Streetsblog's Damien Newton writes that "It may be generations before the Subway reaches the Sea but CicLAvia will head to Venice Beach this April." The "wildly popular car-free party modeled after Bogota's Ciclovia" expands from 2 events last year to 3 this year. Two of the three will feature completely new routes: On April 21 from downtown LA all the way to Venice Beach, mostly along Venice Boulevard. On June 23 from downtown LA to Fairfax and Wilshire, mostly along Wilshire Boulevard. CicLAvia Executive Director Aaron Paley reminds us that CicLAvia's goal is an event per month.
Read it on Streetsblog.

 

 

 

Kaid Benfield on NRDC's Switchboard blog writes about the planning jargon so many of us use unconsciously: from "placemaking" to "community building," terms like "vibrant," "urbanism," even "transit-oriented development," and "smart growth," and "green building." "Sustainable communities!" (A term the federal government made popular.) "Location efficiency!!" "Walkable neighborhood!!!"

Kaid was tracking the popularity of these words and phrases using a Google tool called Ngram Viewer that he'd read about in an article by Rafael Pereiro on his Urban Demographics blog.

Check it out!

Steve Hymon, who writes Metro's The Sourceblog, posted this flow chart last week to explain how the budgetary process works in Sacramento, adding as commentary:

"Holy Guacamole, that’s insane!

"Metro government relations staff encouraged me to think of the boxes as individual buckets, some with hoses connecting them to other buckets. That kind of helps.

"Enjoy perusing the chart and please forward this post to anyone considering a career as a transportation policy analyst."

Check out the BudgetaryFlowChart here.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's name came up again as the No. 1 contender for the job of U.S. Transportation Secretary, now that current Secretary Ray LaHood has announced his departure in a story in the Washington Post. But there's "one tiny problem," stated the Post, citing the LA Times story and photos of actor Charlie Sheen with his arm around Villaraigosa at the opening of Sheen's bar in Baja California, Mexico. The mayor "knows how to party," Sheen said.

Read more in the Post.

Measure J was LA Metro's "Plan B" for accelerating the Measure R funded transportation program. "Plan A" was the federal TIFIA loan program as well as a new class of federal bonds called QTIBs or qualified investment bonds. (Measure J, which failed to get the two-thirds majority required to pass on last November's ballot, would have extended the Measure R sales tax for 30 years to enable Metro to bond against a longer revenue stream.)

Congress adopted a robust TIFIA loan program last year — the largest transportation infrastructure financing fund in U.S. DOT history — providing $1.7 billion in capital over two years, up from $120 million in FY2012. But Congress never did adopt the new class of QTIBs, which would have allowed issuers to finance more than twice the dollar value of capital improvements than is possible with traditional tax-exempt bonds. The federal government would subsidize the interest by providing investors with tax credits in lieu of interest payments.

Metro's gone back to Washington to advocate for this bonds, which are being rebranded as America Fast Forward, arguing they would provide a more reliable funding stream for transportation projects than the current Highway Trust Fund.

Congress has authorized qualified tax credit bond programs in excess of $36 billion for forestry conservation, renewable energy projects, energy conservation, qualified zone academies and new school construction. America Fast Forward Transportation Bonds would represent a sixth class of these bonds.

As proposed by Metro, America Fast Forward Transportation Bonds would be authorized in the amount of $4.5 billion annually from 2013 to 2023 in total.

Read Metro's brochure here.


 

Bill Roschen is president of the City of LA’s Planning Commission, which has final approval over hundreds of millions of square feet of development in the 478 square miles that make up the City of Los Angeles. He is only the second architect to ever head the commission — renown African American architect Paul Williams served on the first planning commission, in 1920.

In 2007, when Roschen was vice president, the city planning commission issued a “Do Real Planning” manifesto with the express goal of elevating development decisions out of the mire of politics and into the realm of professional planning based on community engagement and consensus. Roschen has sought to do this in difficult discussions about infill and redevelopment projects in Hollywood, around USC, and in the Cornfield/Arroyo Seco neighborhood northeast of Chinatown. He’s also been a part of teams that developed 3,000 housing units in Hollywood. His goal is to approve and to build projects that honor the context and history of neighborhoods, that are grounded in community politics, and that help move architecture toward “a public intelligence . . . and larger public purpose for architecture.”

