California, which has the nation's worst traffic congestion and its second worst pavement conditions, is falling nearly $11 billion a year short of adequate spending on streets, highways, bridges and public transportation, a Washington-based transportation advocacy group says.
The report was issued by The Road Information Program (TRIP), which lobbies for more federal, state and local spending on transportation infrastructure, and is called "Future Mobility in California."
It notes that the state Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has declared a need for spending $5.5 billion a year for the next decade on highways, but only $1.5 billion a year is projected to be available. Meanwhile, the report estimates that public transportation systems need another $8.6 billion a year, but only $1.7 billion will be available annually. The cumulative shortfall, therefore, is $10.9 billion a year.
In addition to the statewide shortfall in transportation funding, TRIP's report contains detailed data on the state's six largest urban areas - Los Angeles-Orange counties, Riverside-San Bernardino counties, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco-Oakland and Sacramento.
"Even with the efforts of the governor and the Legislature over the past several years, we still have a huge gap -- which this report clearly shows -- and it's hitting the public where it hurts," Mark Watts, executive director of Transportation California, an affiliated advocacy group, said in a statement.
"We are short nearly $11 billion annually to meet our transportation needs," Watts said. "This report shows that our failure to close this transportation investment deficit is costing us nearly four times that much."
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