Brown seeks joint effort to fix roads
By Rachel Swan and John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle
Filling car-shaking potholes and repairing crumbling highways and bridges shouldn’t be a partisan issue, Gov. Jerry Brown said.
Joined by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, Brown used a news conference last week at the Port of Oakland to urge the Legislature’s Republicans and Democrats to work together in a special session he called to find a long-term answer to California’s continuing lack of cash for highway and infrastructure repairs.
California’s current gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1994, brings in $2.3 billion a year for repair work, billions short of what state officials say is needed. Compounded over the years, that’s left tens of billions of dollars in deferred maintenance, Brown said.
The gap is only going to get worse. As fuel efficiency increases and more electric and hybrid cars hit the road, gas sales will drop and tax revenue will fall with them.