September 14, 2005

Construction Industry Advancement Fund and CDTOA

Dear Trustees and CDTOA EC:

Following are some of the major issues your Industry Transportation Consultant has been dealing with to date.

Continued progress was achieved concerning truck route restrictions, permits and we are implementing an aggressive strategy aimed at forwarding important transportation information to local government officials. Important issues we will cover include the continuing problems of new government regulations quickly developing and passing into ordinances at both the state and local levels.

The scope of the industry issue was recently revealed in some startling statistics we uncovered regarding transportation permits for the construction industry in California. According to Caltrans' figures more than 167,000 single trip permits, 5,545 variance permits and more than 14,947 annual permits were issued by the state alone. Multiply those state numbers by the 216 cities in just the 11-county Southern California area should provide you with some idea about the potential for regulatory complexity and expansionism our industry could face.


To combat this problem we are working on behalf of all supporting members on multiple levels, from the state legislature to local planning agencies. The following report will help clarify our successes and challenges.

New Legislation:
A key measure that we helped initiate, Assembly Concurrent Resolution (ACR 23) was approved by the Assembly and State Senate and has been chaptered (August 17th) by the Secretary of State. This measure was introduced by Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia (R - 80th District, Eastern Riverside and Imperial counties) after a meeting with industry members in her office in Cathedral City on December 16, 2004.

Industry members (and this is the important point, largely constituents of Assemblywoman Garcia) attending the meeting which included: Desert Contractors Association executive director, Aimee Shook, Ken Wood; Elms Equipment Rental Inc., Ken Phillips, DCA vice president, Mike Rover, Rover Law Firm; CDTOA executive director, Lee Brown and myself.

During the meeting we discussed a plan to help resolve the continuing problem of local communities posting "No Trucks" or restricted truck weight signs on primary truck routes. These signs and other unnecessary restrictions on trucking are making it impossible for the commercial transportation industry to serve its customers efficiently.

ACR 23 (in part) reads as follows:
ACR 23 Language: Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof concurring, the Legislature strongly urges regional transportation planning agencies, in consultation with the cities and counties of the State of California and the State's Department of Transportation, to examine the flow of traffic to develop commercial trucking routes that provide for the most direct movement through a city and county in order to reduce the time that trucks are inside city limits and county areas and the level of pollution that is created; and be it further:

Resolved, that the Legislature strongly urges cities and counties to incorporate this process as part of their revisions to their general and specific plans respectively.

Our next step is focused on forwarding this legislative intent message to regional transportation planning agencies, urging them to be proactive in encouraging localities to review their current master plans and incorporate "through" truck routes that will allow the shortest and quickest routes within and through their locality. Our Thomas Guide proposal is the simplest way to get this accomplished.

We need to communicate this message and its importance to the county boards of supervisors, city councils and their respective associations to make sure they are aware of this important opportunity to improve traffic flow in their jurisdictions.

SB 372 - Margett
There are numerous localities that view a transportation permit as a toll, not a fee for service as outlined by the vehicle code - "C.V.C. 35795 (b). The section states that, "a fee shall be calculated to produce a total estimated revenue that is not more than the estimated total cost incurred by the local authority in administering its authority under this article and shall not exceed the fee developed by the Department of Transportation."
Senator Margett, at the behest of SCCA, has asked the Attorney General's office to draft and publish a written legal opinion on whether or not cities can charge more than Caltrans for extra legal loads. We naturally believe they cannot. I forwarded the AG inquiry to all group members soliciting their opinions. CDTOA's counsel, Mark Hegarty drafted a response which we reviewed, circulated and mailed/e-mailed to the AG's office on September 1st. If you have not seen that memo, I will forward it to those that are interested and post it on our website. We did not receive any additional legal opinions from industry. We also submitted a support letter on behalf of the industry encouraging the Attorney General's office to address this issue by directing localities to invest in new technology available to automate their permit process and make it very clear to localities that excessive and unlawful charges for commerce are not acceptable. If the Attorney General publishes a favorable legal opinion, it is our intention to deliver a copy of it to every city in the state. In the meantime, we are holding SB 372 until the opinion is delivered.

Caltrans - New Chief, Division of Traffic Operations
We attended the Caltrans Transportation Permit Advisory Council (CTPAC) meeting on September 8, in Anaheim. Kris Balaji is the current Chief, Division of Traffic Operations. Mr. Balaji was recently promoted to head this department, he appear to want to project the same business-positive attitude as Governor Schwarzenegger and Director Will Kempton. The Governor and the Director are both looking for ways to make California business friendly. We met with Director Kempton and we were told that he wants to see Caltrans "look for ways to say Yes, rather than No." Mr. Balaji has the same philosophy and feels that if requests for change made by industry do not jeopardize the safety of the traveling public, cause damage to the infrastructure and cost to the state, that there should be consideration for change. This represents a major change in attitude in this important agency. Mr. Balaji stated that he's instructing Caltrans staff to be proactive on the proposals that industry submits. He appears to be very committed to giving our industry better customer service, starting from the issuance of permits.

