Carmageddon
To hear Southern Californians tell it, the weekend of July 16-17 will bring what is being called “carmageddon” – the closure of Interstate 405 through the Sepulveda Pass as part of the $1 billion widening project.
While the closure will have an impact, it’s probably overstated. I am just old enough to remember the claims that the 1984 LA Olympics would lead to massive traffic problems, which never actually materialized. People adapted then and they’ll adapt now.
The real “carmageddon,” however, is the fact that $1 billion of local and state money will be wasted on this project. One wonders where Elizabeth Alexis, Alan Lowenthal, Mac Taylor and others who have criticized the cost and plans for the California HSR system are on this stunningly unnecessary project. There is no business plan for the 405 widening, no ridership study, and most of all no indication that it will actually achieve its intended goal of traffic relief.
The vast majority of the project is being subsidized, both in its construction (much of the money comes from the Measure R sales tax) and in its operation. Fuel taxes do not pay the full costs of highway maintenance in California, and nobody has yet dared suggest tolling the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass, even though it’s a damn good idea.
Why is it wasteful? Both in the short-term and the long-term it will not be a good use of funds. The phenomenon of induced demand suggests that the 405 will quickly fill up with new vehicles, at least for a short time. Over the next few decades, however, progressively fewer people will drive on the 405 as gas prices and the great shift away from driving reduce demand for freeway lanes significantly. Eventually, a transit tunnel will have to be bored under the pass between Sherman Oaks and Westwood, which will again become key transportation nodes but this time for rail instead of cars. That will cost more than $1 billion, but it would at least make sense to start putting money away for it now.
The 405 widening project is just one of a number of potentially costly and wasteful freeway projects. The long-proposed closure of the Interstate 710 gap, using a bored tunnel, is projected to cost about $3 billion, probably more. The crazy plan to widen Interstate 5 in San Diego County would cost $4.1 billion. Neither the 710 nor the 5 projects are fully funded, but you don’t see the Senate Transportation Committee or CARRD or the LAO screaming about the lack of a credible financing plan or the risk of cost overruns there.
No, it’s only rail that gets hit with those charges. Freeways are always given a pass and are never held to the unreasonable and absurd standards that HSR critics generate to attack the rail project. Most HSR critics, whether they’re aware of it or not, believe that freeways are normal and right and the best way to move people around, but see trains as new, foreign and unusual, and therefore something that deserves higher scrutiny. For some it’s because they are NIMBYs and seek excuses for stopping something they just don’t want in their backyard, for others it’s because they view trains as a threat to their car-centric world, and for still others it’s because they grew up in an era that viewed trains as obsolete and optional.
In any case, California now has a bunch of people finding ways to make the most important infrastructure project in the last 50 years look like a waste of money, even though it has been successful from a financial, economic, climate, energy and transportation standpoint around the world – and totally ignoring the huge sums of money wasted on unnecessary freeway projects around the state. And if those folks won’t hold freeway projects to the same standards they hold HSR to, then doesn’t it call into question their motives for attacking HSR in the first place?
My question is, will the 405 tolls be comparable to existing airfare? Or more seriously, to Metro fare?
I mean, if they’re too expensive, why drive?
Oh wait. Drivers don’t pay for their infrastructure.
Derek Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:57 am
The tolls should vary according to congestion, always just high enough to prevent congestion but no higher. Because the 405 would as a result always be almost completely full of toll payers, it could not, by definition, be considered “too expensive.”
Unless you believe the Yogi Berra quote, “It’s so crowded, nobody goes there.”
joe Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 7:29 am
Wow. How much will that complex algorithm cost to implement and if the dynamic toll isn’t known prior to a driver deciding to take a trip, how will it discourage driving?
Andy M. Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 7:52 am
Airlines manage yield management pretty well, and I guess most of it is automatic these days. It can’t be too difficult to adapt the system to highways. Just think of it as one humongous airliner, in which the number of seats equals the number of cars that can travel at any one time without causing congestion.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 8:15 am
You mean driving on the freeway is going to involve even more masochism than it does now? Awesome!
