Managing Our Transportation $$$: A Work in Progress

GETTING THERE FROM HERE--Last week, I had the opportunity and privilege of attending two meetings where I learned a great deal about how the past is being forgotten, the present is up for grabs, and the future is potentially bright with respect to transportation projects and funding.  The take-home points is that more Americans than ever are waking up to our need for transportation/infrastructure funding, but concerns for cost-effectiveness (rightfully) abound. 

From my colleagues at the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and Mar Vista Community Council, I learned (and re-learned) that: 

1) As Metro starts talking about another sales tax measure, the question of where current and future funding would go must be tempered by our need to shore up and enhance OPERATIONS of our current infrastructure.  In other words, sidewalks, roads, DASH lines, sufficient buses to keep up with our budding rail network, and (yes, dammit!) more parking are all critical to make our transportation/mobility network become a system that works. 

For example, Metro, the Culver City Bus and the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus networks have entirely insufficient buses to coordinate with the future Expo Line extension to the Westside.  All of those agencies (which have some pretty darned good people working for them) are scrambling to find ways to have buses meet the trains as late as 9, 10, or 11 pm ... but the disparity (in large part due to lack of buses and drivers) is rather sobering. 

In other words, inasmuch as we want (and need, and should) create new rail lines, the extent and size of these new lines must be tempered with the need to fund the rather unsexy day to day operations vital to supporting these new rail lines. 

2) Bus stops, pedestrian amenities, transit cleanliness and safety issues...and access problems abound, but there's cause for optimism.  However, we've got to have the courage to state the obvious:  we treat transit riders like dirt, and until we get to a "New York frame of mind" or a "Chicago frame of mind" we won't get sufficient riders out of their cars to affect traffic. 

We need to have single women, not childless men, making the decision on what's really safe, and what's NOT.  Safety issues are real, and for the Green Line (and Crenshaw Line) to work in its airport access it will have to lose its "ghetto train" nickname and reputation.  No one will take a train on which they feel less than safe--are you listening, County Sheriffs? 

We need to have smart bus benches that have announcements of when the next bus is going to arrive (to the minute).  The MVCC T/I Committee was rather excited to learn that that those smart bus benches only cost $5000 apiece, and if the first one turns out we'll likely be bullish about purchasing more. 

If there are insufficient buses to meet the trains, then parking (not free, but affordable and fiscally-sustainable parking) will be needed more than ever.  The City and County of LA can spout all of its anti-parking theology, but in the end they've fallen on their face about providing parking--and insufficient transit parking/buses is as silly as building a freeway without onramps and offramps. 

3) We will need to be realistic about what we can afford with respect to new lines--we need consensus first, and then ask for the funding later so that we can tell the government what it is being asked to pay for. 

I don't know if the Harbor Subdivision Rail Right of Way between LAX and the Crenshaw Line on one side, and Downtown/Union Station on the other side, will forever remain a bike path, but that bike path had better be kept available for a no-brainer future rail line that will be painfully and glaringly obvious as a key line  to be built after the Crenshaw/LAX Line is completed in 2022.  And yes, that's not so far away. 

Completing the Wilshire Subway to the Sea is a wonderful and needed idea, but if we're forced to make painful, teeth-gnashing decisions, then the priorities for new rail lines will be to connect the San Fernando Valley to the Westside, and to connect the Metro Rail System to LAX...with that "subway to the sea" taking a painful ranking behind those other two priorities. 

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Congress is fighting over the right way to fund transportation, but the era of ignoring transportation by either party is over. 

4) Finally, if we pass Measure R-2, then the City will NOT legally be able to promise how it'll spend local funds during the election season (sidewalks, DASH buses, etc.).  That is a decision each City has to make on its own...and if the City doesn't step up even more than it has and promise budgeting of the sidewalk/curb/road repairs with its local funds NOW, then don't be surprised if voters are less inclined to vote for another Metro sales tax. 

Most voters don't know the difference between the City and County of LA, and it probably won't help to really try losing voters in the weeds about Measure R-2.  It therefore behooves the City of LA to behave more in its own T/I funding and budget priorities (start with the presumption that the City is BAD, and needs to do a lot better). 

And if the City doesn't come through, then the voters will likely vote less than the 2/3 needed to pass Measure R-2.  which may be needed to give City government the kick in the rear that will be key in changing bad City tendencies to abuse its citizenry. 

But the will to spend and invest, so long as funding is spent well, still exists.  Barely, but it still exists.

 

(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.) 

-cw

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 90

Pub: Nov 6, 2015