State Faces Cut of $650 Million for Freeways

California is facing a $650-million cutback in its freeway development program over the next five years, and the major casualty will be the planned high-speed transitway above and on Los Angeles’ Harbor Freeway, state transportation officials said.

Construction was to have started late next year on the $556-million busway extending from downtown Los Angeles to San Pedro, but it will be delayed at least until 1990-1991, because federal highway funds are not available. The unique transitway is one of several such Los Angeles area projects that use specially built freeway lanes for buses and car pools.

The Harbor Freeway bus and car-pool project accounts for nearly half the highway funds California is cutting from its five-year state transportation improvement program, because the state overestimated how much federal money would be made available.

The Legislature and state officials have known about the fund shortage since last July but have been at odds over its severity and how to handle it. Some legislative leaders are blaming the California Department of Transportation for the problem. They accuse the agency of “exaggerating” how much money was available, a charge Caltrans denies.

The 20-mile Harbor Freeway transitway, which is expected to link the Century Freeway transitway with other existing and developing transit facilities, is among 64 state highway projects listed as victims of the federal funding shortfall. All are listed as “candidates” for delays of up to five years or longer.

Included on the list are two major freeway widening projects:

- Three sections of the Santa Ana Freeway southeast of the San Gabriel River Freeway in Los Angeles and Orange counties. More than $13 million for right-of-way acquisition was in the five-year plan, but it will not be available until the early 1990s.

- A portion of the Ventura Freeway near the interchange with the San Diego Freeway, which will be delayed for up to two years. Caltrans recently identified this stretch of the Ventura and the interchange as the busiest roadways in the world.

Most of the projects, however, call for relatively small capital outlays. They range, for example, from a curve widening on California 1 in Mendocino County to rehabilitating a section of U.S. 101 west of Santa Barbara.

An Interstate 680 widening project east of San Francisco Bay and the Harbor Freeway transitway represent the bulk of the total cutbacks. The $350-million Interstate 680 project, designed to serve a rapidly growing region, has been proposed for a year’s delay. On the Harbor Freeway transitway, 11 separate jobs totaling $288 million would be delayed for five years.

A Caltrans budget expert said the idea was to temporarily delay the Harbor Freeway transitway and then to build it on a crash basis before 1992, when the federal interstate highway program is scheduled to end.

“When you’re short of bucks, you’ve got to look for something big to cut out,” he said.

Never Considered

Caltrans officials said they never considered proposing interruption of the $1.6-billion Century Freeway, a long-delayed project that includes a transitway. This is the biggest freeway project under way in the state.

“We’re not touching the Century Freeway,” the spokesman said. “Now that construction is under way, we want to keep it going.”

The Harbor Freeway transitway originally was envisioned as a $128-million concrete guideway extending about seven miles from the Santa Monica Freeway to the Century Freeway.

The concept has changed somewhat. The plan now is for a 20-mile transitway from downtown Los Angeles to San Pedro. From downtown to the Artesia Freeway it would be elevated on T-shaped piers. From the Artesia south, the transitway would be alongside the regular freeway lanes.

Caltrans transportation planners estimate that 95,000 bus riders and car poolers would use the transitway daily.

Under Study

While the California Transportation Commission has already adopted the state’s overall $12.7-billion, five-year highway program, the projects proposed for delay are still under study by various agencies and affected communities. The commission, which will make a final decision at its September meeting, is expected to go along with the cuts recommended by Caltrans.

State transportation officials pointed out that while the $650 million in cutbacks represents a sizable portion of the state’s annual $2-billion highway budget, its impact over five years is substantially softened. At the same time, they said, the figure could shoot up or drop dramatically, depending upon congressional actions, the economy and other factors.

Although some state legislators disagreed, the root of the funding problem, a commission spokesman said, centered around the state’s spending authority for federal highway funds.

Criticism Voiced

Some legislators have criticized the Deukmejian Administration for overestimating the amount of federal highway money that would be available to California.

A few days ago, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, attacked what he called the Deukmejian Administration’s highway fund “overprogramming” tactics.

“As a result of exaggerating the funding available, no new projects can be added until after 1991,” the assemblyman said in a memorandum to the Legislature. “By creating these illusions, public expectations that their streets and roads will be fixed or built are dashed.”

Some Administration critics also view the proposed highway cutbacks as a partial failure by the Administration to carry out its promise of an accelerated freeway-highway building program.

Brushed Aside

However, a Caltrans spokesman brushed aside the charges, noting that three times more money is being spent now on freeway construction than in the last year of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s Administration. At that time, he said, the construction budget was $325 million; now it is more than $1 billion, about half the total yearly outlay.

The spokesman, Gene Berthelsen, Caltrans chief of communications, also questioned Katz’s use of such words as “exaggerating” and “illusions.”

“ ‘Exaggerating’ is a loaded word,” he said. “Our forecast was higher last year, but now we’ve got new information. I don’t see how you can exaggerate a forecast.

“As for ‘illusions,’ it’s true that some projects are going to be delayed, but one could hardly call between $7 billion and $8 billion (the amount of construction in the five-year program) an illusion.”