Transit Agencies Ask for Tax on State’s Drivers

In hopes of avoiding an estimated $4.1-billion deficit for transit agencies statewide, an association of transit operators is proposing an unprecedented user fee that would charge motorists for each mile they drive.

According to a report to be released today by the California Transit Assn., such a user fee would generate $516 million annually, money that the operators say is needed to pay the costs of complying with environmental and other regulations and to make up for revenues that have fallen because of the recession.

The association, which is made up of the state’s 80 largest transit agencies, said that for the average person driving 12,000 miles a year, the fee would be $24 a year, or one-fifth of a cent per mile traveled.

During a six-year period beginning in 1994, complying with the Clean Air Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act will cost transit agencies across the state about $1.5 billion, according to the report. In addition, as rail service increases, operating expenses climb. For the same period, to build and operate rail lines will cost $1.8 billion, but because of the recession, revenues for transit agencies have plummeted, the report said.

The combination of these factors--plus unfunded costs of operating existing services--adds up to a $4.1-billion operating deficit by the year 2000, according to the report. Unless officials devise a means of compensating agencies in two years, the funding crisis will cause transit agencies to substantially cut services, California Transit Assn. officials said.

“We have a decrease in resources as a result of the sales tax revenue being down 15% because of the recession, and we have increasing demands on the other end, from a service point of view,” said Edward Gerber, executive director of the association.

The user fee would be enforced during biennial smog checks. The fee would be in addition to the registration fees that drivers already pay to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Officials with the American Public Transit Assn. said they did not believe such a fee was in place elsewhere in the nation.

Implementing the fee would require approval of the Legislature and Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who has become increasingly reluctant to impose new taxes and fees.

Layna Browdy, spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California, said the group was not familiar with the proposal and would not be able to comment on it until officials had analyzed it.

Howard Good, chairman of the California Transit Assn. task force that oversaw the report, said the solution to transit agencies’ woes was to endorse the vehicle user fee, rather than scale back on costly rail projects.

Transit agencies must comply with the American Disabilities Act, which went into effect July, 1990, and requires facilities for the handicapped, and the Clean Air Act, which passed in 1973 and was revised in 1990. Between now and 1996, requirements become increasingly stringent and pose costs that some transit agencies did not include in their original calculations for projects.

The study, conducted over most of 1992, cost the California Transit Assn. $50,000.