These vanquished “boondoggles” seem within the “victory” column:
— The demise of the proposed extension of the 241 “toll street to nowhere” by San Clemente, which might have value billions.
— The cancellation of a $6 billion plan to develop the 710 freeway between Lengthy Seashore and East Los Angeles, which rattled round for greater than 20 years.
— Abandonment of a plan to drill twin tunnels to hyperlink I-210 and I-710 — which might have exceeded $5 billion — in an try to scale back San Gabriel Valley transportation woes.
— And the demise of the “Excessive Desert Freeway,” an $8 billion, 63-mile undertaking that aimed to attach L.A. County’s Palmdale and Lancaster with San Bernardino County’s Victorville, Apple Valley and Adelanto.
However you possibly can’t win ’em all, even in case you’re the rabble-rousing California Public Curiosity Analysis Group, intent on steering California away from its car habit: The I-405 Growth undertaking from the 73 toll street to I-605 is effectively underway, a $1.9 billion endeavor including categorical toll lanes to 16 miles of certainly one of America’s most congested highways.
All these tasks have appeared in PIRG’s “Freeway Boondoggles: Losing infrastructure funding on damaging and pointless street tasks” research over time, now in its eighth incarnation. The PIRG activists take some credit score for halting what they name wasteful tasks, yearn to make sure that the brand new $1.2 trillion infrastructure funding is just not squandered on car-centric tasks and lament the 405 growth they weren’t in a position to cease.
The 405 growth “is predicated on estimates of dramatic visitors will increase which can be each unrealistic, and that far exceed actual use traits,” PIRG says. “Increasing the freeway, nevertheless, might very effectively deliver a lot of those that at the moment keep away from the 405 on account of congestion again to the freeway — producing new visitors that causes congestion to return.”
The Orange County Transportation Authority is unapologetic.
“Orange County voters agreed to tax themselves one-half cent in 1990 and once more in 2006, entrusting OCTA to ship a balanced and sustainable transportation system, and we're delivering on these guarantees, which have resulted in billions of dollars of native avenue upkeep and enchancment tasks, in addition to transit packages, freeway enhancements, water high quality, wildlife and habitat safety initiatives,” mentioned spokesman Joel Zlotnik by e mail.
“The 405 undertaking — a part of the native gross sales tax measure authorized by Orange County voters in 2006 — has quite a few beneficial components mentioned, together with priced managed lanes with carpool reductions to incentivize ride-sharing and transit use, reconstructing native streets crossing the freeway with widened sidewalks, new bike lanes and lighting to enhance security and encourage extra strolling and biking.”
The undertaking, set to complete subsequent yr, is a partnership with Caltrans and the Federal Freeway Administration and can assist scale back congestion on one of the crucial closely traveled stretches of freeway within the nation, Zlotnik mentioned. It stays on PIRG’s boondoggle record however wasn’t the main target of this newest report.
No extra highways?
PIRG’s thesis could be a bit arduous to swallow in car-dependent Southern California.
Freeway growth, it argues, harms our well being and the surroundings, doesn’t resolve congestion and creates a long-lasting monetary burden.
“Since 1980, the U.S. has added practically 870,000 lane-miles of freeway — paving greater than 1,648 sq. miles, an space bigger than the state of Rhode Island — and but, previous to the COVID19 pandemic, congestion on America’s roads was worse than it was within the early Nineteen Eighties,” its report mentioned.
In 2016, the final yr for which detailed knowledge is out there, federal, state and native governments spent $27.6 billion increasing the freeway system — together with new roads and bridges and widening current roads — “sucking cash away from street restore, transit and different native wants.”
These tasks translate into extra driving, which contributes to local weather change, creates air pollution that triggers well being issues, and might trigger “irreparable hurt to communities, forcing the relocation of properties and companies, widening ‘useless zones’ alongside highways, severing avenue connections for pedestrians and automobiles, decreasing cities’ base of taxable property and total group worth, and stripping communities of their financial vitality,” it argues.
Throughout the nation, 173,000 miles of street are in “poor” situation, greater than a 3rd of bridges want main repairs or alternative and seven% of bridges are “structurally poor.” Constructing new roads divert billions of taxpayer dollars from repairing current ones, PIRG argues.
Huge likelihood
So right here we're, with a $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal inked in November, promising a “near-unimaginable” alternative to put money into America’s transportation system.
These federal dollars may very well be spent fixing growing old roads, making streets safer and making it simpler to journey on public transit, by bike or on foot, PIRG mentioned — or they may very well be spent constructing and increasing highways.
PIRG urges the powers-that-be to embrace “fix-it-first” insurance policies that reorient transportation funding away from freeway growth and towards restore, put money into transportation options that scale back dependence on car journey, use the newest transportation knowledge to do full cost-benefit comparisons and weigh the socioeconomic impacts of tasks.
All tremendous concepts. However in a spot like Orange County, which is essentially a product of suburban automotive tradition, it may be a little bit of a stretch. The drama hooked up to the OC Streetcar undertaking, which has basically “shut down” downtown Santa Ana, is a working example.
As soon as accomplished, the 4.15 mile-long OC Streetcar route will run from the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Heart, by Downtown Santa Ana and the Civic Heart, to Harbor Boulevard in Backyard Grove. The $509 million undertaking is predicted to open in 2024.
Toni Nelson, founding father of Capo Cares, has by no means shied away from calling out a boondoggle the place she sees one. PIRG, and native policymakers, might wish to contemplate the tasks on her newest record:
— The proposed $50 million Serra Siding, offered as an infrastructure funding wanted on account of excessive demand for passenger rail, even though each Amtrak and Metrolink have been working at a fraction of capability.
— A plan by BNSF to spend billions to ship extra freight trains up a severely eroding coast.
— And the toll roads company itself, whose unhealthy forecasting yielded unexpectedly poor income projections and an incapability to fulfill debt obligations that required refinancing many times.
“So far as public transit goes, I believe we have to be non-polluting, environment friendly options,” she mentioned by e mail. “Trains are public transportation however they pollute horribly and don’t resolve the ‘final mile’ drawback. And solely an ideal fool would spend billions to develop rail on an eroding coast.
“We will do higher however it can require a big paradigm shift. Transportation futurists discuss a day when on-demand electrical Ubers will consistently flow into and nobody will want a non-public automotive. How’s that for handy and environment friendly? A fleet of regularly shifting shared automobiles. And we will all reclaim our garages and develop our residing areas!”
What do you assume?