Gas tax money maintains the roads, not cleaning them up
Q Wasn’t the recent gas tax increase supposed to fund Caltrans cleanup of highway litter? — David Pitton
A No. The 12cent tax increase sets aside $5.4 billion a year for road maintenance, transit upgrades, safety and pedestrian improvements.
Litter pickup is not on that list. And those costs are soaring.
The state spent more than $102 million in 20182019 to pick up trash, up from $65 million in 20162017. This does not include ballooning costs for cleaning homeless encampments, where the cost per cubic yard is greater than the cost for regular litter pickup due to higher costs of removing hazardous materials.
Q Caltrans is not making litter cleanup a priority. Embarrassing litter is all over the state. Homeless encampments along Interstate 280 remain.
— Ron Cleary
A It’s bad enough to bring people near to tears, as the following reader notes.
Q I drove along “our” section of Interstate 280 last week and just about cried. So much litter has collected in such a short time. It’s a shame because we kept it clean for so long. Who knows how long it will be before anyone is assigned to it again.
— Loui Tucker, San Jose
A Loui’s Adopt-a-Highway group no longer cleans I-280 near Interstate 880 after Caltrans banned them from steep areas as a safety precaution.
Q I appreciate your insights on Bay Area traffic and hope you can shed some more insights on Samtrans buses. Many are new, and they’re running all around town with few passengers, disrupting normal traffic. It does not seem cost-effective. Apparently, Samtrans has had this under review for at least a couple of years, but nothing is complete.
—MarkW.
A Despite the impacts of COVID-19, with reduced ridership for much of the past year,
SamTrans is still carrying between 300,000 and 400,000 riders a month. Many are dependent on public transit. What you are seeing refers to the Re-imagine SamTrans, an operational analysis of the system. This effort was in the public outreach stage when the shelter-in-place order started. It was delayed as a result of that order but should be resuming soon.
Q I thought the Skyline Boulevard vista point off Highway 35 was closed at night because of the hooligans who were going up there at night for sideshows, throwing cigarette butts and even firecrackers into the dry grass, drinking and driving, leaving trash and broken bottles everywhere, etc. The neighbors were understandably terrified of the fire danger and annoyed by the noise and trash.
— Betsy Moore,
Sunnyvale
A Sideshows are a pain on freeways, city streets and scenic mountain roads.