There was extensive media coverage of the big win at SCAG, described to the right on our homepage, showing that Southern California does care about regional planning!
Huffington Post
Streetsblog
Pasadena Star News
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Whittier Daily News
San Bernardino Sun
San Jose Mercury News
SF Gate
Ventura County Star
The Press Enterprise
Desert Sun
NRDC's Switchboard blog
Long Beach Press Telegram
Friday, April 13, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Denny Zane in Toronto Globe & Mail!
WHILE TORONTO FEUDED, LOS ANGELES BUILT TRANSIT
John Lorinc
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Denny Zane can pinpoint the moment when the famously heavy traffic in Los Angeles changed from slushy to solid. It was the summer of 2007, and the back-ups on the I-10, through the city’s west side, snaked back over 20 kilometres and reappeared day after day after day, with no obvious cause.
“Not just bad,” recalled Mr. Zane, an activist and a former local councillor, “but, like, ‘wow!’ It was the talk of the town. We’d crossed the threshold.”
To make matters worse, L.A.’s regional transportation authority, known as Metro, had just announced it had run out of funds for future transit expansion, despite an expected influx of 4 million new residents in coming decades.
With congested highways in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, L.A.’s dilemma is painfully familiar to many frustrated urban Canadians.
L.A., however, has embarked on a fix of historic proportions, and did so with astonishing speed. After those brutal back-ups, Mr. Zane, now executive director of Move LA, hustled to assemble a broad-based coalition of business, labour and environmental groups spearheaded by L.A.’s mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a populist Democrat.
The group delivered something of a miracle: They persuaded a car-addled region of 10 million people to overwhelmingly back a ballot initiative in November, 2008, proposing a half-cent sales tax hike – roughly $25 per person per year – that will net $40-billion over 30 years for transit expansion, highway improvements and other local upgrades, including bike paths. (Two-thirds will go to transit construction and operating subsidies; the rest is for highways, bridges and roads.) Since “Measure R” passed, Metro has started planning or begun construction on no fewer than 12 light rail and bus rapid transit lines, and expects to break ground on a new subway next year.
“This is the most number of simultaneous [infrastructure] projects that have been under development at any time in L.A.’s history,” said Jaime de la Vega, the general manager of the city’s department of transportation and a former transit adviser to Mr. Villaraigosa.
The sheer speed of L.A.’s transformation into a transit city is a textbook example of metropolitan consensus-building, and stands in sharp contrast to the situation in Toronto, where municipal politicians have spent roughly the same period mired in a feud over the relative merits of LRTs versus subways. (Council earlier this month voted to back a provincially funded plan to spend $8.4-billion on an LRT network opposed by Mayor Rob Ford.) Indeed, with Greater Toronto facing similar growth, congestion and funding problems, the L.A. story could also provide some practical lessons on how decision-makers can break the political gridlock over funding future GTA transit plans, expected to cost over $50-billion in the next two decades.
A significant piece of L.A.’s solution has been an innovative borrowing arrangement with the federal government that, in effect, allows the city gain access to billions of dollars in up-front loans instead of waiting for years for the sales tax revenue to flow in. L.A. and California officials persuaded Washington legislators that the strategy, known as the “Fast Forward America” plan, will create half a million construction jobs and help lift the region out of its economic doldrums.
L.A. once had the largest streetcar network in the United States. But the car industry lobbied to have it dismantled in the 1950s. Starting the early 1990s, L.A. County planners began developing a bare bones transit infrastructure – mainly buses and one light rail line – using a regional sales tax.
Mr. Villaraigosa came into office in 2005 promising to build the so-called “subway to the sea” on L.A.’s affluent west-side, but the 2007 funding crisis proved to be a game-changer, said Mr. Zane. Instead, Mr. Villaraigosa set to work selling the sales tax plan based on a much broader vision that proposed transit projects serving the entire area, including a three-kilometre “regional connector” – an underground downtown LRT that will link L.A.’s other rapid transit lines into a network.
Local officials, said Mr. Zane, were emboldened to take the plan to voters after three successive polls pegged support for the sales tax hike at about 70 per cent.
