Coalition - Fair Transportation Funding Coalition

Fair Transportation Funding Coalition

As California transitions to a cleaner transportation future, we need a funding model that ensures our roads and communities are protected.

The Fair Transportation Funding Coalition is taking an evidence-based approach to ensure multimodal transportation improvements are funded in a way that is fair, affordable and accountable over the long term. An independent study commissioned by Transportation California researched all viable transportation funding options toward identifying a solution that works for all Californians.

We’re uniting businesses, labor, local governments and community advocates to ensure California’s multimodal transportation system remains safe, reliable and future-ready.

Join us to help advance fair, sustainable transportation funding for California’s future.

We advocate for:

Fairness

Every driver contributes their fair share.

Public Safety

Protecting families and first responders with safe roads.

Economic Growth

Supporting California’s thriving economy.

Accountability

Transparent, data-driven decisions.

Enduring Solutions

Future-ready funding aligned with zero-emission goals.

California Leaders Agree: We Need Action Now

Policymakers and experts agree: California needs fair, sustainable transportation funding. Read quotes from leaders and key stakeholders across California.

Assemblymember Lori Wilson

(D-Suisun City)

“While the gas tax has been a critical funding source for transportation improvements, it is becoming less effective as a user-based revenue mechanism. We need to explore new solutions that ensure transportation funding is fair and sustainable.”

Tanisha Taylor

Executive Director, California Transportation Commission

“In the new normal of year-round fire season and stronger, more frequent storms, our transportation system will be put under strain that our funding programs and our revenue mechanisms were not designed for. This is a challenge that has no single solution.”

Asha Agrawal

Education Director, Mineta Transportation Institute

“We are going to lose revenue soon … visibly within the next few years … and by 2040 we will almost certainly [have] lost a lot of revenue on an annual basis.”

Senator Dave Cortese

(D-San Jose)

“The LAO is right on the gas tax. We have a little bit of time, but I’ll stipulate that we don’t have that much time, and it’s competing with a lot of other priorities right now.”

Margot Yapp

President & CEO, NCE, Manager for Local Streets and Roads Needs Assessment Report

“The first thing is roads are going to get worse. We’re predicting that probably about a third of the road system, that’s 50,000 miles plus or minus, is probably going to be in poor or failed condition.”

Liz Farmer

State Fiscal Policy Officer

“State decision-makers have long known that stagnant gas tax rates, inflation, and increased fuel efficiency are eroding gas tax revenue, the dominant funding source for their transportation funds. As the demands on roads increase from users who don’t pay gas taxes—including those with high-efficiency vehicles or bicycles— transportation funding models are diverging from their original “user pays” revenue strategies.”

California Transportation Commission

“These revenues are declining due to increased vehicle fuel economy and the shift toward zero-emission vehicles, which do not rely on traditional fuel sources and whose drivers therefore pay no fuel tax. This challenge is not unique to California as states across the country are looking at alternative revenue mechanisms to fund transportation. Ultimately, the replacement of the state fuel tax with a more sustainable funding source will allow the state to deliver a safer, more equitable, cleaner transportation system that supports economic growth while continuing to invest in the ongoing transportation maintenance needs at the state and local level.”

James Corless

Executive Director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments

“The way we see it, we’re staring both down a steep slope of declining revenues, as well as an absolute cliff.”

Jay Golden

Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Finance at Syracuse University

“The decline of fuel-tax revenues resulting from EVs never needing to visit a gas pump will further diminish state and local governments’ ability to maintain our deteriorating network of roads, highways and bridges. At the same time, governments will be faced with increased expenditures due to aging road infrastructure that is threatened by extreme weather events.”

Trish Hendren

Executive Director, Eastern Transportation Coalition

“This is not an East Coast, West Coast issue. We all need to have this reliable transportation system to really be the engine of our economy.”

Leif Elder

Director of Policy and Legislative Services, Utah Department of Transportation

“If we don’t do something about the gas tax, there’s problems ahead and the longer we don’t do something about it, we’re kicking the can down the road.”

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Policymakers, experts and community leaders across California agree that we need a fair and sustainable solution to fund roads and multimodal transportation. Sign up to learn more.