We Need a ‘New Measure J’ … Are LA’s County Supes Up for It?
http://www.citywatchla.com/lead-stories-hidden/4267-we-need-a-new-measure-j-are-la-s-county-supes-up-for-it
Written by Ken Alpern
31
Dec
2012
GETTING THERE FROM HERE - The results of the November election showed that sentiment to build transportation projects remains very strong, but that hurdles still remain for a transportation measure to pass. Some political leaders will focus on a lowered voting threshold to passing transportation measures, but another focus still remains unaddressed: should a “New Measure J” expedite Measure R projects, or should a “New Measure J go “beyond Measure R”?
It’s correct to presume that “only in California” would over 66% of
the vote be considered a defeat for Measure J, but an accurate
post-mortem not only should highlight the discrepancy between education
measures (55%) and transportation measures (66 2/3%), but that Measure J
was truly only a “Plan B” for expediting Measure R projects after a
sufficient federal/local “America Fast Forward” effort failed.
The “America Fast Forward” involved federal loans and bonds to fund
guaranteed projects such as Measure R, and has a better chance of
passing Congress this year now that the election cycle is over—should
“America Fast Forward” finally be large enough to meet Measure J’s
goals, would a “new Measure J” be worth pursuing even if the
transportation measure voting threshold was also lowered to 55%?
My own answer—and I suspect the answer of many other voters and
taxpayers—would be “YES”, provided we had a “new Measure J” that clearly
went beyond Measure R. Based on the grumblings of our County Board of
Supervisors, who with the exception of Zev Yaroslavsky, clearly had
problems with Measure J (and even Measure R), I’m guessing they would
also, under the right circumstances, want a more goal-oriented and
visionary initiative.
Now that we know the regional percentages of voters who
approved Measure J, here are five questions (roughly the same question,
but posed to each county supervisor) for the Board to consider:
1) To County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who is currently Chair of
the Metro Board, what would you do to “fix” Measure R and ensure the San
Gabriel Valley and the rest of the county a transportation system that
benefits all regions?
Supervisor Antonovich, you’ve adamantly insisted upon a Foothill
Gold Line Extension to Montclair and Ontario Airport, as well as other
projects to ensure a true county-wide transportation network (including
an eastern Metro Green Line extension to the Metrolink system at Norwalk
and whatever it takes to extend the Desert Xpress high-speed rail
project to Union Station).
As a Westside Angeleno working in Orange and Riverside Counties,
and who grew up in Long Beach, I can relate to your desire for taxpayer
funds to help the entire county, and not just Downtown LA and the
Westside…but will you come up with a new funding mechanism to promote
your greater vision?
And can you at least get a Fasana Amendment (part of Measure J, and
allowing a region’s Measure R funds to be switched from freeway to
rail, or vice versa) approved as a stand-alone measure by the voters
while you are in office? You opposed Measure J, and therefore helped
convince SGV voters to block the Fasana Amendment (only 64.5% of SGV
voters approved Measure J).
Had Measure J passed, you could have been at the forefront of
switching funds from the unpopular I-710 freeway extension through
Pasadena to the popular projects of the Foothill Gold Line Extension and
the Alameda Corridor East (a freight line/surface street
grade-separation project of regional and even national economic
importance).
2) To County Supervisor Gloria Molina, when will you, or merely
“will you”, champion the Downtown Light Rail Connector Subway and other
regional projects to benefit the Eastside?
Your fiscal conservatism on expanding MetroRail might be consistent
with your efforts to keep our county budget balanced, but vision is
also needed to expand the economy (and, secondarily, expand the county
budget). Also in question is your lingering obsession with not getting
an Eastside Red Line Subway decades ago.
With a whopping 75.1 percent of East LA voters approving Measure J,
don’t they deserve your full-throated support of the Downtown Light
Rail Connector? We’ve heard very few (if any) statements from you in
favor of this project, which connects the Eastside Gold Line (a project
which you’ve clearly described as an insufficient alternative to an
Eastside Red Line Subway) to the rest of the countywide MetroRail
system.
