California Should Learn From the Last Roads Boom (The Press Enterprise 050706)...

Now, all these stories are requested writings by the Gov. To get people more motivated getting some solutions done on the streets and freeway problems. The congestion on the freeways is terrible, but this particular article seems to have the better Idea. About the boom it is some thing that needs to be done. Give it a read and give an argument on the end of my story to see what we can come up with, maybe it will be a better Idea!!

BSRancher....

California should learn from the last roads boom

09:48 PM PDT on Friday, April 28, 2006

By KEVIN STARR

California has thrived for the past half century within the infrastructure built after World War II. Californians of the postwar era envisioned the future and made it happen. Today, California faces a similar challenge: to repair and expand its public-works infrastructure and, thereby, remain competitive for the next 50 years.

California in the 21st century needs a vision and a program as bold as the one launched a half century ago. What kind of California do we want in the next 50 years? And what steps should we be taking to bring such a state into being? If Californians fail to act as boldly and creatively as our predecessors, we shall be forced to endure a steady decline in our quality of life.

Following World War II, California re-created itself as a mega-state. The transformation did not happen by accident. Gov. Earl Warren in 1944, in the second year of his administration, established a Reconstruction and Reemployment Commission under the direction of Col. Alexander Heron, formerly the state's director of finance. Warren, Heron and just about everyone were asking what would happen to California after the war. Would California return to its prewar situation -- an agricultural state that, for all the glittering urbanism of Los Angeles and San Francisco, had remained underpopulated, underdeveloped and geographically and psychologically remote from the centers of power in the East? Or was something else in store: a population boom and the creation of a new society?

The majority of Californians were predicting a boom, and they were right. The boom lasted for nearly a half century. By 1944, many Americans believed that, whenever the war ended, California would never be the same.

The population of California jumped from 6.9 million in 1940 to 10.5 million in 1950 to 15.7 million in 1960. By 1970, there were 20 million Californians. By 1980, there were 23.6 million.

What did these people require? Just about everything. Housing, jobs, K-12 schools, higher education, water delivery, freeways, parks and a myriad of other services.

In 1945, state Sen. Randolph Collier, urged on by Warren, introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 27, establishing a Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Highways, Streets and Bridges. The committee took a comprehensive look at the entire question of road, highway and freeway construction needs, including the cost of construction and how to fund it.

Out of these deliberations emerged the Collier-Burns Highway Act of 1947, proposing that the gas tax be raised from 3 cents to 4.5 cents per gallon. The act also proposed that registration fees for automobiles be doubled from $3 to $6 per year, along with an increase in weight taxes for trucks. These revenues were to be put into a Highway Trust Fund to finance construction planning and development. An epoch of road, highway and freeway construction ensued.

The Division of Highways in September 1958 issued "The California Freeway System," a retrospective report and master plan. The 37-page report constituted a past, present and future definition of California through its freeway system.

The California Freeway System represented a species of utopian planning in its comprehensive vision of the entire state. The state was unified and brought to new levels of utility and recreational enjoyment through a statewide grid of interconnected roads, highways and freeways.

For the rest of the century, thanks to this ambitious program, California offered its citizens the infrastructure they needed to thrive in and contribute to an increasingly complex society.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Californians told themselves and the world a compelling story about the kind of society they wanted to create in the second half of the 20th century. Today, we must fashion for ourselves and enact a 21st century narrative.

Kevin Starr is a professor of history at the University of Southern California. This article is adapted from a confidential memo to Gov. Schwarzenegger as background for his State of the State address in January.