As per Federal government reports California has second worst quality of roads after DC. [1]
Neither LA nor SF Bay area has any good roads. I think your are judging them by lower standards compared to population density, commute distance etc. It is barely sufficient.
Just look at this [2] data. California's rate of building new roads is significantly lower, expenditure stagnant and quality is bad. This despite the higher gas taxes. The money clearly is going somewhere else.
The article you link at #2 comes up with a pretty different explanation for freeway construction stall:
> The principal cause of declining freeway development was the dramatic rise in construction and maintenance costs
I.e. California would have had to significantly increase its gasoline tax, in line with the increases in construction costs, to fund continued 1960s-scale freeway development, but didn't do so: The gas tax today is approximately the same in real terms as it was in 1960 (it was 4.7¢/gal then, which is roughly 40¢/gal in 2016 dollars). Well that, or find a way to bring construction costs back down. A small portion of the money diverted to rail doesn't really move the needle on the big-picture here.
Neither LA nor SF Bay area has any good roads. I think your are judging them by lower standards compared to population density, commute distance etc. It is barely sufficient.
Just look at this [2] data. California's rate of building new roads is significantly lower, expenditure stagnant and quality is bad. This despite the higher gas taxes. The money clearly is going somewhere else.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/25/why-d...
2. http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/fall-1993/why-califor...