The Source blog notes today that the Metro Board has asked staff for a report on whether it would be best to go back to voters (to ask either to extend the Measure R sales tax or to approve a new tax) in 2014 or 2016. Move LA has been pondering the 2014 vs. 2016 question as well, and has looked into the average turnout for a Gubernatorial General Election (the next governor's race is in 2014) versus a Presidential General Election (in 2016) and here is what we found:

• the average turnout in LA County for a Gubernatorial General Election is 51.14%


• the average turnout in LA County for a Presidential General Election is 74.70%

This would suggest 2016 provides us with a better chance to win more money for transit, especially if there is a candidate like Hilary Clinton who will excite her base. But ALSO:

• The economy will likely be improved in 2016, especially when compared to November 2008 (when Measure R was passed).


• There will be the sense that Measure R promises will have been made and kept -- both Expo and the Foothill Gold Line will be operating, and the Crenshaw Line, Regional Connector and the Westside Subway will be under construction.


• The Latino and Asian share of the electorate (more inclined to support transit) will have grown.


• And the State of California will have instituted an Election Day Voter Registration program.

So Move LA votes for 2016!

 

Anthony York writes in the LA Times that thousands of transit agency employees around the state will be exempt from stricter pension requirements under an 11th-hour proposal expected to move through the Legislature next week with Governor Brown's blessing. The compromise would allow transit agencies to receive an estimated $4.3 billion in federal funds over the next year while ultimately letting the courts decide whether changes to state pension law can be forced on local transit workers. Read his story here. Jon Healy explains it all to you — and what could happen next — in his opinion piece here.

You know how much we love the Harvey House at Union Station (we throw a party there every chance we get) — you know, the one off to the right of the front entrance, which has been closed since 1967 but is used for TV and film shoots and special events? Steve Hymon writes on The Source that Metro is looking for someone to open a restaurant there, noting the kitchen needs a lot of work. And he includes a 1943 menu, noting the LA Public Library has an online collection of old LA menus.

On Curbed LA: Lawrence Sim plots Metro's monthly rail ridership since 2000 on a groovy interactive map that shows ridership continues to climb, and another map that shows where people get on and get off, which yields these observations, from Curbed LA:
•Most Red Line riders are going downtown, but many also travel from the Valley to Hollywood.
•Blue Line ridership is evenly distributed over several stops -- not everyone is traveling between DTLA to Long Beach.
•Most Gold Line passengers enter from stations that are not near DTLA.
•Expo Line numbers were not available . . .

Following yesterday's post on the metropolitan revolution, here is a post on another transportation funding/finance "revolution" -- by the states. Transportation pundit Ken Orski notes that with the federal transportation reauthorization looming on the horizon the paralysis in Washington DC is prompting states, like cities and metropolitan regions, to step up and fill the leadership void. Orski notes that Congress adjourned for the summer without passing Fiscal Year 2014 appropriations for transportation, and that the inability to pass even a simple annual appropriations bill does not bode well for agreement on the much more complex and costly multi-year surface transportation bill that must be reauthorized by October 2014. And he asks: Are we ignoring the obvious solution to the transportation funding crisis? (Orski is a public policy consultant who was an administrator at the Urban Mass Transportation Administration under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

Read his latest Innovation Briefs.

There’s been a lot of interest in The Metropolitan Revolution, the new book by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley of the Brookings Institution. In sum the book is about how the paralysis in Congress has created a leadership vacuum and metropolitan regions are stepping up to fill the void. Los Angeles has already been called out by Brookings for its leadership with the Measure R sales tax for transportation. Last year Brookings cited former Mayor Villaraigosa’s “bottoms up federalist approach” as one of the “Top 10 Metropolitan Innovations to Watch” – “bottoms up” because he encouraged the federal government to provide incentives for local governments, voters, corporate, civic, labor and environmental leaders to step up and help themselves.

There have been two excellent columns in the NYT about the book: “The Power Inversion,” by David Brooks, and most recently, “I Want to Be a Mayor,” by Thomas Friedman. Very briefly, Brooks says the country is segmenting into divergent city-states that are driving innovation with transformational agendas. He notes that the number of patents per capita increases by roughly 20-30 percent for every doubling of employment density -- in other words innovation isn’t coming from suburban office parks but from cities where "large, loose networks of researchers are brought together in physical proximity."

“The happiest people these days are those who leave Washington and get elected mayor or governor,” Brooks writes. “The most frustrated people are people who were mayor and governor and get elected to the Senate. They end each day knowing they were busy. They’re just not sure they accomplished anything.”

Friedman picks up the beat in his column. “If you want to be an optimist about America today, stand on your head,” he writes. “The country looks so much better from the bottom up – from its major metropolitan areas – than from the top down. Washington is tied in knots by Republican-led hyperpartisanship, lobbyists and budget constraints. Ditto most state legislatures. So the great laboratories and engines of our economy are now our cities."

