Urban Highway Congestion Has Accelerated in Recent Years
Vehicle hours of delay on
urban freeways more than doubled from approximately 247,000 hours
per day in 1990 to about 530,000 hours per day in 2000.
In 2000, approximately 47 percent of the state's urban
freeways (about 1,846 miles) were congested—up from 33
percent (about 1,027 miles) in 1990. Congestion occurs when
vehicles are traveling on freeways at 35 mph or less during peak commute periods on a
typical weekday.
Caltrans estimates that for 2000, congestion on urban
highways cost Californians $12.8 million per day (or about $4.7 billion
per year) in time and fuel. This delay also resulted in an estimated
530 additional tons of emissions per day.
Multiple Taxes Are Collected At the Pump
About 50 cents of the retail
price of each gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel sold in California
is taxes.
Californians pay the following taxes at the pump:
18 cents in state "gas" tax for
each gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel.
18.4 cents in federal tax for each gallon of gasoline and 24.4
cents for each gallon of diesel fuel.
7 percent minimum state and local
sales tax, plus optional local sales taxes for transportation
or other purposes varying by county. Beginning in 2003-04, most
of the state sales tax proceeds will be dedicated to
transportation purposes.
State Transportation Funding
Comes Primarily From Fuel Taxes . . .
. . . And Is Spent Primarily on
Highway Transportation
Californians Are Somewhat Less Likely to Drive to Work Alone
In the Los Angeles
Metropolitan Area and statewide, 72 percent of workers drove alone to work
in 2000, while in the San Francisco Bay Area, 68 percent of
workers drove alone to work. In comparison,
nationwide 76 percent of workers drove alone to work in 2000.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, 9.5 percent of workers used
transit to get to work in 2000, while only 5 percent did so in the Los
Angeles area and statewide. Nationwide, 5 percent of workers relied
on transit as their primary mode of transportation to work.
Carpooling is somewhat more common in the Los Angeles
area where 15 percent of workers shared a ride to work compared
to 13 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area, 14.5 percent
statewide, and 12 percent
nationwide.
Most Transit Riders Take the Bus and
Rail Ridership Is Increasing
In 1999-00, about
1.3 billion passengers used public transportation in the state.
Over three-quarters (76 percent) of these passengers used buses
while the remainder used urban and commuter rail services.
Between 1990-91 and 1999-00, total public
transportation ridership grew by 10 percent.
This growth occurred mainly on urban and commuter rail. Due in part
to new systems that came on line, total passengers on these
rail services grew by about 34 percent. Over the same
period, bus passengers grew by about 4 percent.
