Fighting the money fight doesn’t matter so much to me. What does matter is that we’re spending profligately to make our city much less livable, less safe (on the roadways), and worse for local businesses dependent on retail foot traffic.

I’m not sure what the best solution is, but we’ve got to ensure that this money being splashed around willy nilly. If we have a dedicated source of money for bikes, it should be used as leverage to get even more funds to be pulled from pots of money that are going to signal timing and left turn arrows (both of which are smoke and mirrors anyway). With a solid $10 to $20 million a year towards building out the bike master plan and paying for staff time to work on these issues with the community, we’ll get some facilities built quickly and appropriately.

PROPOSITION C ANTI-GRIDLOCK TRANSIT IMPROVEMENT FUND
Total Value of Fund: $83,000,000
Total amount to bikes from this fund:
Bicycle Programs $30,000
Bicycle Path Maintenance $500,000
School Bike and Transit Education $250,000

MOBILE SOURCE AIR POLLUTION REDUCTION TRUST FUND
Total Value of Fund: $5,400,000
Total amount to bikes from this fund:
Bicycle Patrol Program (Various Depts) $100,000

TRAFFIC SAFETY FUND
Total Value of Fund: $16,000,000
Total amount to bikes from this fund: $0

LOCAL TRANSPORTATION FUND
Total Value of Fund: $4,600,000
Total amount to bikes from this fund: ???

The City also receives money from the federal government and state government for specific programs. For example, the Environmental Affairs Department received around $2,250,000 in 2007-2008 for “Alternative Fuel Vehicles”.

The Department of Transportation and a few other departments cleared a couple of million every year for smattering of various bike and pedestrian projects from these funding sources.

A small slice of state-collected gasoline tax (“TDA 3 Funds”) is supposed to go to “local jurisdictions” based on their population. In Los Angeles County, the MTA gets this gas tax money and holds onto it for a couple of years before releasing it to a City (like LA).

This is a bunch o’ mumbo jumbo to instruct the City Council to make the necesary motions to get this already-collected money from the MTA and dump it into accounts the City of LA controls that go to fund previously approved bike projects.

A big chunk of the report is dedicated to repeatedly mentioning where the TDA 3 funds come from and what they are supposed to go to. Snore.

A slightly more detailed description of some of the listed projects which is available on pages 10 and 11 of the pdf file.

Clearly, Rosendahl gets it, and is rapidly becoming my favorite council member — although some of the others on the Transpo Committee are giving him a run for his money.

On the other hand, may I politely ask who the hell LADOT thinks they’re serving?

Love this blog, by the way. It’s slowly but inexorably politicizing this weekend rider toward transit issue activism.