Joel Epstein, a communications and public policy expert who writes at the Huffington Post, has written a column on the need for Los Angeles to get behind the "30/10" plan proposed by Move L.A. and backed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to accelerate the Measure R transit projects  so that all of them are completed in the next decade.  For those of us that have never completely grasped how the Mayor was going to pull off spending thirty years worth of revenue twenty years before it was completely collected, Epstein breaks down a daunting laundry list of all the policy changes that would be needed to achieve Move L.A. and the Mayor’s goals.

Move LA has a laundry list of important encore projects it will need to
achieve if it wants to see the benefits of the Mayor’s 30/10 initiative
realized. These include a national infrastructure bank committed to
supporting mass transit projects like the Subway to the Sea,
enhanced Federal funding for regional mass transit projects through the
Federal transportation re-authorization bill, a set of guidelines for
public private partnerships for mass transit development; and a State
constitutional amendment that enables agencies like Metro to seek voter
approval of new taxes for mass transit by a 55 percent vote rather than
a two thirds majority of the electorate.

The bad news is that a lot of the policy changes that Villaraigosa would like to see are outside of his powers as the chief executive for Los Angeles.  The good news?  A lot of those changes can occur with a new Federal Transportation Bill that focuses on transit expansion more than highway expansion and two of the people that can make those changes happen are going to be in town this Friday.