After over two years of discussion, California legislators yesterday approved SB1 to invest in California’s transportation system. The bulk of the money in this bill is devoted to “fix it first” maintenance funding for existing county roads, city streets, state highways and bus transit. Pacific Grove stands to receive $351,000 in the first of 10 years.

It will also assure that regional funds in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) will grow with inflation, which will help “self-help” counties like Monterey match their locally raised funds for regional priority projects. Monterey County recently became a self-help county when voters approved Measure X, the Transportation Safety & Investment Plan on November 8, 2016.

Overall, this bill is estimated to provide over $21 million per year to Monterey County, more than a one for one matching of Measure X funding. Debbie Hale, the Executive Director of the Transportation Agency for Monterey County said, “This is exactly the type of leveraging we were looking for when our Agency began efforts to become a self-help county.  SB 1 provides a substantial down payment on the more than $1 billion dollars of unfunded transportation needs in Monterey County.  I want to thank our state legislative delegation – Senators Bill Monning, Anthony Cannella and Assemblymembers Mark Stone and Anna Caballero – all of whom made fixing roads a priority and voted in favor of SB1.”

SB1, the $52 billion state transportation bill authored by Senator Jim Beall, D‑Campbell, will raise money by increasing gas taxes and vehicle license fees over the next three years.  The package will also include a fee for electric vehicles, which are currently using the road system but not contributing through the gas tax.  Funding is expected to start flowing to the cities and counties in early 2018.

According to the Governor’s office, the chart below provides the preliminary estimates of new funding for Monterey County.