Explaining where and why gasoline tax money is used
Q Regarding your article “Repaving and filling potholes tops Measure B funding priorities.” So this is what we get for our half-cent sales tax and 12 cent per gallon gas-tax increases? Filling potholes, which lasts about a week in heavy traffic? Why are we wasting money on such a short term and ineffective solution instead of lasting and proper infrastructure repair?
— Joseph Gumina
San Carlos
A Potholes and repaving are on the list because that’s what many motorists want and what all public works chiefs know we desperately need. But there is much more on the horizon for Measure B — $1.5 billion for BART through downtown San Jose, $1.2 billion to repave city streets, $1.1 billion for Caltrain, $750 million for interchange improvements, $750 million for county expressways, $500 million for transit operations, $350 million for Highway 85 upgrades and $250 million for bicycle and pedestrian. programs.
As for the state gas tax, 90 projects have been completed and soon work will begin on repaving El Camino Real and installing traffic management systems on Highway 1 in San Francisco, on Interstate 880 from Auto Mall Parkway to Mowry Avenue in Fremont, on Highway 84 from Thornton Avenue to Newark Boulevard in Newark, repaving Highway 1 from Santa Cruz County to Bean Hollow Road in Pescadero.
And the gas tax is helping to pay for the improvements to Highway 4 at Interstate 680. Said Randythe-Contra-Costa-Man: “If people are excited about seeing heavy machinery near this choke point, they should be thankful we have the gas tax. There will be more heavy machinery in the near future and these will be widening Route 4, widening the overcrossings and replacing the bridge at Grayson Creek. Gotta love it.”
Q Is this true? Government taxes us for roads, spends the money on other stuff, then increases taxes for roads promising to spend the extra money on transportation, then spends 85 percent of that money on stuff other than roads, etc. — Mike Cheponis Santa Clara
A Rest easy. This is mostly a myth. The California Constitution has protected the gas tax since 1976 and in 2010 California voters further safeguarded gas tax revenue by barring short-term loans to the General Fund or debt service payments on transportation-related general obligation bonds.
There was a time when money from the sales tax on gas purchases went into the General Fund. Legislation to extend the state’s sales tax on gasoline was enacted to support the General Fund and signed into law by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1971. This was worth between $1.5 billion and $3 billion annually. Then last June voters passed Proposition 69, which dedicated all current sources of state transportation monies to transportation.
Bottom line: The gas tax and countywide transportation sales taxes all must go for roads and transit.