EL MONTE'S SUPER-SIZE NEW BUS STATION OPENS FOR BUSINESS
El Monte's new bus station opens Sunday and as far as bus stations go, it's the bomb — with 29 bus bays, a bike station, art and architecture, and access to both Metro's Silver Line and Foothill Transit's Silver Streak.Read more on The Source.
HAVE YOU SEEN THE YES ON MEASURE J CAMPAIGN WEBSITE YET?
Have you seen the Yes on Measure J campaign website yet? It's at www.measurej4jobs.org.
If voters approve Measure J they will be providing LA County with its own self-help job-creating economic stimulus package and addressing one of LA’s perpetual problems: traffic congestion.
Measure J would create 250,000 jobs over the next decade – at a time when unemployment in the county remains very high at 11 percent — by accelerating the construction of seven transit lines and up to eight highway improvement projects, all of which have already been approved by voters.
Find out how Measure J provides traffic relief and thousands of jobs, and why community leaders say you should vote Yes on Measure J!
www.measurej4jobs.org
If voters approve Measure J they will be providing LA County with its own self-help job-creating economic stimulus package and addressing one of LA’s perpetual problems: traffic congestion.
Measure J would create 250,000 jobs over the next decade – at a time when unemployment in the county remains very high at 11 percent — by accelerating the construction of seven transit lines and up to eight highway improvement projects, all of which have already been approved by voters.
Find out how Measure J provides traffic relief and thousands of jobs, and why community leaders say you should vote Yes on Measure J!
www.measurej4jobs.org
MEASURE R AND TIFIA CHANGING THE GAME FOR TRANSIT?
The Next American City blog tells the story of how LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Measure R are changing the game for transit, and quotes Move LA Executive Director Denny Zane extensively. Jake Blumgart writes:
Denny Zane, former mayor of Santa Monica and executive director of Move LA, a transit advocacy group, [says expansion of the TIFIA program was] a necessary step for cash-strapped local governments looking to make strategic long-term investments without breaking the bank. “You can borrow money for multiple projects and not just one project at a time,” Zane said. “Its like a line of credit and it means. . . communities can plan for their assistance knowing that they are virtually assured of getting a low interest loan for not just one, but a whole system of projects. As a result they actually plan a system instead of just one line.”
Zane argues that the TIFIA expansion can ease the political rivalries that often bedevil transit projects as multiple communities struggle over a particular line of funding. His evidence? It allowed L.A. to move forward with Measure R’s designated projects in 10 years, instead of 30. Zane believes the initial approval ratings for Measure R would have been even higher had voters known the projects could be completed in their lifetimes. The 400,000 jobs created by these large-scale transit projects are an added bonus. Good for employment and the environment, easing traffic and stimulating the local economy, and with what seems like an easily replicable model. What could be wrong with that?
Read the rest of Denny's comments here:
Denny Zane, former mayor of Santa Monica and executive director of Move LA, a transit advocacy group, [says expansion of the TIFIA program was] a necessary step for cash-strapped local governments looking to make strategic long-term investments without breaking the bank. “You can borrow money for multiple projects and not just one project at a time,” Zane said. “Its like a line of credit and it means. . . communities can plan for their assistance knowing that they are virtually assured of getting a low interest loan for not just one, but a whole system of projects. As a result they actually plan a system instead of just one line.”
Zane argues that the TIFIA expansion can ease the political rivalries that often bedevil transit projects as multiple communities struggle over a particular line of funding. His evidence? It allowed L.A. to move forward with Measure R’s designated projects in 10 years, instead of 30. Zane believes the initial approval ratings for Measure R would have been even higher had voters known the projects could be completed in their lifetimes. The 400,000 jobs created by these large-scale transit projects are an added bonus. Good for employment and the environment, easing traffic and stimulating the local economy, and with what seems like an easily replicable model. What could be wrong with that?
