30/10

On an atypically dreary day for October, Los Angeles County’s elected representatives from every level of government gathered with community members at Leimert Park to celebrate the receipt of a $546 million loan for the Crenshaw Light Rail project.

On Sunday morning, transit reform champions Move LA hosted a garden party to raise money for its campaign to support Mayor Villaraigosa’s 30/10 plan and to enlist Los Angeles' stalwart political activists in its efforts.  Held in the often traffic-swarmed West LA neighborhood of Brentwood, the event was organized by Streetsblog friend and Huffington Post transportation writer Joel Epstein.

For months, the Bus Rider's Union and their allies have held their powder when it comes to the 30/10 proposal which would accelerate 12 transit projects funded in the Measure R transit tax so that they would be built in the next decade instead of the next thirty years.  However, now the BRU and their ally Transit Riders for Public Transit (TRPT) are airing their concerns over the transit proposal.  Their chief concerns, that by accelerating these rail projects that Metro would be forced to raise fares even more quickly than currently planned in the Long Range Transportation Plan and that by spending Measure R funds quickly they will lose the ability to use those funds towards bus expansion.

Move L.A., the first organization to push for a sales tax to fund transit in 2008 and the group that invented the 30/10 plan, is now asking for your help to get that plan through Congress.  The petition, which you can sign on behalf of yourself or on behalf of an organization, isn't just a lobbying tool; it's perhaps the best summary of the benefits of leveraging the half cent sales tax revenues to build all twelve Measure R transit projects in the next ten years.

"I'm on the team!...I'm right here on the Love Train with sisters and brothers in organized labor, the environmental movement and the business community to make this happen right now!" exclaimed incumbent Congresswoman Jane Harman at a rally yesterday for the 30/10 initiative at the Green Line Station near LAX.  (Watch her full speech, Streetscasted here.)  The 30/10 initiative would use federal loans and grants to leverage the half cent sales tax passed by L.A. County voters for transit projects to complete a thirty year program in 10.

(Since leaving the LA Weekly, where she did everything from review bands to serve as transportation writer, Gloria Ohland has been heavily involved in the transit reform scene.  Most recently she worked with the T.O.D. advocacy group Reconnecting America.  You'll be seeing more of her writing here in the very near future...DN)