MOVE LA HAS ALWAYS BEEN DRAWN to do the BIG STUFF (tongue in cheek) needed to address our transit, climate and clean air challenges, lack of affordable housing, and the good jobs, jobs and more jobs required by people who need and want to work to support their families.

Move LA began during a challenging time, when LA's "soul-crushing traffic" was on everyone's mind with no solution in sight. Move LA started a campaign to address this challenge by building a coalition to support a ballot measure to fund the build-out of LA County's transit system—which became Measure R—and which voters approved by 67.4% even as the Great Recession loomed before us.

After the recession ebbed, Measure R was followed by Measure M in 2016 and voters said "Yes" again, and together R and M have created a $120 billion program for major investments in a new transit system and services in LA County.

OUR CURRENT WORK

We are eager to keep working on projects on the same scale as Measures R and M—where we were able to start the ball rolling and convince powerful elected officials, unions, environmentalists, other activists, and the voters to join us. 

These two ballot measures are expected to bring in $120 billion over four decades, and we couldn’t have done it without your support. Below is a list of what we've been working on this year. We hope it will move you to continue to support our efforts.

EXPANDING TRANSIT AFTER R & M

#1 Big Success: Congress Passes and President Biden Signs the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill
This bill will provide $550 billion to improve the nation’s infrastructure. Move LA was an important part of a national network pressing this forward, working with the TransitCenter and others, meeting with dozens of members of Congress and their staff, and coordinating advocates statewide to support increased funding for public transit and active transportation.

#2 Big Success: Metro Adopts the Fareless System Initiative
Metro’s Fareless System Initiative (being implemented this January) was a direct outgrowth of Move LA’s persistence over more than a decade about creating a discounted transit pass program for community college students. The FSI will provide free transit service to all students enrolled in community colleges in LA County and to K-12 students.

#3 Major Progress: Boulevards of Equity and Opportunity and the Important Role of Bus-Only Lanes
Move LA has been encouraging several bus-only and bus-priority lanes on Grand/Olive, Alvarado, La Brea, 5th/6th Street in DTLA, and the North Hollywood to Pasadena Transit Corridor. Move LA has also worked to implement dedicated bike lanes on West Adams from Crenshaw to Fairfax, to connect them to bus/bike lanes in Culver City, and to build the Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor in South LA that would connect four major transit lines.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

#4 Major Progress: A Voter Initiative to Raise Funds to Prevent Homelessness and Develop Affordable Housing
More than a year ago Move LA initiated and has since built a significant coalition including social justice and tenant advocates, affordable housers, and the LA/OC Building Trades to champion a City of LA voter initiative to provide funding to prevent homelessness and develop new affordable housing. The measure was submitted to the Los Angeles City Clerk's office mid-December where a legal petition will be created and a signature drive will follow. This measure will raise over $800 million/year for the City of Los Angeles to prevent and reduce homelessness and build more than 26,000 affordable apartments every decade.

#5 Ongoing Progress: Boulevards of Equity and Opportunity
If Los Angeles has always been a place where you need a car to get around, the Measure R and M era is different: it’s about providing access via transit to opportunity, affordable housing, education and jobs. We have championed building mixed-use, mixed-income housing along safe, transit-served boulevards, in neighborhoods where people can drive less and walk or bike more. SB 961 (Allen) was our first legislative victory on this path, but won’t be our last. Check out SB 563 (Allen).

#6 Ongoing Progress: A Redevelopment-Style Framework to Build Affordable Housing Near Transit
Move LA has been working with Senator Ben Allen to develop legislation to create a city-county collaboration to build affordable housing, first-last-mile infrastructure, and urban greening programs near transit in a redevelopment-style tax-increment financing framework.

