Charge Builders to Expand Freeways (The Press Enterprise 050706)

This is what they do to build the City Streets, however this is only at a much larger scale. It might work and it will take the price of building the Freeways from the People. Or Will it? I don't think that it will. See the company that comes into to bid or do a job for what ever it might be has to bid that job so much more, so the bill is passed on to whom ever is having the building done to begin with. That cost will be passed on to the purchaser or the seller will go bankrupt.

So I don't k now if this will work or not.

BSR...

Charge builders to expand freeways

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

By CHUCK WASHINGTON and SHAWN NELSON

Inland officials and policymakers know that state and federal transportation funding is undependable at best.

Western Riverside County found a remedy with the Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee. That fee, which developers pay by the rooftop, has proved an innovative solution to paying for the impact of new homes and office buildings on the region's roadways. But what about the impact of new development on freeways?

The Riverside County Transportation Commission is finishing the first phase of a freeway strategic study for western Riverside County. The study asks whether there is a relationship between the construction of nearly 500,000 new homes over the next 25 years and our freeway capacity. The answer, clearly, is yes.

But phase two of the study, which has yet to be approved by the transportation commission, would ask the more crucial question: Can the impact of new development on area freeways be quantified in dollars and cents? And if so, what would be development's fair share of the cost to expand the lanes?

Why should county residents care about the fate of some obscure study? Simple: Once county officials know the impact of development on the freeways, they can begin discussing a Freeway Uniform Mitigation Fee to help pay for freeways. Call it a FUMF.

No question the freeways need expanding. How bad could the drive get without additional lanes? CalTrans currently rates Highway 91 at "F-2," which indicates delays of up to two hours. In the next 25 years, the state estimates that 95 percent of area freeways will be rated F-4: total gridlock.

Fact is, Riverside County will be short several billion dollars in building a freeway system to support projected growth. New development should pay its fair share for its impact on the freeways, just as developers pay now for their impact on local roads, parks and schools.

A local freeway mitigation fee would not relieve the state or federal governments of their obligation to contribute toward our freeway system. On the contrary, Riverside County would be in the enviable position of having dollars to leverage for state and federal matching grants.

Ideally, with a comprehensive approach, local residents would pay for freeway improvements through the previously approved Measure A half-cent per dollar sales tax; new development would pay its fair share through mitigation; and state and federal grants would make up the difference.

Given the reality of rapid growth in Riverside County, the self-help approach is best for regional and local road needs in the coming decades.

Chuck Washington is mayor pro tem of Temecula and Shawn Nelson is city manager of Temecula.