Post by kenalpern on Jul 7, 2008 10:17:29 GMT -8
Ten Reasons You “OTTER” Vote for a Half-Cent Transportation Sales Tax[/size]
Transportation
By Kenneth S. Alpern
A very interesting event recently occurred Downtown at the Metro Board’s latest meeting. Advocates from the Westside lobbied for a full Expo Line to Santa Monica, and advocates from the San Gabriel Valley lobbied for a Foothill Gold Line to Azusa/Citrus, and there were also constituencies supporting the plan to push the Wilshire Subway to the Westside and the Green Line to LAX. No one really won, and no one should have won, because there isn’t enough money to build all of these decades-overdue projects…and for decades they’ve all been viewed as separate projects instead of a singular rail network. Furthermore, no one really assailed the current federal policies that sharply limits federal matching funds for rail projects compared to freeway projects, and which offers L.A. County only one major rail project to be funded for each five to seven year funding cycle.
Counties as big and developed as Los Angeles County therefore don’t have much room for new freeways, and can’t embark on major rail initiatives unless they’re regional/countywide, and these remain unavailable to federal support. Hence, each portion of the county must fight over the federal crumbs with other portions of the county in a perpetually losing battle.
It’s a new century, and a new election, and we need to do things differently. It’s the old “united we stand, and divided we fall” paradigm, and it’s truer than ever. Just as the 10 Freeway east and west (and other connecting freeways) is one big freeway, so, too, will our various rail systems one day be one big rail network, and it’s ridiculous to think otherwise.
Ocean To The Eastern Regions Rail (OTTER) Network
The above map could easily be what our light rail system will look like circa 2015-2020, although it doesn’t include the proposed Crenshaw Light Rail Project to connect LAX with the Expo Line (and Downtown), a countywide Metrolink network, a Wilshire Subway that connects to the Westside, and a detailed description of how far east the Foothill Gold Line would go. That’s for our future leaders and their taxpaying voters to hash out, but…
…the main reason why ridership has and will suffer on every single downtown light rail line (Blue, Expo, Eastside and Foothill Gold) and the connecting Red Line Subway is our failure to build a Downtown Light Rail Connector—probably a subway—and which stands in the way of every single major rail/transit initiative. In 2010, our Expo and Blue Lines will have a huge Downtown gap to the Foothill and Eastside Gold Lines at a time that Downtown is undergoing major development. This Connector is planned and ranked before the Wilshire Subway, so Angelenos and San Gabriel Valley residents alike should take note!
We need to plan and fund a comprehensive light rail network as a singular project and demand a proportionate matching grant from the state and federal governments—it’s that simple. If every person in every portion of the county is being asked to pay more sales taxes, then every portion of the county should benefit.
This OTTER Network is as vital for our future as our freeway network was in 1950, and to a large degree it must be focused on the operational center (i.e., the proposed Downtown Connector). Can you imagine how things would have been had not the I-10 and I-110 freeways been built to connect east and west, north and south, to each other and to Downtown?
I can give you at least ten reasons to vote for a sales tax come this November, although the first three are the biggest reasons of all:
1) Economy
Right now, our federal and state governments have underfunded transportation in all modes, dismissing new projects and operating them as “pork”, yet transportation is what powers the economy and allows every other budgetary priority (education, health care, social services, defense, etc.) to bear fruit and get funded at all. In order to grow more fruit from our transportation/infrastructure tree, we need to grow a bigger tree and not just keep shaking it for more fruit!
2) Environment
Neither gridlock nor long distance commuting has helped our air, our ability to walk, bicycle and exercise more, or our mental health…but they’re our reality. Some areas are more suited for mass transit than others, but what we don’t have anymore is new freeway space. Commercial centers and parking connections to transit stations can allow a much better coexistence with rural and urban livable neighborhoods than what we have now.
3) Quality of Life
Remember your home? Your family? Your neighborhood? Believe it or not, they’re still there…but you wouldn’t know it because your new “home” is your car, stuck in your “neighborhood” freeway with the unwilling “family” of other commuters next to you. Long commutes might not magically go away, but there have to be more options—we deserve a choice in how to get to work.
4) Half-Cent for a Half-Century
We’re fifty years in the discussion to create the Wilshire Subway and to establish a countywide rail system to replace the one we ripped up last century, so let’s get on with it already! The sales tax is hardly too much to ask for something this much overdue. Perhaps we need better balance with other budgetary priorities, but doing nothing is not an option anymore. Besides, if gas prices don’t motivate us to do something, than what will?
