MOVE LA MENTIONED IN LA TIMES OP-ED

In an LA Times op-ed Monday entitled "More freeways won't end LA's traffic woes," NRDC Senior Attorney Joel Reynolds takes issue with the proposed extension of the 710 Freeway through Pasadena and South Pasadena and with the Foothill South toll road in Orange County. A better idea, he says, is a multimodal approach involving transit and congestion management on existing roads or — better yet — implementation of 30/10:

"Instead of wasting limited transportation dollars on projects like these that inevitably sabotage mobility by perpetuating traffic congestion," he writes, "we need to demand strategies that will actually address the problem. There is no better example anywhere in the country than the 30/10 initiative advanced by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — who last week became MTA board chairman — and the Move LA coalition of community organizations to leverage federal loans to accelerate funding for 12 key public transit projects in Los Angeles."

Reynolds argues that we can no longer afford the luxury of wasting public funding on costly projects that won't address the traffic problem and that persist more because of politics or bureaucratic momentum. Read the article here:

50 LA ORGS URGE FEINSTEIN TO HELP WIN NEW STARTS FOR 2 UNDERGROUND RAIL LINES

More than 50 organizations have signed on to Move LA’s letter (on the right) urging Senator Dianne Feinstein to help win New Starts funding for the Westside Subway Extension and the downtown LA Regional Connector in 2012. Both projects are critical pieces of LA’s transit infrastructure: The Regional Connector is an 2-mile-long underground light rail line downtown that will link up the Gold, Blue and Expo lines (Expo to Culver City opens in November with 10 stations) to provide a “one-seat ride” across the region. The 9-mile Westside Subway Extension extends the Purple Line from Vermont and Wilshire, providing a high-speed transit alternative to the Miracle Mile, Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, and UCLA.

Metro’s subway system transports 8,846 passengers per route mile — more riders than travel on either BART in the Bay Area or Chicago’s “L.” Both projects could receive funding through America Fast Forward, the national rebranding of the “30-10” plan to build all 12 Measure R fixed-guideway transit lines in 10 years. Key elements of America Fast Forward have been incorporated into both the Senate and House federal transportation reauthorization bills. America Fast Forward and New Starts funding would together ensure that both projects are built within 10 years.

Move LA’s sign-on letter notes these projects would provide green jobs to the building construction trades, noting that while unemployment in LA County stands at 12 percent, unemployment for construction workers is more than 40 percent. The letter is signed by business, labor, environmental and community groups.

LA Metro One Step Closer to Extending Purple Line Subway to West LA

U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein issued a joint press release Wednesday announcing that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) was taking a major step toward approval of a $640.8 Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan for the Westside Subway Extension. The expansion of the TIFIA program is a centerpiece of Metro’s America Fast Forward initiative, which also calls for the creation of a Qualified Transportation Improvement Bond (QTIBs) program.

"Today's announcement is a critical step towards creating an ambitious, multi-faceted transit network and putting Angelenos back to work,” Mayor and Chair of the MTA Antonio Villaraigosa said. “With this latest, generous loan commitment from the federal government, we will extend the Metro Purple Line from Koreatown to Century City all the way into Westwood, better serving the 300,000 commuters that pour into these job centers every day and putting approximately 40,000 Angelenos back to work.”

“As Mayor and Chair of the MTA, I will continue to push Congress and the Administration to provide Los Angeles and cities across the country with the innovative financing tools we need to accelerate construction of transportation projects and create nearly 1 million jobs nationwide when we need them most,”  Mayor Villaraigosa said.

TIFIA loans, when paired with the suggested bond program, hold the promise, as outlined in the America Fast Forward initiative, of dramatically accelerating the construction of Metro highway and transit projects.

On March 1, 2011, Metro had written a letter of interest to the USDOT outlining our interest in a TIFIA loan for the Westside Subway Extension and the Regional Connector. What occurred today is that the USDOT selected the Westside Subway Extension [and seven other projects] from a pool of 34 project sponsors that were seeking a total of over $14 billion in TIFIA loans to help finance some $48 billion of new capital investments. Metro must now submit a final TIFIA application with USDOT and await formal approval of our Westside Subway Extension loan over the next several months.