JJJ Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Tourists may not know of the toll, so their trip will not be discouraged, but regular commuters will.
The same people make the same work/school trips every single weekday at the same time.
So if after the tolls are put up, you realize that Monday at 8am it’s $5, you have enough information to plan your Tuesday trip, which in all likelihood will be $5 at 8am. Maybe after a week, enough people say “no” that it goes down to $4.50. Then just check online to see what the tolls generally are.
But dont trust me, just see how it’s implemented in the real world.
http://95express.com/home/tolling.shtm
The website posts “typical” tolls, but that can change every day. Signs show what the actual toll is.
They may not pay the full cost of highway construction but they certainly pay the full cost of highway maintenance. The 2007-2008 Caltrans budget, for instance, spent 1.1 billion on highway maintenance (and an additional 2.1 billion for local streets and roads) while collecting about 3.5 billion in motor vehicle fuel tax revenue.
And yes, I’m aware that there is some cross-subsidization since fuel taxes are collected regardless of the roads driven upon, many of which do not qualify for fuel tax spending. The point remains, however, about highway maintenance being fully covered by current fuel taxes.
Matt Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
Well put. Most of the public does not seem to understand that user fees of highways do not currently cover maintenance, let alone the maintenance they should be doing to keep them safe.
HSR, by most accounts would. Both will still need the capital investments.
AndyDuncan Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
It’s difficult to separate construction from maintenance in road projects. This project is a perfect example, much of the cost is going into rebuilding structures that are unsafe or falling apart due to lack of maintenance and just pure age. Much of the surface of the existing lanes will be refurbished, is that maintenance or construction?
But your point is a valid one, the “roads don’t pay for themselves”/”roads pay for themselves” argument is a bit more complicated and the metrics are different than subways and HSR.
I wouldn’t, though, underestimate the vast, vast amount of fuel tax revenue collected from non-eligible roads. In places like LA, the street traffic absolutely dwarfs the more visible freeway traffic. The only study I’ve seen that tries to get a number that takes all funding and expenditures into account was the Texas study that came up with a “farebox recovery” of around 25-30% IIRC.
AndyDuncan Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
Think of it this way: Everyone who’s driving on the freeway drives on at least two surface streets. Not everyone who drives on a surface street ends up on the freeway.
Spokker Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 1:09 am
People avoid the freeway and cut through residential streets. They often break the speed limit to do so.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
16-50, not 25-30.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 10:20 am
Median is probably around 30%. And there’s all the local streets that don’t get any gas tax money. The highways that do get gas tax money would be nearly useless without the local streets.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
16-50% already accounts for the gas tax money transfer; it specifically compares the gas tax revenues generated by a highway segment to its construction and maintenance costs.
Jack Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:56 pm
I think your accounting is missing a few key items:
Caltrans accounting on the 1.1B highway and 2.1B local does not account for all the road spending. On top of that, there are other local road expenditures paid for by local general funds and other local funds (almost $3B in 2004 according to California DOT).
On top of that, it’s also missing the shortfall in funding for the State Highway Operation and Protection Program from Fuel tax. Without which our roads will continue to deteriorate.
So, No, our fuel tax collected by state and local government does not fully fund the operation and maintenance of our roads (highway+local roads).
We ought to either raise the fuel tax or make more toll roads to pay for this.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
I never said that it did pay for all road spending. I said that the fuel taxes are sufficient for highway maintenance.
TomW Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:13 am
I think there’s some confusion here… Paulus using “highway” to mean expressway of freeway, like a typical interstate, and specifcally excluding lcoal roads and streets. In some parts of the world (such as the UK), highway means any public road.
So, Paulus is saying fuel taxes roughyl cover freeway maintence, but not all road maintainence.
