Our view: Efforts to protect and reinforce state spending on transportation infrastructure will help ease traffic

For anyone concerned about traffic -- which is to say, for anyone alive in North County -- there are a pair of easy choices on the Nov. 7 ballot. While Propositions 1A and 1B won't by themselves unclog our congestion, the first two statewide ballot measures will help chip away at California's scandalous underinvestment in our transportation needs. Vote yes on Props. 1A and 1B.

Proposition 1A is among the surest bets on the ballot. This "Transportation Funding Protection" constitutional amendment would live up to its title. From whom do our transportation funds need protecting? That would be the Legislature and the governor, who have a nasty habit of raiding the state sales tax on gasoline to prop up their profligate spending.

That both gubernatorial candidates and most of the Legislature are backing Prop. 1A's passage is an indication of just how badly it's needed. Like addicts begging for tough love, they know they won't be able to resist raiding the state sales tax on gas again -- no matter how clearly we make our desire for such revenues to be reserved for transportation projects.

When California voters approved Prop. 42 in 2002, we thought we had placed gas taxes in a transportation-only lockbox. But we left the key to that lockbox in Sacramento lawmakers' hands, and they couldn't help themselves. Facing huge budget shortfalls of their own creation, the Legislature and governor agreed to siphon money from the gas sales tax twice in the last three years. That kept $2.5 billion in state funds out of road repair and other transportation projects; San Diego County was shorted to the tune of $180 million.

Prop. 1A would still enable the Legislature to raid the state sales tax on gas in the event of a true emergency, but only twice per decade, and the state would have to pay back the first loan before borrowing a second time.

Critics contend that tying Sacramento's hands like this will make the state unable to respond to future fiscal emergencies. But the state can still raise taxes or cut spending, though our elected leaders appear unwilling or unable to do either. Instead, they prefer borrowing, which puts the cost of today's operating expenses on the backs of our children.

Some borrowing, however, is better than others. Bonds that finance necessary infrastructure investments are the best example; the projects built today provide, over time, a value commensurate to the loan's interest.

California's roads are in such disrepair and so overwhelmed by congestion that merely setting aside existing revenues won't make much of a dent in our traffic problems and backlog of deferred maintenance. We also need to invest anew, and that's why voters should pass Prop. 1B.

At $19.9 billion, Prop. 1B is the most expensive bond ever to appear on a state ballot. That's the partial cost of neglecting for 30 years our invaluable infrastructure -- while growing our state's population and economy at record rates.

This almost $20 billion bond isn't perfect, not by a long shot. The political calculations that earned its place on the ballot have diluted the bond's effectiveness in any one transportation sector. The bond now reads like a grab bag of transportation-related projects, including everything from decreasing air-pollution around the state's major shipping ports to improving security on San Francisco's rapid-transit system.

As a result, only $11 billion will go toward congestion relief -- but only $11 billion is a something decidedly preferable to the nothing coming out of Sacramento for far too long.

Prop. 1B would automatically deliver $473 million to San Diego County, including $222 million for mass-transit projects, $110 million for highways and $55 million for projects funded by our half-cent TransNet sales tax. The county also might be able to snare some of the $4.5 billion set aside for easing freeway congestion, and some of the $2 billion set aside for international trade corridors, such as our border with Mexico.

Together, Props. 1A and 1B won't clear up our congestion. We still need to expand user-pays strategies, such as the managed-lane toll road down the middle of Interstate 15 that is now being expanded northward. We still need to rein in Sacramento spendaholics so they don't use this bond's boost to skimp on the state's backlog of infrastructure investment.

But on Nov. 7, vote yes on Props. 1A and 1B. They may not do enough, but they will address the No. 1 affront to North County's quality of life -- traffic.