CLIMATE AND CLEAN AIR

#7 Ongoing Progress: A Potential Statewide Ballot Measure to Fight Climate Change
For two years Move LA worked to identify coalition partners statewide and is now partnering with them to develop a statewide ballot measure to fight climate change in the November 2022 elections. The outcome of that process has been remarkable. Two versions of such a measure has been submitted to the California Secretary of State. One version would raise about $4 billion/year and more than $100 billion over 20 years to ensure that zero emission vehicles are the new normal in California in all categories—cars, trucks, trains, ships, planes and off-road equipment—and to prevent wildfires in California’s forests. 

#8 Ongoing Progress: Hydrogen roundtables with the LA/OC Building and Construction Trades Council
Move LA has been co-convening a series of virtual roundtables on climate strategies with the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute and the LA/OC Building and Construction Trades Council and affiliates. The goal is to identify climate strategies that can yield good-paying jobs for our unionized workforce with special attention to the opportunities offered by the development of hydrogen infrastructure.

#9 Big Success: Seven “Zoomposiums” on the Fight Against Climate Change and for Clean Air
We conducted no less than seven of these conversations on Zoom, often with audiences of several hundred people, to talk with leaders and experts about topics ranging from short-lived climate pollutants and deadly diesel to battery electric and hydrogen solutions to other climate-friendly means of travel and emerging technologies for planes, trains, buses and ships.

We believe that we are working on issues that matter not only for Los Angeles and LA County, but for California and the world. Donate and you will be working with us! See you in the new year! 

Denny Zane for Move LA

We are drawn to do the BIG STUFF needed to address our transit, climate and clean air challenges, lack of affordable housing, and the need for more and more good jobs so people can support their families. We want to keep working on projects that are the scale of Measures R and M—when we were able to start the ball rolling and then convince powerful elected officials, unions, environmentalists and the voters to join us in support of 2 ballot measures providing $120 billion to build out LA County's transit system over 4 decades.

We have more big projects in the works! And we want to honor some of the people who are have worked with us on these issues for many years and who continue to work with us to achieve the BIG STUFF now.

REGISTER HERE for drinks and an informal dinner at the Boomtown Brewery in the Arts District on Friday, Dec. 10, 5:30-8pm, when we will toast the successes of:

• LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis (invited), for her support of Metro's Fareless System Initiative as chair of the Metro Board, which is now making fares free for K-12 and community college students in LA County
• Ron Miller, (Retired) Executive Secretary at Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building & Construction Trades Council and Move LA Leadership Board/Executive Committee member, who has made it possible for us to ally ourselves with this very powerful trade union 
• Joan Ling, Move LA Leadership Board/Executive Committee member and affordable housing ally who has worked with us at the nexus between land use policy and real estate development; affordable housing production and preservation; and community and economic development 
• Chanell Fletcher, Deputy Executive Officer of Environmental Justice for the California Air Resources Board and former director of ClimatePlan, a statewide coalition of organizations that we've worked with for more than a decade 
• Alan Greenlee, Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing (SCANPH), with whom we have found ways to better meet the needs of nonprofit developers so they can build the housing desperately needed in LA County.

JOIN US! REGISTER NOW for drinks and an informal dinner at the Boomtown Brewery in the Arts District, Friday, Dec. 10, 5:30-8pm.

We had the opportunity to talk with transportation leaders about all the ways to get around California without a car recently, with the goal of transforming our transportation system as we face the challenge of climate change.

In case you missed these Zooms on "California's Decade of Decision" you can still watch them (with closed captioning) on Move LA's Youtube page:

• How Do We Achieve BIG Reductions in Vehicle Miles Traveled? Climate-Friendly Travel in California (Oct. 8)
  
• Emerging Technologies in Transit: Planes, Trains, Buses and Ships (Oct. 14)

But the conversation isn't finished! Our partner SPUR in the Bay Area is hosting two FREE virtual programs on HSR: The first is TOMORROW, on the opportunity to bring Californians a little closer together via high-speed rail, and the next is on Nov. 8. Click on the links below to get to the SPUR website and scroll to the bottom of the page, where you can register (or you can register by phone). 

