December 2007

Executive Summary

We work in the most regulated industry in the most regulated state in the union. This report looks at the following changes in the ever-shifting regulatory scene:

• City of Yorba Linda-Requiring Permits for legal construction vehicles; lack of truck routes.
  
• City of Lake Forest – Aggressively citing for no permits – 2 citation with $62,000 in fines
  
• City of Los Angeles - Ad-Hoc Committee met to discuss transportation and road closure issues.
  
• City of Monterey Park – Lowered Permit Fees, Faxing Permits
  
• City of San Diego - Requiring copy of Caltrans permit prior to issuing city permit
  
• City of Richmond – Requested meeting with Public Works Director
  
• County of Ventura – Transportation permit requirements
  
• City of Port Hueneme & Oxnard Truck Traffic Study – Industry requested to participate
  
• Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) – This doesn’t apply to intrastate haulers
  
  

City of Lake Forest – Annual Permit, Hours of Travel

We recently had a couple of members who have been stopped and were cited for not having a Lake Forest Transportation Permit in their possession. The city doesn’t currently issue annual permits so all permit are issued on a single trip basis. The city also makes it very difficult to work with the heavily restricted hours of travel restrictions, which only allow travel from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., no nights or weekends. We are working at trying to change this.

City of Los Angeles - Ad-Hoc Transportation Workgroup November 13th

This was our first Ad-Hoc Transportation Workgroup meeting, conducted with the assistance of Jim Gibson, Executive Officer for the Board of Public Works, and Gary Harris, Chief of Street Services, Suzanne Scheideker-Cook and Industry. Industry representatives in attendance were Jurgen Stehnike of Homer Mann Trucking, Mike Konle of Champion Crane, Wayne Teece of Dispatch Trucking, Rick Hill of All Cal Permits and Greg Dineen & Associates.

The rules are getting more and more difficult and that we have to start addressing these issues at the start of a project. This is an opportunity to be part of the change process. Here are some of this issues that were discussed:

Construction related issues

1. Truck Haul Routes - Restrictions
   
2. Hours of Travel (import/export dirt) - Restrictions
   
3. Facilitate Street Use Permits – Delays and increased costs
   
4. Review the Condition of Approval

Construction Transportation Permits related issues

1. 75 ton rule - sending all permits exceeding 75 tons to Engineering for approval
   
2. Protocol for changing permit requirements that affect Industry
   
3. 24/7 contact to cancel Inspectors for better customer service
   
4. Council File # 03-1449 - Ordinance change update, 24/7 travel, 10’ wide curfew travel and Annual permits valid 1 year from date issuance
   
5. Insurance requirements exceed CVC 35782 (3) (b) requirements

The city has agreed to bring back responses for the January meeting.

City of Monterey Park – Permit Fees & Faxing

We notified the city there was a misunderstanding regarding the current amount that is being charged for transportation permits. The city agreed to lower their fees from $86 to $16 as per the Vehicle Code. We have also requested that permits be issued via FAX.

City of Richmond – Requests meeting to discuss to finalized Annual Permits program

The City of Richmond has been meeting internally and the Public Works Director has requested that we meet with him and staff. We anticipate that our request that the city will adopt this program by the end of the year.

City of San Diego – Require a copy of Caltrans Permit prior to issuance of City Permit

We were contacted by several members with new policy changes regarding issuance of single trip permits. The city is requiring industry to supply a copy of their Caltrans Permit prior to issuance of a city permit. This is just the beginning of a growing problem. As we explained to the city, if every locality required a copy of a Caltrans or other jurisdiction’s permit, our industry would be at a standstill waiting on copies of permits. To make matters worse, when traveling under a Caltrans Annual Permit the City wouldn’t accept the annual as a valid permit and was requiring our members to obtain a separate Caltrans single trip permit. We did get the City to accept the Annual Permit, but we are stilling working on the other issues.

County of Ventura – Annual Permits, Insurance, Pilot Car & CHP requirements and On Line Permitting

We met with the county November 16th to discuss changes regarding Transportation Permit requirements.

