Transportation Funding

Labor unions weren't happy when Governor Jerry Brown signed the Public Employees Pension Reform Act of 2012. The law, which applies to government workers across the state, allows government agencies more flexibility in extending the retirement age, increase employee contribution, and halt the practice of "pension spiking" for new employees. A full summary of the legislation is at the bottom of Brown's press release from last September.

President Obama’s transportation budget proposal can give you a contact high if you stand too close. The prospect of budget surpluses -- in the near-term, at least -- is intoxicating. And the source of those surpluses -- from Overseas Contingency Operations -- is a hallucination.

Next month, 19 transit-related measures will come before voters. If the rest of this year is any guide, 16 of them will pass.

One of the things I do each year is read the California Transportation Commission Annual Report. I find it a useful snapshot of policy and operation issues for transportation in California. Intriguingly the 2011 Report's introduction mentions a statewide transportation needs assessment the Commission released late last year. Over 10 years ago the Commission undertook a similar assessment in response to legislation (Senate Resolution 8 [1999]). That document has withstood the test of time and years after it was issued I would see it still being cited in media coverage of transportation funding needs for California.

In recent weeks, regional transportation agencies in Southern California have made some slow moves towards embracing a more sustainable transportation network throughout the Southland.  Local "Metropolitan Planning Organization" the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is poised to pass a long term plan that would dramatically increase bicycle and pedestrian funding while its sister agency in San Diego passed the first regional funding plan complying with the state's ground breaking greenhouse gas emissions law SB 375 which mandates improvements in air quality with reductions in vehicles miles traveled.

You've probably heard some grumbling or chuckling -- depending on where you live -- about the way federal highway funds are distributed to states.

This week’s series on the grants from the L.A. County Department of Public Health’s Policies for Livable and Active Communities and Environments (PLACE) Grants focuses on Glendale and their groundbreaking Safe and Healthy Streets Plan.

A series of amendments proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) to SB 791 would lower the threshold of voter approval for new taxes to fund transportation improvements from 67% to 50%.