GETTING THERE FROM HERE - Which comes first, the planning or the funding? When there’s money to be doled out for highways and rail projects, where should it go? If we’re going to plan a big project (such as the proposed north-south rail project to connect the San Fernando Valley to the Westside to LAX to the South Bay), why should we bother if there’s no immediate source of money?
The answer might shock you: it’s because the federal government usually strives for cost-effectiveness and transparency when it prioritizes how it spends its money. At least that’s how the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) normally operates by ranking projects by dollars spent per mile or dollars spent per commuter.
Unfortunately, this effort often gets thwarted by political gamesmanship of red states or blue states grabbing disproportionate shares of dollars, either in the name of “evenly spending dollars per state” or politicians just abusing their position on a given spending or budgetary allocation committee.
But the still-resonating talking point of “shovel-ready jobs” from the 2009 Federal Stimulus Bill did expose the fallacies and potential of prioritizing projects that have been planned, vetted and funded versus those that weren’t. And WHY were so many projects NOT “shovel-ready” despite their being worthy for federal funding?
These projects weren’t “shovel-ready” because they weren’t planned, or at a level of planning that the government could fund them. The realistic and operative question was: spend federal money on WHAT? A twinkle in some politician’s eye?
Certainly, our nation and state has a nasty habit of dedicating and budgeting huge hunks of money on spontaneous endeavors ranging from wars to education to health care without paying as we go—and this spending gets in the way of one of the federal government’s greatest (and, arguably, most constitutionally-defensible) responsibilities: transportation and infrastructure to enhance commerce between states and into/out of this nation.
So when President Obama and a Democratic Party-controlled Congress opted for a 2009 Federal Stimulus Bill, it did one great thing and two bad things:
1) The great thing: Coming up with a huge budget to pay for overdue but ready (“shovel-ready”) transportation and infrastructure projects.
2) The first bad thing: Allowing poorly-planned transportation projects, projects with the slimmest of transportation-related benefits, and initiatives that had nothing to do with transportation, to be funded by that stimulus package.
3) The second bad thing: Not come up with a long-overdue seven-year transportation budget (TEA-21) to ensure long-term transportation planning and funding for years to come for those projects that weren’t shovel-ready…because most cities, counties and states make the mistake of waiting for the money to come BEFORE the planning starts in earnest.
After decades of being a perpetual loser for matching federal transportation funding, California—and especially Los Angeles—became a big winner, and will continue to be a big winner, because it shucked off criticism of those proclaiming “oh, THAT will never get funded or built!” and the necessary studies (and consensus-building) were done.
When federal transportation funds for high-speed rail came up for bidding, it wasn’t just political will but being ahead in the planning effort that allowed California to get the lion’s share of high-speed rail funds outside of the Northeast Acela Corridor. Yes, it’s a crying shame that we didn’t first focus on the smaller effort we’re doing now for the CA High-Speed Rail project, but Governor Brown deserves credit in downsizing and altering the project to what it now is.
Yet other states like Texas, Wisconsin and Florida were nowhere near where California was with its high-speed rail planning, which is a truth that must be acknowledged by even those who entirely oppose the CA High-Speed Rail (and I’m not about ready to dismiss these opponents’ complaints, either).
Ditto on a more local level for L.A. and its Measure R-related rail/freeway effort—we put up the local matching funds while aggressively moving forward on planning efforts for rail lines and freeways throughout the county. Much of the reason why Los Angeles is now achieving the national (and international) reputation of a city that’s rebuilding itself for transit is because of Measure R and because of grassroots efforts to work with government and come up with the consensus to pursue planning…and subsequent funding, from wherever it might come.
Measure R was a proposal to expand and expedite the construction process of the 2008 Constrained Plan of Metro Projects (the highest tier of Metro priority lists of new projects) as well as a few projects from the 2008 Strategic Plan (lower tiers and priorities for new projects) to even out planning and funding based on geography. Each part of LA County will get something over the next 30 years.
Fast forward four years and we know that a few projects like the Pasadena I-710 connector to the I-210 and the Eastside Gold Light Rail Line need to potentially be defunded with other adjacent projects getting those funds.
Furthermore, and most importantly, the planning for Measure R projects is at a point where they’re becoming shovel-ready—and after a Democratic Congress that didn’t update its seven-year TEA-21 transportation budget, we have a deficit-hawk Republican Congress that doesn’t want to spend so much on transportation unless other budget priorities are downsized to pay for it. So where do we get that money, despite a new but still-too-small federal/local bridge loan project from Congress?
Enter Measure J, which allows us to borrow from future revenues derived from an extended sales tax (to the year 2069). Should Measure J pass, the highways and rail projects of Measure R will be built over the next 10-15 years while being able to focus on fighting for federal/state matching dollars to pay for the NEXT generation of highway and rail projects.
For example, the money isn’t there for a comprehensive (and aforementioned) Valley/Westside/LAX/South Bay north-south rail line that will be one of the most heavily-ridden and vital lines in the nation (similar to the east-west Wilshire Subway) and a viable alternative to the hideously-congested I-405 freeway. But that rail line has been talked about for decades.
So when the Westside Mobility Plan has meetings and community workshops to evaluate how best to move commuters (car, train, bus, rail, bicycle, and pedestrian) throughout the Westside, including discussion of such a line, it’s easy to get bogged down into “How will this get paid for? We can’t plan this!”
Well, it’ll please us all to know that if County Transportation Measure J passes, it’ll allow Westside Mobility Plan recommendations (and proposals being evaluated by Metro) to continue to find ways to make developers pay for new projects, and every future federal dollar to match L.A. County funds for current “shovel-ready” can allow future sales taxes to be diverted from current projects to the next generation of new highways and rail lines to serve the county.
And it’s not like LA County and its political representatives will stop fighting for new funds from Sacramento and Washington in the years to come.
We should definitely blame Washington and Sacramento for not helping LA County develop an economy to power the state and federal economy with taxes and commerce, but the least we can do is commit ourselves to enhancing our own short- and long-term economy while committing ourselves to future funding battles in years to come.
And the funding battle to fight for the year 2012 after years of ongoing planning is County Transportation Measure J.
Measure J: J as in Jumpstart!
(Ken Alpern is a former Boardmember 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 CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee, chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and is co-chair of the non-profit Friends of the Green Line (www.fogl.us). He can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 76
Pub: Sept 21, 2012