The Transit Corridors Cabinet is something he has helped the mayor’s office coordinate, and he says:

On why LA has the best neighborhoods in the world:
“Neighborhoods in Los Angeles are each so different. Each has amazing housing product. And each neighborhood is connected by main streets that should support the people who live there with shopping and services and corner grocery stores. We destroyed that with a car culture that turned main streets into rivers of fast-moving cars that are unsafe for people on foot or bicycle.”

On engaging the public:
“If we really are going to change our urban form — to be oriented around bus or rail instead of the car — then it requires a thoughtful public conversation. This needs to be a public-private partnership. We need to experiment with new ways of public engagement.”

On accountability:
“All eight departments will discuss their six-month workplan with the public before taking it to the LA City Council. This is the first time the city has tried out this kind of process in the name of ‘accountability.’”

On LA’s emergence as a “transit metropolis”:
“Mayor Villaraigosa’s legacy of investment in transit and TOD will transform the City of Los Angeles. Collaborative, collective efforts like the Transit Corridors Cabinet are necessary to implement the policy changes that can accelerate this transformation.”

On the name “Transit Corridors Cabinet":
“A lot of cities are talking about transit-oriented development or TOD. But this isn’t just about development. It’s about connecting neighborhoods with transit corridors as well as the car. It’s about urban form.”

On “doing real planning”:
“As a city we have left it up to developers to define how the city evolves. The process needs to be more well-considered. We need to understand developers’ strengths and their weaknesses, and then integrate this understanding into the craft of urban form.”

On the importance of bike/ped:
“Neighborhoods need to be connected with corridors that are walkable and bikeable. And these corridors need to offer people something to walk or bike to.”

On working collectively:
“The city has to bring about this transformation while doing more with less staff and funding. It’s easier to work in isolation than to work collectively, but it isn’t as efficient, effective, or progressive. City departments and their managers understand this.”

 

With applause to Jonathan Parfrey of Climate Resolve for his listing of 2012’s environmental milestones, which inspired us to come up with our transit milestones for 2012.

•  Measure J got 66.1% of the vote, proving once again LA County very much wants a robust transit system. Working- and middle-class communities voted overwhelmingly to extend the Measure R sales tax, which still failed to get the required 2/3 vote.  But J’s defeat could turn into an even greater victory if it provides the momentum to reduce the voter threshold from a 2/3 majority — an anti-democratic requirement that makes every “no” vote worth twice as much as a “yes” vote — to 55%.

• Angelenos will get good jobs and training building LA County’s transit system. LA Metro unanimously adopted a Project Labor Agreement proposed by the LA/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, and a Construction Careers Policy proposed by the LA County Federation of Labor and Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE). These policies will make tens of thousands of good jobs available to people struggling in low-income communities. Metro is the first US transit agency to win federal approval for a PLA with targeted hiring goals for federally funded projects.

•  The Westside gets its first rail line since the Pacific Red Cars. In June, LA Metro opened Expo from downtown LA to Culver City, making it possible to travel to USC football games, check out the Endeavor, visit the Staples Center and Nokia, or celebrate New Year’s in Los Angeles — without driving.

•  The San Fernando Valley gets more Orange Line. Metro’s highly successful bus rapid transit line was extended to the Chatsworth Metrolink station in June, on time, on budget, and connecting to Warner Center and the Red Line in North Hollywood.

•  The transit expansion program is getting into full swing.  Measure R funded lines now underway include Expo to Santa Monica, the Foothill Gold Line to Azusa and the Crenshaw/LAX Corridor. Metro is even showing off station designs for LAX. Utility relocations have begun for the Regional Connector downtown and the Westside Subway.

•  Congress passes the America Fast Forward loan program proposed by Metro and LA Mayor Villaraigosa. Passage of the $1.7B TIFIA loan program — up from $120M and the biggest transportation infrastructure financing fund in USDOT history — was a big victory. Metro and the mayor are now back in Washington D.C. to secure passage of America Fast Forward Bonds, which, together with the TIFIA loan program, were “Plan A” for accelerating Measure R-funded transportation projects. (Measure J was “Plan B.”)

•  Metrolink gets $1 billion for upgrades from CA High Speed Rail Authority. The state Senate approved the release of nearly $1 billion in high-speed rail funds to increase the connectivity, speed, capacity and safety of Metrolink. The goal is to upgrade some commuter rail corridors to become part of the statewide high-speed rail system.

