Streetsblog Los Angeles

Measure J Needed 2/3 of the vote to win. It didn't get it. Analysis to come. Photo:County of Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder

Maybe a two-thirds local threshold is just too high a bar to cross, maybe the No on J Campaign did its job too well, maybe voter turnout for the top of the ticket was too low. Whatever the reason, Measure J received “only” 64.7% of the vote last night, a full 1.95% short of the two-thirds threshold it needed to pass. “Only in California is 65% a defeat instead of a landslide victory,” wrote Denny Zane on his Facebook page. “…and that has to change.”

Measure J was a proposed extension of the 2008 Measure R sales tax that dedicated a half cent of L.A. County sales tax to transportation projects. Measure J would have extended the tax from 2039 t0 2069 allowing Metro to bond against the new revenue and “build 30 years of transit projects in 10 years.” The Measure needed the support of two-third of L.A. County voters in yesterday’s vote to pass.

There are many lessons that can be inferred from last night’s results, none of which point to a lack of support for transit expansion by L.A. County voters. We will conduct a better analysis after the election results are broken down geographically.

First, credit needs to be given to the No on J Campaign. On a shoestring budget, the group pulled together a county-wide campaign of opposition and planted stories and opinion pieces in newspapers and media outlets both large and small. The campaign also ran a grass roots effort of door knocking, phone banking and handing out literature on buses. Compare the No on J Campaign to the Bus Riders Union’s muddled “No on the 6″ campaign in 2008 and their improved organization could be one reason for the small tilt in support.

For anyone who believes the Bus Riders Union is a political relic, yesterday’s win marks the second time in two years the group has expanded their coalition and pulled off a victory. Working with the Crenshaw Subway Coalition, the Beverly Hills Unified School District and the No on 710 Coalition, the BRU is showing it knows how to work with groups outside their traditional allies to pick up headlines grabbing victories. The first time would be the stopping Westside homeowners groups from exempting the entire Westside from the Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit project. Read more…

On Monday, October 15, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was feeling good. The Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, which includes the Daily News, Daily Breeze, Long Beach Press-Telegram, SGV Tribune and Pasadena Star-News, had endorsed Measure J. In front of the hundreds of transit advocates and professionals at Railvolution, a sales tax extension that would largely accelerate transit projects was a popular topic. Villaraigosa smiled as he characterized the opponents of Measure J.

“The same familiar chorus is sniping and complaining,” he laughed before launching his applause line, “Of course, the same people are the first in line to spend the money.”

Bus Riders Union members and BHUSD President Brian Goldberg surround Damien Goodmon at a "No on J" press conference. Photo: Sahra Sulaiman

One week later, the “familiar chorus” responded with a pair of press conferences slamming Measure J, Villaraigosa and Metro. In the morning, a rally for the “No on J” Coalition gathered to a smattering of press. Attending were a who’s who of Metro’s harshest critics, including the Crenshaw Subway Coalition, the Bus Riders Union, The No on 710 Coalition, Union de Vecinos and the Beverly Hills Unified School District. L.A. Weekly referred to the gathering as a “Rainbow Coalition.” In the afternoon, two L.A. County Supervisors, one of whom is charing the Board of Directors at Metro, held their own event.

A poll taken last month, and published by L.A. Weekly shows that Measure J, which needs the support of two-thirds of L.A. County voters next Tuesday, is in a tight race. But beyond the spin and politics, the questions remains. Should it? Streetsblog attempts to go behind the spin and politics and takes a look at the same issues surrounding Measure J.

Image by Metro via Move L.A.