BruceMcF Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Then if the gas taxes collected on all roads, highways or not, are only enough to cover freeways, and since freeways are only a portion of the Interstate, National, State, County and Township Highways to be maintained on the gas taxes, and since that includes cross subsidy from urban streets that at the very least do not receive Federal Highway funds … then freeways clearly do not collect anywhere near enough from the gas taxes collected on freeway traffic for their maintenance.
joe Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:15 pm
I suppose all rail receipts in the US could pay for the construction and maintenance of CAHSR.
Or for that matter given a set of X with revenue receipts of A; there exists Y, a subset of X that is defined as the amount of X that can be supported by A.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
I read Paulus as saying that fuel taxes cover maintenance on all roads, but not depreciation on construction costs or interest.
jay taylor Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 11:09 am
If that is the case then why are the highways in California in such bad shape?
thatbruce Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Traffic density.
That is, with the highways being used ‘all the time’, there is no good time to perform the required light maintenance, with the predictable result that the highway road surface declines further until a full closure is required to rebuild that section of the road.
( The I-405 closure, as I understand it, is not this particular situation )
yoyo Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Unless cars only drive on Highway and not local roads, you cannot say that the highway maintenance pays for itself.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Average vehicle fuel efficiency is 22.6 mpg which makes CA’s 53.7 cents per gallon equate to 2.4 cents per mile. If maintenance per lane-mile is 30K per year (a possibly high estimate, I’ve seen 3500-5000 quoted by NMDOT), you need a total of 1.25 million vehicles over that lane annually or an average daily traffic flow of 3,425 vehicles, easily achievable.
BruceMcF Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Of course, there is a baseline maintenance cost per line mile, the cost of which for the network should be taken out of the total receipts first, and then the incremental cost per vehicle mile versus gas tax receipts per mile over average system preservation cost. When funds available are spent and shortages are made up by deferring maintenance and depreciating the system, budgetary costs will understate costs per vehicle mile.
And of course, “these freeways cover their cost” and “those freeways do not cover their cost” would be an absurd analysis if the total usage of “these” freeways depended in part on the existence of “those” freeways.
Indeed, the third party costs of the system should be covered out of gas tax receipts first, before allocating funds to system maintenance and expansion ~ costs of mandated “free” parking, costs imposed by “free” parking on other transport alternatives, pollution costs, CO2 emission costs, medical costs of freeway carnage, costs of policing motor vehicle ownership, etc, should be accounted for first, before the balance available to cover right of way maintenance can be determined.
yoyo Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
WOW! not only is your facts wrong, your math is too!
below are the following mistakes you made:
1. State gas tax in California is 35.3cents/mile, NOT 53.7, tax revenue per mile is actually 1.56cents/mile.
2. your calculation requires that each car drives the whole length of that highway, which may be feasible on some stretches, but certain not all.
3. Your 30,000k maintenance/mile is impossibly low. It may be true in New Mexico where much of the highway are 2 lane, but certain not in California. total highway mile in california is 7626miles in 2001 according to FHWA, that means the $1.1B our state spend to maintain the highway come out to $144k/mile, which is much higher than your “$30k/mile high estimate”.
Now, using your method of calculation, that means each road will need 9.24million cars to drive the entire length per year to pay for the State maintenance cost, or 26,000 cars must drive the entire length of that highway >>each and every day<< to pay for it, NOT 3,425.
It's okay Paulus, you were only off by 1 order of magnitude in your estimate.
yoyo Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 8:46 pm
typo: first sentence in #3 should say: Your $30k/mile maintenance cost is impossibly low.
joe Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Paulus is adding fed tax to CA state tax.
His 30K is probably approximated from US aggregate data (or at least i could come with some similar number in 2000 dollars) – it’s not representative of costs in CA with urban areas and,if using old 2000 data, and is exclusive of routine things like overpasses and bridges and lights and reflectors and signs and etc.