Read the rest of Denny's comments here:
LA DRIVERS KILL PEDESTRIANS & BICYCLISTS AT HIGHER THAN NATIONAL RATE
A new University of Michigan study that looked at traffic fatalities in New York City and Los Angeles, and compared them with rates nationwide, found that drivers in LA kill pedestrians and bicyclists at a significantly higher rate than nationally. Drivers in NYC kill even more, but the rates of walking and biking are also significantly higher.
The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that in Los Angeles pedestrians accounted for about a third of all traffic fatalities, nearly triple the national average of 11.4 percent. About 3 percent of the fatalities were bicyclists, compared to 1.7 percent nationally. In New York, 49.6 percent of traffic fatalities were pedestrians and 6.1 percent were bicyclists.
The study used data on 449,498 crashes within Los Angeles city limits during an eight year period from 2002 to 2009. During this time 2,086 of these crashes involved at least one death.
LA County Bicycle Coalition Planning and Policy Director Eric Bruins told the LA Times that while 20 percent of all trips in the county are on foot or by bike, less than 1 percent of county transportation funding goes to improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Read more in the LA Times.
The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that in Los Angeles pedestrians accounted for about a third of all traffic fatalities, nearly triple the national average of 11.4 percent. About 3 percent of the fatalities were bicyclists, compared to 1.7 percent nationally. In New York, 49.6 percent of traffic fatalities were pedestrians and 6.1 percent were bicyclists.
The study used data on 449,498 crashes within Los Angeles city limits during an eight year period from 2002 to 2009. During this time 2,086 of these crashes involved at least one death.
LA County Bicycle Coalition Planning and Policy Director Eric Bruins told the LA Times that while 20 percent of all trips in the county are on foot or by bike, less than 1 percent of county transportation funding goes to improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Read more in the LA Times.
LOS ANGELES BACK ON TRACK: THE VIDEO
Nice video about Los Angeles getting back on the right track with transportation. Watch it on The Source.
CALLING ALL STROLLERS FOR THE CICLAVIA PED PARADE DOWN FIGUEROA
We’re sure CicLAvia is in your calendars already (hint: it’s Sunday) but do you also know there will be a parade down Figueroa organized by LA Walks with the intent of giving walkers a leg-up, as it were, in an event that has been mostly about bicycling? LA Walks is “calling all strollers” to join the 3-mile parade at 11:30 a.m. at the northwest corner of 8th and Figueroa. This section of street was chosen in part because it is the future home of the South Figueroa Corridor Project, destined to become LA’s model transit/bike/ped corridor with separated bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, transit-only lanes – all on the same street!
Read more on Streetsblog.
Read more on Streetsblog.
THE CRENSHAW/LAX LINE IS IN THE MONEY!
The $545.9 million loan for the $1.75 billion Crenshaw/LAX Line is now a done deal, one beneficiary of the enhanced TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) loan program approved by Congress this summer as part of the federal transportation reauthorization, MAP-21. The 8.5-mile light rail line and six stations will connect to the Green Line and the Expo Line.
Read the U.S. Department of Transportation press release here.
Read the U.S. Department of Transportation press release here.
FULTON ON SPRAWL: PUT THINGS FARTHER APART AND PROVIDING SERVICES COSTS MORE
Excellent op-ed in the LA Times today by former Ventura Mayor Bill Fulton, who says the bankruptcies in San Bernardino and Stockton are being blamed on pensions but this only masks a deeper problem — sprawl. The key paragraph is this: "Prosperity and solvency — or a lack thereof — are woven into the very fabric of our cities. Where houses go, where businesses go, where roads go, where sidewalks go, where farms and open space go are all things that collectively affect a community's economic performance and the cost of providing services there. Put things closer together and providing services costs less. Put things farther apart and providing services costs more — for the jurisdiction and its taxpayers. California cities haven't always planned and built in this fiscally responsible way, and that's one of the biggest reasons why cities are struggling financially today."
Read it here.
Read it here.
AB 1446 SIGNED BY GOVERNOR BROWN!!!
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!
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!
NY POST: LOS ANGELES IS THE FUTURE
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.
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.