This is, as LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is fond of saying, LA’s Golden Age of Infrastructure Investment, and there’s good news on several fronts: There are 3 transit lines under construction now in LA County (Crenshaw just broke ground, and the Expo and the Gold Line extensions to Santa Monica and Azusa are more than 50% complete) and 2 more are likely to start construction as early as this summer (Westside Subway, Regional Connector). Also, the rumor from Washington DC is that there’s a really good chance the America Fast Forward tax credit bond program that Metro and the City of LA have been advocating will be a part of the transportation reauthorization this year. This bond program is Part 2 of the 2-part “30-10” financing strategy to build all Measure R-funded rail lines in 10 years not 30 -- Part 1 is the TIFIA low-interest loan program adopted by Congress in 2012. The bond program would bring the “30-10” plan back into view and allow for the acceleration of more LA transit projects. Last but not least, ongoing discussions about what could be funded by Measure R-2 (a possible half-cent sales tax increase or sales tax extension) just get more interesting as time goes by. The link below is one possible formulation of what a new tax could fund, based on the conversations Move LA has participated in.

LINK TO MEASURE R2 — A WORK IN PROGRESS

 

With so much transit construction going on and more about to begin, some neighborhoods are undergoing changes, and Move LA has partnered with Enterprise Community Partners, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Reconnecting America and SAJE to create the "TOD University." In February and March six local nonprofit organizations will hold  courses ranging from “TOD 101” to “Housing Preservation 201” to “Jobs and Economic Development 101.” Designed as a popular education curriculum that can help make neighborhood residents conversant in their options when planners sit them down to draft new community plans or station area specific plans. Six nonprofits have geared up so far, with some classes beginning this week, and they include the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), East LA Community Corporation, LA Voice, the Little Tokyo Services Center, One LA, and the West Angeles Community Development Corporation.

The TOD University consists of eight stand-alone "courses" that can be mixed and matched depending on the interests of the community. There are courses on TOD basics, affordable housing basics, housing preservation, building new affordable homes, jobs and economic development, planning basics, community development strategies and budgets, and complete streets.

The downloadable TOD University curriculum is available on-line. Read more.

 

The review of Caltrans ordered by Governor Brown and Transportation Secretary Brian Kelly finds the agency – which began as the Bureau of Highways in 1895 -- is very much in need of an overhaul. The independent review, released last week, notes that Caltrans’ orientation toward capital projects that move cars works against current state policies such as SB 375 that seek reductions in driving and greenhouse gas emissions, especially through low-transportation-demand compact land use patterns. “Use of automotive level of service standards . . . has been a barrier to the compact development sought by state policy and may have induced the opposite,” the report notes, adding that “Caltrans has not adapted to the multi-stakeholder environment required in the SB 375 era . . . or developed sufficient communication skills and procedures to . . . explain its own decisions well or take into account important material from communities and partners.”

California State Transportation Agency Secretary Brian Kelly has stressed that climate change and the state laws that address it are game-changers that the nation’s largest Department of Transportation cannot afford to keep on the back burner. The report's laundry list of recommendations for Caltrans include a new mission statement that would better reflect current state law and policy, stronger relationships with other state agencies, a rethinking of how to build facilities in metro areas and town centers, communications with local stakeholders that are “genuine and two-way,” and leadership in the area of sustainable transportation. Kelly has committed to “modernizing” Caltrans.

LINK to CalSTA report.

Walkscore is a website that calculates the pedestrian-friendliness of neighborhoods and cities, and it's a crude measurement at best. Still . . . what fun! LA scored 50 out of 100 points as the 9th best city for transit, beating out "snobby" Portland (with 49.6 points compared to LA's 49.9), but coming in after "old-timey" Baltimore with its legacy rail system. (Using the words of Curbed LA's blog post.)

And, the Walkscore blog notes, there’s growing evidence that buying a house or renting an apartment near public transit is a smart idea:
1) It's likely a better investment. The National Association of Realtors found that home values performed 42% better when they were located near public transit.  In Boston, a recent study showed that home prices near public transit outperformed the region by 129%.
2) Living near public transit saves you money. The average American spends $9,859 per year on their car. Did you know this is the equivalent of a $135,000 mortgage?!  Transportation is the second largest expense for American households.
3) And living near good public transit might just make you happier — after all, nobody likes being stuck in traffic.

