Anyone who wants to monitor the whole Expo grade crossing thing, the hearings start on the 11th at 10 a.m. at the Junipero Serra State Office Building, 320 West 4th Street, Suite 500 in downtown Los Angeles (and may continue for the rest of the week)
(may continue August 12-15)

This is regarding applications for Expo Light Rail grade crossings at:
Harvard Blvd - A.06-12-020
Farmdale Ave - A.07-05-013

The PUC website has documents, etc. on these applications, etc. (search under the A. numbers) and a link to the agency daily calendar that lists the impending hearing:
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/puc

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That seems a simple enough question on the surface. However, it isn't so cut and dry. The reality on the ground is that transit-dependent Westsiders who use the Big Blue and/or Culver City Bus Lines, and who also use Metro bus lines, which is practically everyone, also need to buy more expensive monthly EZ-Passes than the regular monthly Metro pass.

So, I'm not getting a subsidy at all. If anything, I am paying more money for a monthly pass than someone who lives elsewhere in the county. And, because there is avoidance of duplication and I forced to make unnatural transfers at Wilshire/Westwood, Pico/Rimpau or Fairfax/Washington.

I would personally wish to see the base fare for the Big Blue Bus and Culver City Bus rise to $1.25, but the have the monthly EZ Pass cover everyone for the same cost as the Metro monthly pass.

Seeing that there is Metrolink and the skeletal Metrorail elsewhere in the county, and that I pay more for a monthly pass than someone on the eastside, who is really subsidizing whom?

"In Los Angeles, the federal poverty line was $20,000 for a family of four in 2006. The California Budget Project estimates that even single adults living in Los Angeles would need more than $24,000 to meet their basic needs. In this report, the number of people living below 200 percent of the federal poverty line serves as a measure of those who lack the income to cover basic necessities and are therefore poor. The federal poverty level is used as a measure of the number of people living in extreme poverty."

"An estimated 1,505,004 million people, or 15.4 percent of Los Angeles County residents, live below the federal poverty threshold, considered in this report to be a measure of extreme need."

"An estimated 37.6 percent lived below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which was $40,000 per year for a family of four in 2006."

A $10/hour full-time job is about $20,000 per year.

Let's add up some round numbers:
Rent & utilities = $1,000/month
Metro monthly pass = $62
Groceries @$100/week = $400/month
Social Security deduction @6.2% = $103
Everything else = $102

That's what $20,000 per year buys. Sobering.

But they would only pay $6.12/year = 50 cents/month for the additional 1/2-cent sales tax on "everything else", far less than their transit benefits received.

$417 is three dates, one new outfit, and lunch every other day of the week!

This tax is projected to cost the average county resident only $25 per year*. A low-income transit rider would pay even less, and come out well-ahead in lower fares and better service.

*"According to the private nonprofit Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), Measure R would cost residents just $25 per person each year." ("Metro's Five-Point Plan", page 6)

See the "Revenue Alternatives for a Sustainable Transportation System" PowerPoint download for alternatives -- such as fees -- to sales tax funding presented at the January Subway to the Sea conference, http://www.subwaytothesea.org .

Yes, Metro is inefficient, but I think the previous problems had a lot to do with the environment they were operating in. They were trying to build rail to places that were blocking them, and the design became dysfunctional and stupid as a result. It was the 90s and gas was cheap and the whole thing just seemed idiotic to the man on the street.

I'd be interested to hear the numbers for congestion and parking taxes, but I wonder how much money could be generated and how such a tax would be any easier to pass given that you'd be discouraging people from using their cars without first providing them with viable rail and bus replacements for their commutes. Frankly, as someone who's not reflexively anti-tax, I'd be happy to do both, a sales tax and more congestion pricing as we improve the system.

As for the rest, I don't think it's fair to call Metrolink subsidies or local return a waste. Roads do need to be repaired, people do need to ride those trains. I would prefer something more focused on rail and bus infrastructure, but right now the percentage of the population using those services is low and the chance of passing a bill without money for street repair and carpool lane improvements is even lower.

I really am a broken record, and I do respect all the criticism of this bill, I simply do not agree that there are better alternatives waiting in the wings. I wouldn't go so far as to say we'd definitely have to wait fifteen years, but we have no idea whether we could find an alternative that could be passed and these projects will only get more expensive and harder to start in the meantime. My gut says that if this doesn't pass and we did, god willing, get something else on the ballot in a few years, it'd be just as flawed because that's politics, that's what you need to do to get something across the finish line.

Besides, we already have 2 of these same sales taxes, and the result is a poorly planned, dysfunctional rail network AND billions in pork to cities and municipal operators.

I cannot support this tax if its going to waste more money on Metrolink subsidies, local returns, and subsidies to the Munis. Why should the citizens of Santa Monica pay 60% of what Angelenos pay in bus fare?

"A straight sales tax is also the ultimate in regression. Advocates say there are ways to make it less hard on the poor, by exempting such essentials as food, medical care and housing from the sales tax"

(Sounds like our current County Sales Tax)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4182/is_20060403/ai_n16222914

"Maxwell found that exempting food from the sales tax makes it less regressive, whether applied to annual or lifetime income.

When applied to annual income, with food exempt, the tax is 27 percent less regressive, he determined, and 36 percent less so when applied to lifetime income..

Using a lifetime perspective and assuming an exemption for food, the Oklahoma state sales tax is nearly proportional overall and slightly progressive over the first three income quintiles, Maxwell's report states.

Adding services to the mix, Maxwell said, high-income households pay relatively more in sales taxes, making the tax less regressive."

(This is just an example of only food being exempted from the County Sales tax, like it is currently)

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1813222

"Studies have shown that a food exemption does reduce the regressivity or increase the progressivity of a sales tax... A sales tax is considered progressive if the effective tax rate increases with the ability to pay"

Yes, a sales tax is regressive. But unless we're going to re-write the California Constitution, a sales tax is the only kind of tax we could hope to pass. By the way, I don't think re-writing the California Constitution is a bad idea, but that's going to have to wait for a true fiscal crisis, not just Ahnold faking it.

I would prefer it wasn't a sales tax, but the California constitution is so damned bonkers that it's nearly impossible to pass simple things like assessment fees that charge individual areas for transit improvements (last time I read up on it, I think you need not only a two thirds approval, but an approval of only property owners and weighted by the value of their property, ie the rich get to vote double or triple).

Brayj, regarding your philosophy of anti-car policy, while I do hope it gains steam in the future, I think you're demanding the impossible in the current Los Angeles. The base of support of people who think transit policy should discourage single occupancy vehicles is a very small base, but it can grow if more transit projects are built and more people realize that life can be better without a car. Without the highway funding in this bill, it wouldn't stand a prayer of passing.

I'm a broken record at this point, but I think if you want a better Los Angeles transit system that isn't so car focused, this bill is a step in the right direction, and the alternative is essentially standing still while the ground gives way beneath the city.

2# Sales taxes are the very defintion of regressive taxation. Exempting a few key transactions does not change that.

That's Darrell Clarke for you ladies and gentlemen!

How much are the "fares" to use the widened highways, developer-subsidized parking spaces, and the MTA's highway car-towing service?

ZERO. There are no car user fees - only indirect fees.

The mayor would do himself a favor to build a support base for the future among those who don't give a crap for the happy motoring pipe dreams of the 20th century.