So Many Cars, So Little Money

California’s spending on its crowded, crumbling highway system falls far short of drivers’ needs.

Every dime of California’s $116-billion plan to shore up levees, schools and other eroding facilities could be spent on the state’s overtaxed transportation system.

And it still wouldn’t be enough.

California’s highways, the system’s most costly feature by far, were once the nation’s gold standard. But as the interstate highway network celebrates its 50th anniversary and the summer driving season accelerates, the state is known for something else: some of the busiest, most dilapidated and under-financed roads in the country.

Over the last several years, money for highway projects has virtually disappeared, the victim of budget crises, stagnant federal funding and a gas tax that has not been raised in a decade.

LA Times