The Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act of 2006, which was approved by California voters as Proposition 1B on November 7, 2006, allows for $2 billion to be spent in various sectors of the transportation in California. I recently read an article online about this act and how the deadline for construction to start on a group of projects associated with this act is approaching fast. Through this act the Trade Corridors Improvement Fund has a set a number of over or underpass projects in Riverside and San Bernadino County's, an area known as Inland that have yet to be started. These over/underpasses are located in a heavy transit area where traffic is stopped on major roads every time trains cross the roads.
The theory behind these renovations is that when there are less rail road crossings in populated areas, then traffic is decreased due to less stoppages and dangerous emissions will decrease because less trucks and cars will be idling while waiting. These changes can also decrease the delivery time goods because of this decrease in road traffic.
The only issue is that 14 of these projects have yet to start and if they do not start by the end of 2013 they lose their funding. If these jobs are not started, $114.5 million in state bond funds to help build an estimated $535.6 million worth of rail road grade separations. The reason these jobs have not gone through is that there is still an issue finding the funding for these projects.
This can seem very confusing to me, and I am sure it can be confusing to others as well since this funding is supposedly already guaranteed from the bonds. This is what I think is a major part of the problem that we are having in this country. This country needs trillions of dollars of improvements in its infrastructure and could also use the economic boost that would go along with it and there is always an issue with where the money comes from. I understand that money does not grow on trees, but I think that the system becomes messy and complicated when acts are passed that do not already have the money in place for them.
The good news behind this is that when these 14 projects are put in place the Public Works Department will not be able to handle all the work and will need to sub-contract out the work to other companies, thus adding more work to the area.
For further reading please read this article:
or the web page for the Trade Corridor Improvement Fund:
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