• How Can High-Speed Rail Benefit California's Large Cities? TOMORROW, Oct. 26, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
• How High-Speed Rail Will Reshape California’s Economic Geography, MONDAY, Nov. 8, 12:30-1:30 p.m.

The world is changing because of climate change, not to mention increasing air pollution, and California is not faring very well so far. Out-of-control wildfires, oil disasters, drought, and heat waves are happening with more frequency. But we do have a jump on everywhere else in the USA when it comes to zero-emission vehicles and good regulations that define the path forward.

We've got a long way to go, however, and need the rest of the world to come along with us—indeed there are other countries that are leading the pack right now. So let's keep talking and spread the word about what we must do in order to curb climate change and clean the air. This is why we continue to host Zoom calls with the experts and invite all of you to come along for the ride!

Join us on our Zoom call tomorrow from 12 noon to 2 p.m. REGISTER HERE NOW!  We will be asking our speakers these questions:

Ray Wolfe, Executive Director of the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority:
We want to know more about the new Arrow Line train service that is linking San Bernardino and Redlands, which we understand was—a very long time ago—served by the Red Cars that came to San Bernardino from LA. And please explain the Zero-Emission Multiple Units (ZEMU) hydrogen fuel cell trains and the plan to bring them to Southern California.

Madeline Rose is Climate Campaign Director at Pacific Environment:
It is very alarming that the South Coast Air Quality Management District predicts that by 2023 ships will account for the majority of NO_x emissions in SoCal—surpassing heavy-duty trucks. We know there is a lot of talk about replacing the heavy fuel used by the bigger ships with 100% clean energy sources. What needs to happen with shippers and distributors, and what can governments and government agencies do today to accelerate the transition?

Jesse Marquez, founder of the Coalition for a Safe Environment:
You created the Coalition for a Safe Environment in 2001 to investigate expansion plans by the Port of Los Angeles—and eventually the Port of Long Beach—because of concerns about the environmental and public health impacts on people, many of whom are low-income, who live around the ports and the freeways that heavy-duty diesel trucks travel to get to the ports. That was two decades ago. On a scale of 1 to 5, how and why would you rank our progress given the growth of both ports, especially since COVID?

Lawrence McCormack is Director of State Government Relations for Cummins:
Cummins works with a lot of heavy industries—from construction to marine to agriculture, oil & gas, buses, trucks, municipal vehicles like fire, trash collection, and transit buses, and rail. That’s pretty much anything on and off the road. Is there one technology—battery-electric, fuel cell, hydrogen, renewable natural gas, or diesel—that you view as the “winner” technology for all? Or do we need them all?

Peter Chen is a mechanical engineer with the California Energy Commission:
California’s goals are to have 1.5 million ZEVs on the road by 2025 as well as 200 hydrogen fueling stations and 250,000 vehicle chargers for battery electric vehicles. That seems feasible. And the CEC predicts that by 2035 all vehicles will be zero emission except for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles—which will become zero emission by 2045. Do you think this is good enough? What else may be required to save Planet Earth by 2045?

Bob Schlatter, Senior Executive at World Energy:
The U.S. EPA reports that aircraft contribute 12 percent of U.S. transportation emissions, and account for three percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas production. World Energy produces Sustainable Aviation Fuel. Can you explain what is it, how it can help reduce airline emissions, and how we can scale its usage?

Dr. Joseph Pratt, CEO and CTO of Zero Emission Industries:
You produce hydrogen fuel cell marine vessels. How polluting are the ferries, harbor craft, and other marine vessels currently at sea in California? Why are you using hydrogen fuel cells and not battery electric technology? What are the limitations of each?

Dave Cook is Chief Technology Officer at Rail Propulsion Systems:
Locomotives that transport goods and people are highly polluting. You have demonstrated hybrid electric passenger trains can go anywhere. How can we leverage existing locomotives and make them cleaner, safer, and less expensive to operate today so we can see measurable air quality improvements near frontline communities?

Join us on our Zoom call tomorrow from 12 noon to 2 p.m. REGISTER HERE NOW! 

