Caltrans has sliced and diced cities with highways, dancing to the tune of segregationists who wanted to isolate and destroy communities of color so that they could ignore the existence of ‘those people’. Caltrans is not likely to be building any completely new highways in the future, though many in Caltrans would still like to. What they will be doing is continuing to widen existing highways, increasing motor vehicle capacity and inducing more driving. It seems that nothing will cure them of this, except disbanding of the agency and firing most of the highway engineers. So that is what I am proposing. In it’s place, there would be a Department of Highway Maintenance. The purpose would be to maintain our existing infrastructure, and I mean actually maintain, not just use safety and maintenance as a cover for widening. If bridges were replaced, they would be required to have the same or less motor vehicle capacity as before.
The department could do projects which remove motor vehicle capacity. This might include removing freeways completely, but with guidelines that prevent the design of ‘boulevards’ that are just as much traffic sewers as the freeways. It might include converting existing general purpose highway lanes to managed lanes, but would never include constructing new managed lanes. It might include projects which reduce on-ramps and off-ramps from two or more lanes to one lane, shortening the crosswalk distance over on-ramps and off-ramps, and creating right-angle on-ramps and off-ramps which slow motor vehicle drivers by design, and it might include narrowing freeway lanes and posting lower speed limits.
All designated state highways which are actually surface streets would be transferred to local transportation agencies, so the state highway system would shrink to actual freeways.
So what would happen to the funds that currently go to widening highways? I propose that one-third be given to local transportation agencies, on a competitive basis, for active transportation projects. All of this funding would go through the California State Transportation Agency; Caltrans would have nothing to do with it.
The other two-thirds would go for rail and transit. A Department of Rail and Transit would be created out of the existing Division of Rail and Mass Transportation. The purpose of this new department would be to purchase rail right-of-way, by condemnation if necessary, from the freight railroads, so that passenger rail may run in California without interference from the freights. It would also fund infrastructure and operations for rail and transit throughout the state. With the movement of funds from highway widening to rail, it should be possible to complete High Speed Rail on schedule, and to greatly enhance the operating frequency of the three regional rail services (Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins/Altamont Commuter Express (ACE), and Pacific Surfliner). Once higher frequency service and modern ticketing are in place, the regional rails would separate from Amtrak and be operated completely by the state. The state already owns the equipment. Though the agency could fund other transit, the emphasis would be on rail.
Getting Around Sacramento 