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2012 Symposium Program & Presentations

Overview

All levels of government in the U.S. are at fiscal crossroads, and the public finance of our transportation and land use systems is no exception.  Population and travel continue to grow, albeit more slowly in recent years, but mainstay sources of revenues, from property taxes, motor fuels taxes, and the like, have been lagging needs for years.  New revenue sources, like special assessments and local option transportation sales taxes, have increasingly, but only partially, filled the widening gap.  Calls on limited property taxes – for fire and police, schools, streets and roads, and so on – have never been greater, and projections show that fuel tax rates might need to be tripled to catch up with growing needs just to maintain crumbling street, highway, and public transit systems.  Despite pressing needs, increasing property taxes in California remains beyond the political pale, and there is, if anything, declining political will to raise fuel tax rates at either the federal or state levels.  Instead, we have turned more and more to local transportation sales taxes, bonds, public-private partnerships, tolls, fees, and special assessments in what is becoming an increasingly ad hoc – and inadequate – system of sidewalk, street, road, highway, and transit finance. 

Given the unprecedented scale and the urgency of the infrastructure funding crisis, particularly in transportation, the 2012 UCLA Lake Arrowhead Transportation – Land Use – Environment Symposium addressed the following questions:

• How are our systems of sidewalk, street, road, highway, and transit finance changing before our very eyes?
• How might the federal and state roles change further in the coming decade?  How are the enormous pressures on local government finance affecting local transportation investment choices?
• What new sources of revenues have been picking up the slack, where (levels of governments and transportation sectors) are the looming shortfalls the greatest?
• What are the most promising options and strategies for addressing public finance shortfalls in transportation at different levels of government – in the near-term and in the long-term?
• What are the pros and cons of various options and strategies, and which are most suited to meeting our future needs?  How do we make trade-offs between these options, considering issues such as efficiency and equity, growth and sustainability, and changing travel behaviors?
• How do voters view transportation finance alternatives, and how can these views help shape politically effective finance strategies and programs?  What innovative strategies and tactics are on the horizon for paying for our transportation systems vis-à-vis building consensus in an era of political impasse?
• When do environmental and behavioral programs become revenue sources and vice versa?
• How much should the public sector invest in sidewalk, street, road, highway, and transit?  What do we really know about the long-term costs of under- or over-investment?