Curbed LA notes that national nonprofit Reconnecting America's updated online map of the country's major transit projects shows 40 projects in planning for the Southern California region, adding that it "includes rail and bus liens that are just twinkles in planners' eyes, including an aerial tram to Lake Arrowhead and light rail to Redlands. Curbed LA says that SoCal has more big ticket transit projects than anywhere than the Washington DC region — twice as many as NYC and 10 more than Chicago.

See them and the pricetags listed on Curbed LA, and visit Reconnecting America's online map here.

The Brookings Institution applauds LA County, LA Mayor Villaraigosa and the business-labor-environmental coalition that championed Measure R and also won approval from Congress for the low-interest TIFIA loan program that is helping to fund the Crenshaw Line and may soon fund other projects. Los Angeles was one of ten regions cited in Brookings' "Top Ten Most Innovative Economic Development Initiatives."

TIFIA was part of the "America Fast Forward" proposal to enable the federal government to reward regions like LA, Denver, and Phoenix that step up to help themselves by providing a local revenue stream to leverage outside investment. Notes Brookings, "TIFIA provides flexible, low-cost credit assistance backed by the future sales tax revenues, leveraging outside investment worth 30 times the federal contribution."

Metro is now working with Congress on the second half of the America Fast Forward Proposal: a new class of tax-credit bonds for transportation. Congress has already authorized qualified tax credit bond programs for forestry conservation, renewable energy projects, energy conservation, qualified zone academies and new school construction.

Brookings calls it "Bottom-up Federalism: Local-Driven Federal Infrastructure Reform" and also notes: "To match the demands of the next economy, in an era of fiscal constraints, effective governance requires both leveraging local resources to support transformative investments with innovative finance and public-private partnerships, and promoting greater collaboration across state and municipal lines, given the real geography of market activity."

Also in the "Governance" category of this Top 10, Brookings awards California, Oregon and Washington for the West Coast Infrastructure Exchange, a tri-state partnership of government, community, business and nonprofit groups that are working to  strengthen project management and financing for performance-based public-private projects that cross jurisdictions.

Read it on Brookings website.

Kristin Eberhard from NRDC weighs in with an analysis that examines the density and lay-out of Los Angeles County and finds that a relatively small number of residents live in sprawling suburban neighborhoods — most people are likely to live at a density of about 14,000 people per square mile. The numbers show many more people are living at high densities than in the city of Chicago, with its skyline of skyscrapers. And because LA has so many downtowns and dispersed job centers, only 2.5% of jobs are located in downtown Los Angeles, compared to 20% in NYC and 19% in Washington DC.

Kristin concludes: "LA faces a public transit challenge. How to connect a dispersed, evenly dense population with multiple jobs centers and residential areas in a seamless way that is competitive with cars? My answer: we can’t just do what other cities do and hope for the best." She thinks we need a gridded system, and not the more traditional spiderweb system that focuses on downtown . . .

Check out her graphs and maps.

Congressional Quarterly reports that Metro is urging Congress to approve a new tax-credit bond program to fund transportation infrastructure — one of two financial strategies LA Mayor Villaraigosa was counting on to accelerate the 30-10 plan.  The other strategy was the robustly-funded low-interest TIFIA loan program that was adopted by Congress last year.

The bond program was dropped in conference committee but would have authorized $2 billion annually that when leveraged with private investment would have provided $50 billion in lending power every year.

Steve Hymon cites the CQ story on The Source blog, noting the article is behind a paywall. But he excerpts a quote from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, a Wall Street research firm, who wrote in a recent analysis that “nearly any infrastructure project seriously being considered today will return more than the 2 percent the U.S. Treasury is paying on 10-year bonds. As with any business that borrows to invest in machine tools or computers, or a household that borrows to purchase a home or car, it makes sense for government to borrow to invest in an infrastructure asset that will provide returns for years.”

The U.S. has only 5 "true" BRT systems — and LA's Orange Line is one of them — and that are all rated "bronze," according to a rating system developed by the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy. IDTP assigns systems points based on whether they have characteristics such as high service frequency, off-board fare collection, segregated right of way, the treatment at intersections, whether there's secure bicycle parking, good pedestrian access, etc.

The best-performing systems are in Bogota, Colombia and Guangzhou, China, at 93 and 89 points respectively. The highest-performing US route is Cleveland's Health Line, which scored 63.

ITDP's ratings system is downloadable here.

Move LA’s launched this powerful coalition to advocate for the Measure R sales tax at our first annual transportation conversation in 2008. Register now for the 5th conversation, at Union Station on Friday, Feb. 1! This is the coalition you want to know if you want to get something done on transportation in LA County — for example: After a keynote by Robbie Hunter, now president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, the conversation begins with Maria Elena Durazo, LA County Federation of Labor; Ron Miller, LA-OC Building and Construction Trades Council; Gary Toebben, LA Area Chamber of Commerce; Mary Leslie, LA Business Council; and Adriano Martinez, NRDC — and Art Leahy of LA Metro, Richard Katz of Metro and Metrolink, and Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield, chair of the Budget Committee. Move LA Executive Director Denny Zane and panelists will be talking about the “Big Picture Politics of Money for Transportation.” That's just the first panel! Click on the links to the left to find out what else we’ll be talking about and register now!

London’s Underground celebrates its 150^th anniversary this month and the future for the transit system looks brighter than at any time since the suburban expansion that began in the 1930s. Then, the system once viewed as the best in the world was starved of investment and allowed to decline, and as car ownership grew the consensus was that public transport was no longer needed.

But today lines are being upgraded to expand capacity, and there are new trains, signaling systems and control centers, and tunnels are being built for the major new railway named Crossrail, Europe’s largest construction project.  These improvements may barely keep pace with the demand fueled by London’s rapid population growth, however, and these investments depend substantially on fare revenue — suggesting that bigger and bolder solutions are needed.

Read this story about the Tube on Dave Hill’s London blog.

LA nabs 4 spots in the Top 10 list of hot real estate markets in the U.S.: with Highland Park ranking No. 1, Faircrest Heights (Fairfax District adjacent) as No. 3, Eagle Rock as  No. 4, and Glassell Park as No. 7! This could be good news for home-owners. But it could be bad news for renters. (This was the top story on Curbed LA's special "Gentrification Watch" feature . . .)

Read it on Redfin.

 

National infrastructure bank supporters Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Kerry, who co-sponsored legislation that would have created an infrastructure bank to leverage public- and private-sector dollars for large projects, will soon be gone from the U.S. Senate. Supporters will have to search for new champions.

A national infrastructure bank has always been of interest to Move LA and to others who want to accelerate construction of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's 30-10 plan to build out LA's transit system.

Kerry is likely to move to the State Department and Hutchison leaves at the end of the 112th Congress.

On Politico.

 

And they are:

• Shoulder bus rapid transit (BRT): $162M for 563,000 weekly travelers (an 11% capacity increase)


• Managed lanes plus BRT: $1.7B for 613,800 weekly travelers (21% capacity increase)


• Aerial/Viaduct Managed Lanes with BRT: $2.3B. Congestion relief undetermined.


• Tolled Highway Tunnel with BRT: $13B for 654,000 weekly travelers (29% capacity increase).


• Light or Heavy Rail: $8B for 580,900 to 589,900 weekly travelers (14-16% capacity increase).


• Highway and Rail Tunnels with Demand Pricing: $20-$38B for 640,600 passengers (26% capacity increase).

Pretty good story at AtlanticCities.com.