Between Two Shovels with Derek Minnema
Between Two Shovels Ep.28: Kiana Valentine - California's $200 Billion Transportation Funding Crisis
Kiana Valentine is Executive Director of Transportation California, a labor and management coalition founded in the 1990s that brings together building trades organizations, heavy civil contractors, equipment providers, and material suppliers around one mission: securing sustainable funding for the state's multimodal transportation system. She has spent more than twenty years in transportation policy, starting in the California State Legislature on environmental policy, then at the California State Association of Counties working land use and transportation on behalf of all 58 counties. Her organization commissioned the independent study that narrowed more than thirty gas tax replacement options down to three viable paths.In this episode of Between Two Shovels, we sit down with Kiana for a direct conversation about how California pays for its roads and why that model is running out. The shortfall exceeding $200 billion over the next ten years. Why SB1 generated $54 billion and still did not close the gap. How improved fuel efficiency became a funding problem without becoming a policy failure. Why zero emission vehicles paying a fraction into the system is a fairness question rather than an argument against them. The three paths forward, and why the one that sounded simplest turned out to be the hardest to implement. What suspending the gas tax would actually save a driver. How SB 743 made the Golden 1 Center possible. Why State Route 99 still drops from three lanes to two roughly eight times across the corridor. And how a Southern California managed lane project ended up with a mitigation bill larger than the project itself, without adding an inch of new pavement.Chapters : 00:00 Introduction 00:47 Transportation California: a labor and management coalition 02:00 Environmental policy, land use, and how the two connect 04:00 The shortfall, and how California got here 04:45 SB1 and the question of what it actually solved 06:52 Better mileage, smaller funding base 08:28 Electric vehicle adoption and the fairness question 13:00 Thirty options narrowed to seven 15:02 Taxing electricity and hydrogen 15:52 Replacing the gas tax with a road user charge 16:30 The mixed model 18:00 Why a kilowatt hour tax is harder than it sounds 20:32 Suspending the gas tax, and what drivers would actually save 22:49 Jobs, projects, and deferred maintenance 24:13 Vehicle miles traveled 25:32 SB 743, CEQA, and the Golden 1 Center 28:00 State Route 99 and the lane drops 29:16 When mitigation costs more than the project 32:30 What California has to get right nextHear from government/public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision-makers, development managers, & more that are shaping our industry.Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and Subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at : https://www.connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovelsBetween Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.
