Streetsblog Los Angeles

(Last week, we covered the surprise announcement from Attorney General Kamala Harris to join a lawsuit against the San Diego Association of Governments’ regional plan.  If you haven’t already done so, you can read that story, here.)

If there aren't changes to SCAG's plans, will there be another lawsuit? Time will tell.

When Attorney General Kamala Harris announced her office was supporing a lawsuit against the allegedly progressive long-term transportation plan passed by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), it sent ripples through the transportation advocacy community.  Harris bluntly claimed that SANDAG can’t meet Greenhouse Gas goals set by state law by building highways now and other transportation options later.  She also noted the low amount of funding going towards walking and bicycling in the plan.

Locally, activists hope that the Attorney General’s decision influences long range planning at the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG.)  The numbers and planning strategies between the SCAG draft plan and the embattled “final” plan at SANDAG are similar enough that the threat of another lawsuit looms large unless the SCAG plan undergoes some changes.

Read more…

Eddie Solis leaves the Metro Red Line, which serves as one part of his hour-long commute from his day job in Hollywood to his home in Boyle Heights. Much of the inspiration for his band It's Casual comes from his observations from being car-free, a bus and subway rider, and a skateboarder. Photo courtesy of Eddie Solis.

A few weeks ago, the hardcore band It’s Casual posted “The Red Line” music video on Youtube and quickly caught the attention of local and national blogs for it’s simple yet creative critique of Los Angeles freeways. A current resident of Boyle Heights, guitarist and vocalist Eddie Solis sat down with Eastside Streetsblog to talk about how his car-free lifestyle inspires his music and how he encounters on his morning walks the smell of Boyle Heights tortilla factories.

You do a lot of music that’s very transit oriented; can you explain why you went that route?

Sometimes I think there’s a lot of content out there that’s too, I want to say, too fiction. Kind of make believe. And I notice all my favorite music that hits home to me in my heart and that I kind of step back and see these bands still going  . . . are bands that write timeless music with timeless contact that basically come from the truth of actual events and someone’s perspective. So I said I really want to find an avenue and report on it. And I go, wait you know what, my daily commute. I see LA different because  . . . I take the bus and subway everywhere. And the freeways are just sitting there, and people are in their cars just frustrated about it, but I’m just like sightseeing everyday. So I took that concept and said, “You know what, I’m basically going to report on what I see and interpret it.”

What kind of message were you trying to evoke when you were making “The Red Line” and then making the video? Read more…

Yesterday, Streetsblog published the first of a two part interview with L.A. City Planning Department’s Claire Bowin.  Bowin has had her finger in a lot of pots in her tenure with Planning, working on the Bike Plan, the Mobility Element, the Housing Plan, the Cornfield Arroyo-Seco Plan, and Bike Plan Implementation.

Claire Bowin

As you’ll see below, she also has some strong feelings on car parking minimums.

Read the first part of the interview by clicking here, and the second part by reading on.

A lot of planning and development decisions hinge on parking regulations, set by the Planning Department. Critics, including UCLA’s Donald Shoup, have shown these parking minimums to be inconsistent, unhelpful, and biased toward suburban auto-centric development. What’s in store for the future of parking in Los Angeles?

Ah, parking, one of my favorite topics. If you build it they will come- this has certainly been true with parking and cars. Communities, fearful of density and an influx of people and cars, are often the first to demand more parking- not realizing, of course, the self- fulfilling prophecy they’ve put in motion. But, now that we’ve got all these cars and parking lots how can we wean people off of them? Read more…

Over the past couple of years, the name “Claire Bowin” has been attached to many of the most important projects that Streetsblog regularly covers.  For that reason, we decided to feature a reader question and answer with Bowin so readers could both get to know her and learn a little more about how the city operates.

Claire Bowin

Because Bowin wrote such detailed answers, we decided to split her question and answer into two parts.  Today’s question and answer covers the public outreach for the Mobility Plan that are underway, Transit Oriented Development and Affordable Housing.  The last question, on affordable housing, is almost literally a dissertation on the issue and a must read for anyone that cares about housing, equality, development and TOD.  The second part of the series will run tomorrow.

Readers: The city’s General Plan 1999 Transportation element has all sorts of great language about livability, walkability, transit – but this plan language didn’t really end up with much in the way of results on the ground. How can the Mobility Element update underway do better?

Bowin: It’s amazing how much has changed in the past 13 years- LA is such a different place now than it was in 1999 and I think we’re finally moving towards a community that is truly multi-modal. Measure R’s passage, in 2008, demonstrated again how much Los Angelenos truly support a regional transit system. Measure R is also a good example of how important local leadership and dedicated funding are in ensuring that physical improvements actually get done.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how important a strong implementation plan (read $$) is going to be if we really want to see the ideas in the Mobility Plan carried out. Without it we can have lots of lofty policies and goals but we won’t get the traction to actually make the many on-the-ground changes that are going to be needed to really attract Los Angelenos to try out new ways of getting around.

