Meeting_Body
AD HOC CONGESTION REDUCTION COMMITTEE
NOVEMBER 18, 2015
Subject/Action
SUBJECT: EXPRESSLANES 2016 STATE LEGISLATIVE POLICY
ACTION: RECEIVE AND FILE
Heading
RECOMMENDATION
Title
RECEIVE AND FILE the ExpressLanes 2016 State Legislative Policy.
Issue
ISSUE
At the March 2015 Board meeting, Directors John Fasana and Mark-Ridley Thomas introduced a motion requesting that staff develop an overarching policy on HOV/HOT/ExpressLanes to guide the agency's position on proposed legislation (Attachment B). The ExpressLanes Legislative Policy as shown in Attachment A provides guidance to the Board on ExpressLanes for incorporation into the 2016 State legislative program, Board Item 43.
Discussion
DISCUSSION
The 2015 legislative agenda contained several proposed bills that had the potential to impact the agency's ability to effectively operate the current ExpressLanes as well as finance and implement additional High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) to High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane conversions. Each Bill was introduced independently making it difficult to determine the cumulative effect they could have had on ExpressLanes operations. These Bills included AB 210 (Gatto) which would have allowed HOV lanes on SR 134 and SR 210 to be used by all drivers during off-peak hours was vetoed by the Governor. AB 620 (Hernandez) would have allowed toll credits and reduced toll charges for both low and moderate income commuters and transit users and was made into a two-year Bill. SB 39 (Pavley) would have raised the cap on the number of green stickers issued to allow access to HOV lanes and reduced tolls as a single occupant vehicle but did not make it out of the Assembly.
While the authors of these bills were well-intentioned, a fragmentary approach that proposes changes to specific freeway corridors without assessing the impact of the proposed changes on a more comprehensive basis (including safety, congestion relief, operational effi...
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