business, Transportation and
Housing Agency (Secretary) to convene a task force to oversee
the preparation of a report concerning the maximum axel weight
limitations in federal and state statutes and to recommend
strategies relative to measuring and enforcing transit vehicle
weight limits, designing and manufacturing transit vehicles,
and updating and utilizing the most effective and efficient
pavement design standards when designing and constructing
highways and streets and roads, to ensure the sustainability
of California's transportation network of highways, streets,
roads and public transit systems.
7)Establishes the membership of the task force.
8)Establishes parameters of the report as specified.
9)Requires the Secretary to submit the report to the appropriate
Senate and Assembly Committees of the Legislature that oversee
transportation issues by January 1, 2015.
10)Appropriates unspecified funds from the Public Transportation
Account and the State Highway Account for the development of
the report.
11)Repeals the report provisions on January 1, 2019.
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EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the size and weight limits for vehicles operating
on the state's highways. For buses, sets the gross weight on
any one axle to not exceed 20,500 pounds.
2)Under federal law, temporarily suspends the axle weight limit
of 20,000 pounds for buses operating over the federal
Interstate Highway System. Prohibits specified states,
including California, or any political subdivision of such
states, from enforcing a transit vehicle weight limit of less
than 24,000 pounds on the Interstate System.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown costs to the Public Transportation
Account and the State Highway Account for purposes of the task
force study.
COMMENTS : According to a December 2003 federal Department of
Transportation/Federal Transit Administration study on bus axle
weight limitations, the report indicated that the buses have
been operating in excess of the 20,000 pound federal axle weight
limits on the Interstate Highway System for over 20 years. The
report also indicated that "Since 1992, there has been a
permissive arrangement whereby states are not required to
enforce axle weight limits for intrastate transit buses." The
report further recommended the following approaches used for
dealing with overweight transit buses:
1)Some states, particularly in the northeast, have higher
axle-weight limits that preempt the federal limits due to
grandfather rights. In these states, transit buses with a
seated load often remain legal.
2)A number of years ago, bus operators for the Los Angeles
County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) received
traffic citations for driving overweight transit buses on
Interstate highways. As a result, MTA bought over 90
tandem-axle Neoplan transit buses for freeway operation.
3)Federal law currently allows states to exempt intrastate
transit buses from the weight limit.
The federal study also recognized that other areas currently
have higher axle weight limits than California. The State of
Pennsylvania and others have a 22,400 pound axle weight limit.
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The bill's sponsor, the California Transit Association (CTA),
contends that vehicles have increased in weight due to state and
federal mandates, as well as to accommodate for higher passenger
loads and passenger amenities. They cite clean vehicle fleet
rules as promulgated by the California Air Resources Board (ARB)
as contributing weight factors especially as compressed natural
gas (CNG) equipment can add around 4,000 pounds to the weight of
a bus. Further, they cite additional requirements, such as the
federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), that
requires public transit buses to be equipped with ADA-compliant
tools, such as wheelchair lifts, ramps, kneelers, tie-downs, and
other equipment. Their contention is that this gear also adds
hundreds of pounds of weight to buses, in addition to passengers
with wheelchairs, which can add 1,000 pounds of weight for only
two passengers in wheelchairs. They claim that these
requirements have caused "transit systems to seek compliance
with one law while breaking another as a result."
Additionally, CTA indicates that buses today carry more
passengers than they did in years past. Buses are designed to
accommodate more standing passengers, and thus more passengers
overall. Also, average passenger weights in the United States
are also increasing.
Responding to the need to increase the federal and state public
transit bus axle weight limits, local road and state highway
officials indicate that an increase in the axle weight
allowances of the buses will result in pavement stress,
resulting in higher reconstruction costs for local arterials
than state highways. Although they are sensitive to the needs
and dilemma of the public transit agencies in deploying vehicles
that are not within current axle weight limitations, they are
not responsive to the suggestion by the CTA to allow transit
agencies to continue purchases at the weight limit of the
heaviest bus in an agency's fleet.