5) Sends a message to Sacramento and Washington for new measures and matches
There’s an old Jewish proverb that says, “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?” If we are willing to tax ourselves, we make a strong statement to our federal and state electeds and will be better positioned to demand a higher state/federal mandate to do their fair share for Los Angeles County, which has served as a key economic breadbasket of the country for decades.
6) Access to the rest of the county, even to areas we can’t because of traffic
Much of the reason why the San Fernando Valley considered seceding a few years ago was because it’s so inaccessible to the rest of the City. Similarly, there’s so much division and animosity between different regions of the county because “we can’t get there from here”. This must end.
7) Affordable Housing
I’d never tell anyone to get rid of their car, but I would like to offer a better alternative to reduce or eliminate the need for it. How much more money would we all have if we didn’t pay so much at the gas pump? Wouldn’t lower-income individuals be able to live better if they were able to move affordably around our cities and county?
8) Everyone who lives here pays for it
It really is immoral and ineffective to always make someone else pay for something we all need. I’ve heard the argument that wealthier individuals use their cars more and should pay for mass transit projects, and I’ve heard the argument that lower-income individuals use mass transit more and should therefore pay for mass transit projects. I believe that both arguments have some validity, so we need to make sure that everyone pays into the system.
9) Benefits all socioeconomic, ethnic and geographic constituencies of our county
Rich or poor, wherever and whoever you are, we all suffer from our congestion problem and the high cost of fuel. Americans have repeatedly pitched in together to protect our economy, our environment and our quality of life, and transportation is one of the most critical challenges of the new 21st century.
10) We pay for it, and our children benefit
As of late, we’ve been doing this the other way around, with bond or other measures that get us off the hook and dump the costs on future generations. I remind you that “The Greatest Generation” paid for and sacrificed through the Depression and World War II, and ultimately allowed America to be the greatest economic superpower on earth for the next half-century.
This is our turn, and nothing says “I love you” to your children and grandchildren more than offering them a better future. Regardless of how you view our current foreign policy, there are American men and women fighting and dying for our future. Is a half-cent sales tax really too much to ask for the rest of us to offer in return as we hold our elected officials’ collective feet to the fire and spend it right? (Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is the Co-Chair of the Council District 11 Transportation Advisory Committee and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 54
Pub: July 4, 2008
Transportation
By Kenneth S. Alpern
A very interesting event recently occurred Downtown at the Metro Board’s latest meeting. Advocates from the Westside lobbied for a full Expo Line to Santa Monica, and advocates from the San Gabriel Valley lobbied for a Foothill Gold Line to Azusa/Citrus, and there were also constituencies supporting the plan to push the Wilshire Subway to the Westside and the Green Line to LAX. No one really won, and no one should have won, because there isn’t enough money to build all of these decades-overdue projects…and for decades they’ve all been viewed as separate projects instead of a singular rail network. Furthermore, no one really assailed the current federal policies that sharply limits federal matching funds for rail projects compared to freeway projects, and which offers L.A. County only one major rail project to be funded for each five to seven year funding cycle.
Counties as big and developed as Los Angeles County therefore don’t have much room for new freeways, and can’t embark on major rail initiatives unless they’re regional/countywide, and these remain unavailable to federal support. Hence, each portion of the county must fight over the federal crumbs with other portions of the county in a perpetually losing battle.
It’s a new century, and a new election, and we need to do things differently. It’s the old “united we stand, and divided we fall” paradigm, and it’s truer than ever. Just as the 10 Freeway east and west (and other connecting freeways) is one big freeway, so, too, will our various rail systems one day be one big rail network, and it’s ridiculous to think otherwise.
Ocean To The Eastern Regions Rail (OTTER) Network
The above map could easily be what our light rail system will look like circa 2015-2020, although it doesn’t include the proposed Crenshaw Light Rail Project to connect LAX with the Expo Line (and Downtown), a countywide Metrolink network, a Wilshire Subway that connects to the Westside, and a detailed description of how far east the Foothill Gold Line would go. That’s for our future leaders and their taxpaying voters to hash out, but…
…the main reason why ridership has and will suffer on every single downtown light rail line (Blue, Expo, Eastside and Foothill Gold) and the connecting Red Line Subway is our failure to build a Downtown Light Rail Connector—probably a subway—and which stands in the way of every single major rail/transit initiative. In 2010, our Expo and Blue Lines will have a huge Downtown gap to the Foothill and Eastside Gold Lines at a time that Downtown is undergoing major development. This Connector is planned and ranked before the Wilshire Subway, so Angelenos and San Gabriel Valley residents alike should take note!