With all the discussion of the impact of extending a sales tax until 2069 and “corporate welfare,” at its heard Measure J is about expanding transit options. In 2008, Los Angeles County voters passed Measure R, a sales tax extension that goes largely towards transit expansion with some money set aside for highways, “local return,” transit operations and Metrolink “modernization.” Following the bills passage, Villaraigosa went on a crusade to convince the federal government to change its transportation funding formulas to benefit areas willing to tax themselves. This would benefit Los Angeles by allowing projects slated for construction decades from now to come online in the next ten years. Read more…

The No on J Coalition at the start of their October press event. Photo: Sahra Sulaiman

(This is the third of four op/eds on Measure J that Streetsblog will publish this week. Monday, Gloria Ohland of Move L.A. made the case for Measure J and Wednesday Streetsblog Board Member Joel Epstein did the same. In between, the BRU made their case for a no vote. – DN)

Only in the car capital of the world could a proposal to build the next generation of mass transit include an enormous payout to the highway lobby. Measure J will provide $18 billion for highways. If “pro-transit” politicians, environmental, and livable communities advocates choose to ignore the fact that highways are not the future of Los Angeles, but rather our past, why should we have to pay for their misapprehension?

Today in Northeast LA and the San Gabriel Valley, $760 million, a quarter of a billion dollars from Measure R, the current 2009 ½ cent sales tax, is being dished up right now to a few contractors and developers merely to study the 4.5-mile 710 extension tunnels. It does not matter to the developers whether or not this disastrous polluting dangerous pair of tunnels is ever actually built, they are getting that money now. Measure J will extend that tax money until 2069.

This pair of 4.5 mile double-deck tunnels is being planed to run from El Sereno through Alhambra, South Pasadena, Pasadena to connect to the 210 freeway a few blocks from Huntington Hospital. Read more…

(This is the third of four op/eds on Measure J that Streetsblog will publish this week. Monday, Gloria Ohland of Move L.A. made the case for Measure J, yesterday the BRU made their case for a no vote. – DN)

I am writing this quickly as I pack for a return trip to the land of aggressive public transportation planning and construction.  By Sunday I will be back in Shanghai, a public transit mecca, where the sheer number of residents demands a world-class rail and bus network.  You know what?  So does LA.  And in a little more than a week we have the chance to help make that a reality.  Without the centralized planning that is the hallmark of infrastructure construction in China, it is up to the voters to authorize the building of the rail and bus projects LA needs to make life in Los Angeles more livable.

He voted.

This November there are at least 2 softball questions on the ballot.  The first of course is Obama for president.  There are a million reasons to vote for Barack.  But for my purposes I’ll keep the focus narrow.  If you care about life in the city there has never been a clearer choice for the White House.  Obama believes in the vitality of cities. Only Mitt knows what Mitt really believes and even then it’s subject to change.

The other thing you can do for yourself and your neighbors in November is to vote yes on Measure J.

Do you want a mass transit alternative to driving in perpetual gridlock on LA’s freeways and along its main arteries like Wilshire and Crenshaw?  Do you like the idea that our city may one day have a transit system that efficiently and cost-effectively moves the millions of us who commute daily from home to work.  Measure J does that within our lifetime.

When approved, Measure J will extend for 30 years, Measure R, the existing one-half cent sales tax that was approved in 2008 and is currently set to expire in 2039. The added funds will be used to secure bonds, which will allow Metro to accelerate construction of its needed transit projects.

According to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, the projects accelerated by Measure J will speed the start of construction on seven rail and rapid transit projects.  Measure J also provides an extra thirty years of continued funding for local city transportation improvements, including countywide bus and rail operations, Metrolink, and Metro Rail capital improvements. Read more…

(This is the second of four op/eds on Measure J that Streetsblog will publish this week. Yesterday, Gloria Ohland of Move L.A. made the case for Measure J. – DN)

Framing the public debate on Measure J as between a progressive vision for regional mass transit expansion versus parochialism and anti-tax conservatism conveniently obscures several inconvenient truths about Measure J. Measure J is Mayor Villaraigosa’s swan song for LA as he makes a move for higher office, but the panoply of negative human, environmental, and fiscal consequences will be felt long after he is gone.

Given Metro’s torrid civil rights record dating back 20 years, we have real reason to believe LA’s working class Black, Latino, and Asian Pacific Islander majority will be hardest hit. Given Metro’s pattern of mismanagement and crony dealings with powerful corporate interests — the very interests funding the Measure J campaign — the agency cannot be trusted with a blank check from tax-payers. Serious advocates for sustainable transportation and livable cities have an obligation to examine these inconvenient truths and ought to see Measure J as a huge setback, not the leap forward that its promoters promise.

