(The Center Square) – A California bill that has passed the State Assembly and now faces the Senate Appropriations Committee would codify an executive order requiring California Department of Transportation projects to aim to reduce vehicle miles traveled, or at least not contribute significantly to VMT growth. Because the vehicle miles traveled and other components of the state’s Climate Action Plan for Transportation that the bill, AB 7, would codify are part of an existing, but flexible executive order, critics worry that codifying the rules – which Governor Newsom has previously rejected – would remove flexibility CalTrans needs to maintain and sustain existing and future transportation infrastructure.
Additional action plan principles that would be codified under the bill would include building an integrated statewide rail and transit network, improving bike and pedestrian infrastructure, infill development to increase the population density required for improved public transportation viability, and protecting natural and working lands from conversion to more intensified uses.
AB 7 and its predecessor that was vetoed by Newsom, AB 2438, in 2022, were both introduced by Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D–Burbank). In his veto statement, Newsom said, “Work is well under way at the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the California Transportation Commission to align funding programs in the bill with CAPTI, with several actions already completed.”
State Senator Roger Niello (R–Fair Oaks), who voted against the bill in the California Senate Transportation Committee, focused his concerns on the lack of flexibility the bill would force on CalTrans by countermanding the voter-approved gas tax increases in 2017’s SB-1 to fix roads.
“To complicate [fixing roads] with all of those other considerations complicates the otherwise simple job of just repaving roads and fixing potholes,” said Niello in an interview with The Center Square. “In particular, one of the provisions of CAPTI is that projects should generally aim to reduce vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, or at least not contribute to their growth. The whole point of fixing roads is to make it easier to drive on the roads we already have”
Speaking more broadly on the Climate Action Plan and the bill, Niello remarked, “If the executive order goes into the law it cannot change it becomes rigid. I have concerns about CAPTI itself but to codify it is unacceptable. The governor vetoed a similar bill last year with the reason being exactly that. He issued the order CalTrans came up with and he didn’t think it should be put into statute.”
Already passed by the Assembly, AB 7 now faces the Senate Appropriations Committee. Should the bill pass Appropriations, it would then face the Senate, after which it would again make its way to the governor’s desk.