 The TIFIA program is designed to fill market gaps and leverage substantial private and other non-federal co-investment by providing supplemental and subordinate capital to projects. The TIFIA program offers project sponsors the following advantages:

·      Long-term loans at the comparable U.S. Treasury yield.

·      Ability to lock in the interest rate several years in advance of a drawdown, without any additional cost.

·      Right to prepay loan draw downs in whole or in part at any time, without penalty.

·      Potential willingness of USDOT to accept more flexible terms, such as back-loading debt service to reflect anticipated growth in the pledged revenue stream, and thinner debt service coverage margins than required to obtain an investment-grade rating in the capital markets.

·      Diversified source of debt capital (U.S. Treasury as lender), reducing market saturation.

·      Lower transaction costs.

Metro staff (finance and construction) will work to specifically outline the impact of this TIFIA loan on the Westside Subway Extension project. This effort will include how the TIFIA funds will be spent and the impact the loan will have, when paired with New Starts funds and a prospective low-interest federal bond program, on the timeline for building the subway to its terminus at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Westwood.

MOVE LA EVENT DEMONSTRATES CITY'S ENTHUSIASM FOR ACCELERATING TRANSIT

As HuffPost columnist/blogger Joel Epstein noted on his blog, Move LA’s “Transportation Conversation 3” and audience of 400 demonstrated on Tuesday the enthusiasm of this city for accelerating transit construction. He singled out panelist Jessica Meany of Safe Routes to School for her energy and insights and Infraconsult’s Mike Schneider for raising the concern that: “ . . . if we let Congress reshape the conversation to be about finding strictly public-private partnership solutions to our transportation needs, we do so at our peril.” Joel concludes: I left the conference optimistic but preoccupied with the sobering thought that if we don't win on America Fast Forward or reshuffle the Measure R project deck, we may have to wait until 2036 to see the extension of the Wilshire subway to the Westwood VA” — because if America Fast Forward isn’t enacted by Congress Metro will have to revert to the plan to build the line in three phases by 2036.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-epstein/america-stumbles-forward_b_882697.html

Steve Hymon Tracks Move LA’s “Transportation Conversation 3” On The Source

LA Metro blogger Steve Hymon tracked Move LA’s “Transportation Conversation 3” event in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday on “The Source,” noting the comment of lunchtime keynote speaker GB Arrington of PB Placemaking, who said building parking near rail stations is like adding fuel to the fire of traffic congestion because it only brings more traffic into neighborhoods. And he noted that morning keynote Scott Bernstein of the national nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology likened building a transit system to inventing the telephone — the first phone was useless until the second one was built. Similarly, LA’s transit system becomes ever more useful to riders as we build more lines and provide more connectivity. 

http://thesource.metro.net/2011/06/21/big-transit-issues-discussed-at-move-la-event/  

DENNY ZANE EXPLAINS AMERICA FAST FORWARD AND URGES US TO DREAM BIGGER

This interview with Denny Zane is from the program book for Move LA’s “Transportation Conversation 3” on June 21, and is downloadable as a pdf here.
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LA Metro, the Move LA coalition and others are asking the federal government to provide low-interest loans and long-term bonds secured by Measure R’s 30-year revenue stream to raise the money up-front that is required to build all Measure R projects in 10 years, not 30. Currently there are no federal programs that provide that level of financing. America Fast Forward, the national branding of the 30-10 Plan, would expand national interest and support for programs like 30-10 by increasing funding for the TIFIA (the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) from $110 million per year to $1 billion. In this interview Gloria Ohland asks Move LA Executive Director Denny Zane to explain why Measure R and “30-10” are game-changers, why we should begin thinking about Measure R 2, and why Move LA is promoting transit-oriented development. Click here to download.

Click to download interview.

Move LA featured in the NY Times Energy & Environment Section!

Los Angeles Leads Full-Throttle Dash for U.S. Transit Cash.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/06/06/06greenwire-los-angeles-leads-full-throttle-dash-for-us-tran-379.html