EDITORIAL : CALIFORNIA'S LOST DECADE; STATE'S FREEWAYS AND BRIDGES ROTTING BY THE MINUTE.

IF California's lawmakers had to drive to work everyday over the same bone-jarring roads as the rest of us, you can bet the state's highways would be paved with gold.

No doubt L.A.'s elected leaders take to the air when commuting to Sacramento, where they huddle in top-level meetings and plan strategies for their next elections.

Meanwhile, L.A. County's 9 million residents endure their daily dose of jostling over decrepit bridges, rugged roads and pothole infested freeways - unless, of course, they're sitting still in traffic that's too clogged to move.

A decade of neglect is costing the average Los Angeles driver $1,348 a year in car repairs and wasted time on slow freeways, according to a report released last week by Transportation California, a coalition of contractors and unions.

The report found that California is $110 billion behind in road repairs and improvements. And unless lawmakers start paying attention to the shameful condition of the state's bridges, freeways and roads, those roads will deteriorate more rapidly as the population explodes.

The release of the study coincides with debate in the Legislature over whether to place a bond issue on the November 2000 ballot and how much to set aside for repairs and improvements. One proposal would spend $8 billion.

In Los Angeles County alone, there is $15 billion in unmet needs - half of the 56,026 miles of roads in the county are substandard, the report said.

Of course, the coalition that issued the report has a lot to gain by playing the Chicken Little act that the roads are crumbling, the roads are crumbling.

But the other groups, including the California Business Roundtable, are issuing similar findings.

The issue is critically important.

So critical, we wonder why Democratic lawmakers aren't yelling about the $3 billion already set aside for road repairs - money that's in the bank but isn't being spent?

It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the money is being blocked by the union representing state engineers, who have sued to stop work, would it?

The Professional Engineers in California Government has spent years fighting to prevent the state from contracting out engineering services to private firms that may be able to do the job faster and for less money.

So the result of PECG's obstructionism, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office, is delayed highway projects and 220 new government workers who are needed to perform tasks that would have been contracted out.

Until Democratic lawmakers tell the unions to back off, why should voters support any more bond money?

There's money in the bank to start fixing roads.

We don't want the streets paved with gold. We just want them paved. And now!