Notably absent from the debate about how to deliver Mr. Villaraigosa’s transit strategy: any discussion about private sector partners, or a bitter fight over the urgent need for subways, as has been the case in Toronto. While construction on the first of three phases of the Westside subway will begin next year, the project could take three decades to complete, depending on federal funding levels.
As for light rail, Mr. de la Vega said that ideally, transit planners prefer grade-separated heavy rail (i.e., subways) instead of transit vehicles running down busy streets. But to confront the crisis, L.A. politicians adopted a pragmatic stance. Indeed, last year they approved a bus-only lane on heavily used Wilshire Boulevard because planners said the buses move more people than the cars do on that route.
Business leaders, for their part, are supportive of Mr. Villaraigosa’s game plan, relieved that LA County is finally seeking a solution to the gridlock that bedevils shipping companies and local manufacturers.
“I think there’s a consensus that going with surface is a lot better than not having [transit] at all,” said Gary Toebben, president and CEO of the 1,600-member L.A. County Chamber of Commerce, who helped by lobbying Congress for additional funding. The modest tax hike, he added, “was not a hard sell for our members.”
You can read the story here
John Lorinc
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Denny Zane can pinpoint the moment when the famously heavy traffic in Los Angeles changed from slushy to solid. It was the summer of 2007, and the back-ups on the I-10, through the city’s west side, snaked back over 20 kilometres and reappeared day after day after day, with no obvious cause.
“Not just bad,” recalled Mr. Zane, an activist and a former local councillor, “but, like, ‘wow!’ It was the talk of the town. We’d crossed the threshold.”
To make matters worse, L.A.’s regional transportation authority, known as Metro, had just announced it had run out of funds for future transit expansion, despite an expected influx of 4 million new residents in coming decades.
With congested highways in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, L.A.’s dilemma is painfully familiar to many frustrated urban Canadians.
L.A., however, has embarked on a fix of historic proportions, and did so with astonishing speed. After those brutal back-ups, Mr. Zane, now executive director of Move LA, hustled to assemble a broad-based coalition of business, labour and environmental groups spearheaded by L.A.’s mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a populist Democrat.
The group delivered something of a miracle: They persuaded a car-addled region of 10 million people to overwhelmingly back a ballot initiative in November, 2008, proposing a half-cent sales tax hike – roughly $25 per person per year – that will net $40-billion over 30 years for transit expansion, highway improvements and other local upgrades, including bike paths. (Two-thirds will go to transit construction and operating subsidies; the rest is for highways, bridges and roads.) Since “Measure R” passed, Metro has started planning or begun construction on no fewer than 12 light rail and bus rapid transit lines, and expects to break ground on a new subway next year.
“This is the most number of simultaneous [infrastructure] projects that have been under development at any time in L.A.’s history,” said Jaime de la Vega, the general manager of the city’s department of transportation and a former transit adviser to Mr. Villaraigosa.
The sheer speed of L.A.’s transformation into a transit city is a textbook example of metropolitan consensus-building, and stands in sharp contrast to the situation in Toronto, where municipal politicians have spent roughly the same period mired in a feud over the relative merits of LRTs versus subways. (Council earlier this month voted to back a provincially funded plan to spend $8.4-billion on an LRT network opposed by Mayor Rob Ford.) Indeed, with Greater Toronto facing similar growth, congestion and funding problems, the L.A. story could also provide some practical lessons on how decision-makers can break the political gridlock over funding future GTA transit plans, expected to cost over $50-billion in the next two decades.
A significant piece of L.A.’s solution has been an innovative borrowing arrangement with the federal government that, in effect, allows the city gain access to billions of dollars in up-front loans instead of waiting for years for the sales tax revenue to flow in. L.A. and California officials persuaded Washington legislators that the strategy, known as the “Fast Forward America” plan, will create half a million construction jobs and help lift the region out of its economic doldrums.
L.A. once had the largest streetcar network in the United States. But the car industry lobbied to have it dismantled in the 1950s. Starting the early 1990s, L.A. County planners began developing a bare bones transit infrastructure – mainly buses and one light rail line – using a regional sales tax.