 How will the mobility plan assure that we are planning our streets as ‘places’ as well as mobility corridors for pedestrians, cyclists transit riders and drivers? Read more…

Although most of the service changes slated for implementation in December were suspended, two  were implemented without much fanfare this month.

One change at Metro can impact everything else. Photo:wn.com

The first is a new shuttle between East L.A. College and the Metro Gold Line Indiana Station along Atlantic Boulevard and 1st Street which began January 11th. This new line is in response to concerns expressed by eastside residents that I wrote about previously. John McCready in comments on The Source asks “Of ALL changes that have ever been made to MTA bus lines, how many were ever made by ACTUAL RIDERS that GOT IMPLEMENTED?” (capitalization in the original). Well, Mr. McCready here is an example of rider input resulting in new service.

Meanwhile it was political influence that led line 201 to be re-extended to serve Glenoaks Park as of January 9th. The whole history can be viewed on the Kymbereligh Richards’ Transit Insider website.  The ridership to Glenoaks Park was and continues to be pitiful. Richards notes the 201 when it served the Park through 2006 had a ridership of “9 per day to/from the final Glenoaks Park stop.” Read more…

When the Mayor and his staff in city hall say that nothing is off the table when it comes to accelerating project development and construction for the transit projects funded by the Measure R sales tax, they aren’t just talking.  While the Mayor promised that there was a “Plan B” if his efforts to change federal law to favor communities that tax themselves to build transit don’t go anywhere in D.C.

Borja Leon. Photo: Mayor's Office

Now, on the eve of announcement of a new federal transportation bill from leadership in the House of Representatives, the Mayor’s office is pursuing three different options to leverage the expected $40 billion in sales tax revenue over the 30 years between 2009 and 2039.  Besides the pursuit of federal dollars, there is also the possibility of asking L.A. County voters to tax themselves again and working with equity firms in China to finance the projects.

Last week, Streetsblog talked to Deputy Mayor for Transportation Borja Leon about the different options being pursued and where the city is in the process.

Plan A: America Fast Forward Née 30/10

Streetsblog will feature ads for the Regional Connector Final EIS/EIR throughout the next 30 days.

“Plan A” is still the 30/10 or America Fast Forward plan to change federal law to reward communities that choose to tax themsleves to expand transit.  If enacted, the Mayor’s proposal would create interest free loan programs that would allow projects to get started earlier and would re-prioritize federal grant programs.  When Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and Democratic leadership in the Senate announced proposals last year, both included major increases in the TIFIA loan program which is a major provision of America Fast Forward.

The Mayor’s Office appears confident that this increase will remain.  ”We have been working with the Federal Government and have a great partnership,” explains Leon.  ”A lot of things have been moving in the last week with America Fast Forward.”

We should find out if the confidence, and Mayor’s lobbying efforts, have paid off this week. Read more…

When the San Diego Association of Governments passed its regional transportation plan, which will direct transportation spending in the region for decades, the agency hailed the plan as a national model.  This was the first plan passed that followed the standards of SB 375, the California environmental law that set greenhouse gas reduction targets based on transportation and development planning.

Kamala Harris

The agency declared victory, but many local advocates weren’t convinced.

“If this is a national and regional model, we’re in bad shape,” Dough McFetridge of the Cleveland National Forest Foundation grumbled to Streetsblog last November.  ”We have a need — a tremendous need — for transit right now, today. This proposal puts funding transit off into so far in to the future that many of us won’t be around anymore.”

McFetridge and other environmental groups pressed forward with a lawsuit claiming that the EIR for the plan was flawed because it didn’t take into account the impact new highway construction would have on vehicles miles traveled.  This week their lawsuit received a major boost when California Attorney General Kamala Harris joined their efforts.

“The 3.2 million residents of the San Diego region already suffer from the seventh worst ozone pollution in the country,” said Harris in a press release. “Spending our transit dollars in the right way today will improve the economy, create sustainable jobs and ensure that future generations do not continue to suffer from heavily polluted air.”

The lawsuit argues that the environmental review of the transit plan did not adequately analyze the public health impacts of the increased air pollution. The San Diego region already has a very high risk of cancer from particulate matter emitted by diesel engines and vehicles and there is no analysis as to whether this risk will increase.  By prioritizing highway expansion in the first years of the plan, SANDAG claims more pedestrian, bicycle and transit expansion in the plan even though those plans may never happen.  The bulk of the investment in transit and active transportation begins decades from now.

