Measure R

We don't often discuss issues effecting the Northern parts of L.A. County.  But as a freeway expansion project moves through the environmental study phases towards construction; it's worthwhile to check in on one of the few new highway projects in Southern California, the High Desert Corridor project.  With $33 million in Measure R funds to pay for the environmental studies already secured  for the $6 billion highway project, Caltrans is moving forward with a series of public hearings in the North County this month.  A copy of Caltrans' postcard announcing the meetings is available at the end of the article.

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.

This weekend wasn't just a good one for cyclists.  On Saturday, while I was still sleeping off Critical Mass, groundbreaking occurred for the Gold Line Foothill Extension in the San Gabriel Valley.  The rail line was always a popular project with Valley residents, but until Measure R was passed, a measure opposed by several prominent politicians in the area, funding for the project was not approved.  Now, with cash in hand and shovels in the ground, officials are predicting the extension will open in 2014, before the Expo Line will be completed all the way in to Santa Monica. 

You'll remember in April, while discussing the obscure Independent Citizens' Advisory and Oversight Committee (ICAOC), I mentioned the start-up of the Measure R Independent Taxpayers Oversight Committee was impending.

Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), two of the nation's best-known advocates for greater investment in the built environment, today joined several House Democrats in calling for federal action on a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) -- even as questions about how the bank's scope, and Congress' resistance to raising sustained new transport funding, continued to dog the debate.

(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)

After a lengthy debate over what would be the best way to insure that an appropriate amount of Measure R Local Return funds are spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects; the City Council ultimately voted, by an 11-3 vote, to support a 10% set-aside for "people powered transportation" from the city's Measure R funds for the 2011 fiscal year.  After that, they'll evaluate whether the city was able to spend those funds on good projects.  I can't say enough about all the people that worked hard to secure these funds, so let's hope that future Council's don't tread over the work that's been done the nearly two years since LA Walks and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition petitioned the Metro Board for a set-aside in Measure R.

Today, the Metro Board of Directors voted to endorse the 30/10 proposal, but for a long-time it didn't look good.  All of the signs were there for a disaster...a highway sellout of "30/10," the proposal to use federal loans to front-load construction of twelve transit projects funded in Measure R.

In my Tuesday review of Monday's City Council debate on whether or not the city should use it's Measure R Local Return to fund bicycle and pedestrian projects, I mocked a statement by Councilman Greig Smith that because 10% of trips aren't by bike, the City shouldn't fund bicycle projects with 10% of Measure R funds.  I argued that because the city doesn't do bike counts, it's not possible to know for sure how many trips are by bike, but since we're talking about bicycling and pedestrian spending together the argument is moot anyways.  After all, everyone is a pedestrian.