Mr. Villaraigosa came into office in 2005 promising to build the so-called “subway to the sea” on L.A.’s affluent west-side, but the 2007 funding crisis proved to be a game-changer, said Mr. Zane. Instead, Mr. Villaraigosa set to work selling the sales tax plan based on a much broader vision that proposed transit projects serving the entire area, including a three-kilometre “regional connector” – an underground downtown LRT that will link L.A.’s other rapid transit lines into a network.
Local officials, said Mr. Zane, were emboldened to take the plan to voters after three successive polls pegged support for the sales tax hike at about 70 per cent.
Notably absent from the debate about how to deliver Mr. Villaraigosa’s transit strategy: any discussion about private sector partners, or a bitter fight over the urgent need for subways, as has been the case in Toronto. While construction on the first of three phases of the Westside subway will begin next year, the project could take three decades to complete, depending on federal funding levels.
As for light rail, Mr. de la Vega said that ideally, transit planners prefer grade-separated heavy rail (i.e., subways) instead of transit vehicles running down busy streets. But to confront the crisis, L.A. politicians adopted a pragmatic stance. Indeed, last year they approved a bus-only lane on heavily used Wilshire Boulevard because planners said the buses move more people than the cars do on that route.
Business leaders, for their part, are supportive of Mr. Villaraigosa’s game plan, relieved that LA County is finally seeking a solution to the gridlock that bedevils shipping companies and local manufacturers.
“I think there’s a consensus that going with surface is a lot better than not having [transit] at all,” said Gary Toebben, president and CEO of the 1,600-member L.A. County Chamber of Commerce, who helped by lobbying Congress for additional funding. The modest tax hike, he added, “was not a hard sell for our members.”
You can read the story here
Monday, March 26, 2012
MOVE LA OP-ED IN HUFFPO: Congress Fiddles While SoCal Gets Things Done
Huffington Post posts a blog by Denny Zane and Gloria Ohland on the remarkable bonhomie and bipartisanship of the Southern California Association of Government's Regional Council, and how it stands in marked contrast to the bickering in Congress over the federal transportation bill. Jobs are at stake!
Read it here.
Read it here.
MOVE LA OP-ED ABOUT REMARKABLE DRAFT REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLAN IN LOCAL NEWSPAPER
Denny Zane and Gloria Ohland write about the remarkable regional transportation plan that is about to be adopted by the Regional Council of the Southern California Association of Governments in an op ed that appeared in the Pasadena Star News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News this weekend.
Read it here.
Read it here.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
SCAG POLICY COMMITTEES RECOMMEND ADOPTION OF RTP/SCS
The Southern California Association of Governments policy committees voted 58-3 today to recommend that the Regional Council approve the RTP/SCS on April 4. Then the three committees voted 47-0 to adopt a motion to identify resources for enhancing Metrolink, a clean goods movement system, and the Compass Blueprint Demonstration Project grant program — as well as to expand the health and equity performance metrics used by SCAG, and to broaden SCAG’s role in providing technical assistance for active transportation planning efforts through a Strategic Funding Plan, Regional Complete Streets Plan and a Regional Safe Routes to School Plan.
It should be noted that the bonhomie and bipartisanship of this planning effort at SCAG stands in marked contrast to the political divisiveness of Congress. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) today announced his intention to extend the federal surface transportation reauthorization for the ninth time since 2009 because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on a way forward.
Adoption of the RTP/SCS is scheduled for April 4. These are some of the things that would be achieved by 2035:
LAND USE:
•total housing within half mile of transit = 82 percent
•total jobs within half mile of transit = 87 percent
•Saves 410 square miles of open space from development
•Increases the number of people who live near transit by 60 percent
TRANSPORTATION:
•bike and pedestrian funding more than triples, from $1.8 B to $6.7 B
•Reduction in congestion, despite population growth of 4 million
•24 percent reduction in traffic delay per capita
•Impressive expansion of transit, including Measure R in LA County and a doubling of Metrolink ridership in the region
HOUSEHOLD SAVINGS:
•$3,000 annual savings per household due to lower auto, fuel, water and energy costs
JOBS:
•Jobs due to transportation investments: 4.2 million by 2035
AIR QUALITY:
•24 percent reduction in pollution-caused respiratory problems, resulting in $1.5 B/year less in health care costs
•Achieves 2020 GHG reduction target of 8 percent and exceeds 2035 target of 16 percent by 3 percent
It should be noted that the bonhomie and bipartisanship of this planning effort at SCAG stands in marked contrast to the political divisiveness of Congress. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) today announced his intention to extend the federal surface transportation reauthorization for the ninth time since 2009 because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on a way forward.
