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E-mail StoryMoney for our roads: Who should pay?
There are two choices: developers or taxpayers
| Saturday, Mar 3 2007 8:50 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Mar 3 2007 8:55 PM
There are only three ways for Bakersfield to avoid terminal gridlock:
1. Stop driving.
2. Raise more money for freeways.
3. Stop growing.
Few people in car-loving, anti-tax, pro-property-rights Bakersfield like any of those solutions.
Golden Empire Transit buses are the only mass transit system in Bakersfield.
But local residents who can afford a car have shown a distinct reluctance to take a GET bus.
There is little chance that a truly functional transit system can be built in this city.
"As long as the community continues to sprawl it becomes very difficult for public transportation to serve the community's mobility needs in an efficient manner," said GET Chief Executive Officer Chester Moland.
Former Kern County Supervisor Pauline Larwood put it a different way.
"You're not going to be able to do transit because we're too dang spread out," she said.
Moland said the city and county have decided what kind of city to build -- and that is not the kind of city that uses public transportation.
"The issue is not making transit better; the issue is making the land use better," he said. "That's where the problem is solved or created -- in the land-use decisions."
Conservative estimates of the cost to build an adequate freeway system in Bakersfield put the number at $2 billion.
But transportation officials are beginning to suspect that number may be much higher.
And right now Bakersfield transportation planners can only count on around $1.25 billion over the next 20 years to deal with the problem.
Bakersfield needs more road money. There are only two places to get it.
Either land developers will pay the money in higher-impact fees, or the taxpayer will pay.
"We either charge new development for the consequences of its actions or we bill the taxpayer," said Supervisor Mike Maggard. "Clearly it's not the responsibility of everyone to pick up the tab for benefits to a few."
Local voters have shown a distinct reluctance to tax themselves for transportation. Last year they rejected a half-cent sales tax for freeways that would have brought around $484 million to metropolitan Bakersfield.
But growth controls -- such as a no-build zone around the current city -- may be the only certain way to give Bakersfield time to raise money and build the freeways to serve the neighborhoods, shopping areas and office buildings that already exist.
Such government-heavy controls have always been rejected out-of-hand by the conservative politicians elected here in Kern County.
But now even conservative, pro-business politicians are beginning to acknowledge that growth controls might deserve some civic debate.
"We do have a problem. There's no question about that. It's a mess out there," said Republican Kern County Supervisor Ray Watson. "Eventually development is going to have to be curbed or we're going to have to find a solution to the problem."
The push to place some level of control on development has gone beyond rhetoric.
Last year Kern County approved a new sewer policy which requires developers of home lots smaller than six acres to connect to a sewer system.
The intent of the new rule was to keep development from sprawling beyond the existing network of sewer lines.
Land owners immediately challenged the law in court -- and lost.
The city of Bakersfield also has, unofficially, begun to demand developers pony money up for freeways.
Developer Castle & Cooke was asked -- and agreed -- to build two lanes of the proposed West Beltway through its huge West Ming development plan.
"They just made Castle & Cooke give the right of way and made them build two lanes of the freeway," said Bakersfield City Councilman David Couch.
Couch said he doesn't think of that as growth control. Instead, he says it's making Castle & Cooke pay for its traffic impacts.
"The future of the community depends on the decisions we make today, and we need to make a decision that makes sure the future isn't a mess," he said.
But there is still the present mess to be dealt with.