“The attorney general’s intervention in this case supports our argument that SANDAG’s plan is deeply flawed,” said Kathryn Phillips of the Sierra Club.  ”We’re encouraged that the State of California is serious about limiting air pollution and climate change pollution created by transportation in the region.”

Read more…

Fearless prediction: April. I'll bet Mitt Romney $10,000 Expo Phase I opens in April without Culver City Station. That will open in August. Note, these are just predictions!

Earlier this morning at the Metro Board Meeting, CEO Art Leahy announced that pre-revenue operation of the Expo Line Phase I will begin on Monday.  ”Pre-revenue operation” is usually the last phase of tests a new fixed rail transit line undergoes before the line opens to the public.  The agency will run trains on the line as though service has begun although there won’t be any passengers on the train other than the crew and any special guests.

The beginning of pre-revenue while construction of the station in Culver City is ongoing means that if no other problems pop up, Phase I will open sometime this Spring but end at the station located at La Cienega and Jefferson Blvd.  An opening for the completed line will come a couple of months after the station is completed in Culver City.

While this is good news for supporters of the Expo Line, the question most people still have is, “when will Phase I open?”  Pre-revenue operations usually run somewhere between six and eight weeks, so an opening in April isn’t out of the question.  According to The Source, the agency is playing it close to the vest and hasn’t announced an opening date yet.

Tomorrow’s Metro Board Agenda doesn’t appear to be packed with controversy, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of important decisions to be made.  Here’s some of the highlights, and we’ll have more coverage of the Board meeting live tomorrow on Twitter and here on the website tomorrow:

Consent Agenda (most items approved in a block vote at start of meeting):

Advertisement: click on the image to visit the Regional Connector EIS/EIR website.

• Agenda Item 5 – Planning for stations that aren’t funding, it’s not just for Crenshaw anymore.  A motion by City Councilman Jose Huizar allocates $500,000 for a station design for the Regional Connector’s Broadway Station that has entrances on both Broadway and Spring St.  Funding for the larger station has not been allocated.
• Agenda Item 7 – Metro finally seems ready to move on the Expo Phase II Bike Path.  The agency is ready to accept over $11 million of federal and local dollars to take the lead on the project and is authorizing engineering work to begin.
• Agenda Item 14 – Apparently there’s no such thing as too much money to spend on a highway project that is reviled around the country as one of the biggest environmental catastrophes in the country.  Metro is authorizing $4 million to a public relations firm and allocating another $125,000 internally to manage the public affairs for the I-710 Big Dig Project.
• Agenda Item 17 – Bike Share!
• Agenda Item 55 – Metro wants to buy 100 clean fuel buses to upgrade its fleet in the 2013 fiscal year.

Non-Consent (there is guaranteed to be some debate):

• Amendment to Agenda Item 10 – Would require Metro to develop the technical travel demand modeling capability to estimate travel demand by bicycle and, if possible, in conjunction with other active transportation travel such as walking in areas around transit stops and areas where new development will occur on Metro property.  This could be an important motion because it would give Metro’s planners a boost in doing planning for transit users (and all residents) that aren’t reliant on their car.
• Agenda Item 40 – Is the Construction Careers Policy we discussed yesterday.
• Agenda Item 70 – Metro would take an official position in favor of Asm. Mike Feuer’s legislation to give the same expedited legal review under CEQA lawsuits to transit projects as stadium projects and other mega-projects.

Robert Zardaneta, executive director of La Causa Youth Build. discusses how Metro's Construction Careers program would change the lives of thousands of youth workers who don't currently have access to middle class jobs. Photo: Sahra Sulaiman

In September of last year, the Metro Board of Directors ordered staff to create a program to insure that Los Angeles’ most disadvantaged workers and disadvantaged communities benefit economically from the Measure R construction projects.  In response, Metro negotiated an agreement with the Building Trades Council that will apply to all Metro construction projects.

The agreement sounds simple.  Forty percent of all workers on the projects have to be from areas where the median household income is below $27,500 and another 10% from communities where the median household income is below $40,000.

The motion, championed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas was partially the result of community pressure brought by communities surrounding the future Crenshaw Light Rail project.

The motion will be heard at Thursday’s meeting of the Metro Board of Directors.

A coalition of community and labor organizations have thrown their support behind the proposed Construction Careers Policy including the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, Transportation for America (T4A), La Causa Youth Build, and Strategic Concepts in Organizing Policy & Education.  Last week at a press conference in front of Metro Headquarters organized by LAANE, a parade of workers testified how the program could change their lives by offering them an opportunity for a middle class job that might otherwise be impossible. Read more…