Streetsblog Los Angeles

Photo: Justin Short, Office of the Governor

Despite
continued cash flow crunches facing nearly every transit operator in
the state, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said absolutely nothing about
transportation or fixing transit’s woes in his State of the State
address today. Transit operators are still bracing for the expected budget proposal
this Friday that would thwart the state Supreme Court’s ruling
declaring the governor’s raids on transit funds to fill general fund
coffers illegal.

The Governor’s proposal would eliminate
the sales tax on gasoline and replace it with an excise tax, in the
process eliminating an enormous transit funding mechanism and making it
cheaper to drive.

In a state where nearly half of all
CO2 pollution comes from private cars, and despite national trends
toward fewer cars on the road, the governor said nothing about
providing affordable and reliable transit options. Instead of
supporting proven greener transportation, he quoted from a recent Time Magazine article heralding California’s innovative spirit in clean tech energy:

(California)
is still a dream state. In fact, the pioneering megastate…is still the
cutting edge of the American future — economically, environmentally,
demographically, culturally, and maybe politically. It is the greenest
and the most diverse state, the most globalized…when the world is
heading in all those directions. It’s also an unparalleled engine of
innovation, the mecca of high tech, biotech and now clean tech.

"The
governor’s silence on transit in the State of the State highlights his
lack of commitment to creating a robust economy in California that
meets the vision of the governor’s proclaimed belief in the Green
Economy," said Nick Caston of TransForm, a smart growth and transit
advocacy organization. "The Governor’s rhetoric has in the past ignored
his destructive policies taking transit services from our communities."

Read more…

Photo: He's smiling.  He must be thinking of cars...or private jets.  Zimbio.com

In October of last year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a rather innocuous piece of legislation with a hidden message telling the bill's author, by way of reading the first letter of each line, to f-u-c-k y-o-u.  Childish? Yes.  However, millions of transit riders must have been wondering what the big deal was. The alleged environmentalist has been giving them the same message for years in much more explicit terms.

However, with a ruling by the California Supreme Court ruling that the Governor's consistent raiding of transit operating funds was illegal, many assumed we were safe from the former Terminator's disgust with public transit.  The Times reports that anyone who doubts the Governor's ability to make transit riders lives miserable was wrong:

The California Supreme Court seemingly put an end to the transit raids only months ago, ordering the state to repay the more than $3 billion in gasoline sales taxes that it had taken since 2007.

Instead, the Schwarzenegger administration has crafted a plan to again take the funds -- just in a different way.

The governor would eliminate the sales tax on gas and, at the same time, impose a new per-gallon excise tax. Drivers would pay about 5 cents less per gallon at the pump. The excise tax would not be subject to voter-approved spending requirements for public transit.

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Governor Schwarzenegger is ready for some football and sweetheart deals for billionaires.

Last weekend, in the wake of Governor Schwarzenegger’s signing of a law exempting the largest development project in Southern California since the L.A. Colliseum, the drumbeat began for more exemptions for projects that are going to be a lot less destructive to the environment.  The OC Register opines in a Saturday editorial:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week may have cemented his eventual
legacy as the man who brought professional football back to Los
Angeles. But a better characterization might be that he gave one
business a pass on having to follow laws that he otherwise vigorously
supports, and, depending on how the process unfolds, that he put
taxpayers in harm’s way…

…Gov. Schwarzenegger made the case for one business that we’ve been
making for all businesses – that environmental mandates have grown so
severe they unfairly restrict business growth and add significantly to
cost. If it works for Mr. Roski, why not for Mr. or Ms. Every
Entrepreneur?

As a supporter of strong environmental reviews, I can’t help but agree with their central point.  If you’re going to exempt a mega-project such as the stadium, enforcing the law on smaller developments seems unfair.  Strike another victory for our Environmental Governor!

The editorial goes on to mention that the claimed economic benefits of sports stadiums rarely meet the boasts of officials before the stadium is built.   However, as a supporter of gutting environmental regulations, the paper doesn’t mention that the only people that officially reviewed the environmental documents for the project were the City Council representing eight hundred people in the City of Industry.  They also didn’t mention that Industry’s Mayor and other elected leaders are going to reap a windfall in contracts when the stadium is completed.

You know what this highway needs? More travel lanes. Photo: Big Mike Lakers/Flickr

Opponents of expanding the I-710 near Pasadena to connect the road to the I-210 received a double dose of bad news in recent weeks from both the courts and our environmental governor.  First, Governor Scwarzenegger, between lecturing his wife about safe driving, found time to veto Senator Gil Cedillo's legislation that would have required any highway expansion in this area to take the form of a tunnel.  Second, a state court ruled against the lawsuits brought by South Pasadena and La Canada Flintridge against the inclusion of funding for the I-710 expansion in Measure R.

First, let's check in with our Greenhouse Gas fighting Governor.  Senator Gil Cedillo's legislation, SB 545, would have required that any expansion of the 710 for the purpose of connecting to the I-210 would have to be below ground.  In addition to saving homes, there was a strong political reason for the legislation; it would have ended a fifty year old dispute between South Pasadena and Alhambra.  Alhambra has been one of the leading communities fighting for the expansion, hoping that the increased freeway would reduce traffic on its surface streets.  South Pasadena is one of the cities strongly opposing the project.

Despite the overwhelming local support for the legislation, the Governor vetoed the legislation saying:

This bill is unnecessary. The project development process currently being undertaken by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is the appropriate vehicle to determine the scope and feasibility of a project to address the transportation needs in the I-710 corridor. This process provides ample opportunity for public involvement and input. There is absolutely no need to enact statutory restrictions that would mandate certain project design options or remove others from potential consideration.