• Transit usage up 10% in LA County. Rail ridership was up 10% in September 2012 over 2011 for an average weekday ridership of 92,000. Bus ridership held steady at 1.2 million.

• Regional Council unanimously approves plan hailed as visionary, and positioning SoCal as the nation’s “next environmental success story.” The Southern California Association of Governments 93-member council approved a Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy that promises to reduce per person traffic delay by 24% by locating 87% of jobs and 82% of housing within walking distance of transit. A motion drafted by Move LA and its coalition partners emphasized further development of regional transit, pedestrian and bike projects.

•  LA showed off at the national Railvolution conference at the Loew’s Hotel atop the Hollywood/Highland Red Line subway station.  Metro hosted the premier national conference on “building livable communities” around transit in October. More than 1,000 people listened to LA County Supervisor Antonovich and LA Mayor Villaraigosa offer conflicting views on expanding local transit, and then heard Move LA Executive Director Denny Zane bring it all home with a rousing keynote address about our transit vision.

•  LA’s love affair with bikes blossoms! CicLAvia staged its fifth event since 2010, this year with 100,000 walkers and bikers on an extended 9-mile route of closed-down streets.  Mayor Villaraigosa took the opportunity to announce LA would soon have a bike-sharing program with 4,000 bikes at 400 kiosks around the city. And the LADOT implemented 76 miles of the city’s bike plan, far outpacing any year on record.

• Cap and Trade will fund good stuff. AB 32 set the framework for the California Legislature's Cap and Trade program to reduce GHG emissions, and while negotiations are still underway on what exactly will be funded with cap and trade revenues, projects are likely to include equitable development near transit, bike/ped projects, transit operations, and discounted transit passes for residents, employees and students in transit priority zones.

•  The bottom falls out of affordable housing construction across the state as the post-redevelopment era begins. But new ideas have materialized to re-employ tax increment financing around transit stations and to help implement SB 375 projects. Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg plans to reintroduce his SB 1156 as SB 1, which would re-focus redevelopment in transit priority zones.

•  Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa creates a Transit Corridors Cabinet. The cabinet includes eight city departments with the express goal of focusing investment in transit corridors. The cabinet is less focused on development or density, however, than on providing residents and workers with more choices and more opportunities as elemental as making it easier to walk or bike to a business lunch, yoga class, or job at a local business.

 

 

UC-Berkeley Professor Robert Cervero is a consummate authority on how to transform cities with transit – in fact it’s the title of his new book, out later this year. He’d written four books about transit and transit-oriented development, or TOD, before this topic was on anyone’s agenda. And he’s celebrated the public-private partnerships created around transit in places like Hong Kong, where development activity from the sale of leases and air rights around stations generates significant revenues that are reinvested in transit and other neighborhood improvements.

Professor Cervero directs the UC Transportation Center and the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at UC Berkeley, and he’s been a consultant to governments all around the world — from India to Saudia Arabia to Colombia and Korea — and has worked with partners including the U.N. and the World Bank. And now he is working with the City of Los Angeles, where he is co-author of a report that is the foundational document for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s new Transit Corridors Cabinet.

This cabinet has been meeting for about a year with stakeholders and is composed of eight city departments that exercise control over some aspect of transportation corridors and the neighborhoods around them — including walkability and bikeability, affordable housing, permitting, density, parking, street design guidelines, etc. The idea is to coordinate communication and cooperation among these departments in order to focus on neighborhoods where changes will be occurring during then next decade because of the Measure R-funded expansion of the rail system, which will double in size by 2039 from 120 miles and 103 stations to 236 miles and 200 stations.

This public investment in transit will create tremendous land and property values in neighborhoods where the real estate market is active, and the actions of these departments will help orchestrate this value creation and then capture some of it to pay for improvements in neighborhoods. The Transit Corridors Cabinet is less focused on development, density or ridership, however, than on providing residents and workers with more choices and more opportunities as elemental as making it easier to walk to a business lunch or a yoga class or a job at a local business.

The Cervero study finds that for LA to become more transit-oriented, the city will need to “take thousands of actions that are coordinated with many other players according to a ‘game plan’ that evolves with dynamic markets, changing political winds, and the availability of resources.” The cabinet has already come up with no less than 174 “tactics” to bring this about, ranging from facilitating “Eco-pass” programs such as one in Denver that provides transit passes to all the people who live around stations, to developing targets for building affordable housing along transit corridors.