Adoption of the RTP/SCS is scheduled for April 4. These are some of the things that would be achieved by 2035:
LAND USE:
•total housing within half mile of transit = 82 percent
•total jobs within half mile of transit = 87 percent
•Saves 410 square miles of open space from development
•Increases the number of people who live near transit by 60 percent
TRANSPORTATION:
•bike and pedestrian funding more than triples, from $1.8 B to $6.7 B
•Reduction in congestion, despite population growth of 4 million
•24 percent reduction in traffic delay per capita
•Impressive expansion of transit, including Measure R in LA County and a doubling of Metrolink ridership in the region
HOUSEHOLD SAVINGS:
•$3,000 annual savings per household due to lower auto, fuel, water and energy costs
JOBS:
•Jobs due to transportation investments: 4.2 million by 2035
AIR QUALITY:
•24 percent reduction in pollution-caused respiratory problems, resulting in $1.5 B/year less in health care costs
•Achieves 2020 GHG reduction target of 8 percent and exceeds 2035 target of 16 percent by 3 percent
HOUSE TRANSPORTATION LEADER ANNOUNCES PLAN TO EXTEND SAFETEA-LU BY 90 DAYS
Earlier today, the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, John Mica (R-FL), shared his intention to extend America’s federal surface transportation programs for another 90 days. [See link to Mica bio in CQ below.] If adopted by Congress, this would be the ninth extension of SAFETEA-LU, which officially expired in September of 2009. The current extension of SAFETEA-LU will expire on March 31, 2012, forcing Congressional leaders to consider yet another extension of the long stalled surface transportation bill. Last night, news media reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was not “inclined” to assist the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives in passing a short-term extension for surface transportation programs. Such a move by the Senate Majority Leader may increase pressure on the House to consider voting for MAP-21, the Senate transportation bill that was authored in large part by U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and James Inhofe (R-OK) and adopted overwhelmingly last week by a vote of 74 to 22.
Mica bio, "For Mica a Bumpy Road in Driver's Seat," in CQ is here.
Mica bio, "For Mica a Bumpy Road in Driver's Seat," in CQ is here.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
U.S. Senate Overwhelmingly Adopts Surface Transportation Bill – America Fast Forward Included In Legislation
The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly (74 to 22) today to adopt its surface transportation bill (S. 1813), also known as MAP-21. The bill, championed by U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and James Inhofe (R-OK), represents an unusual triumph of bipartisan legislating in the current Congress. The bill will fund surface transportation projects through 2013 at a cost of $109 billion. The bill includes an innovative finance section, entitled America Fast Forward (title II of Division A of the bill) that was the product of LA Metro’s Board-approved plan to accelerate the Measure R funded highway and transit program. As recently as last week, Senator Boxer praised her strong working relationship with Los Angeles County transportation leaders in crafting her bill, namely the America Fast Forward title of S. 1813.
The U.S. House of Representatives is in recess this week. The House leadership expects to work on their surface transportation bill (HR 7) in a yet-to-be determined form when they come back to Washington next week. Metro's federal team is actively engaging with the Los Angeles County House Delegation to ensure that they and their aides have all the information they need on the Board-approved legislative program should the House bring HR 7 to a vote next week. The current surface transportation bill extension expires on March 31, 2012.
The U.S. House of Representatives is in recess this week. The House leadership expects to work on their surface transportation bill (HR 7) in a yet-to-be determined form when they come back to Washington next week. Metro's federal team is actively engaging with the Los Angeles County House Delegation to ensure that they and their aides have all the information they need on the Board-approved legislative program should the House bring HR 7 to a vote next week. The current surface transportation bill extension expires on March 31, 2012.
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