January 6, 2006

 

County cautiously optimistic

on Arnold’s proposals

Urban areas may have bigger claim on funding

By Gus Thomson

As Interstate 80 heads eastward from Sacramento County into Placer, it quickly shrinks from five lanes to three. The bottleneck at the county line, now perhaps the single worst in the region, is symbolic of the political logjam facing Placer.

One of the state's most politically conservative counties faces a long-term shortage of funds for transportation projects. Taxpayers in Sacramento County have paid for an extra lane that is used as a carpool lane on its side of Interstate 80. Placer taxpayers have not. Hence the bottleneck.  

But at least some polling suggests that Placer residents may be so tired of the traffic that they're willing to dig into their pockets. The Placer County Transportation Planning Agency, which commissioned the poll, found that 68 percent of voters are leaning toward supporting a half-cent sales tax to increase funding for transportation projects.

That sounds promising, but remember that in California it takes a two-thirds "yes" vote to approve such a sales tax. At this very early stage in the process, transportation planners generally like to see support in the 70s. Even so, this is an encouraging level of support within Placer to invest in transportation.

Planning for transportation goes hand in hand with planning for growth, and this is where the politics for Placer get very sticky. The various city leaders and the Placer County Board of Supervisors don't have a consensus on mapping the future growth and the future open space. A growth/conservation plan is indispensable to making any transportation plan work.

Progress on such a blueprint would help convince voters that investing in transportation would help preserve Placer's quality of life. Otherwise, there is too great a risk that the public will balk at taxing themselves if the result is perceived to be endless sprawl and even worse traffic.

Transportation sales tax elections are typically underwritten by the local business community (in this case, disproportionately builders) and championed by local elected officials (in this case, mostly Republicans). Are both up for the unique challenges within Placer? Here's hoping so. The need for a half-cent sales tax - and then some - to pay for transportation needs is clearly there. The key is for leaders to emerge and for a local brainstorming process to identify the right combination of new local revenues (sales tax, developer fees and selected road tolls are three examples). While there is talk of a possible proposal on the November 2006 ballot, much work remains ahead. This county is too big and too important for the greater region for its transportation funding problems to go unsolved.