BILL ANALYSIS �
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1721
Author: Linder (R), et al.
Amended: 4/24/14 in Assembly
Vote: 21
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE : 10-0, 6/10/14
AYES: DeSaulnier, Gaines, Cannella, Galgiani, Hueso, Lara, Liu,
Pavley, Roth, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Beall
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 72-2, 5/1/14 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : High-occupancy toll lanes: low-emission vehicles
SOURCE : Riverside County Transportation Commission
DIGEST : This bill provides toll-free or reduced-rate passage
in high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes for certain single-occupant,
low-emission vehicles with a Clean Air Vehicle program sticker.
ANALYSIS : A high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane, also known as
a carpool lane, aims to promote and encourage ridesharing,
thereby alleviating traffic congestion and improving air
quality. Depending on the particular HOV lane, a vehicle must
have a minimum of either two or three occupants in order to
access the lane.
Existing state law exempts certain clean, alternative-fuel
vehicles from HOV lane occupancy requirements, so that a vehicle
with just one occupant may use an HOV lane if it displays a
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Clean Air Vehicle sticker. Currently, the Department of Motor
Vehicles (DMV) issues two types of stickers, white and green,
under the Clean Air Vehicle program. Vehicles eligible for
white stickers are typically pure battery electric vehicles,
dedicated compressed natural gas or liquid petroleum gas
vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. State law does not
limit white sticker issuance; as of May 5, 2014, DMV had issued
47,516 white stickers. Vehicles eligible for green stickers are
generally plug-in hybrid vehicles. State law caps the number of
green stickers at 40,000; DMV reached this number on May 9,
2014. Both programs expire on January 1, 2019.
A HOT lane, also known as an express lane, allows
single-occupant vehicles to access an HOV lane by paying a toll.
HOT lanes typically employ a method known as congestion
pricing. Under congestion pricing, the amount of the toll
varies in accordance with traffic congestion levels, so that as
congestion in HOT lanes increases, the toll amount increases.
As the price to use the HOT lane goes up, fewer people choose to
use it, thereby reducing demand for the facility and maintaining
traffic flow. Existing law authorizes local agencies to
establish HOT lanes in half a dozen counties across the state.
Existing state law exempts all vehicles with green or white
stickers from paying tolls in HOT lanes.
Existing law authorizes the Metropolitan Transportation
Commission (MTC), serving as the Bay Area Toll Authority, to
grant toll-free or reduced-rate passage to carpools on toll
bridges. If MTC does so, it must grant the same toll-free or
reduced-rate passage to a vehicle with a green or white sticker,
even if it is a single-occupant vehicle rather than a carpool.
This bill provides that a toll agency may impose reduced-rate
tolls on vehicles with a green or white sticker accessing the
agency's HOT lanes.
Background
Exemptions for clean air vehicles from HOT lane tolls . SB 535
(Yee, Chapter 215, Statutes of 2010) which created the green
sticker program, specified that vehicles with green stickers
were not exempt from paying tolls for HOT lane pilot projects on
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Highways 10 and 110 in Los Angeles for an initial period. At
the time, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Authority
expressed concern that granting access to these vehicles could
congest the lanes enough to jeopardize federal funding for the
projects. Subsequent legislation, AB 2405 (Blumenfield, Chapter
674, Statutes of 2012) exempts vehicles with green or white
stickers from paying tolls in HOT lanes. (Pursuant to SB 535,
the exemption did not apply to HOT lanes on Highway 110 until
after November 1, 2013 and to HOT lanes on Highway 10 until
after March 1, 2014.) While supporters of AB 2405 cited free
HOT lane access as a key incentive to purchase low-emission
vehicles, opponents argued that exempting these vehicles from
tolls would undermine funding capacity for delivering
transportation infrastructure.
Although the state has not increased its gasoline excise tax -
the primary funding source for state roads - since 1994, public
support for a gas tax increase is thin. Meanwhile, the
California Transportation Commission has documented billions of
dollars in maintenance and rehabilitation needs for the state's
transportation infrastructure. As a result, local agencies are
seeking alternatives - including HOT lanes - to fund
transportation maintenance, rehabilitation, and expansion. The
current federal transportation funding act provides increased
flexibility to local authorities to convert HOV lanes to HOT
lanes, making HOT lanes an even more attractive option.
Carrots vs. sticks . Supporters of the Clean Air Vehicle program
cite green and white stickers as a critical incentive to
persuade consumers to purchase low-emission vehicles. Exempting
vehicles with green and white stickers from tolls in HOT lanes,
however, erodes the revenue-raising capacity of these
facilities. In addition, it erodes the ability of HOT lane
operators to control traffic flow in these lanes. Because
vehicles with green and white stickers do not have to pay a
toll, these drivers are not discouraged from using the HOT lane
when congestion increases and the toll go up. Between March
2013 and May 2014, DMV issued more than 87,000 green and white
stickers. Exempting these vehicles from tolls, while providing
an incentive to purchase low-emission vehicles, constitutes a
significant revenue loss for HOT lane operators. This bill
provides a compromise by allowing local authorities to charge a
reduced-rate toll to vehicles with a green or white sticker.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local:
No
SUPPORT : (Verified 6/12/14)
Riverside County Transportation Commission (source)
Southern California Association of Governments
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The author's office states that the
sponsor of this bill, Riverside County Transportation Commission
(RCTC), has invested $351 million in the Interstate 15 Corridor
Improvement Project (I-15 CIP). I-15 CIP will be funded by
voter-approved Measure A sales taxes and toll revenues, but no
state funds. The author's office asserts that although local
agencies incur millions of dollars in debt to build HOT lanes,
the state interferes with local tolling policy and reduces
revenue available to meet repayment requirements by exempting
clean air vehicles from tolls in HOT lanes. The author's office
states that this bill protects RCTC's investment by allowing HOT
lane operators to charge clean air vehicles a reduced toll.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 72-2, 5/1/14
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Atkins, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Buchanan, Ian Calderon,
Campos, Chau, Ch�vez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley, Dababneh,
Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eggman, Fong, Fox, Frazier,
Beth Gaines, Garcia, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gorell, Gray,
Grove, Hagman, Harkey, Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine,
Linder, Logue, Lowenthal, Maienschein, Medina, Melendez,
Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Nestande, Olsen, Pan, Patterson,
Perea, V. Manuel P�rez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon,
Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Wagner,
Waldron, Weber, Wieckowski, Wilk, Williams, Yamada, John A.
P�rez
NOES: Gatto, Roger Hern�ndez
NO VOTE RECORDED: Ammiano, Brown, Hall, Mansoor, Salas, Vacancy
JA:k 6/13/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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