Goods Movement Principles for Federal Funding Renewal
Increased
world trade and port activities are important to the well being of the
United States. Some areas, such as the Inland Empire, bear a disproportionate
share of the costs required to mitigate the impact of the movement of
goods through their communities. SANBAG has adopted a position that the
federal government should recognize its responsibility to assist in compensating
for the cost of these mitigation requirements.
The SANBAG Board of Directors adopted seven principles to guide future federal transportation policy decisions. The current federal transportation policy, known as the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, will expire in 2003. The following principles will help launch discussion on the area's goods movement needs for inclusion in the next policy.
- Establish New Goods Movement Funding Program
Establish a new funding initiative to provide resources to intermodal facilities and to mitigate the effects of goods movement along key goods movement corridors in the Southern California Association of Governments region. This initiative would provide financial support for specific corridors that move goods from production to distribution facilities. In addition to the gas tax, consideration should be given to funding goods movement mitigation from revenues related to increases in world trade, such as U.S. customs revenue and fees based on containers or tonnage - Expand Definition of Alameda Corridor East
The present federal definition or description of Alameda Corridor East does not include freeways and the two major rail-freight carrier's rail lines within San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. The following definition should be adopted: "The Alameda Corridor East is a west-east rail/highway corridor extending from east Los Angeles (terminus of Alameda Corridor) through the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County, San Bernardino County, northern Orange County, and Riverside County and is utilized for the purpose of moving goods by rail and/or truck. -
Funding of Goods Movement Facilities
- Alameda Corridor East Grade Separation Funding: Rapid growth in port-related rail freight from Los Angeles through San Bernardino County to the rest of the nation necessitates construction of grade separations and other mitigations to avoid severe congestion and air quality impacts. Despite $95 million in AB 2928 funding for San Bernardino County grade separations, the unfunded need is estimated to be $427 million for 29 grade separations and other safety improvements in San Bernardino County, and $2.5 billion for the entire Alameda Corridor East.
- Dedicated Truck Lane Funding: Twenty-year traffic forecasts indicate that several southern California freeways, including State Route 60 and Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County, will experience increases in truck volumes so great as to effectively consume the entire freeway capacity. Dedicated truck toll lanes are proposed in the Regional Transportation Plan to enable both truck and light duty traffic to continue to move. However, analyses indicate that more than half of the cost must be borne by public funding. Regionally, the public cost is likely to exceed $5 billion, of which at least $1.2 billion would be for truck lanes within San Bernardino County.
- Interchange Reconstruction Funding: Population and commercial growth, particularly related to growth in regional distribution facilities that generate high truck volumes, has rendered many of the existing interchanges along Interstate 10, Interstate 15, and State Route 60 deficient, and has created a need for additional interchanges in recently urbanized areas with rural interchange spacing. A recently completed study of delay savings attributable to both interchanges and grade separations indicates that at least 16 interchanges in the county currently experience more delay than the most severe at-grade rail crossings. The total cost of needed interchange reconstruction exceeds $400 million, $200 million of which relates to projects for which project development is already in progress and which could be shelf-ready in three years.
- Colton Crossing: Federal assistance is needed to improve the movement of goods and people, using a substantial investment in the construction of the $60 million Burlington, Northern, Santa Fe (BNSF) and Union Pacific (UP) railroad-to-railroad grade separation in Colton.
- Supplemental Goods Movement Funding for State Route 58: Federal assistance is required to supplement state and regional highway allocations for widening of State Route 58. Caltrans indicates that 30% - 40% of the vehicles traveling on State Route 58 are trucks. Construction costs for these improvements total $190 million, which is 25% of the funds available on a statewide basis for this type of improvement.
- Nexus of Goods Movement and Passenger Rail
Ensure that as a condition of any federal financial assistance for railroad infrastructure improvements, public agencies have the ability to access railroad right-of-way for passenger rail purposes. - Truck Traffic Monitoring Demonstration Program
Federal assistance is requested to develop technological means to monitor and classify truck traffic from the ports and Los Angeles basin to inland counties, northern California, and interstate destinations. Approximately $900,000 is requested to provide real time and/or periodic classification and count information on major goods movement routes in San Bernardino County. Reliable data provided for peak/off-peak periods is critical to understand and model truck traffic through Southern California and to monitor the effectiveness of public policies related to goods movement strategies over time. Currently, truck volume counts are obtained by personal observation and manual tallies performed for specific project development purposes. - Designation of U.S. 395 as a National Highway
System High Priority Corridor
It is appropriate that U.S. 395 be designated as part of the National Highway System High Priority Corridors. The northerly portion of U.S. 395 currently has such a designation, which should be extended to include southern portions serving California. Such a designation would qualify U.S. 395 for funding opportunities, which currently exist in TEA-21. - Direct the Department of Transportation to
develop a plan to implement truck "road wear" taxes and
phase out gross weight taxes
Current truck road taxes based on gross weight encourage a configuration of weight and axles which severely damage the nation's and cities' roads and highways. This is because there is an exponential relationship between axle load and pavement damage (i.e., as axle weight increases, pavement damage increases exponentially). It is well documented that a pavement wear tax based on axle load (rather than on gross weight) would motivate a configuration of weight and axles on trucks that would save billions of dollars per a year on road maintenance without increasing the total amount of truck taxes. In southern California truck traffic is the fastest increasing component of total miles traveled, and as a result, wear and tear of highways is increasing dramatically.
SANBAG Contact
Ty Schuiling
Director of Planning and Programming
Phone: (909) 884-8276
Fax: (909) 885-4407
Email: tschuiling@sanbag.ca.gov