THE GOVERNOR HAS SIGNED ASSEMBLYMEMBER MIKE FEUER'S AB 1446. Passage of this bill authorizes the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) to ask LA County voters to extend the term of the sales tax for transportation that was approved by voters in 2008. The ballot measure extending the sales tax — which is called Measure J — will be on the November 6 ballot.

This extension of the sales tax, from 2039 to 2069, would provide a longer revenue stream that would allow Metro to finance seven transit and eight highway projects now — at a time when interest rates and construction costs are at historic lows and unemployment is high — and complete them within a decade.

Measure J, and these transit and highway projects, are expected to create 250,000 jobs in LA County over the decade. Measure J is a remarkable opportunity to put LA County back to work modernizing our transportation system!

Ha! The New York Post says we’ve found ourselves here in LA: “It’s difficult to pinpoint the precise moment when Los Angeles stopped giving a damn what you or we or anyone else had to say — it was a slow but important finding of self . . . .”), reads the September 25 article.

Whatever. But what impresses me are the next sentences: “[This was a] decade that saw the city grow in all sorts of exciting and impressive ways. A decade of building real transit. (For the first time in generations, you will soon be able to travel by rail between Downtown and Santa Monica; soon after expect a subway stop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.)”  Then in the next section: “To see what we mean, you have to start Downtown. It’s a generic umbrella term for a wildly diverse group of neighborhoods that comprise the city’s core . . ."

 

New York is recognizing Los Angeles because we have developed two of NYC's defining features — a real transit system and a real downtown?

 

I don't have a problem with that, because I have to admit I'm digging taking the Gold Line and DASH bus every day to the Move LA offices at Sixth and Spring in DTLA, on a street with Handsome coffee and two good places to enjoy it in what is an urbane, richly diverse and very bohemian neighborhood.

Downtown is hot. So is transit. The Post got that right. (Didn't you check out the Danish bus commercial posted here? You should!))

Note the blog post from the week before last on the Downtown News story that downtown has become a boomtown for developers again (and that they're finishing the $10 million renovation of the Siqueiros mural in El Pueblo). And don't forget to vote for Measure J, the sales tax extension on the November ballot that will ask voters to help build out Mayor Villaraigosa’s 30-10 transit plan. (Congress helped with its enhanced TIFIA low interest loan program, it just wasn’t enough.)

Los Angeles is offering residents the urban advantage. Transit is an essential part of the deal.

 Read the New York Post story here.

 

The international nonprofit American Public Transportation Association (APTA) has honored Mayor Villaraigosa, three-time chairman of LA Metro's board and a board member since 2005, for his contributions to the public transportation industry through policy, legislative initiative, and leadership. APTA gave the mayor the "2012 Distinguished Service Award" for transforming his innovative 30-10 plan into the national America Fast Forward program, which became the "financial centerpiece" of the nation's new Surface Transportation Bill (MAP-21).

APTA is an international association of 1,500 public and private member organizations, engaged in the areas of bus, paratransit, light rail, commuter rail, subways, waterborne services, and intercity and high-speed rail, and including LA Metro.

"The programs Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has championed in Los Angeles — America Fast Forward, clean alternative fuels for buses, bus rapid transit, congestion pricing, sustainable development and many more — are part of the mayor's vigorous transportation agenda to transform Los Angeles from the car capital of the world to the transit capital of the world," said LA Metro CEO Art Leahy. 

APTA acknowledged the mayor for his work with the California Legislature, for passage of the 2008 Measure R half-cent sales tax for transportation, his "30/10 Initiative" to build a dozen mass transit projects in the next 10 years (instead of the 30 years it would take the sales tax to accumulate), for leveraging "30-10" into America Fast Forward, which became the enhanced TIFIA low-interest loan program, called the "largest transportation infrastructure financing fund" in U.S. DOT history by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

As a result of the Mayor's vigorous leadership on transportation, major projects have come online, including the 6-mile Metro Gold Line Extension to East Los Angeles; the 14-mile Metro Orange Line transitway serving the San Fernando Valley; the Metro Expo Line, Phase 1, an 8.6-mile light rail line from downtown LA to Culver City; the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor Project, an 8.5-mile light rail line that will extend from Crenshaw Boulevard at Exposition to the Metro Green Line's Aviation/LAX Station; the Regional Connector, a 1.9-mile fully underground connection in downtown LA that will link four light rail lines, minimizing the need for rail transfers; the Westside Subway Extension, a 9-mile subway extension that will serve Century City and Westwood/UCLA, and the 4-mile Metro Orange Line Extension to Chatsworth.

 

The New York Times writes that it appears to be a different kind of Carmageddon this year in Los Angeles (September 29 in case you somehow missed it), no panicked warnings of apocalypse, no exodus of frightened Angelenos, no signs of fear or frenzy. The problem, the Times says, is that “things went too smoothly last year. The warnings that congestion would lock up the city were not borne out because drivers – dutifully scared – stayed off the roads.” This time, preparing for a 53-hour closing this upcoming weekend, “Los Angeles officials find themselves in something of a Chicken Little situation, the victims of their own success.”

Some, however, question whether this year could be an even bigger deal because it’s in September, compared to last year’s Carmageddon in July when many residents are out of town. Moreover last year the highway opened 17 hours early when contractors beat their own deadline – but this year’s scope of work is greater.

Read the NYT on Los Angeles.

