Sizing Up The Challenge: California's Infrastructure Needs And Tradeoffs

TablesTable 1.12003 Infrastructure Plan: Proposed State Spending, 2003-04 to 2007-08Table 1.2Public Sector Capital Outlays, 2002Table 2.1Statewide Classroom Needs for New Construction and Modernization ofK-12 Public School Facilities, 2003 to 2008Table 2.2State Share of Funding Needs and Proposed Spending for NewConstruction and Modernization of K-12 Public School Facilities, 2003-04to 2007-08Table 3.1Projected Enrollment for Degree-Granting Higher Education Institutionsin California, 1998-2010Table 3.2Needs Estimates (Annualized) and Bond Revenues for California HigherEducationTable 3.3Years of Capital Costs Covered by Public Bonds and Non-Public SourcesTable 4.1Current and Projected Water Use, Two ScenariosTable 4.2Impaired, Threatened, and Listed Water Bodies, 2002Table 4.3Annual Drinking Water and Clean Watershed Investment NeedsTable 4.4Water Charges as a Share of Median Household Income, 2003Table 5.1Means of Transportation to Work in Major California Metropolitan AreasTable 5.2Estimated Costs and Subsidies for Transportation in 1990 Cents perPassenger Mile TraveledTable 5.3Travel Time to Work for California Residents, 1990 and 2000Table 5.4Reported Ten-Year Unfunded Needs for State, Regional, and LocalTransportation Improvements and OperationsTable 5.5Selected Results of Performance Analysis of Alternative TransportationProgram Scenarios at Varying Funding Levels for the San Francisco BayArea to 2025Table 6.1Selected Modeled Performance Outcomes for Different Land-UseScenarios for the San Francisco Bay Area in 2020- ix -

AcronymsASFAssignable Square FootageBRTBus Rapid TransitCALFEDMultiagency state and federal program for the San Francisco-San JoaquinBay DeltaCaltransCalifornia Department of TransportationCCCCalifornia Community CollegeCOCarbon MonoxideCO2Carbon DioxideCOGCouncils of GovernmentCPECCalifornia Postsecondary Education CommissionCSUCalifornia State UniversityCTCCalifornia Transportation CommissionDHSDepartment of Health ServicesDOFDepartment of FinanceDWRDepartment of Water ResourcesEPAEnvironmental Protection AgencyFHWAFederal Highway ancy TollHOVHigh-Occupancy VehicleISTEAIntermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency ActMCLMaximum Contaminants LevelNCCPNational Communities Conservation PlanningNOXNitrous Oxide- xi -

PM10Particulate MatterROGReactive Organic GasesRTPRegional Transportation PlanRTPARegional Transportation Planning AgencySWRCBState Water Resources Control BoardTMDLTotal Maximum Daily LoadTTITexas Transportation InstituteUCUniversity of California- xii -

AcknowledgmentsFunding for this project was generously provided by the William and Flora HewlettFoundation as part of the Public Policy Institute of California’s “California 2025” project. Wewish to thank the many people who provided valuable feedback on an earlier version of thisreport. Richard Howitt (Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University ofCalifornia, Davis), Kim Rueben (Public Policy Institute of California), and Martin Wachs(Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley) provided very helpfulguidance on the overall analysis. Reviewers providing specific feedback in areas of subjectmatter expertise include: Kim Rueben for K-12 education; Pat Callan (National Center forPublic Policy and Higher Education) and C. Judson King (Center for Studies in HigherEducation, University of California, Berkeley) for higher education; Norman King (SanBernardino Council of Governments) and Martin Wachs for transportation and integratedapproaches; and Robin Hook (Department of Health Services), Richard Howitt, DarrinPolhemus (State Water Resources Control Board), and Al Wanger (Coastal Commission) forwater. Thanks also to Steve Book and Alexis Milea of the Department of Health Services forproviding data on water contaminants and to Rich Juricich (Department of Water Resources) fordata on the costs of groundwater storage. We also wish to thank Jon Norman, graduate studentin sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, for help with data collection and literaturereviews. Any remaining errors in interpretation are our own.- xiii -