I think the exercise is silly – it’s apples to oranges and why I have to own a few thousand pounds of steel to use the highways as well as fix my vehicle and pollution, CHP and etc. Well the roads are not that simple to maintain.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
As joe noted, I added Fed tax to CA state tax in an oversight. That was my only factual error.
Incorrect. My calculation required that, for the notional lane mile, the vehicle travels the whole length (one mile). This is entirely feasible.
Incorrect. I specifically referred to lane-miles. In 2007, Caltrans reported 50,733 lane-miles. That would, incidentally, make the per lane mile upkeep cost $21,682, 1/3rd lower than my estimate.
As a result, we come to a requirement of 1,389,880 vehicles per year or a daily average of 3,807 vehicles per day for our notional lane-mile. As a check, Caltrans reported 184.894 million vehicle miles travelled that year. At 1.56 cents per lane mile, $2.884 billion is generated. While it intuitively seems wrong that the cross-subsidization from surface and urban streets would amount to only 700 million dollars this may be due to the following factors:
1. A higher fuel economy than the national average of 22.6 mpg
2. An incorrect sampling or estimation of state highway travel. Caltrans estimates state highway travel at 56% of the total roadway travel and interstate highway travel as being 27%.
3. An incorrect perception based on incorrect knowledge of state highway system extent.
4. Alternate causes.
The interstate highway system alone in CA contained 14,772 lane miles as of 2004. Averaged across the entire system, the average lane mile carried 16,488 vehicles per day (obviously with some having far higher than others). Again, it is reasonable to suggest that both:
1. Fuel taxes are sufficient to pay for highway maintenance (while acknowledging cross subsidization).
2. Fuel taxes based solely on gasoline burned during highway travel is sufficient to pay for highway maintenance. That being said, it’s possible that the maintenance cost as quoted does not account for other necessary costs that would appropriately be attributed to the highway system (the maintenance of the vehicles, buildings, etc.). NJTPA, for instance, has a total maintenance cost (of roadway, buildings, and equipment) in excess of $100,000 per lane mile (1,385 lane miles highest quoted number found in googling, $146,721,621 the 2010 cost).
Maintenance of roadways simply isn’t a major expense. The NJ Turnpike spends more on collecting tolls than it does on maintenance, even at that high level.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 11:32 am
NJTPA, for instance, has a total maintenance cost (of roadway, buildings, and equipment) in excess of $100,000 per lane mile (1,385 lane miles highest quoted number found in googling, $146,721,621 the 2010 cost).
The NJ Turnpike is one of the world’s busiest roads. Maintenance is going to be high where there’s lots of traffic pounding the pavement back into gravel. Going to be difficult to do around all the traffic too.
Somebody has to administer the maintenance. Somebody has to administer the administrators. Is that included in the maintenance costs?
I’m assuming those maintenance numbers don’t account for construction costs. Widening it by a lane isn’t “maintenance” Or building a new interchange and access road. Or neat little tricks like selling a chunk of I-80 to the Turnpike so the state could balance it books. And so that the state wouldn’t have to maintain that chunk of I-80. Or interest costs on the construction costs. Or the administrative costs on the construction costs.
Last time I bothered to look the median toll in the Northeast is 5 cents a mile. Roughly a buck a gallon if you get 20 MPG.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
You’re aware that the roads in California are often even busier than the NJ Turnpike, right?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Having mused on it some, I think that the amenity plazas may be the cause of the discrepancy, since their maintenance would be on that same line.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
And you are aware that the NJ Turnpike, the road he cited figures for, doesn’t have any roadway in California. Or Texas or North Carolina or even New York or Pennsylvania.
Robert writes:
“Over the next few decades, however, progressively fewer people will drive on the 405 as gas prices and the great shift away from driving reduce demand for freeway lanes significantly.”
Please provide more documentation than your conjuncture that this will indeed take place. I have not read any authority or study that thinks road use is actually going to decline.
