The biennial report on the condition of California’s local
streets and roads will be published on Tuesday of next week and
is expected to show a continuing decline in the condition of our
local transportation network. The report is a product of a
partnership between CSAC, the League of California Cities, the
County Engineer’s Association of California and Regional
Transportation Planning Agencies. It is designed to track the
condition of local streets and roads in every city and county in
the state. The 2014 report showed the overall Pavement Condition
Index (PCI) at 66 out of one hundred—or at risk.
The 2016 Report will be posted to the Save California
Streets website. While the results of that study are not yet
public, we know that California has continued to deal with a
growing shortfall of funding to maintain local streets, roads and
bridges. The main source of revenues for this purpose, the
gasoline tax, has not been increased since 1994. Other revenue
sources that are indexed to gasoline prices have actually
declined. Inflation has further eroded the buying power of the
existing dollars and the result is crumbling pavement and a
backlog of deferred maintenance.
“We have been telling this story for several years now,” said
Kiana Valentine, CSAC’s Legislative Representative for
transportation issues. “We hope that our members will use the
information in the new report to urge their state legislators to
pass a package of funding and reforms needed to fix our streets
and roads and bring them into better condition. The longer it
takes to start fixing them, the more they deteriorate.” Valentine
notes that the special legislative session on transportation
issues remains in effect through the end of November.