After several meetings, even as affected entities were unable to
reach consensus, the author and sponsor have fashioned this bill
that seeks to provide an interim solution and also furthers the
discussions that:
1)Suspends the current state weight limits on existing on-road
buses.
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2)Convenes a task force to study the overweight bus issue and
make recommendations on measuring and enforcing transit
vehicle weight limits; designing and manufacturing lighter
weight transit vehicles; and updating pavement design
standards for streets, roads, and highways.
3)Authorizes public transit agencies to purchase vehicles
limited by the heaviest vehicle within their current fleet as
of December 31, 2012.
4)Restores the gross axle weight limit back to 20,000 pounds on
January 1, 2016.
A critical look at the task force study and its funding sources :
A key component of this bill is the formation of a task force
to develop a report on the recommended maximum bus axle weight
and other compliance and enforcement strategies as specified.
This task force report could build upon the federal Department
of Transportation study developed in December 2003. That study
examined issues relevant to overweight buses at that time and
those same issues are still relevant today. Accordingly,
although this bill allows the task force two years for report
development, it is questionable if that extended length of time
is necessary.
Further, the bill provides an unspecified amount of funding from
the Public Transportation Account to partially fund the task
force report. The allocation of funds would appear to divert
necessary operating funds for local and regional public transit
systems. Lastly, the bill would provide an unspecified amount
of State Highway Account funds from truck weight fee revenues.
Currently, those funds are transferred to the State's General
Fund for purposes of transportation debt bond service.
Notice of concerns : Writing to express concerns with this bill,
the League of California Cities (League) and the California
State Association of Counties (CSAC) indicate that the new
interim weight standards to the heaviest bus in the transit
agency fleet is problematic making enforcement nearly impossible
and "In some ways, this would reward those transit agencies that
have disregarded current law the most by allowing them to
continue to purchase buses that far exceed the legal weight."
The two groups also suggest amendments to require all state
rulemaking bodies to consider the following factors for any
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proposed rule:
1) The weight added to a vehicle;
2) The effect any added vehicle weight would have on
pavement wear; and,
3) The resulting costs to state and local governments.
The author's office is willing to discuss further these
suggestions but defers a commitment to accept them at this time.
Suggested amendments :
1)After January 1, 2013, the bill allows transit agencies to
continue the purchase of overweight buses limited to the
heaviest bus within a transit agency's fleet. This would lead
to transit districts operating buses with various weights
throughout the state. Also, this would exacerbate the current
overweight bus situation, potentially leading to undue
pavement stress to the local roads and state highways. This
amendment mollifies the significant concern as expressed from
the League and CSAC as indicated in the above.
Delete the provision that allows public transit districts,
after January 1, 2013, to purchase buses weighing up to
the heaviest bus in that entity's fleet and to replace the
purchase allowance with an axle weight limit that is
referenced in the 2003 federal Department of
Transportation study of 22,400 pounds.
2)Corrects inadvertent drafting errors in Section 1 (c),
relative to the findings and declarations as pertaining to the
disproportional damage by increased frequency of transit bus
use on streets, roads, and highways as well as other
unspecified sections of the bill.
Replace (c) with the following: (c) However, as public
transit ridership has increased, concerns arise about the
long-term sustainability of the transportation network
built to support cars, trucks and buses; namely, that the
increased frequency of transit bus use disproportionately
damages city streets, county roads and the state's highway
and interstate systems, due to the pavement wear impact of
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heavy transit vehicles relative to other types of vehicles.
In fact:
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Transit Association (sponsor)
City of Culver City
Long Beach Transit
Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (support work
with author)
Monterey-Salinas Transit
Paratransit, Inc.
Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District
Notice of Concern
California State Association of Counties
League of California Cities
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Ed Imai / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093