More Sales Tax for Transportation … Jerry Brown Signs Off on Opportunity to Choose

TRANSPORTATION POLITICS--As aforementioned in my last CityWatch article, Governor Brown just signed SB 767, authored by State Senate leader Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles), allowing a half-cent increase in the sales tax for transportation if approved by the voters--probably in November 2016.  And overall, that's a good thing--we now have the opportunity to choose. 

Extending Measure R for another two decades, and adding a new sales tax brings us $120 billion in new revenue--and that's not counting the financial arm-twisting that LA County has already done, and must/will continue to do, to Sacramento and Washington now that we've shown we're willing to put our money where our collective mouth is. 

And there are some BIG rail projects that we can and should focus on to spruce up our budding Metro rail system and really create a powerful, first-rate, 21st-Century Metro Rail network, about which Times writer Laura J. Nelson did an extraordinary article: 

1) The Westside to Valley rail tunnel--whatever this looks like, an ideal link under the Sepulveda Pass from the Orange Line to the Expo Line is the least of what this long-sought north-south rail link should be.  Ideally, this should extend from Metrolink in the north San Fernando Valley all the way to LAX, and perhaps we should just simplify things by calling this by its truest name:  The Sepulveda Blvd. Subway, which would be the north-south sibling of the east-west Wilshire Blvd. Subway. Yes, it'll deviate from Sepulveda Blvd. when necessary, but let's not delude ourselves with respect to what corridor this can and should mitigate...just as the I-405 freeway did decades ago. 

2) The completion of the Wilshire (Purple Line) Subway to Santa Monica--very popular among transit riders, but not popular to many Santa Monican residents and government officials.  Consider this one a good idea that may very well be shunted (with respect to both planning and funding) to other projects--more on this below. 

3) The rail connection to LAX--ask what this means to ten different people, and you'll get ten different answers. But the first link--that of the Crenshaw/Green Lines to the LAX People Mover (itself a rail project for which LA World Airports has allotted over $1 billion) is what's on the Metro Long Range Transportation Plan. 

4) Mid-City extension of the Crenshaw Line all the way up to the Red Line in Hollywood--did you know that the Major Investment Studies for the Crenshaw Line showed its true ridership and cost-effectiveness occurred when it was tunneled north of the Expo Line to the Wilshire (Purple Line) Subway? 

In other words, the Crenshaw Line really isn't as helpful as it ought to be with respect to riders and rail capacity until it hits the Wilshire Blvd. subway--and, ideally, BOTH the Purple and Red Line subways--which would establish a quality link from LAX to/from the Wilshire Corridor and even to the San Fernando Valley via the Red Line. 

5) Conversion of the Orange Line Busway to a much heavier-capacity light rail line (which it ought to have been all along, but barely got the political support to create a Busway to start with).  

Count this "unnecessary" expenditure of building a transit line twice as the result of a "necessary" demonstration to San Fernando Valley residents that they, too, should have pushed for their own "Expo Line" the way that Mid-City and Westside residents did.  But at least now it's got widespread support, and amortizing the approximately $1.5 billion over 50 years and it's really not that big a deal...if we've got the long-term vision to look at it that way. 

Consider what else a "Measure R-2" could create, however (and providing we've got the emotional and fiscal maturity to ask ourselves whether the first Measure R, and any associated urban planning, was spent and handled the right way): 

1) Getting rid of the western extension of the Wilshire Subway to the ocean (which, as aforementioned, many Santa Monican residents and leaders don't want...go figure!) and replacing that project with the funding of a full South-Bay-to-LAX-to-the-San-Fernando-Valley-Metrolink system. 

2) A Lincoln Blvd. light rail extension of the Green Line from LAX up to the Expo Line (which Santa Monica DOES want). 

3) A direct Union Station to LAX rail link along the Harbor Subdivision Rail Right Of Way, now lying empty awaiting the achieving of its true potential.  Whether this should be a Metrolink train or a Metro Rail train...or both...is hard to know--but that's for the planners and outreach officials from Metro and Metrolink to find out. 

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And while we're at it ... what about freeways?  I know that some reading this believe that cars (even though they choose to drive in them every day) are the "Spawn of Satan", but for those of us who choose to stay level-headed and rational, we know that freeways have their purpose.  Here are a few projects to consider: 

1) Widening, or at least evening out, the 101 freeway between Downtown and the Valley to avoid some choke points and enhance capacity/access between the San Fernando Valley and the rest of the City of L.A. 

2) Creating a north-south freeway between LAX and the I-10 freeway by converting the La Cienega Blvd. corridor into a new freeway--despite the inevitable screaming, it's a first-rate way to decrease over-reliance and overuse of the Westside I-405 freeway.

3) Creating a north/south-east/west freeway arrangement to serve Downtown for the year 2050, and not 1950 (which it now appears to be, stuck in a freeze in time that reflects a very different Los Angeles than what it now is). 

4) Widening the I-5 from the I-605 freeway all the way to Downtown.

...and somewhere in the middle of all this, there's the coordination of Metrolink, our freeway system, our Metro bus system, and Metro Rail, to create a logical and interlocked system that allows better car, bus, rail connections to ease our mobility and stress levels with a nice environmental and economical boost, to boot. 

Certainly, there are a lot of talking points for Los Angeles County residents to weigh in on, but at least now we can talk. 

And talk, we should--for our own sake, and for the sake of future generations.

 

(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee.  He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]   He also does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)