Cervero is not a stranger to LA, though he hasn’t spent time here lately. He worked in LA in the 1970s as a senior transportation planner for the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) while also working on his PhD at UCLA. He seems amused to be back in LA and working with LA’s “Transit Mayor,” since when he was working for SCAG in the '70s he often speculated whether it might not be too late to save Los Angeles from the fate of being forever car-dependent. “I wondered back then whether it was still possible to turn this place around,” he told Move LA's Gloria Ohland, “and whether it wasn’t too late to invest in a transit system.”

He says he's impressed with the strides that have been made with Measure R, aided and abetted by demographic trends, lifestyle choices, oil prices, concerns about public health and the changing climate — all trends that favor public transit use. When he lectures around the world he finds that other cities are increasingly interested in Los Angeles, and how the city — for so long known as a place where you must have a drivers license — has been able to bring about these changes.

He thinks the city is being very smart about focusing on transit corridors as an organizational framework for thinking about how to reorient and redevelop the city and its neighborhoods around a truly multimodal transportation system. “Most cities are very focused only on improving and investing in the areas around stations, when in fact the transit corridor is the scale at which you can generate the most energy and synergy.”

He cites Arlington County’s Rosslyn Ballston corridor just across the Potomac from Washington DC as the best U.S. example: “The mixing of compact, highly walkable development of all types — housing, offices, shops, hotels — among the county's five closely-spaced stations has attracted riders heading in both directions during the peak period.  Stations are vibrant and active, with people getting both on and off trains and quickly filtering into the surrounding buildings and neighborhood. This is a product of corridor-level  planning that created great synergies among a cluster of stations.”

It’s unfortunate, he says, that LA has for so long been a battleground between the car and transit on the one hand, and bus and rail on the other, when in fact “it’s not an either/or question. These are false dichotomies. These separate modes need to be integrated, right down to their fare systems and their schedules.” He thinks LA is very close to developing a truly multimodal system that’s about transit, the car, bikes, walking and “destination stations” that also offer bike-sharing and car-sharing that can also become smart mobility hubs. These hubs offer an array of transportation choices that can be accessed with cell phone apps allowing transit users to instantly rent a bike or car, carpool with someone just a mile up the road, or even “ping a ride” with a car service or cab.

“Build it and they will come. LA may not be able to build transit lines to every neighborhood – the county is just too big and too dense – but the bike to transit phenomenon is big and getting bigger. And if you can increase the bike access shed to stations by building bike boulevards and other improvements that make it easier to ride to transit you will induce even more ridership and make the system even more effective and important,” says Cervero.

Cervero joins California Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, the Transit Corridors Cabinet, and the leaders of Move LA's business-labor-environmental-civic-community coalition at our 5th annual "transportation conversation." See links to program and registration on the homepage.

On January 7, 1963, local business and political leaders gathered at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in downtown LA to hear the executive director of the LA Metropolitan Transit Authority outline a plan for a rapid transit system and a prescient vision of a "smart card technology" not unlike Metro's TAP program. C.M. Gilliss advocated building a subway to Westwood by 1968, and described the smart card this way:

"[The rider] shows his individually coded credit card to the magic-eye fare computer, is admitted through the turnstile concourse and is taken by escalator quickly to the train platform. A computer-tabulating device will automatically record his entrance and his exit and he will be billed automatically for his total mileage at the end of the month."

Alas, it was determined that the agency had no power to levy taxes or buy property and didn't wield sufficient political influence to build broad support for a transit system. So the following year the state Legislature approved a bill by a senator from Beverly Hills to create the Southern California Rapid Transit District to find revenues to build a mass transit system.

These photos have been passed around several times over the years but become relevant again as we embark on construction of the Westside Subway Extension. This 1-mile subway line was built in 1925 from the downtown LA Subway Terminal Building at 4th and Hill, where you could board a trolley and travel underground-- beneath LA's increasingly congested streets -- to 2nd Street at Beverly and Glendale. It was shut down in 1955 due to the lack of interest in transit, and  the foundations for the Bonaventure Hotel filled up part of the line in the 1970s. Then even the mouth of the tunnel at Beverly and Glendale was obscuredin 2008 by construction of the Belmont Station Apartments.
http://www.gelatobaby.com/2012/05/11/las-original-subway/