Check the rear-view mirror: freeway planners would do well to heed Earl Warren's pay-as-you-go philosophy.

This Saturday, June 23, is the 60th anniversary of the Collier-Burns Act. Never heard of it? You should have if you live in Los Angeles. The Collier-Bums Act created the modern freeway system in this state.

Collier-Bums involved hiking the state gasoline tax and other motor vehicle related taxes, putting the funds into an earmarked trust, and using the revenue as it came in to build the roads. There had been grand plans for systems of limited access roads going back to the 1930s, but in the Great Depression, there was little funding to build them. Collier-Burns made it possible to realize these plans after World War II. It came along just when California's population was soaring and World War II veterans were settling in the state, taking advantage of the GI bill to buy newly built housing in places like the San Fernando Valley. Moreover, only nine years later, Congress bucked the preferred option of the Eisenhower administration--toll roads--and adopted the California model--a federal gas tax/trust fund--to build the Interstate highway system.

Although state Sen. Randolph Collier and Assemblyman Michael Burns played significant roles in pushing the Act through the California Legislature, the credit for passage of CollierBums really goes to Earl Warren. You undoubtedly have heard of him, but probably not as the father of the freeways. Before he became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Earl Warren was governor of California. Despite the obvious need for road expansion in the late 1940s, Gov. Warren faced tremendous opposition to his freeway plan. There was the usual hassling between northern California and southern California, and between urban and rural areas, as to how the highway pie would be divided. Utilities wanted state funds to pay for moving their transmission lines if road construction required such moves. But the chief opposition came from oil companies, which did not want the gasoline tax raised.

Warren mounted a major campaign to overcome this opposition through hard-hitting radio broadcasts and press conferences. There were points when it appeared the proposal would be killed by oil company lobbying, but eventually Warren prevailed. Indeed, as a result of his campaigning--and strange as it may seem in the current climate--Warren got the public to demand that its gas taxes be raised so that roads could be built.

Unpopular today

Today, freeways are unpopular with environmentalists and planners. Freeways are blamed for smog, greenhouse gas, congestion, and urban sprawl. Some lament the fact that back in the 1940s, California made roads rather than mass transit the center of its transportation system. But at the time, freeways were considered a form of mass transit. Those who had cars would use the new freeways. And buses would run along the freeways for those without cars.

Freeways would converge on downtown areas much as the New York subways converge on Manhattan. So decentralization was not seen as a consequence of the new roads. If road planners 60 years ago could not see the future clearly, perhaps that should be a lesson for us all regarding unintended consequences.

But there are other lessons to be drawn from Collier-Burns. The opposition of oil companies to Warren's plan remains the biggest puzzle. Could they not see that although gas taxes would go up, more roads meant more driving and thus more gasoline consumption? This logical connection was pointed out to top oil executives as the battle raged in the legislature but they simply could not see it. So one lesson is that special interests sometimes do not understand what their interests truly are.

Another lesson is that freeway construction under the Warren plan was pay-as-you-go. Roads would be built for the public as the public paid--through the gas tax--for highway construction. The charge-it-to-the-future mentality that characterizes today's infrastructure proposals in California was anathema to Warren. He could easily recall the fiscal crisis faced by the state government in the Great Depression and did not want to see a repeat.

In any event, Collier-Bums was a major achievement of Warren as governor. At least he and others were willing to look into the future and do what seemed necessary to foster state economic growth. Before we criticize the decisions made 60 years ago in California as imperfect, we might well consider how our current decisions--or lack thereof--will look six decades ahead.

Daniel J.B. Mitchell is Ho-su Wu Professor at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management and the School of Public Affairs.