And if you don’t really think much of the Measure R/J-approved
Eastside Gold Line Extension, might a Fasana Amendment be supported by
you to switch that extension funding to other, more popular and defined,
projects (such as the Downtown Connector, if possible, or a widening of
the I-5 freeway between the I-605 and I-710)?
3) To County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the greatest supporter of
Measures R and J among the County Supes, a more visionary question is to
be asked of the man who once opposed, but who now champions, both the
Wilshire Subway and Exposition Light Rail Line:
If a more expensive, but much more cost-effective, subway rail
project option to link the San Fernando Valley (Orange Line Busway and
Metrolink) with the Westside (Wilshire Subway and Expo Lines) could be
promoted to pass a new Measure J, would you support it?
With the understanding that Measure R provides $1 billion for a
Valley/Westside transit project, which is only enough for a Busway,
let’s rephrase the question: if a subway to get commuters under the
Sepulveda Pass in less than 10 minutes, and with stops at the SFV,
UCLA/Westwood and the Wilshire/Expo Lines), proved more popular than a
Busway with the voters…would you recommend it as part of an effort to
promote a new Measure J?
4) To County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is usually a master
consensus-builder, what would you do to long-range Metro planning to
support a Measure J that would connect the future Crenshaw Line with the
Wilshire Subway in the north and a direct connection to LAX and the
South Bay in the south?
There’s no doubt that you’ve sorely wanted an underground (and
very, very expensive) Leimart Park portion of the Crenshaw Line, but the
expense and surface conditions almost guarantees this proposed
underground portion of the Crenshaw Line to be against Metro
grade-separation policy and past precedence.
No one should doubt your sincerity, but have you helped or hurt
consensus-building by your almost singular focus of an underground
Leimert Park portion of the Crenshaw Line? Is it even possible to
intensively develop in that region as a way to justify the
undergrounding of that line in the near future? Can we bite the bullet
and come up with another, above-ground Leimert Park station?
And would the extra money to build that underground portion be put
to better use to connect the Crenshaw Line to other areas already
considered for that line to be located underground (the Wilshire Subway
and LAX connections)?
5) To County Supervisor Don Knabe, is your opposition to Measure J
consistent with your political support of expediting MetroRail to LAX by
2020?
Nowhere did future planned MetroRail extensions get delayed more by
the failure of Measure J than the South Bay, where Green Line
extensions to LAX, to the South Bay Galleria and to Torrance would have
been expedited by decades by passage of Measure J. Of course, the South
Bay had among the lowest voter support of Measure J (61.1%), but still
there’s no question that the voting majority favored it.
No one suggests you want to be “the man who helped block MetroRail
to the South Bay” (or to the Southeast L.A. County Cities, which now
also has a delayed rail project), but the cost of connecting the
Crenshaw and Green Lines will be at least $1.5 billion, with the $200
million provided by Measure R only seed money for such a major
endeavor…and Measure J was the surest and quickest way to fund a
MetroRail/LAX connection.
I’ve little doubt that analysis will show that a proposed underground connection of the two lines
will be commuter/voter-preferred and operationally more efficient and
cost-effective for all parties involved (including LA World Airports) ,
but that’s just my own opinion.
The most important issue to be confronted is that the cost will be
at least $1.5 billion—regardless of the MetroRail/LAX connection
plan—and that both Metro and LA World Airports are now working together to create that expensive-but-necessary project:
Both Metro and LA World Airports deserve our support, Supervisor
Knabe, and I’ve no doubt you wish to be part of any supportive effort.
So with the near-passage of Measure J, and your Metro leadership of
expediting the MetroRail/LAX connection by 2020, do you support a more
defined Measure J that includes this connection as a specific earmark,
or do you wish to fund that project via some other revenue-raising
effort?
I again wish all of Los Angeles, including the County Board of
Supervisors, a happier commute and a Healthy and Happy New Year in 2013!
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Boardmember
of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its
Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC
Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11
Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit
Coalition, and can be reached at
Alpern@MarVista.org . He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)