The Bay Area will receive about $250 million per year for road and bridge repairs from the bipartisan infrastructure package federal legislators are currently considering, a Metropolitan Transportation Commission executive said Thursday.
The $1 trillion infrastructure bill includes roughly $330 billion in new transportation spending that will be dispersed across the country, about $1.3 billion of which is expected to go to California.
About half of the new spending is earmarked for “bread and butter” surface transportation needs, MTC associate manager for government affairs Georgia Gann Dohrmann said during a virtual discussion on the bill hosted by the Bay Area Council.
“That’s the type of money that we use in California to fill potholes, to replace buses, some of the things that aren’t super sexy but are also really critical if we’re going to be able to have any type of mobility and goods-movement stuff in place,” she said.
The state currently collects roughly $5 billion per year for infrastructure improvements from gas taxes, which were increased by 2017’s Senate Bill 1.
Dohrmann argued that while California will receive less new federal spending annually than it collects via SB 1, the more road maintenance funding the federal government supplies will make it easier for the state to take on new projects rather than just keeping up with the demand for repairs.
In the Bay Area, much of the funding from the bill — which the U.S. Senate approved 69-30 more than a week ago and is now being considered by the House of Representatives — will go toward replacing dilapidated buses and rail cars.
“There’s also going to be some more resources that MTC receives and flexible highway money that we’d be able to use to really do the things we’ve done for a long time like incentivize folks to make progress on big Bay Area priorities like getting more housing on the ground,” Dohrmann said.
The state is also in line to receive roughly $1 billion over five years from the bill for climate change resilience, including projects intended to protect low-lying coastal areas from sea level rise.
The Bay Area alone has a $19 billion need for resilience projects, but funding from the federal infrastructure bill will represent a dedicated stream of spending on resilience projects for the first time, according to Dohrmann.
California will also be eligible for federal grant programs focused on climate change mitigation projects, said Zac Commins, a policy advisor to Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California.
“There’s going to be a lot of discretionary grant programs, particularly in the resiliency climate equity space, that we hope that California and the Bay Area will compete quite well for given all the needs” that the region has, Commins said.
The bill also includes funding for airports as well as other non-transportation needs like energy grid improvements, drinking water safety and the expansion of broadband internet.
San Francisco International Airport is expected to receive roughly $250 million in funding, Commins said, while Mineta San Jose International Airport and Oakland International Airport will each receive roughly $80 million.
The state is also anticipated to receive roughly $1.8 billion for drinking water safety projects, at least $100 million to expand broadband internet coverage and $24 million for water quality and ecosystem improvements and protection in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Delta.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said in recent months that the House will not take up a vote on the bipartisan deal until the chamber also passes a so-called “human infrastructure” package that the Senate approved via budget reconciliation, an arcane process that allowed Senate Democrats to approve the funding package in a 50-50 partisan vote.
The $3.5 trillion reconciliation plan is focused on expanding spending for progressive priorities like child care programs and Medicare, a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally and additional spending to combat climate change.
Members of the House are scheduled to return early from their August recess next week to consider both infrastructure bills.
I’ve read the first sentence
“The Bay Area will receive about $250 million per year for road and bridge repairs from the bipartisan infrastructure package…”
and pinched myself thinking that I must be dreaming. How can our intrepid MTC let so much money go to such waste?
But further down the article said:
“In the Bay Area, much of the funding from the bill… will go toward replacing dilapidated buses and rail cars”.
I immediately felt relief – that’s more like it! Of course this money will be poured into that bottomless barrel called BART. In the era of bold moves to combat climate change, who needs roads and bridges?
And then it got even better – “There’s going to be a lot of discretionary grant programs, particularly in the resiliency climate equity space…”
Now, that’s exactly what makes me so proud of California! Who else can come up with such word salad as “resiliency climate equity space” and get a quarter billion dollars to spend on it?
/sarcasm alert/
Biden’s Afghanistan disaster points to why there is cause to be concerned about this bill — or any other bills that the Biden administration tries to pass.
Why are the Brits and French parachuting troops into Kabul to rescue their citizens, while the U.S. is telling stranded Americans to fend for themselves?
Could it be that the Democrats are so corrupt and so obsessed with obtaining power, that they view their own citizens as an inconvenient afterthought?