Friedman says that in an interview the authors again called out Los Angeles for putting up tax dollars for large-scale transit investments and for leading the modernization of ports, airports and freight rail. “D’s and R’s will work together locally, unlike in their statehouse or Congress,” Friedman writes, paraphrasing the authors, because how they feel about the place where they live and work “is much stronger than how they feel about their party.”

Read Brooks here and Friedman here:

President Obama has threatened to veto H.R. 2610 because of its lack of funding for the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program. In a written statement the president said that the House bill would, among other things, “...halt the pipeline for any new construction on larger New Starts or Core Capacity Projects.” Importantly, the New Starts funding recommended by President Obama in his Fiscal Year 2014 Budget would fund LA Metro's two New Starts projects (the Purple Line Extension and Regional Connector) while the House transportation bill, as currently drafted, would offer no federal funding for these same projects. The president also criticized the House transportation bill for eliminating funding for the popular TIGER grant program and for prohibiting the use of federal funds for the California High Speed Rail project. The House transportation bill is expected to be considered by the full House later this week.

From LA Metro CEO Art Leahy:
Today, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, praised our agency’s efforts with respect to the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program at a hearing entitled “Oversight Hearing on Implementation of MAP-21’s TIFIA Program Enhancements.”

I was honored to testify at the hearing and convey to Chairman Boxer, Ranking member David Vitter (R-LA) and members of the committee that TIFIA helps leverage local transportation dollars to build highway and transit projects that are designed to enhance mobility and the quality of life for all Americans.

With respect to Los Angeles County, I cited the TIFIA loan we recently executed for the Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail Project and the two TIFIA loans we are currently negotiating with the U.S. Department of Transportation for the Regional Connector and Purple Line Extension transit projects. I also emphasized the favorable job creation impact these projects will have in Los Angeles County and nationally.

It was an honor to testify at the same hearing where newly confirmed Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx offered his testimony in support of the TIFIA program. Here is a link to the testimony I offered on behalf of our agency, as well as links to the testimony offered by other panelists, opening statements offered by Chairman Boxer and Ranking member Vitter, and an archived webcast of the hearing.

We are deeply appreciative of all the work Senator Boxer, as Chairman of the EPW Committee, has done to advance our America Fast Forward initiative. Specifically, the innovative finance portion of MAP-21, which Senator Boxer authored, is entitled America Fast Forward and includes a nearly ten-fold increase in funding authorized for the TIFIA program.

Not anytime soon, Zocalo Public Square panelists Denny Zane, Nate Baird and Geoff Wardle agreed, but it’s important that drivers understand that every bike they have to share the road with means there’s one less car. Under Mayor Villaraigosa the city built 123 miles of bike lanes for a total of 421 miles and now LADOT is trying to connect them up, and buffer them to make them safer. Denny Zane pointed out that voters who passed the Measure R sales tax for transit in 2008 by a 2/3 majority and very nearly passed Measure J last November (sales tax measures require a 2/3 supermajority vote) are probably willing to step up and fund more bike and pedestrian projects because they'll understand how well bikes and transit work together. Denny says that the next sales tax campaign — likely in 2014 or 2016 — could include a dedicated funding stream for bike/ped projects, and that a share of new transit project budgets could also be dedicated for first-mile/last-mile connections.

Nate Baird is the LADOT’s bicycle coordinator; Geoff Wardle is the Art Center College of Design’s director of advanced mobility research; and we all know Denny Zane. The panel was moderated by LA Times transportation reporter Laura Nelson.

Read the Zocalo blog post here.

The group Move LA was created five years ago to advocate for sales-tax transportation funding and the passage of Measure R in Los Angeles County. On a recent visit to Atlanta, Gloria Ohland, the group’s communication director, used both Uber and the heavy rail system, MARTA. Her experience there, she says, exemplifies her belief that having choices is good. She says she favors a mass transit system that is “species rich.”

“When we share cars in a way that is as convenient as this, using smartphones and apps and GPS to get us where we need to go when we need to get there, not only is it a smart use of resources, it also becomes more feasible and attractive to not own a car,” Ohland points out. “And any and all incentives to reduce car ownership are good!”



But Move LA’s Executive Director, Denny Zane, questions whether these ride-sharing companies are going to “skim off” choice, young, affluent riders — leaving cab companies with older customers, and possibly starving public transit’s fan base, which is presently growing.

He argues that private taxi businesses achieve some public environmental benefits. Franchises minimize idling by taxicabs, promote good maintenance for cabs, and require drivers to be trained and bonded, according to Zane. “It’s about safety, reliability and avoiding excess,” he says. “So if we do away with that business model, we’d better be sure that those public objectives will otherwise be met.”

Read the whole story on KPCC's blog.