IntroductionSince the late 1990s, a host of reports by government agencies and independent groupshave been sounding a common alarm: Decades of rapid population growth, unmatched bycorresponding increases in public investments, are straining the capacity of California’sessential public facilities. In this view, the telltale signs of this problem – overcrowding inschools, record rates of traffic congestion, growing vulnerability to drought, and threatenedecosystems – are likely to reach crisis proportions without actions to fix the way we plan forand fund our infrastructure.1The calls for reform have met with some successes. In 1999, the legislature passed AB1473, a law aimed at improving statewide planning by requiring the governor to prepare anannual five-year infrastructure plan. This reform encourages the state to better identifypriorities, compare and evaluate alternatives, and arrive at more cost-effective investmentchoices.2On the funding side, a major success was the passage of Proposition 39 in November2000, which lowered the voter threshold for local school bonds from two-thirds to 55 percent inschool board elections held concurrently with other state or local elections. This paved theway for considerable increases in local funds for school facilities and for community colleges.At the state level, the initiative process has also generated additional funds for infrastructure.In March 2002, voters approved Proposition 42, which dedicates the state sales tax on gasoline– formerly part of the general fund – to transportation projects. Education bonds passed inNovember 2002 and March 2004 made a total of 25.35 billion available for K-12 and highereducation facilities. Three environmental bonds were passed between 2000 and 2002, makingavailable 5.7 billion for water quality and supply projects and 2.3 billion for the acquisitionand improvement of open space and public parks. The only notable ballot-box failureregarding infrastructure finance during these years was the proposal to earmark a share of thegeneral fund for infrastructure projects, in November 2003.These successes notwithstanding, some core funding questions remain. Local tax orbond finance for some other key sectors, such as transportation, continues to require a twothirds supermajority.3 In contrast to the reform of local school finance, the state-levelinitiatives do not ensure the availability of new sources of revenue to fund infrastructure;Proposition 42 earmarked the use of existing revenues for transportation, and state bonds areSee California Business Roundtable (1998); California Legislative Analyst’s Office (1998c); CaliforniaState Treasurer (1999); Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy (1999); Dowall (2001);Neuman and Whittington 2000; Dowall and Whittington (2003).2 Governor Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review Commission (2004) calls for broaderreforms to promote more efficiency and accountability in state investment and planning. In acompanion piece to this report, Barbour and Lewis (2005) discuss the implications of these and othergovernance reforms for California’s public infrastructure policies.3 Under the California constitution, local bonds always required a two-thirds vote. The two-thirdsthreshold was introduced for local special taxes (for particular designated purposes such astransportation) with Proposition 13 in 1978 and reinforced with Proposition 218 in 1996, which alsodefinitively required voter approval for general taxes and fees (de Alth and Rueben, 2005).1-1-

