More Valley commuters roll solo than most of California

A greater share of commuting workers in the San Joaquin Valley drive to work alone than almost anywhere else in the state, eschewing public transit that can take about 2 1/2 times longer.

A Fresno Bee analysis of data compiled by The Associated Press indicates that in 2013, about 77.6% of commuters across Fresno County drove alone to get to work. Among California’s 18 largest metropolitan areas, only four had a higher percentage of solo commuters behind the wheel. Three of those are also in the Valley — Visalia-Porterville, Bakersfield and Modesto.

The figures also show that on average, Valley commuters have some of the shortest travel times to get to work compared to their counterparts in other parts of the state, largely — but not entirely — without the gridlock that can turn freeways into parking lots in California’s larger urban center. The region enjoys those shorter commutes even as the number of drivers grows faster than new roads are being built. And through it all, the region’s highways, streets and roads are being subjected to an ever-increasing pounding.

In Fresno County, for example, less than 200 miles of new roads were built between 2000 and 2013, according to the California Department of Transportation. But during the same 13-year span, the number of vehicle miles piled up by drivers in the county grew from 19.3 million to almost 23 million — a whopping 19% increase.

All those miles add up to additional wear and tear on roads that cities, counties and Caltrans are hard-pressed to maintain.

Maintenance challenge

“Our biggest challenge isn’t capital construction of brand new roads,” said Scott Mozier, Fresno’s public works director. “Pavement condition is the big challenge.” Most new roads are built to last about 20 years before they need to be resurfaced, and in between they need to have a coat of slurry seal every seven to 10 years, he said.

But in recent years, both roads and the budgets to maintain them have deteriorated, forcing managers to postpone a significant number of street maintenance and repair projects.

“This year in the budget discussions, we told the City Council that it requires an average investment of about $22 million a year just to maintain our pavement in the condition it’s in now,” Mozier said. In the 2014-15 budget year, the city’s share of state, federal and local funds available for road maintenance add up to $11 million — about half of what is needed “just to keep running in place.”

As a result, there are “more streets that should have been slurry sealed and are ultimately at risk of failing,” Mosier said. And that’s on top of other deferred road maintenance that, if the city were to try to catch up over the next five years, would require about $224 million.

Road quality is measured on something called a pavement condition index (PCI) on a range from 0 to 100. An index score of 71 or higher indicates good average road conditions; anything below that shows that roads are at some level of risk for failure. A road-needs assessment issued last fall by a consortium of city and county transportation agencies statewide reported that across the Valley, PCI scores range from the 60s in Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties — where the average road conditions are estimated to be at lower risk — to 47, or poor condition, in Madera County.

Among California’s 58 counties, only five had average PCI scores above 70.

“What we’re facing here isn’t just a Fresno issue,” Mozier said. “It’s a state issue and a national issue over the condition of our infrastructure.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation reported this week that 65% of the nation’s roads are in less-than-ideal shape. In California, the federal agency added, 68% of roads are in either poor or mediocre condition. Statewide, the cost to make up for the maintenance backlog on roads, overpasses, ramps and bridges is estimated at more than $78 billion over the next decade.

Commuter habits

In Fresno and the Valley, most of the roadway wear and tear is likely being rolled up by solo commuters. In Fresno County, the number of people alone behind the wheel on their way to and from work grew from about 218,800 in 2000 to more than 278,400 in 2013 — an increase of more than 27%. In neighboring Tulare County, where the numbers aren’t as large, the growth is even more pronounced: about 94,300 solo commuters in 2000 to almost 124,600 in 2013, or an increase of almost 32%.

Not surprisingly, people who drive their own vehicle to work also reported the shortest average commute times in Fresno and Tulare counties: about 20 minutes.

“We are blessed here to have the mobility that we have,” said Tony Boren, executive director of the Fresno County Council of Governments, a panel of city and county government representatives who deal with countywide transportation and planning issues. “People can get around this county and this region like most folks in the state can’t, and we take it for granted because we’ve always had it.”

Boren noted that with a few rush-hour exceptions on Fresno’s freeways and surface streets, traffic manages to flow pretty smoothly. “But I have a friend who lives in the Bay Area who says if you hit some of those freeways at the wrong time, just forget it,” he said. “You’re going to burn two hours just sitting there.”

Mozier said that on a congestion-grading scale of A to F, “the city’s historic level-of-service policy goal is a D.” While a D grade on a student’s report card is a bad thing, “a D is actually a pretty good level of service in terms of people’s expectations on traffic congestion,” Mozer said. “What that means is that during peak traffic periods, we can clear the traffic on each approach” to a stop light on surface streets, he added.

Commuting is more of an ordeal for those who ride the bus. In Fresno and Tulare counties, only about 1% of commuters use public transit — buses or trolleys — to get to work, and it took them a whole lot longer than if they’d driven, according to the Associated Press figures derived from the U.S. Census Bureau. In Tulare County, the average commute time for public transit riders was about double that of solo drivers, at about 39 minutes. In Fresno County, which boasts a more robust transit system within the Fresno-Clovis urban area, the average ride to work on public transit was more than 53 minutes.

Fourteen of California’s 18 largest metropolitan areas had a greater percentage of commuters using public transportation than Fresno County. The average was just over 3%, and the proportions were highest in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward area at more than 16%, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim at almost 6%, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara at more than 4%. The Bay Area communities have extensive bus and train services, including BART and Caltrain, while the Los Angeles Basin includes Metro subway and bus services and Metrolink commuter trains.

Boren said his agency realizes that Fresno County lags in public transit. “We recognize the need to facilitate a shift from streets and roads to other modes of transportation,” he said. “But that’s easier said than done, because we have land-use patterns that are auto-centric. The Fresno-Clovis urban area is served by a half-mile street grid system that is built for cars.”

Measure C, a half-cent sales tax to support transportation improvements, is an example of that recognition. When voters first approved it in 1986, all of the money raised was directed to streets and roads. “When the voters renewed it in 2006, 25% was directed to transit,” Boren said.

“We can do what we can to encourage people to use public transit or alternative modes,” he added. “The folks who run FAX (Fresno Area Xpress, the city bus system) are doing a great job, doing the best they can. But if you have a job and it takes three times as long to take the bus to get to work, in a world where everything is ‘go, go, go,’ people just can’t afford to blow three times as much time on a bus.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 2:54 PM with the headline "More Valley commuters roll solo than most of California."