We need to plan and fund a comprehensive light rail network as a singular project and demand a proportionate matching grant from the state and federal governments—it’s that simple. If every person in every portion of the county is being asked to pay more sales taxes, then every portion of the county should benefit.
This OTTER Network is as vital for our future as our freeway network was in 1950, and to a large degree it must be focused on the operational center (i.e., the proposed Downtown Connector). Can you imagine how things would have been had not the I-10 and I-110 freeways been built to connect east and west, north and south, to each other and to Downtown?
I can give you at least ten reasons to vote for a sales tax come this November, although the first three are the biggest reasons of all:
1) Economy
Right now, our federal and state governments have underfunded transportation in all modes, dismissing new projects and operating them as “pork”, yet transportation is what powers the economy and allows every other budgetary priority (education, health care, social services, defense, etc.) to bear fruit and get funded at all. In order to grow more fruit from our transportation/infrastructure tree, we need to grow a bigger tree and not just keep shaking it for more fruit!
2) Environment
Neither gridlock nor long distance commuting has helped our air, our ability to walk, bicycle and exercise more, or our mental health…but they’re our reality. Some areas are more suited for mass transit than others, but what we don’t have anymore is new freeway space. Commercial centers and parking connections to transit stations can allow a much better coexistence with rural and urban livable neighborhoods than what we have now.
3) Quality of Life
Remember your home? Your family? Your neighborhood? Believe it or not, they’re still there…but you wouldn’t know it because your new “home” is your car, stuck in your “neighborhood” freeway with the unwilling “family” of other commuters next to you. Long commutes might not magically go away, but there have to be more options—we deserve a choice in how to get to work.
4) Half-Cent for a Half-Century
We’re fifty years in the discussion to create the Wilshire Subway and to establish a countywide rail system to replace the one we ripped up last century, so let’s get on with it already! The sales tax is hardly too much to ask for something this much overdue. Perhaps we need better balance with other budgetary priorities, but doing nothing is not an option anymore. Besides, if gas prices don’t motivate us to do something, than what will?
5) Sends a message to Sacramento and Washington for new measures and matches
There’s an old Jewish proverb that says, “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?” If we are willing to tax ourselves, we make a strong statement to our federal and state electeds and will be better positioned to demand a higher state/federal mandate to do their fair share for Los Angeles County, which has served as a key economic breadbasket of the country for decades.
6) Access to the rest of the county, even to areas we can’t because of traffic
Much of the reason why the San Fernando Valley considered seceding a few years ago was because it’s so inaccessible to the rest of the City. Similarly, there’s so much division and animosity between different regions of the county because “we can’t get there from here”. This must end.
7) Affordable Housing
I’d never tell anyone to get rid of their car, but I would like to offer a better alternative to reduce or eliminate the need for it. How much more money would we all have if we didn’t pay so much at the gas pump? Wouldn’t lower-income individuals be able to live better if they were able to move affordably around our cities and county?
8) Everyone who lives here pays for it
It really is immoral and ineffective to always make someone else pay for something we all need. I’ve heard the argument that wealthier individuals use their cars more and should pay for mass transit projects, and I’ve heard the argument that lower-income individuals use mass transit more and should therefore pay for mass transit projects. I believe that both arguments have some validity, so we need to make sure that everyone pays into the system.
9) Benefits all socioeconomic, ethnic and geographic constituencies of our county
Rich or poor, wherever and whoever you are, we all suffer from our congestion problem and the high cost of fuel. Americans have repeatedly pitched in together to protect our economy, our environment and our quality of life, and transportation is one of the most critical challenges of the new 21st century.
10) We pay for it, and our children benefit
As of late, we’ve been doing this the other way around, with bond or other measures that get us off the hook and dump the costs on future generations. I remind you that “The Greatest Generation” paid for and sacrificed through the Depression and World War II, and ultimately allowed America to be the greatest economic superpower on earth for the next half-century.
This is our turn, and nothing says “I love you” to your children and grandchildren more than offering them a better future. Regardless of how you view our current foreign policy, there are American men and women fighting and dying for our future. Is a half-cent sales tax really too much to ask for the rest of us to offer in return as we hold our elected officials’ collective feet to the fire and spend it right? (Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is the Co-Chair of the Council District 11 Transportation Advisory Committee and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 54
Pub: July 4, 2008