repaid through the general fund. As the record budget surpluses of the late 1990s have turnedinto a record budget crunch, the fragility of these funding sources has been exposed. There hasbeen pressure to cut existing public works programs and reallocate some of the dedicatedinfrastructure funds to meet state obligations in other areas.Meanwhile, efforts to raise user fees, a traditional source of funding for someinfrastructure services, have been considered “dead on arrival” in the legislature. The pergallon gas tax, a major source of roadway funding, has not been adjusted for inflation since1994. In May 2004, attempts to include a water user fee to help pay for water for threatenedecosystems were retracted in response to water agency opposition. Among major sectors, onlyhigher education has been successfully targeted for fee increases; since the onset of the budgetcrisis in 2001, student fees are up by over 50 percent and rising.Thus, California faces the future with strong voter support for state bond finance orearmarking of investments to specific sectors, but with no clear mandate to raise taxes or feesto support spending increases at the state level, and with high voter thresholds for localspending in areas outside education. In comparison with the late 1990s, when the alarm bellsbegan sounding, unprecedented quantities of bond monies have become available foreducation facilities, and more modest new funds for other sectors. It is therefore appropriateto revisit a central question posed by the numerous reports on infrastructure: Are wespending too little to secure a sound economic future and quality of life?Needs and TradeoffsThe conventional approach to this question is sometimes referred to as “gap analysis.”It juxtaposes an assessment of infrastructure “needs” in a specific sector (an estimate of theamount we should be spending) with the levels we actually spend; unfunded needs constitutethe “funding gap.” Gap analysis often assumes (at least implicitly) that unfunded needsshould be met with public subsidies, which requires either raising taxes (and reducing privatespending) or shifting public expenditures away from some other sector. It tends to ignore, ordiscount, the tradeoffs involved in funding public investments.The problem arises from the way conventional exercises estimate needs. Putting a pricetag on public investment needs is, admittedly, less straightforward than for private sectorinvestments. For private goods, the market determines the level of output based on theinteraction between supply (the costs of production) and demand (how much people arewilling to pay). Market forces are of more limited use in determining the appropriate level ofpublic investments, because it is sometimes either impractical or socially undesirable to fullycharge each user for the level of services he or she enjoys. However, economic incentivesgenerally do matter. Conventional needs assessments have largely ignored market analysisand instead followed an engineering approach, gauging needs by matching a targeted percapita level of services to population projections.Approaches that do not incorporate economic incentives are likely to overstate the levelof “needs” in sectors where it would generally be appropriate for users to contribute directly tocosts of service. For instance, the volume of new water supplies to accommodate populationgrowth will be lower if we assume that market forces (higher prices) lead people to adopt-2-

conservation policies. Congestion on roadways will be lower (and hence the need for newlanes reduced) with tolls and other incentives to encourage commuters to carpool. Theoverstatement of needs can be reinforced by the nature of infrastructure finance. Ifimplementing agencies are competing for public funds, they may have incentives to inflatetheir requirements. (One reason is simply that from an agency’s point of view, more is better;another is that they may expect to receive only a share of their requests). The result is a “wishlist” of spending priorities that is considerably higher than what society might be willing topay for, given other demands on its resources.Over the past ten to 15 years, techniques incorporating willingness to pay have grownin importance. Such approaches, often labeled under the heading “demand management,”acknowledge that the demand for public services – and hence the need for public investments– can be altered by the incentives facing individuals. As shown in the examples noted above,the incentives can be based on pricing (e.g., higher water rates to encourage conservation) orother levers (e.g., granting high occupancy vehicles access to faster highway lanes). Theappropriateness of demand management techniques varies by sector, depending in part ontechnical feasibility (because introducing incentives may be costly) and in part on the broadersocial implications of increasing the costs for individual users. Political opposition can alsoblock greater reliance on user fees, even when they would be appropriate.In this report, we will refer to approaches incorporating user incentives, or demand, as“modern” approaches to infrastructure needs analysis. Modern approaches to infrastructureplanning also include supply-side innovations that reduce the cost of service provision orimprove capacity utilization (e.g., the use of electronic signals to relay drivers to less congestedroads). Supply-side innovations also include more systematic attention to maintenance, thelack of which can lead to shortened asset life and more expensive repairs. For instance, “lifecycle costing,” wherein budgets include the total costs of building, operating, and maintaininga capital asset over its useful life, can generate long-term cost savings and facilitate more stablerevenues for maintenance.4In recent years, there has also been greater attention devoted to achieving whateconomists call “economies of scope.” The idea here is that tackling multiple objectivessimultaneously can provide services at lower cost or generate a greater number of publicbenefits for a given cost. Some of these multipurpose, or “integrated” solutions are relativelynarrow in range – for instance, moving away from single-purpose school facilities to joint-usefacilities. In general, however, integrated approaches hinge on a more complex set ofinteractions, depending in part on the nature of land-use decisions. One common theme is thelink between transportation investments, environmental benefits (especially air quality andopen space), and the location of residential and business development. Such approaches aresometimes referred to under the rubric of “smart growth.” Another emerging theme is the linkbetween residential and commercial development, water supply, and water quality, under theheading “watershed management.” Because they involve alternative land-use scenarios,integrated approaches incorporate private investment decisions in a much more direct mannerthan the conventional sector-specific approaches.Life-cycle costing is discussed in Neuman and Whittington (2000); Dowall and Whittington (2003);California Performance Review Commission (2004).4-3-

