INFRASTRUCTURE
Transportation
Roads
Both the state’s growing population and its barriers to roadway development result in California having three metropolitan areas - Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego - that rank among the nation’s ten most congested areas. Growing areas in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire are also becoming more congested, as they are the fastest growing areas in the state. Other barriers include the challenge of regional coordination and planning, the increasing trend of long distance work commuting, roadway operation during major construction projects, and local and environmental permitting issues.
Over the past several decades, travel on the state highway system has changed dramatically:
- Total registered vehicles increased from approximately 9 million in 1960 to over 30 million in 2005.
- Vehicle miles traveled annually grew from 33.3 billion in 1960 to 183.7 billion today.
- The cost of building highway miles during the 1990s was three times higher than in the 1960s, even after adjusting for inflation, because the costs of land and material have risen faster than others. The Department of Finance reports that maintenance and other operating costs now consume much more of the transportation budget.
Road Congestion
- California has the nation’s most congested freeways, at a rate of 59% of urban highways.
- Five California urban areas rank in the top 15 most congested in the nation: Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, San Diego, San Bernardino-Riverside and Sacramento. San Jose and Oxnard-Ventura are in the top 30.
- California’s busy urban roadways carry 2.6 million vehicles per mile annually.
- California motorists suffer crushing delays due to congestion, with commuters in Los Angeles wasting 93 hours per driver per year.
- Caltrans expects a 35 percent increase in congestion over the next ten years.
- 70 percent of California travel is on major roads and highways.
Poor Road Conditions
- More than 70 percent of California’s major local and state road miles are rated in poor or mediocre condition and 28 percent of the state’s overpasses and bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
- The average urban motorist in the U.S. is paying $401 annually in additional vehicle operating costs as a result of driving on roads in need of repair, but in California drivers pay $555 annually. Drivers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles paid the most: $689 and $671, respectively.
- California motorists pay a total of $12 billion annually in extra vehicle operating costs (e.g., pothole damage to tires and rims, front end alignments, lost hubcaps, wasted fuel, shortened vehicle lifespan).