Inconvenient truth #1: Measure J advances a corporate-driven, Disney-fying and gentrifying vision of the city at the expense of low wage workers and communities of color. Why would the Yes on J campaign receive enormous campaign contributions from the likes of multi-billion dollar companies like Westfield Corporation, NBC Universal, and AEG? Precisely because these companies see Measure J as integral to accelerating their vision of Los Angeles, where public transit’s primary role is to bring people to and from their corporate theme parks and malls. Real estate developers and Metro’s own Real Estate Department like Measure J because it “leverages development.”

But that development – packaged as “transit-oriented development”  – has in neighborhoods as diverse as Hollywood, Boyle Heights, and Downtown followed a now-documented pattern of gentrification: working class transit-using residents are displaced and overall transit ridership around rail stations decreases. Metro’s willingness to let developers dictate projects to the complete exclusion of working class community residents gives us no reason to believe this pattern will change. Boyle Heights is one example. Another is the Crenshaw Corridor, where repeated demands from Black community leaders that Metro invest resources to ensure new light rail not endanger the lives of residents and preserve local businesses have fallen on deaf ears.

Moreover, Measure J will likely accelerate the pattern of service cuts and fare increases, imposing real and unnecessary suffering on transit-dependent employed and unemployed low wage workers — janitors, security officers, domestic workers, hotel workers, etc — struggling to survive the Great Recession. At best, Measure J’s rail expansion vision has the effect of substituting one type of transit rider – a choice rider, a tourist, an urban professional – for a transit-dependent person, generally Black or Latino. It will generate short-term construction jobs at the expense of hundreds of thousands of other working class people. At worst, it’s facilitating a whitewashing of the city.

Inconvenient Truth #2: Measure J is a construction bonanza with no operations plan and therefore not a sustainable transit vision.   Read more…

…And what the New York Post and LACBC founder Ron Milam have to say about Los Angeles and public transit

Los Angeles County is darn big and densely populated, a complex conglomeration of neighborhoods, multi-centered, and with complicated commute patterns. It’s hard to believe policy and funding still prioritizes cars when it seems so obvious we need to make every other kind of transport easy and safe — whether by foot or bike, scooter, skateboard, bus, shuttle, car and car-sharing, rail, baby strollers, wheelchairs, carpools, neighborhood electrical vehicles.

Rail will be the backbone of that new constellation of transportation choices, providing the clean, quiet alternative to the car that can travel through and connect up all of LA’s soon-to-be-walkable-and-bikeable neighborhoods. Even as we develop more local economies with retail, services and jobs that you can walk and bike to there will be a need to travel farther — to big job centers, the beach, museums, and airports.

Measure J would accelerate construction of this rail backbone, essentially accomplishing LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s much-vaunted 30-10 plan: Seven rail projects would begin within five years and be completed within 13, instead of 27 years as is currently planned. Measure J does this not by raising taxes but by extending the half-cent Measure R sales tax that voters approved in 2008 for another 30 years.

This longer revenue stream allows LA Metro to finance construction now, when the cost of financing and of construction is super low. Speeding up these projects would also accelerate the creation of 250,000 jobs, according to the private nonprofit LA County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) — at a time when unemployment in the county is painfully high (11 percent). Read more…

When I last took a paternity leave, I returned with a brief column on some stories I would never get to flesh out that occured during my time off. Sometime after that, Steve Hymon started running an occasional “5 Things I’m Thinking About Transportation” series. I’ve rarely done it, but if it’s good enough for a Pulitzer Prize Winner…

1) With the election just eight days away, Streetsblog will be focusing on Measure J this week to try and provide as much information and opinion about the proposed sales tax extension. Over the next four days, Streetsblog will publish four op/eds, two in favor and two opposed to the sales tax extension. Today’s op/ed will be by Move L.A. Tomorrow’s by the Bus Riders Union.