From American Thinker: ‘Biden’s Surrender Presidency’:
https://bit.ly/3z4bh7X
$250M?
Once everyone takes their cut there won’t be a penny left for any work.
We’ll all have to pay more taxes to get less work done.
The corruption in this communist state is rampant.
@cellophane
And even if there is it will be labled surplus cash and diverted to ‘social programs’.
Where’s that dude that’s always on here saying “fix our roads”?
Atticus is currently out on assignment.
Your “fix our roads” message counts too.
Thanks for carrying the torch.
Sooooo
Where is all the bridge toll money
And measure q tax hike as well as gas tax and second gas tax money
Plus the supposed surplus that the newscum boasted
As well as the pge package for the fire victims of paradise
Or was the bait and switch the plan all along
Seems way more money then we have ever seen is being thrown around like cake at a food fight
We skipped over billionaires and in one year now have multiple trillion Aires
While bums and criminals roam the streets pillaging
Stop the mail ballots and vote in person
Recall for freedom
Or be toads in a corrupt swamp
The fool is only a fool
when the one calling them so
Is manipulating them
that’s all we get from the $3.5T green new deal, what a rip off.
No money for a few desalination plants. We would rather have a water shortage.
Money is fungible. It will be diverted for garbage and consultants.
What do you bet is somehow gets diverted to homeless programs, support and free medical care for illegal people, and LBGTQ stuff. Roads and bridges will never be fixed.
That’s right. But that’s the only way a trillion dollar bill gets passed.
free money for broken people, who will regret what they do to their bodies and some very sadly will end their lives.
Well Done Democrats!
#RecallGavinNewsom
Get ready for mass inflation. His Fraudulency Joe Biden and his merry band of socialists will never stop spending.
Hopefully, this bill won’t pass. $1 trillion, let alone $3.5 trillion in tax payer money does not need to be wasted. This government no longer represents we citizens. They spend tax payer money like it is not theirs (because it isn’t, they have no “skin in the game” to quote an idolized Marxist), and it is not specific to one party. More representatives of we the taxpayer needs to step up and actually represent us.
people need to contact their representatives, likely in kalifornia it won’t matter, brain dead lefties, but other states might be able to make a difference
#RecallGavinNewsom
The Democrats are masters of buying votes by pandering
to voters and potential future voters. They use our tax
dollars for their giveaways to get a vote. Money for-
“A pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the
country illegally”. More future votes bought and paid
for at our expense. How sweet is it to buy votes using
our money. You can’t say they don’t have a plan.
Ok. Let’s start by fixing Bailey Rd entirely ASAP (snapping fingers)
One of the main problems we have had the past 30+ years is water conservation. California has been prone to droughts since California has been on this planet. Why have our leaders not focused on more reservoirs or desalinization plants?
No… I guess it’s more important to build more houses with solar panels….
And new ones without natural gas.
‘leaders’ …. LOL
… so our taxes, gas taxes, etc were to pay for road repair, maintenance, etc.. that $$ was siphoned off to the general fund to pay for pet projects primarily directed by the Governor, – now we’re get $$ for just that and will have to pay for that and interest over the next 30+ yrs…. can we get some decent leadership please? 🙁
when they own the media
they can release water from dams and we will never know
they can start fires and we will never know
they can support pge and we will never know
they can bring in millions of illegals and we will never know
the media is the one cog in the dem wheel that without it they would fall
their corruption would be outed
but with dem agenda heads at the forefront of media blacking out journalists
this is what you get
with teachers full blown demmentia
ranting to our children about how only one party
well our children get indoctrinated
Great can we eliminate the gas tax we are paying for the same repairs?
That money will drop right into the black hole and not a penny will go to roads and bridges.
“Resiliency climate equity space” = Black Hole
We’ve seen this shell game how many times before? I would love to force BART to disclose the actual cost of a trip from, say, Concord to San Francisco. All of those bonds, grants and diversion of funds adds up. I will not hold my breath waiting for an answer.
I’ll believe it when I see it, or should I say, feel it as i drive along the roads.
“The state is also in line to receive roughly $1 billion over five years from the bill for climate change resilience, including projects intended to protect low-lying coastal areas from sea level rise.”
This is a giveaway to wealthy democrat donors to ensure their Malibu beach homes don’t wash away during the next big storm.