READ THE WALKSCORE BLOG HERE.

LA has 3 rail projects under construction and another 2 projects are about to begin, making LA the leader in a national rail renaissance -- thanks at least in part to the 30-year Measure R half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2008. But the approximately $13 billion that will be spent on rail projects will be wasted, opinion piece author Ethan Elkind writes, "if city leaders do not promote and residents do not allow new growth around rail stations and corridors."

That's because rail is expensive to build, operate and maintain and only becomes cost-effective with high ridership. The best way to boost ridership is to locate new jobs, housing and retail near stations, he writes, but politics and economics conspire to prevent new growth around rail . . .READ MORE.

Elkind has just written a new book called Railtown, and in an essay on his website Elkind writes that had he written the book a few years ago he would have simply extolled the virtues of rail. "But as I researched the history and issues involved, it became clear that rail as a solution to LA's problems was not the silver bullet I thought. . . LA is a decentralized city with people going in every direction at all times of day. There's very little order or centralization of jobs and housing, and it all takes place over a huge land mass. Not necessarily a great recipe for efficient rail service . . . " READ MORE.

New research suggests that gentrifying neighborhoods may be a boon to their longtime residents -- assuming they can manage to afford to stay there. Lance Freeman, director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia University, has launched a national study to calculate displacement -- how many lower-income people have been pushed out of their neighborhoods as higher-income people move in.

To his surprise he found that lower-income people in gentrifying neighborhoods actually tended to move less frequently than those living in neighborhoods that weren't gentrifying, and that the financial health of these residents seemed to be improving.

Freeman's study results were very similar to those of a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland . . .

LISTEN OR READ MORE on NPR's website HERE.

 

Engineering News Record praises Metro's K.N. Murthy, executive director of transit project delivery, in its current issue. The story notes that gearing up LA Metro to work on more than one rail project at a time has been a very big challenge -- "it took "a huge cultural shift," Murthy told ENR. "When I came and saw all these huge projects, I looked at the idea of going to 'design-build." Added Move LA Executive Director Denny Zane, "Design-build is being used on nearly every major project, often in combination with traditional design-bid-build."

Read MORE.

Kerry Cavanaugh writes in an opinion piece in the LA Times that the key to an LAX connection that works is that it has to be convenient and easy to get to the airport with your luggage. He notes that plenty of other cities have train stops away from their airports. Newark Airport, for example, has a 3-mile monorail system from the New Jersey Transit station to the terminals. San Francisco International Airport has a people mover that connects BART to the terminals, and BART is also building a 3-mle automated train toreplace the bus connection that currently carries passengers into Oakland Airport.

READ MORE in the LA Times.

LA is in the midst of a historic rail-building boom, with five rail lines under construction or in the final planning stages, but the debate continues on how to connect our increasingly robust system to Los Angeles International Airport.

Last week several LA Metro board members agreed with a staff assessment that the construction risks of buildng a light rail tunnel under the terminals was too great and the estimated $3 billion price tag too high. But after a lengthy and heated debate the board left open the possibility of building stations under the airport and agreed to proceed with detailed environmental reviews of four options that would stop trains outside of the terminal area. (See previous Move LA blog post that links to diagrams of these options.)

READ ALL ABOUT IT IN THE LA TIMES.

The $206 billion 8.5-mile Crenshaw Line will be the first new rail line in a generation to traverse transit-dependent South Los Angeles, increasing connections to a rail system that now reaches into Long Beach, the Westside, and to the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

One unresolved issue is how the line will be linked to LAX, since it will stop 1.5 miles east of the terminals at Century and Aviation boulevards. Metro and LAX are negotiating a connection that is likely to include some kind of people mover, similar to the train that serves terminals at San Francisco International Airport. A decision on that project will be made later this year. (See previous blog post on the four alternatives being considered by Metro.)

Construction on the Crenshaw Line began on January 21 at a groundbreaking ceremony with LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and other elected officials.

READ MORE in the LA Times HERE.