Transportation: omnibus bill.

(1) Existing law authorizes the Department of Transportation (department) to pay claims or damages up to a maximum of $5,000 without the approval of the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board. This bill would adjust the claim limit that may be paid by the department under these provisions to equal the maximum amount of a claim that can be brought in small claims court. (2) Existing law authorizes the Department of General Services to establish rules and regulations for the use and maintenance of state buildings and grounds. This bill would permit the riding of bicycles on designated pathways on the grounds of the State Capitol in order to access bicycle racks near the building entrances. (3) Existing law, the Mills-Alquist-Deddeh Act, also known as the Transportation Development Act, provides for funding of local public transit systems throughout the state and requires, among other things, specified special accommodations for handicapped persons, as defined, on public transit systems. This bill would replace the term "handicapped" with the term "disabled" throughout the act. (4) Existing law authorizes the Solano County Transportation Authority to claim up to 2% of local transportation funds available under the Transportation Development Act for countywide transit planning and coordination relative to Solano County. This bill would authorize the authority to claim up to 2.7% of those funds for these purposes. (5) Existing law creates transportation commissions or authorities in certain counties, including Imperial and Los Angeles Counties, with various responsibilities relating to transportation planning and programming, among other things. This bill would update various obsolete references to the Imperial County Transportation Commission and to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to reflect their current names. (6) Existing law provides for the California Transportation Commission to adopt locations for state highways on routes authorized by law, and provides for relinquishment of certain segments of state highways from the state to local agencies. This bill would acknowledge the relinquishment of the portion of Route 49 in the City of Auburn, the portions of Route 66 in the Cities of Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, and Claremont, the portions of Route 74 in the Cities of Palm Desert and Lake Elsinor, the portion of Route 92 in the City of Hayward, a portion of Route 110 in the City of Los Angeles, a portion of Route 111 in the unincorporated area of the County of Riverside and the portion of Route 111 in the City of Cathedral City, the portion of Route 146 in the City of Soledad, the portion of Route 152 in the City of Watsonville, the portion of Route 178 in the City of Bakersfield, the portion of Route 185 in the City of Hayward, the portion of Route 193 in the City of Lincoln, the portions of Route 227 in the Cities of Arroyo Grande and San Luis Obispo, and the portion of Route 238 in the City of Hayward. (7) Existing law regulates the displaying of vehicle license plates and requires that the rear license plate be mounted not less than 12 inches nor more than 60 inches from the ground, with certain specified exceptions. This bill would add an additional exception by requiring that the rear license plate of a dump bed motortruck equipped with a trailing, load bearing swing axle, as defined, be mounted more than 12 inches, but not more than 107 inches, from the ground. (8) Existing law requires the driver of a schoolbus to activate a flashing amber light warning system on the approach to a schoolbus stop where pupils are loading or unloading from the schoolbus and to operate flashing red signal lights and a stop signal arm at all times when the schoolbus is stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading pupils. Existing law also requires a schoolbus driver to load or unload pupils only at a schoolbus stop designated for pupils by the school district superintendent or authorized by the superintendent for school activity trips. This bill would also authorize the head or principal of a private school to designate schoolbus stops for loading or unloading pupils or for school activity trips. (9) Existing law prohibits a schoolbus driver from activating the amber warning light system or the flashing red signal lights and stop signal arm at a location determined by a school district, with the approval of the Department of the California Highway Patrol, to present a traffic or safety hazard. This bill would also make this prohibition applicable to locations determined by private schools to present a traffic or safety hazard. (10) Existing law prohibits any person from stopping, parking, or leaving a vehicle standing, among other places, on a crosswalk, except for a bus engaged as a common carrier or a taxicab stopped for the purpose of loading or unloading passengers, pursuant to a city ordinance. Existing law authorizes a transit system and a school district to enter into an agreement, by ordinance, for the loading or unloading of passengers alongside curb spaces designated for the loading or unloading of passengers of the transit system buses. This bill would authorize a transit system to enter into an agreement with a private school for the same purposes. (11) Existing law authorizes the governing board of a school district to designate a schoolbus stop at a place where there is not a clear view of the stop from a distance of 200 feet in each direction along a highway, if it is necessary for the safety of pupils being transported to and from schools, and the stop is authorized and approved by the Department of the California Highway Patrol. Existing regulations of the department also prohibit the designation of a schoolbus stop (A) upon the main traveled portion of a highway where there is not a clear view of the stop from 500 feet in each direction along the highway and the speed limit is more than 25 miles per hour unless approved by the department and (B) on a divided or multiple-lane highway where pupils must cross the highway to board or after exiting the bus, unless traffic is controlled by a traffic officer or official traffic control signal. This bill would codify the above-specified regulatory provisions and require that the authorization for a schoolbus stop under the above criteria be upon the request of a school district superintendent or the head or principal of a private school. (12) Existing law imposes excise taxes and sales and use taxes on motor vehicle fuel, commonly known as gasoline, on jet fuel, and on diesel fuel. Existing law requires the State Board of Equalization to make specified annual adjustments to the tax rates to ensure the revenue neutrality under previously enacted statutory modifications of these tax rates, under which modifications certain taxes increased while others decreased. Existing law requires prepayment of a certain portion of the sales tax liability on these fuels based on annual estimates made by the State Board of Equalization that rely on a specified report of the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to determine the retail price of fuel. This bill would require the annual adjustments to sales tax prepayment rates to be made at the same time as the annual adjustments of the fuel tax rates, and would provide for the prepayment rates to account for any changes in the fuel tax rates. The bill would delete the reference to the specified report for determining the retail price of fuels and would instead authorize the board to rely on industry publications reporting that information. The bill would make other related changes. (13) Existing law provides for the towing and impounding of vehicles that are, among other things, obstructing a highway, recovered as stolen, abandoned, or illegally parked and provides procedures for a person to recover his or her vehicle from impoundment. Existing law specifies requirements relating to securing towed vehicles on certain carriers. This bill would make technical changes to the procedures for towing a vehicle and for recovering a vehicle from impoundment. (14) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 5201 of the Vehicle Code proposed by AB 2489, to become operative if both AB 2489 and this bill are chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2013, and this bill is chaptered last.