Today also sees a major update to the Measure J Page, including many of the major news pieces on the ballot proposition from the last three weeks. Tomorrow, we’ll have a story by myself and Sahra Sulaiman going into greater detail on both the “yes” and “no” campaigns. And on Friday we’ll have the L.A. Streetsblog election ballot including Romney v Obama, Measure J, and Proposition 37.

2) How awesome is it that “getting Jerry Browned,” the year-old term for getting buzzed by a closely passing car, has mainstreamed enough to be featured in a Los Angeles Times cartoon? Click on the image to see the punchlines.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-getting-jerry-browned-20121024,0,2854852.story

3) The L.A. Streetsblog editorial board took an informal vote not to endorse or oppose Measure J. However, the lack of endorsement should not be construed as opposition as say the Beverly Hills City Council’s lack of endorsement is. It’s been our tradition to not endorse, despite our legal ability to do so and the board decided to maintain that tradition. This got me to wondering…would anyone care if we endorsed or opposed Measure J? I know a lot of you trust as as a news source, and thanks for that, but I also know Streetsblog readers are very informed and very opinionated. Would an official endorsement give anyone pause in their voting decisions?

4) In one of their first editions of the year, the Beverly Hills High School Highlights, the student newspaper, took a stand against the ongoing campaign of the Beverly Hills Unified School District against the Westside Subway (page 4). It concludes, “Pouring money opposing a project that will likely benefit the city is futile, even if the board is correct in our abilities to regain the money after the case is solved.” Read more…

Next month, 19 transit-related measures will come before voters. If the rest of this year is any guide, 16 of them will pass.

The "Transportation Penny" in Richland County, South Carolina will fund some pedestrian improvements, along with roads and transit, if voters approve it November 6. Image: Richland County

Despite a high-profile loss in Atlanta a few months ago, transit referenda have an 86 percent success rate so far this year, according to the Center For Transportation Excellence.

It strikes some as counterintuitive: During an economic downturn, in a virulently anti-tax climate, why are voters deciding time and time again to tax themselves to support transit?

CFTE Director Jason Jordan says the lousy economy is one reason so many of these measures keep popping up — more this year than any other since CTFE started counting in 2000. With states crying poverty and the federal government, for the first time ever, passing a transportation bill that was no bigger than the one that preceded it, local governments have had to take matters into their own hands.

Jordan says the most unique of all of next month’s ballot initiatives is a gas tax measure in Memphis. Almost all the initiatives we see are sales taxes or property taxes, with a handful of bond measures and vehicle fees. Most cities don’t have the authority to raise gas taxes independent of the state — but Memphis does, and it’s trying to increase the tax by one cent to raise $3 million to $6 million for the transit authority. “Here we have an example of communities being pushed to be as creative as possible,” Jordan said.

No other local gas tax measure is on the ballot. Indianapolis has a citywide income tax hike in the works, which will also be novel, but they didn’t make it happen for this year.

Another one to watch is the half-cent sales tax in Orange County, North Carolina, which includes the city of Chapel Hill. If it succeeds, the three counties of the so-called Research Triangle will likely join together to improve their regional transit system. If it fails, the whole thing falls apart.

Read more…

For a much larger version of the Measure J map, in a high resolution pdf, click here.

As we approach election day, there’s going to be a lot of discussion of Measure J. Measure J is the proposed extension of the 2008 Measure R transit tax that is set to expire in 2039. Measure J would extend, not increase, the tax until 2069 allowing Metro to bond against future revenue to build the projects promised by Measure R in a shorter timeline.

To best inform our readers, we’re launching a new page on Streetsblog, the Measure J Page. The purpose of the page isn’t to endorse or oppose Measure J, but to provide a non-biased informational page with outgoing links to news and views on the ballot measure.

The Streetsblog Editorial Board has not discussed taking a position on Measure J, so it’s unlikely we’ll have an official position before November 6th. As a result, you won’t see us pushing for or against the ballot measure. We will try to inform voters, politicians, opinion makers and even other journalists. A major part of that effort will be continuing to update and promote this page.

If you have any links or other information you’d like us to add, please let me know in the comments section or by emailing damien at streetsblog dot org. Every time we update the page, we’ll make announcements on social media and in the next day’s Today’s Headlines.