Potholes, crumbling roadways, pedestrian and bicycle safety measures – all of these and more will suffer if this proposition, placed on the ballot to repeal a law passed a two-thirds majority in both the California Senate and Assembly.
The Road Repair and Accountability Act (RRAA) law was passed April 6, 2017, to improve California’s crumbling infrastructure and fund road safety improvements.
1,600 of our bridges and overpasses are structurally deficient and unsafe. Six of the nation’s top 50 most dangerous highways are in California, and 89 percent of California counties have roads that are in “poor” or “at-risk” condition.
Prop. 6 threatens economic growth, thousands of jobs, public transit systems, bicycle and pedestrian safety.
If it passes, Prop 6 will cancel $5.2 billion in funding for transportation projects—including thousands of projects already underway.
Who is against Prop. 6? California Professional Firefighters, California Association of Highway Patrolmen, American Society of Civil Engineers, The California Bicycle Coalition, even the California Chamber of Commerce.
With both Democratic and Republican lawmakers having supported the law, who wants it repealed, and why?
It turns out that although enough Republican lawmakers supported the Road Repair and Accountability Act to provide the two-thirds majority required to raise revenues, the Republicans who did not support raising revenue to repair California’s infrastructure and improve safety, along with Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox, spent $1.7 million to place the repeal on the ballot, hoping to mobilize anti-tax conservatives, but also to mislead people by focusing on the marginally higher gas cost, but failing to reflect on how much needless property damage, injuries and deaths will be avoided with improved roads, bridges and bicycle/pedestrian safety.
The Los Angeles Times editorial board calls Prop. 6 “a ballot measure only a pothole could love.”
As a parent, as a bicyclist, as a business-owner and as a concerned citizen, I am voting NO on Prop. 6.