Personal Injury Firm
The California Transportation Commission (CTC) released their recommendations for funding projects in three S.B. 1 (gas tax) programs for the next three years. All three programs are competitive, which means that agencies can apply for the funding and projects if they meet specific criteria in the guidelines for each program.
An example of the specific criteria is, for projects in the Solutions for Congested Corridors Program, they must be “designed to reduce congestion in highly traveled and highly congested corridors through performance improvements that balance transportation improvements, community impacts, and provide environmental benefits.”
All three programs include funding to widen highways in order to alleviate car traffic, despite official acknowledgement by Caltrans, the CTC, and the Air Resources Board that California needs to stop investing in infrastructure that makes solo driving more attractive.
For the Congested Corridors program, the CTC received applications for 21 projects seeking over $1.3 billion in funding, and staff recommended seven of them, for about $500 million.
Some of the projects recommended for funding in Southern California are:
For the Trade Corridor Enhancements program, the CTC received 47 project applications seeking over $1.7 billion, and staff recommends funding 28 of them with $1.359 billion. Most of these projects are “highway improvements,” including widenings.
The Local Partnership Program, for its part, received 62 project applications seeking over $647 million, and staff recommends funding 21 of them for a total of $213 million. Those projects are a mix of improvements for local roads, transit, complete streets, and active transportation. One example is $7 million for “Bike Up and Down in Uptown,” which will bring protected bikeways, bike lanes, traffic calming, pedestrian connections, bus stop upgrades, and other stuff to San Diego’s Uptown district.
The recommendations will be taken up by the CTC at its Dec. 2 meeting.