On another front, Palmdale is indeed suing the Authority
http://www.bakersfield.com/news/business/growth/x481155514/Palmdale-sues-high-speed-rail-authority-over-Grapevine-study
joe Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Yes, please provide documentation that the unlimited supply of oil is in fact somehow limited, and that driving is price sensitive, then mow my lawn.
Frank Dogg Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 5:51 am
Indeed, and then stay off said lawn.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 3:57 am
Hey, Bruce McF, I checked on Frank Dogg’s link above, and looks like a site you might be interested in.
http://econsmiths.ning.com/
Frank, if you haven’t already done so, you might want to check out Bruce’s places, too.
http://www.midnight-populist.blogspot.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/user/BruceMcF
D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
One possible example:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/05/02/business/02metrics.html
And another:
http://streetsblog.net/2011/03/02/is-driving-on-the-decline-in-the-pacific-northwest/
One more:
http://www.esquire.com/features/data/nate-silver-car-culture-stats-0609
Is it a trend, or just a glitch? Is it really too early to tell?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
This was up here before:
http://adage.com/article/digital/digital-revolution-driving-decline-u-s-car-culture/144155/
But is it really too early to tell?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-02-23-congestion_N.htm
D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Some other material; it’s not just here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28433813/ns/business-autos/t/japans-young-falling-out-love-cars/
http://detroit.about.com/b/2011/04/20/detroit-and-de-motorization-a-challenge-for-the-auto-industry.htm
http://classiccars.about.com/u/ua/owningaclassic/PreserveMotoringHeritage.htm
Of course, I’ve had earlier comments about how there is definitely a difference in attitude that is generational, with an older generation (over 90 now) and a younger generation (currently under 60), both of which are at least not anti-rail, and a generation between 60 and 90 that is very pro-car and very anti-rail, which I have jokingly called the “difficult, in-between age.” It’s a pattern I’ve been seeing for over 20 years now, when the generational age breaks were at 40 and 70.
Not everybody fits these patterns, of course–we are talking about individuals–but most people do.
TomW Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:14 am
Give it time, and those currently aged 60-90 will die off.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
That’s true, but with some of the problems we have, and their size and scale, I have to wonder if we have enough time.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Also of interest in this line:
http://casafoodshed.org/archives/category/transportation/
I’ll acknowledge that predictions are tough, and even I wouldn’t say the case for driving decline is quite conclusive. Still, I wonder what Morris thinks of this. I wonder what he thinks is driving these numbers, which curiously predate the recession and the run-up in gas prices.
Andy M. Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 1:42 am
Dollars per gallon of gas is actually a meaningless metric IMHO. It would be much more meaningful to translate that into dollars per mile driven and then see how that is affecting total miles driven per capita.
Alon Levy Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
http://www.vtpi.org/future.pdf
nick Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
here in the uk road usage has actually declined but rail usage has increased despite very high fares – the current price of fuel is about £1.35 per litre !
as the rail network is near capacity the coalition government is pressing ahead with plans for a high speed network to release extra capacity in the clasic network despite some opposition from locals along the line of route.
so morris if you believe that highway usage will increase then you should be supporting high speed rail as this will transport more people with less energy and pollution then short haul air or car. it will also mean that projects such as this widening will not be required and means there will be less congestion on the existing roads.
i understood from reports i have read that the federal govt only takes 18 cents per mile in tax and that there is a $40 billion dollar shortfall in the highways maintenance budget. if you believe in users paying for hsr the same should apply to highways. if the highway shortfall were paid for by the users that would free up $40 billion which could be used to fund hsr. in the uk the hsr is expected to cost £32 billion but the total benefits including wider economic concerns are at least double that. in transport there is more to consider then just farebox revenue. it saves highways expenditure and of course they all have far more land take then does hsr or any railway.
wu ming Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
the same is true in america, and has been in some parts for over a decade now (the pacific northwest is where i’ve seen the stats). especially after the 2008 crash, miles driven cratered but did not recover, while rail passengers dipped a bit and recovered quickly.
