A new report finds there are 619 regionally significant walkable urban places (or “WalkUPS”) in the 30 largest metro areas—home to 46% of the US population—and that the 6-county LA metro region ranks #17 with 53 WalkUPS. (The top 6: NYC, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle.) LA ranks #7 in terms of “Development Momentum”—a ranking that indicates how walkable or sprawling future development is likely to be—#11 in terms of social equity (now that is counterintuitive!), and 27^th in terms of GDP per capita.

AC Transit is rolling out a free and reduced-fare transit pass pilot at 11 middle- and high-schools in Alameda County this fall, funded by the Measure BB sales tax passed in 2014. (NOTE: AB 2222, a bill that Move LA is co-sponsoring, would provide funding for a statewide program if it wins the support of CA Senate leadership next month!) AC Transit's program for kids is similar to the program Metro will roll out for college and university students—both will negotiate different agreements with each schools. AC Transit Board President Christian Peeples said that anything that grows a new generation of public transit riders is probably a boon for the agency. Move LA agrees! http://www.eastbaytimes.com/…/free-and-reduced-fare-transit…

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti couldn't have said it better than he did in his June 23 LA Times op-ed on why we need a new sales tax for transportation with no sunset if we are to truly tackle our transportation problems: So we can end traffic fatigue. Build and operate more transit. And trade slow and steady improvement for bold and decisive action to create a truly complete system that serves the needs of commuters today and anticipates the needs of future transit riders, with special consideration for students and our growing senior and disabled populations. Read it in the LA Times.

Paid for by Campaign to Move LA, in Support of Transportation Ballot Measure M, Major Funding by Aaron Sosnick, HDR Engineering, Inc. & Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc.

Metro’s decision on June 23 to move ahead with putting a sales tax measure with no sunset on the November ballot does more than double down on the promise of Measure R—the half cent sales tax for transportation approved by voters in 2008. Not only does it provide more money—another $860 million/year—but it extends Measure R so there is no sunset. And the combination of these 2 long-term revenue sources enables financing that will allow the acceleration of so many projects that the lesson learned is clear: Fortune favors the bold.

The final vote was 6-0 in favor of AB 2222 (Holden, D-Pasadena) yesterday in the 7-member Senate Environmental Quality Committee—viewed as a clearing house for all GHG-related bills. (Senator Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, was not in attendance and did not vote.) The hearing room was packed as the committee was considering some 35 bills, and there was a long line of people urging a yes vote on AB 2222, including Metro lobbyist Andrew Antwih, who reminisced about the student transit pass he used to ride RTD buses—"rough, tough and dangerous," he said the bus system was then called—to and from school in the 1980s in South LA.

MONDAY provides one more opportunity to make a call/post/tweet to keep AB 2222 (Holden, Gonzalez) moving forward to create a program that provides discounted student transit passes for low-income K-12 and public college and university students statewide. The bill is beginning a run in the Senate and will be heard in Transportation and Housing TUESDAY!

AB 2222—which creates a program to provide discounted student passes to low-income K-12 and public college and university students statewide—CONTINUES TO GAIN MOMENTUM! The vote on the Assembly floor was 72-6! It will be heard in Senate Transportation and Housing Tues. (6/21) and in Senate Environmental Quality Wed. (6/29).

CAN YOU WRITE OR CALL THIS WEEK?

Join us MONDAY at Cal Poly Pomona to talk about cleaner, greener valleys where prosperity is shared and community development and economic development is transit-oriented! Among the issues to be discussed:

Join Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design, Move Inland Empire, and Move LA to explore ways that communities in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties can work together to leverage each other’s assets with the goal of shared prosperity and sustainable development—in the San Gabriel, Pomona and San Bernardino Valleys and in east LA County! What are the opportunities?

The Metro Board voted their unanimous support for a proposed new student transit pass program Thursday after students from community colleges, state universities and UCLA lined up to explain why student passes are so important, especially for part-time students who are not eligible for Metro's current student transit pass program. "Part-time students are not part-time because they choose to be," Romel Lopez, student body president of East LA College, told Metro boardmembers. "It's because they are single parents, or students who have to go home and take care of their parents, or students that have to work 40 hours a week and go to school."