In our evaluation of infrastructure needs and tradeoffs, we will highlight the extent towhich infrastructure planning has moved beyond the conventional approach toward thesemodern approaches, incorporating demand management, supply-side innovations, andeconomies of scope in service provision. This perspective allows us to go beyond the questionposed at the outset. Instead of asking only whether we are spending enough to secure a soundeconomic future and quality of life, we can also ask whether we are making the most of thepublic resources that are available.Sectors in the SpotlightWe address these issues by focusing on the three main areas in which California spendsits public investment dollars: education (K-12 and postsecondary), water (supply and quality),and transportation (roads and transit). Together, these sectors represent over 85 percent ofproposed state-level spending in the most recent five-year infrastructure plan (Table 1.1). Inrecent years, they have accounted for 60 percent combined state and local capital spending.Table 1.12003 Infrastructure Plan: Proposed State Spending, 2003-04 to 2007-08( billions)Program AreaBond Special Federal GeneralFunds Funds FundsFund Other Totals Per yearTransportation0.214.214.1——28.55.7K-12 schools10.4————10.42.08Higher education5.4————5.41.08Water supply and quality0.1——0.22.93.20.64Natural resources/environmental protection1.30.2—0.20.11.80.36Public 80.76Totals20.814.914.22.13.255.211.04SOURCE: California Department of Finance (2003a).Our focus on infrastructure needs and tradeoffs leads us to concentrate on capitalinvestments – the long-term spending necessary to build and renew capacity to provide publicservices. The sectors we will examine differ considerably in the role of capital versus operatingbudgets. In 2002, the ratio of capital to current expenditures was 88 percent for highwaysversus only 6 percent for higher education (Table 1.2). Whereas facilities are an importantissue for higher education, the challenges facing the system’s ability to deliver on its socialcontract over the years to come depend more critically on the availability of operating funds.Both the level and the flexibility of operating funds is, similarly, a fundamental issue for thefuture of California’s primary and secondary education system.-4-

Table 1.2Public Sector Capital Outlays, 2002CapitalSpending( millions)Higher education1,224Elementary & secondary education7,021Public welfare162Hospitals761Health165Highways a/5,379Police337Fire187Natural resources b/3,004Housing & communitydevelopment1,728Sewerage d/1,474Sanitation258Water supply d/2,525Electric power1224Gas supply10.271Transit1,346Other a/5,302TOTAL32,106SectorShare .010.090.050.050.010.080.0400.040.171.00Share ofCapital Non-capitalSpent at Spending ( Local Level 1913,012845,27680,325261,485Capital : de Alth and Rueben (2005) using Census of Governments data.NOTE: Spending is reported in current dollars.a/ Highways include all public roadways. “Other” includes public spending on airports and ports.b/ Natural resources includes some water-related activities (flood control and irrigation districts) aswell as resource conservation and parks.c/ Local spending share is the share of total capital spent by local governments and special districts,irrespective of the source of funding (i.e., it includes grants and transfers from state and federalauthorities).d/ Capital spending in these sectors is likely to be underreported, due to a change in reportingmethods for special districts (see de A

Sizing Up the Challenge: California's Infrastructure Needs and Tradeoffs Ellen Hanak Elisa Barbour June 2, 2005 The California 2025 project www.ca2025.org, conducted with support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, addresses issues that will affect the state of the State in 2025. The