Miles Bader Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
That’s particularly amazing considering the awful state of American passenger-rail infrastructure…
If they’re going to spend $1 billion on a carpool lane through the Sepulveda Pass, why not at least make it a toll lane? Metro just broke ground on the ExpressLanes project, which will convert existing carpool lanes on the 10 and 110 freeways to toll lanes.
Derek Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
It would be even cheaper to convert all existing lanes to express lanes. This would permanently eliminate traffic congestion at a very low conversion cost to taxpayers.
Gianny Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
They should just Toll the 405 from Sunset Blvd to Ventura! $1 each way, anyone knows the amount of traffic annually and how much it could be collected?
MGimbel Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:54 am
According to Wikipedia, over 330,000 cars a day cross the Sepulveda Pass.
Gianny Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
HOLLY (*&(*&. That would be $120,000,000 a year ;) at only $1.
political_incorrectness Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Maybe they should have required tolls, it would have paid off in 3 years for $3 per crossing.
Measure R in LA County offers hope for a future Sepulveda Pass rail project at the end of project list. Boxer and Feinstein have just secured a $640 million TIFIA loan to speed up the Wilshire subway.
Well put Robert. This double standard needs to be continually exposed for what it is – hypocrisy. I suspect many don’t even realize the double standard or the hypocrisy because building and expanding roads is so commonplace that it is unquestioned.
It’s important to remember that while all the lanes on the freeway will be widened slightly, some overpasses will be reconfigured and reconstructed, and general deferred maintenance will be performed, this is at it’s core, for one single northbound carpool lane for a 10 mile stretch (there is already a southbound carpool lane).
That’s $100m per unidirectional lane mile. What would tunneling the purple line under the pass cost? $250m/mile? $500m/mile? For what, 8-16 equivalent lanes of traffic?
This project is the biggest waste of transit money in LA. It’s even worse than the potential 710 connector project. Everyone thinks this is going to solve the sepulveda pass problem but it’s not even going to make a dent.
political_incorrectness Reply:
July 6th, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Just like the San Diego freeway expansion, for the same price, you could electrify the Coast corridor and have the really nice tunnel, full double tracking. Instead, more freeways! How about connecting some arterials first instead of making freeways the only way around. Better yet, funnel it all into truly dedicated BRT routes.
I cannot find the reference but I recall the Steve Hyman transportation blog in the LA Times reported that the $780 million earmarked for the 710 extension project was included in Measure R as part of a deal with Alan Lowenthal. Many deals were struck to provide Measure R funds to projects that were not LA MTA priorities in order to obtain the various approvals that were required to place the measure on the ballot.
With only two freeways crossing the Santa Monica Boulevard, a situation like the current ‘carmegeddon’ was bound to happen. Businesses losing 30-40% because of the shut down and employees losing shifts. The real question is how much business is lost everyday due to customers unwilling to face the constant congestion?
Linking the Valley and LA basin by transit will become more critical as time goes by. Maybe in 20-30 years, a plan will develop to have a subway line linking the same communities as the 405 does. Widening the freeway will provide relief for about 2 weeks. Eventually LA will need to make the equal investments into alternatives transport modes as it does for freeways, you cant expand freeways forever. And when you try, diminishing returns will getcha!
I believe nearly all the money for the 405 widening is coming from the federal government (some of it was even stimulus) and very little to none was part of Measure R.
Here is a much better link to the Peer Group report (9 pages) on analysis of the project and discussion of the LAO’s report.
BTW, Robert should really be pleased. Mica has cut highway funding severely in the the 6 year appropriations bill release today. On the other hand, no HSR funds at all in this bill, although there was mention that a separate bill will deal with passenger rail.
joe Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
President Mica wants to cut transportation projects.
YesonHSR Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 12:41 am
Can you even drive anymore? Brown ?? if so Spokkie!!