Transportation Permit Management System (TPMS)
There has been a lengthy discussion regarding the new transportation permit application that is currently under development, the Transportation Permit Management System (TPMS). The Department has completed an independent verification and validation (IV&V) contract to provide an assessment of TPMS. The focus of the assessment was to address issues related to the vendor building the product. Caltrans is working to make sure we will be receiving the right business solution product for the job.
Alternatives have been under discussion and the department will make a recommendation on the course of action in mid-September 2005, as soon as the information is available to employees and industry representatives.

Caltrans-New Holiday Travel Hours:
Vehicles traveling on a state highway under a transportation permit, only when required to be escorted by a pilot car, are prohibited from travel.

This prohibition shall apply to the following Holidays:
New Year's Day (January 1st),
Washington's Birthday (3rd Monday in February),
Memorial Day (Last Monday in May),
Independence Day (4th of July),
Labor Day (1st Monday in September),
Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday in November),
Christmas Day (December 25th).

Holiday Travel Restriction Rule: From 4:00 PM to 12:00 AM (midnight) the day before the holiday and from 12:00 PM (noon) to 12:00 AM (midnight) on the holiday weekend.

Times when travel is allowed: Travel is authorized to 24/7 Policy, from 12:00am (midnight) or sunrise to 12:00 PM (noon) during any of the prohibited days or times. For additional details on Caltrans' explanation visit our website http.www.h-e-r-o.org.

Riverside County:
We recently attended the meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Riverside, Tuesday, August 23, 2005. On the agenda, the County was hearing the new Truck Parking Ordinance which adopted 4-0.

It was listed on the agenda as follows:
9.12 TRANSPORTATION & LAND MANAGEMENT AGENCY/TRANSPORTATION: Public Hearing on ADOPTION OF ORDINANCE NO, 413 Regulating Vehicle Parking. (3.44 of 8/9/05)

Riverside County adopted a ban on commercial vehicles parking overnight in residential areas which goes into effect September 24, 2005. An ordinance relating to on-site parking will be drafted by October 1, 2005. The county will be conducting a truck route pilot program in Supervisor Tavaglione's Second District. They are hoping to implement the pilot program by January 1, 2006.

The Director of Transportation George Johnson recommended the Board of Supervisors adopt the truck route proposal-use of primary roads as identified in the Thomas Guide map book for these routes.

City of La Quinta:
The City's Public Works Department, after years of effort, has begun to implement annual permits as of September 9, 2005. This represents a major savings to the industry for any locality to issue annual permits rather than suffer the inconvenience of having to obtain a single trip permit each time you need to move a piece of equipment. Our industry is known to make changes at any given moment and by having an annual permit, you are given options that you don't have with a single trip permit. The estimated savings from this improvement is a minimum of $20,000 per company according to industry members who have filed for the new permits.

San Bernardino - San Diego County Industry
Over-Dimensional Permit Policy meetings.
We recently completed two separate Over Dimensional Permit Policy meetings to advise the county and the cities of the new changes that have been implemented. We discussed Caltran's new policy changes, such as 24/7 travel and the proposals that are currently under review. We expressed the need for uniformity and streamlining the permit process, while educating localities of the needs of our industry.

The city and county representatives were very receptive to our needs and the meetings went very well for everyone. The meetings were very well attended by both localities and industry.

Haul Permits:
This has become a very costly issue to the construction industry and the consumer. For example, the City of San Jacinto recently required a contractor member to import material further than was necessary for project. The trucking firm, prior to the job, confirmed the shortest route for the contractor with the city official and quoted the contractor a price. The staff member who approved the route no longer works for the city, but he felt so strongly about this issue he submitted a letter explaining his reasoning and that he had approved the route as explained by the contractor. The Public Works Department and their outside consulting firm decided that the route that was agreed upon wasn't going to be approved whether there was a prior agreement or not.

This project consisted of 300,000 yards of import which was a cost to the developer and the consumer of an additional $285,000.
Respectfully submitted,

Gregory D. Dineen
Industry Transportation Consultant

Cc: John Hakel, AGC Jim Burton, SCCA
Gary Futral, ECA Seth Hammond, MCOG
Richard Lambros, BIA Lee Brown, CDTOA
Aimee Shook, DCA