BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: AB 2250
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: daly
VERSION: 4/24/14
Analysis by: Eric Thronson FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 24, 2014
SUBJECT:
Toll revenue expenditures
DESCRIPTION:
This bill requires the California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans) to ensure that the toll revenue generated by a
managed lane on the state highway system is available for
expenditure in the corridor containing that managed lane.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law authorizes the San Diego Association of
Governments, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority,
and the Alameda County Transportation Commission to construct
high-occupancy toll lanes (HOT lanes). An agency operating a
HOT lane essentially sells excess capacity in under-subscribed
high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to single-occupant vehicle
drivers by charging a toll.
HOT lanes typically employ a pricing method known as value
pricing or congestion pricing. Under this scheme, the amount of
the toll varies in accordance with the level of congestion in
that particular lane such that as congestion increases so too
will the toll amount. As the price to use the lane goes up,
fewer people presumably will choose to use it, thereby reducing
demand for the facility and maintaining free-flow travel
conditions. With this mechanism, an agency can attempt to
ensure that operation of the toll facility does not undermine
the intended benefits of promoting carpooling with access to the
faster HOV lane.
Until 2012, existing law authorized regional transportation
agencies, in cooperation with Caltrans, to apply to the
California Transportation Commission (CTC) to develop and
operate HOT lanes. Before this authority expired, CTC approved
HOT lane facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles
AB 2250 (DALY) Page 2
County, and Riverside County.
This bill :
Requires Caltrans to ensure that the toll revenue generated by
a managed lane on the state highway system is available for
expenditure in the corridor containing that managed lane.
Defines a managed lane as any of the following:
An HOV lane
A HOT lane
An express toll lane, which is a dedicated lane that
requires all vehicles to pay a toll, but may provide for a
discounted toll for HOVs
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . Last year, Governor Brown directed the California
State Transportation Agency to convene a workgroup of
stakeholders to explore, among other things, long-term
transportation funding options to help address the state's
growing transportation needs. From that work, the
Transportation Agency concluded that one option to consider
includes expanding the use of pricing and express lanes to
better manage congestion and generate revenues for
preservation of the current system. According to the author,
some stakeholders have concerns that the state may move toward
using locally generated toll revenues to fund highway
maintenance and preservation on other parts of the state
highway system outside the managed lane corridor. The author
intends, with this bill, to ensure that locally operated toll
lane revenues can only be spent within the corridor in which
they are generated.
Recent actions lend some validity to the stakeholder concerns
this bill attempts to address. In opposition to SB 1298
(Hernandez), a HOT lane-related bill this committee heard in
April, the Professional Engineers in California Government
(PECG) requested that bill be amended to provide a reasonable
amount of HOT lane revenue to the state for maintenance and
operations of the state highway system. The Transportation
Agency has indicated that this may be a potential opportunity
to help fund the state's transportation needs. In some ways
it seems unfair, and counterproductive, to ask a local entity
to increase taxes or fees on its own constituents only to
AB 2250 (DALY) Page 3
redistribute the funds to be spent elsewhere in the state.
This bill attempts to address this concern.
2.Why not say what you mean ? Based on the author's intent, it
is not clear that this bill as currently written accomplishes
his aims. In order to be perfectly clear, the committee may
wish to amend the bill to state specifically that any toll
revenues generated from a locally-administered managed lane
may only be expended within the managed lane's corridor.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 78-0
Appr: 17-0
Trans: 15-0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday, June 18,
2014.)
SUPPORT: California Asphalt Pavement Association
Self-Help Counties Coalition
OPPOSED: None received.