Before We Reach for Our Wallets for Yet Another Transportation Tax … Leadership Has Some ‘Splainin’ to Do

TRANSPORTATION POLITICS--A very interesting couple of news stories from Northern California have enormous impacts on how Southern Californians should proceed on how best to create a 21st Century transportation network. 

The first story: 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 tax if approved by the voters--probably in November 2016. 

The second story: ‘Next 10’, a nonprofit nonpartisan group, gave LA Metro a grade of C in evaluating how transit rail stations encourage ridership and impact the quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods after an analysis prepared by the UC Berkeley School of Law's Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. 

In other words, we will (yet again!) be asked to vote to raise our sales taxes for transportation.  The big-ticket items include a long-overdue LAX/Metro Rail connection, an expedited construction of Westside and Eastside rail projects, and road/freeway repairs. 

Those of us in the City of Los Angeles are particularly concerned about whether this tax will go towards rebuilding our rotting and dilapidated sidewalks and roads, and to create DASH lines for Angelenos to better access Metro Rail, to say nothing of the overdevelopment that this tax-funded infrastructure too often enables. 

Those of us in the County of Los Angeles are wondering why we have to keep "saving ourselves" when the state should be primarily responsible for coming up with the billions needed for projects dumped financially on us instead (with Sacramento instead spending on a bullet train with dollars more appreciated by many voters for local needs). 

Yes, there are those among us that believe the state is doing its job, and it's up to the counties to do their jobs as things now stand, but it's neither smart nor fair to ignore those who do NOT believe this to be the case...because we DO need to have a 2/3 voter approval for this sales tax to pass. 

In other words, we need to answer reasonable questions (and not dismiss or belittle the questioners) such as: 

1) Did we get our money's worth from the past three sales tax hikes? 

2) Will we fix up older rail projects such as the Metro Blue Line? 

3) Will we beautify, mitigate, and entice developers to the regions next to the older Blue and Green Lines (that still have woefully insufficient transit-oriented development) so that they're more pleasant to live/work near? 

4) What priority will the LAX/Metro Rail connection have from this sales tax, and will we entertain a direct LAX-to-Union-Station rail project along the Harbor Subdivision Right of Way as part of it? 

5) What freeway projects will be part of this sales tax--will it include widening of the I-5 freeway between the 605 and 710 freeways? 

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6) Will Metro Rail projects be built in a vacuum, or will they be integrated into existing and future Metrolink, Amtrak, and future High-Speed Rail projects? 

7) Will there be bus/bike access, more parking, and enhanced amenities to improve the quality and user-friendliness of the stations we now have? 

8) Will there be greater enforcement of safety/security measures so that ordinary, peaceful, well-behaved commuters and tourists can ride our train system in comfort and without fear? 

9) Will there be geographic balance to benefit the South Bay, Southeast Cities and San Gabriel Valleys from such a tax measure? 

10) Finally, will this be it for the time being with respect to demanding us pay more for projects that are up to fifty years overdue? 

As with Downtown LA redevelopment, creating a Metro Rail network has taken decades to pursue, and have made both optimists and cynics of many Angelenos observing the changes (or lack thereof) in both major endeavors. 

There HAS been progress...but much progress has yet to be achieved before we can make enough believers among us...so the tough questions persist.  And it's not like our political leaders have demonstrated a lot of reasons for us to trust them with their so-called "leadership" with respect to regional Transportation and Urban Planning. 

But can a strategy and plan be created for 2/3 of us to vote for yet another sales tax to finally get the job done, or will enough voters conclude another sales tax hike is just too much "more of the same" to take seriously?

 

(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 82

Pub: Oct 9, 2015