No solution to a real problem

Recent coverage of an isolated, and highly politicized, effort to repeal California’s gas tax fails to answer — or even ask — the all-important question: What’s the alternative? How do we fix a transportation infrastructure crumbling beneath us after decades of underfunding and deferred maintenance?

The repeal effort by a Republican candidate for governor offers no solutions to a very real problem you and I live with everyday. It’s why passage earlier this year of Senate Bill 1, which raises the gas tax for the first time in more than two decades, was such a monumental achievement — providing more than $5 billion a year in funding for urgently needed transportation improvements.

Imperial County would benefit directly. Among the early projects that would receive funding under SB1 is the resurfacing of more than seven miles of State Route 86/Main Street near Brawley and Westmorland ($5.5 million) and the resurfacing of more than 11 miles of State Route 111/Imperial Avenue near Calexico ($18.4 million).

We desperately need this kind of investment. In Imperial County, heavy truck traffic and extreme temperatures have ravaged our roads and highways to the point where several billion dollars are needed just to get us to an acceptable level.

Based on the latest California Statewide Local Streets and Roads Needs Assessment, Imperial County faces $1.2 billion in local street and road maintenance needs over the next 10 years. And according to Caltrans’ California Transportation Asset Management Plan, 83 percent of Imperial County’s streets are rated fair or worse; no bridge gets better than a fair rating. With the passage of SB1, the Cities of Brawley, Calipatria, Calexico, El Centro, Holtville, Imperial, Westmorland and County of Imperial will receive a total estimate of $10 million each year to improve our local streets and roads.

It’s important to note, too, that the cost of making these critical improvements will multiply the longer we wait — a price we all will pay, collectively and individually. According to research by the Fix Our Roads Coalition, the average motorist in California spends $762 per year in vehicle repairs caused by bad roads.

SB1 is a well-conceived, well-constructed legislative answer to California’s immediate transportation needs and creates a stronger platform to begin addressing our longer-term challenges. It also shores up glaring deficiencies in our current funding system. By guaranteeing that the $5.2 billion a year that would be generated will only be used for transportation, the bill protects the interests of every Californian.

It is a real solution to the infrastructure problems we have to address — now.

CHERYL VIEGAS-WALKER

Mayor Pro Tem, City of El Centro and Past President of the Southern California Association of Governments

MARK BAZA

Executive Director of the I.C. Transportation Commission