Now that the Governor and legislature have finally reached an agreement on the state budget, city transportation staff can breate a sigh of relief. The deal announced by Mayor Villaraigosa and Council President Garcetti that ended Schwarzenegger's plan to "borrow" against local gas taxes that were, of course, dedicated towards transportation.

While the Mayor was celebrating his victory on Twitter, Garcetti sent out an email outlining what exactly the deal struck between cities and our state leaders means for local transportation:

The outpouring of support from our community last month made a difference during the Legislature's tense negotiations. Our letters to state legislators helped protect a critical source of revenue for local municipalities.

As I noted when I last wrote you, for every gallon of gas you put in your car, 3 of the 18 cents that you pay in non-federal gas taxes goes to cities and local governments to help pay to maintain roads and fill potholes. It's a tax that has always gone to local governments so that we can repair our cities' streets, and if it had been taken it would have seriously restricted our ability to perform even routine road maintenance for the foreseeable future.

If saving road reconstruction funds exactly get you jumping for joy, a statement from the LADOT to Streetsblog implies that if the state had successfully raided the local gas taxes could have imperiled the city's ability to paint bike lanes and other street markings:

...our Department uses 'gas tax' monies to pay for the speed hump program and for re-striping of streets (after Public Works Dept re-paves.) The bulk of the gas tax funding for street repairs actually goes to Dept Of Public Works, which re-paves roads, fills potholes and reconstructs curbs and sidewalks.

So there you go, anyone looking for a silver lining in the state's massive budget cuts can at least take solace that they didn't place us farther behind when trying to get the city to paint bike lanes and other road markings.

Last week, the Times announced the details of a an early budget agreement that including a forced sacrifice for city transportation agencies, "Cities and counties would lose another $1 billion in transportation money." Knowing that the state wasn't planning on raiding its transit operations subsidy anymore, some fretted that this newest plan would endanger Measure R and other local alternative transportation projects. However, there was never any discussion about raiding local sales tax revenues.

Yesterday, the City Council Transportation Committee met and had it’s first substantive discussion of what to do with the un-restricted transportation dollars the city will receive as part of the Measure R Local Return funds.

The news was mostly good for the 200 advocates who signed a letter to the Metro Board last year asking for a bicycle and pedestrian set-aside in Measure R.  While we were rebuffed by the Metro Board; Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa went out of his way to let us know that many municipalities, including Los Angeles were interested in using Measure R to improve safety and comfort for non-motorized transportation.

Yesterday’s hearing was only a directive to the LADOT and Department of Street Services to prepare a report to help the Council allocate Measure R funds.  LADOT representative Ken Hustings, last seen on Streetsblog at the recent Pico-Olympic hearings, outlined the LADOT’s priorities for Measure R funds: to provide a match to state dollars on large projects, to help relieve shortfalls on Prop. A and Prop. C and to set aside $1 million a year for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

That $1 million isn’t a large number, but it’s a great starting point for debate.  During the Council’s part of the presentation Councilman Bernard Parks brought up the idea for a yearly set-aside for bicycle and pedestrian projects and he did this before me and Dorothy Le of the LACBC raised the idea in public comment.  After we said our parts, Councilman LaBonge approached Le and myself to voice his support and Councilman Alarcon said he thought it was a good idea before the LADOT received the go-ahead to work on a Measure R report.  After the meeting, outgoing Transportation Committee Chair Wendy Greuel commented that it was "good we reminded them" about the Mayor’s promise from last year.

Obviously, yesterday was nice but the final victory won’t come for months when we see the final report on how the city will spend its Measure R funds and the Council vote on a spending plan.

Also on the agenda was a new contract for Ilium Strategic Marketing & Design, a Seattle-based company that designs the city’s bicycle maps, schedules and apparently does the LAPD’s outreach to cyclists.  Given the LAPD’s outreach to cyclists is abominable, and that the bicycle map is two years late in being updated, you might expect some pause in giving Ilium more money to design new DASH and Commuter Express schedules.  You would be wrong.  The motion to extend them a new contract passed unanimously.