 

I forgot to post this pretty cool story by LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne about the evolution of Crenshaw Boulevard and the possible impact of its soon-to-be-built new rail line – Hawthorne’s story is part of the Times series on the Southland’s iconic boulevards. The article is worth a read. But the very best part is about the evolution from car culture to bikes, and Hawthorne’s conversation with a bunch of teenagers working on their “fixies,” or fixed-gear bikes:

The changes in Crenshaw's car culture have been dramatic, he writes. "In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department cracked down on the Sunday night cruising ritual, which barely exists now. More recently, African American teenagers, like teenagers across Southern California, have traded an obsession with cars for ones with smartphones and bicycles.

"Personally I don't really want to drive that much because I don't want to pay for gas," said Terry Monday, a 17-year-old high school student.

"Me and a couple of friends, we'd rather work on our fixies," he added, referring to customizable fixed-gear bikes that have become popular among L.A. teenagers, "or spend money on clothes or on our phones."

At dusk on a recent Sunday evening, it was easy to see evidence of the shift. At the corner of Crenshaw and Imperial Highway, a gleaming burgundy Chevrolet Impala convertible carrying three middle-aged African Americans idled at a red light.

Before the light could turn, a half-dozen African American and Latino teenagers passed by on their bikes, some of which were as carefully polished as the Impala. Three more teenagers on fully detailed bikes went by, then another four, laughing as they raced east into the darkness.

Read the whole article here.

 

 

The Source kicks Apple in the butt for kicking transit to the curb with the new Apple iPhone. The new iPhone has replaced Google maps – and Google’s public transit directions – with its own maps and requires you to shop around the Apple store for an app that may or may not serve your particular transit system.

Read it.

 

For about 18 months, the Downtown Los Angeles development scene has been slowly yet steadily gaining momentum, David Guzman writes in the Downtown News, with 75 projects underway: "Now there’s a shift into a higher gear," he continues. "While some may raise their eyebrows, it is not an exaggeration to say that Downtown is, once again, boomtown."

The story goes on to say that "In recent months the lending market has loosened and a range of real estate and development veterans have announced new projects or restarted previously planned efforts:  large residential complexes such as the Eighth and Hope Apartments and the SB Omega, Barry Shy’s proposed 40-story Historic Core tower, the restoration of the Hall of Justice in the Civic Center, an Urban Radish supermarket under construction in the Arts District, the renovation of an historic Broadway Theater as a boutique Ace Hotel. And, the $10 million restoration of the David Alfaro Siqueiros mural in El Pueblo. And the possibility of a streetcar!

Los Angeles Downtown News gives the latest information on 75 Downtown projects.

Matthew Yglesias writes about how a ballot initiative, a visionary mayor, and a quest for growth are turning LA, long considered “the great auto-centric counterpoint to the traditional cities of the Northeast,” into a serious mass transit contender. He attributes the transformation to three events: 1) Congressman Henry Waxman, the powerful House Democrat who represents LA’s Westside, went from being a NIMBY opponent of transit to a booster. 2) Antonio Villaraigosa was elected mayor in 2004. And 3) LA County voters passed Measure R, the half-cent sales tax for transportation, in 2008.

Moreover, Yglesias writes, LA is embracing bicycling, and encouraging transit-oriented development by rezoning Hollywood for more density, reducing parking for new development in the City of LA, reconfiguring Figueroa Boulevard as bike-and-pedestrian friendly byway, and considering adding a streetcar to the mix in downtown.

He notes that the 2009 American Communities Survey showed a 10.7 increase in transit commuting LA from 2000 to 2009, compared to a 3.6 percent increase in driving.

Read it all on Slate.

When LA County voters approved the half-cent Measure R sales tax for transportation in 2008, they created more than 400,000 jobs over 30 years. Measure J would accelerate 250,000 of those jobs over the next decade by starting construction of 7 transit projects and up to 8 highway projects in the next 5 years.  If you are out of work – and unemployment in LA County is still 12 percent – a job now is worth a lot more than a job 25 years from now, and when all those paychecks are spent it will give the local economy a boost.

Also providing an economic boost is the fact that these transit and highway projects will ease traffic congestion countywide so that employees and goods aren’t kept idling on highways, wasting money and time. The 15 transit and highway projects that will be accelerated, combined with the investment of “local return” dollars in local projects that improve streets, sidewalks,  transit service and bikeways will relieve traffic all over the county – which also helps the economy.

Moreover, the construction jobs would be good jobs: $25 billion of transportation construction work is covered by project labor agreements which mean that all projects will be built using skilled labor trained in joint labor-management apprenticeship programs, and that contracts will be subject to all the protections and benefits associated with a middle-class livelihood.

CLICK ON THE ACTION ALERT AT THE TOP LEFT OF OUR WEBSITE TO ENDORSE MEASURE J!

What is Measure J? Measure J, which is on the November ballot, will extend the 30-year Measure R sales tax by another 30 years (to 2069) in order to accelerate the construction of 7 transit and up to 8 highway projects over the next decade. Measure J does this not by increasing the amount of the tax you pay but by providing a longer revenue stream that LA Metro can bond against. The combination of these bonds as well as low-interest loans made available by the federal government through the recently expanded TIFIA loan program will make it possible to start construction on these projects within the next five years, generating 250,000 jobs over the next decade.

The noise about Carmageddon 2012 — September 29-30, the days the 405 closes down for rehab — has started. LA Metro encourages you to eat, shop and play locally, and provides an interactive map that allows you to search out special deals at restaurants, stores, museums, etc.

Check it out here.