While I'm sure Metro appreciates the vote of confidence, it should be noted that the transit agency supported SB 545 and sent representatives to Cedillo's press event celebrating the bill's passage.  Opponents and proponents of the project both viewed Schwarzenegger's veto as a bad thing.  Supporters wanted to quell the opposition of South Pasadena and opponents wanted one less thing to worry about.

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Supporters of cash-out-parking, the state law that requires employers of more than fifty people that offer free parking to employees to provide an equal benefit to those that don’t commute via automobile, were closely watching two pieces of legislation this session. The legislation was to fill two major holes in the state mandate, and while both passed both houses of the legislature, the Governor only signed one of them into law.

Photo by Amber Rhea via Flickr.

The state law requiring cash out parking had several problems. Chief among them is that only the state could enforce the ban. Making matters worse, an October of 2008 report by the City of Los Angeles revealed that the City couldn’t tell you how many employees a company has and how spaces at a particular lot are valued.  At the time, the city decided to require employers to inform the city how many employees it had when applying for business licenses.  The City hoped they would have a full inventory of employers size by the end of 2011.

To address one of the other enforcement issues, the Governor signed legislation by State Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) that allows municipalities and air quality boards to enforce the cash-out mandate instead of just state agencies.   When she chaired the transportation committee, enforcing the cash-out requirement was a favorite issue of now-Comptroller Wendy Greuel. Armed with new enforcement powers as of January 1 of this year, it will be interesting to see if Chairman Rosendahl is as interested in making this a priority for the City as his predecessor.

Unfortunately, the Governor vetoed AB 1186, introduced by Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield (D-SFV) which would have required building owners to put a value on parking spaces when renewing a lease with a current renter or opening a new lease. That way, employers would know how much money should be awarded the car-free commuter. For example, a $100,000 lease under the old law would say $100,000 with $90,000 for office space and $10,000 for parking. Why did the Governor veto the legislation? Apparently, he was worried it was too much work.

Read more…

The Governor may not think transit is a priority, but his constituents do. Photo: San Diego Transit

A new survey released yesterday by the Public Policy Institute of California has been getting a lot of play in the press because of the strong support Californians are showing for Greenhouse Gas reduction programs, even in the midst of the current recession and budget crisis.

Often times when politicians talk about climate change, they tend to leave transportation reform out of the conversation; choosing to look at hybrid and other low- and zero-emission cars as the solution. However, the PPIC asked Californians what they thought about transit expansion and gas prices.

The results? Californians are tired of paying such a high price for gas and want more alternatives. From the PPIC's press release:

Californians (69%) are less likely than last year (76%) to report that gas prices are a financial hardship. But large majorities of some groups do, particularly Latinos (85%) and residents with annual household incomes under $40,000 (83%). And although the percentage of Californians who drive to work alone has declined 12 points since 2002, commuting patterns among employed Californians (63% drive alone, 16% carpool, 9% take public transit) are similar to last year...

...Three in four residents (77%) say the state should focus transportation planning dollars on expanding public transit and using the existing network more efficiently, up 10 points since August 2004 (67%). Just 18 percent say the state should focus on building freeways and highways.

Read more...

Photo: d.sato/flickr

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.

Photo: MSNBC

Anyone that has been reading LA Streetsblog for any period of time knows that we haven’t been shy about criticizing Governor Schwarzenegger for talking a good game about the environment but never asking Californians, including himself, to make any changes in their lives when it comes to transportation.

Well, this time we have to give the Governor his due.  The Times reported over the weekend that in response to a Caltrans report about waste, fraud and abuse in the state’s take-home car program for employees that the Governor is ordering a 15% reduction in the state’s take-home fleet.

“Today I am taking action to get rid of waste and abuse in the state’s vehicle fleet and ordering my administration to reduce the [entire] fleet by 15%, eliminate all wasteful home storage permits and sell surplus cars at our state garage sale next month,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

The fleet reduction will save at least $24.1 million the first year, according to the Department of General Services.

Read more…

Things may have gotten a little more difficult for Governor Schwarzengger, who is already wrestling with the titanic task of trying to pass a balanced budget for the fiscal year starting today, when a California court of appeals ruled that the state needs to stop taking funds dedicated by voters towards transit projects and use it to try and close the gaping funding hole.

The California Transit Association, that called the winter budget deal that zeroed out the state's operations assistance program "Armageddon," were the plaintiffs in the case that resulted in yesterday's big win for transit.  They celebrated and explained the court decision yesterday.

While the Court claims no authority to order repayment of funds re-routed in past budget deals, the decision means that continued diversion of voter-mandated transit funding is illegal going forward. And that means that approximately $1 billion earmarked for the General Fund as part of current negotiations must be restored to transit.

“The ruling clearly states that the rip-offs are illegal,” said Joshua Shaw, Executive Director of the California Transit Association and lead plaintiff in the suit that was originally filed over $1.19 billion taken from the Public Transportation Account (PTA) as part of the 2007-08 budget agreement. “It says they’ve been illegal since before 2007, and it says that the definition of mass transportation that lawmakers have adopted since then to mask these diversions is illegal.”

Unsurprisingly, the Schwarzenegger Administration is already promising an appeal and is asking the appeals court to stay its decision pending the outcome.

Update: Dana Gabbard of So.CA.TA. sends the text of the decision.  It can be viewed here.