We are still in disbelief as we watch the unfolding ecological disaster caused by 144,000 gallons of crude oil spewing into the waters and onto the shoreline of Orange County. Add that to the drought and devastating fires that have raged across the West and it is clear that climate change—"fueled" by our dependence on oil—is knocking on the door.

We know we need solutions that continue to power our economy, provide good paying jobs and address the devastating health impacts of diesel pollution, wildfires and oil spills. Our Zoomposiums tomorrow (Friday) and next week (on Thursday) are about some of the solutions—involving the adoption of new transportation options, some powered by electric batteries or hydrogen—for getting around.

Tomorrow our focus is on getting around California, city to city. Last month my family took an incredible journey on Amtrak from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and while it was beautiful it also took 12 hours in total. We can do better and our panelists are going to talk about how. 

Join us tomorrow (Friday), 11am-1pm, to talk about getting around without a car. Because our current transportation system isn't working anymore. Our speakers are listed below. REGISTER HERE. 

We are so obsessed with cars—our personal vehicles (especially electric vehicles), as well as Uber or Lyft—that we forget there are many other ways to get around, including our bus and rail system. We really don’t have to drive in an SOV (single occupancy vehicle)—and we know we shouldn’t—especially when it comes to intercity or long-distance travel.

And that's the subject of two upcoming Zoom calls on the topic of reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT)—a goal among the many advocates and elected officials who are deeply concerned about the impact on climate change (50% of GHG emissions in California come from the transportation sector and refineries) and air quality. Please mark your calendars and join us on Oct. 8 and 14 for:

“What About Reducing VMT with Fewer SOVs?” on Friday, Oct. 8, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., when we will discuss opportunities for both medium- and long-distance travel and how it can reduce VMT and help reduce GHG emissions and improve air quality. REGISTER HERE. With:

• Darwin Moosavi, Deputy Secretary for Environmental Policy and Housing Coordination at the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), where he is a key advisor on issues related to reducing GHGs and VMT.
• Ben Porrit, Senior VP at Brightline, a provider of modern, eco-friendly high-speed rail, working in partnership with Siemens to build trainsets in California that are an example of green manufacturing and good-paying jobs.
• Pierre Gourdain, CEO of FlixBus and in charge of making it the #1 ground-based long-distance mobility provider in the U.S., which has transported more than a million passengers since its launch on the West Coast in 2018.
• LaDonna DiCamillo, appointed as Southern California Director of the High-Speed Rail Authority last year, and tasked with bringing High Speed Rail to our region.

AND THEN . . .

We are so close to winning the Fareless System Initiative pilot program to provide student transit passes for all K-12 and community college students in LA County—any line, any time, bus and rail, Metro and municipal operators—that we can't slow down now!

But next we must work toward ensuring a fareless system for all low-income residents as well, and then . . . a fareless system for all! 

The Metro Board votes THIS THURSDAY whether to move forward with the Fareless System Initiative pilot, which will cost only $3 per K-12 student and $7 per community college student per year! The board meeting starts at 10 a.m. and the Fareless System Initiative is third on the agenda. You can:

• Make a live public comment—1 minute is the max—by telephone. Dial: 888-251-2949 and enter English Access Code: 8231160# or Spanish Access Code: 4544724#. To give public comment enter #2 when prompted. (The live video feed lags about 30 seconds behind the actual meeting, but there is no lag on the public comment dial-in line.) You may want to bring a textbook in case the first two items—on the I-710 freeway widening project—delay discussion of the Fareless System Initiative.
• Or email your comments to the [email protected].net. Written public comments must be received by 5PM the day before the meeting. Please include both Item #35 and your position—“FOR,” “AGAINST,” "GENERAL COMMENT," or "ITEM NEEDS MORE CONSIDERATION"—in your comment.
• Or you can send your comments by USPS but they should go in the mail today as they need to reach Metro by 5 p.m. tomorrow. Mail to: Board Administration, One Gateway Plaza, MS: 99-3-1, Los Angeles, CA 90012