We requested the following changes:

1. An increase in width from 12’ to 14’6”*
   
2. Multi-Trailer Annuals
   
3. ncrease 75’ rule to 110’ and Rear Steer Trailers be permitted to 125’
   
4. Annual issued to the company
   
5. Route Survey to be increased to 17’
   
6. Adopt the Industry Pilot Car requirements
   
7. Review excessive Insurance requirements
   
8. Reduce CHP requirements, due to lack of.

*CHP is currently required for loads exceeding 15’ in wide, 17’ in high and 135’ in length. The county is hoping to be issuing permits on line in the near future. The county has agreed to review our request and get back with us.

City of Port Hueneme & Oxnard Truck Traffic Study –
Industry requested to participate

We have been requested to participate in the Technical Advisory Committee for Port Hueneme and Oxnard Truck Traffic Study. The study will look at truck routes in both cities with particular attention to Ventura Road and Channel Islands Boulevard.

Andres Santamaria, Public Works Director for City of Port Hueneme; Jason Samonte, Traffic Engineer for the City of Oxnard; Vin Kumar, Caltrans; Kerry Forsythe, Ventura County Transportation Commission; Joe Culhane, US Navy; Anthony Taormina, Oxnard Harbor District; Akiko Yamagami, Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) Regional Planner; Mike Jones (SCAG) and Greg Dineen & Associates will be the participants in the study.

We have been working with the City of Port Hueneme, Oxnard and the Ventura County for the past several years working on opening up through routes to and from the port for Industry. We feel this will be very beneficial for everyone.

Unified Carrier Registration (UCR)
It Doesn’t apply to intrastate haulers

We received several calls from members who received notices from the Department of Motor Vehicles informing them of the new UCR registration program. We have explained that this program only affects Interstate trucking members. We have members that do operate out of state and only those vehicles that operate Interstate will be subject to the UCR.

The Reason for the Change
The Single State Registration System (SSRS) imposed on interstate regulated motor carriers was repealed by Congress at the beginning of 2007. There will be no SSRS program in 2007 or in future years.

Instead, all interstate motor carriers - regulated, exempt and private as well as interstate brokers, freight forwarders and leasing companies, are subject to fees under a new system, the Unified Carrier Registration Agreement, or UCRA, enacted by Congress and administered by states. States will shortly begin to require interstate carriers and others to register for the UCRA program and to pay the new fees imposed under this program.

Like SSRS, UCRA Is a Base-State Program. That is, a motor carrier or other business subject to UCRA will register with and pay fees to its base state only, on behalf of all the other UCRA participating states.

The notice that carriers will be receiving from the states will include instructions on which state is a carrier’s base state. In most cases, a regulated carrier’s UCRA base state will be the same state as its SSRS base state has been.

Carriers located in other states, or in Canada or Mexico, will have to choose one of these states to serve as their UCRA base state. California does not have the statutory authority to participate in UCRA in 2007; however the Governor recently signed legislation that will allow California to participate in 2008.

How Are the UCRA Fees Computed?
Unlike SSRS fees, UCRA fees are not per-vehicle fees, but are levied per fleet. Nor do the UCRA fees depend on where a carrier traveled, as the SSRS fees did. Instead, whether an interstate carriers travels in few or many states, the size of the fee depends only on the number of commercial motor vehicles it operates.

For this purpose, commercial motor vehicles include trailing equipment as well as power units. For example, if a carrier operates 100 tractors and 200 semitrailers, the number of its vehicles for purposes of the UCRA fee will be 300. The total of vehicles will in most cases be the same as the carrier reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation on its latest Form MCS-150. For 2007, the UCRA fees are:

If you are a California carrier that has interstate operating authority, please access http://www.ucr.in.gov for any additional information.

Our message to the industry:
“If you have any problems with a local agency and you find yourself asking ‘why we are having to do things this way’ and the agency tells you’ this is the way we have always done it,’ let me know. We are here to make California transportation operations as efficient and safe as possible.”

Respectfully submitted,

Gregory D. Dineen
Industry Transportation Consultant

cc:        John Hakel, AGC                                  D. Cash Benton, SCCA
            Richard Paine, ECA                              Sam Meyer, MCOG
            Richard Lambros, BIA                          Lee Brown, CDTOA
            Aimee Shook, DCA                               Jeff Hunter, CTTA
            Michael Vlaming, COA                         Michael Lewis, CIAQC
            Doug Ball, SC&RA