http://la.streetsblog.org/2014/08/20/guest-editorial-dreaming-big-about-rail-lines-grand-boulevards-bus-rapid-transit-and-measure-r2/
By Denny Zane and Gloria Ohland, August 20, 2014
The proposed Lorena Plaza development.
(Move LA’s mission is to build a broad constituency that will
advocate for the development of a comprehensive, diverse, robust, clean
and financially sound public transportation system for Los Angeles
County. Denny Zane is the executive director. Gloria Ohland is the
policy and communications director.)
More and more people — from elected officials to bike and pedestrian
advocates — are talking about projects that could be funded if a
transportation sales tax measure is put on the November 2016 ballot.
Most recently, for example, Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul
Krekorian stood in front of the TV cameras with a host of heavy-hitting
transportation leaders from San Fernando Valley to advocate conversion
of the super-successful Orange Line to light rail, and an extension to
Bob Hope Airport, then Glendale, then Pasadena.
Other cities and their councils of government are dreaming big as well.
It’s all possible if voters have the opportunity to approve the right
measure. Move LA is using a “strawman” proposal of funding ideas to gin
up a “let’s dream big” conversation about the sales tax, which some are
fondly calling “Measure R2” in acknowledgment of its predecessor — the
Measure R half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2008 that is
building the five new rail lines underway now.
The proposed 45-year half-cent sales tax “strawman” could generate
$90 billion for transportation. The centerpiece is, as it was in Measure
R1, significant expansion of the rail system. But we have another
favorite in our strawman proposal — a transformational “Grand
Boulevards” program. We propose taking 5-10 percent of the $90 billion
for cities and councils of governments to invest in reviving and
reinventing several-mile, multi-community-long stretches of maybe 15-20
arterials around L.A. County as transit-oriented boulevards that promote
economic development as they pass through more than one community.
This money could fund both conventional and sustainable
transportation improvements, from repaving and signal synchronization to
clean, green, cool, and complete streets with more bus service, better
bus stops with real time arrival info, and wider sidewalks and bike
lanes. It could fund landscaping and other community improvements that
would make the boulevards appealing places on which to live and shop,
and there would be incentives for transit-supportive mixed-use community
development. Funding it could help leverage and implement L.A. Mayor
Garcetti’s Great Streets program!
It’s important to remember that this is a transportation sales tax
and must be used for transportation purposes. But what if 30 percent, a
significant share of the funding in the Grand Boulevards program, were
set aside in a competitive pot for cities willing to promote transit
ridership by permitting moderate-density mixed-use transit-oriented
development (TOD) along these grand boulevards?
This extra funding for transportation projects could be made
available to those cities willing to permit apartments over shops and
other housing that’s affordable and appealing for young people, aging
Baby Boomers and others who want to be able to live without a car — and
who can do that because it’s easy to walk and bike and take transit
instead.
Paris, not Los Angeles, but maybe one day, in a decade. Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Perhaps the 25 percent of the set-aside funding could also provide an
incentive to those cities willing to further reduce the need to own an
automobile by adding shared-use mobility hubs that offer car-, ride- and
bike-sharing services. Together with bike lanes and wider sidewalks
these improvements could provide the first-mile last-mile connections
into neighborhoods that will make Los Angeles County truly
transit-oriented.
Imagine stretches of Pico, Venice, Colorado, Artesia, Lankershim,
Hawthorne, or Foothill — this funding program could target communities
that won’t see development of new rail lines — dressed up as “grand
boulevards.” There wouldn’t be the intensity of activity and development
that occurs around rail stops, which are typically located a mile or
two apart and attract significant private investment. Because buses stop
more frequently than rail transit, the development that occurs here
would be more distributed in districts up and down the boulevards at an
intensity that’s in scale with development in neighborhoods on either
side.
This idea has a little something for a lot of people:
- For communities that won’t be getting a new rail line out of a new
sales tax measure, Grand Boulevards funding could serve as a comparable
prize that also makes it easier for people to get around.
- For local governments, there would be enhanced economic development and tax revenues.
- For new residents there would be the appeal of an attractive
neighborhood where one could live without a car, while current residents
could visit a revitalized and well-landscaped street on which to shop
and dine.
- For local businesses there are likely to be more customers because there are more people walking down the street.
- For bus riders there are better service and stops.
- For bicyclists and pedestrians there are bike lanes and wider sidewalks.
But there’s even more to this program, and this part is key: This
program could leverage even more funding for local governments,
especially state cap-and-trade dollars, because
these boulevards with
this kind
of transit-oriented development comprise the “sustainable communities”
that cap-and-trade is intended to fund in order to reduce car trips and
GHG emissions.
And it’s not chump change: cap-and-trade revenues are expected to
increase from $872 million this year to $3-$5 billion
annually until 2020. Twenty percent of cap-and-trade funds will be
dedicated to transit-oriented development, active transportation, and
other “sustainable communities” strategies. Half of that will be
dedicated to constructing affordable housing near transit, with the goal
of building transit ridership.
Cities that agree to permit affordable housing along their boulevards
could also — one day soon — be able to use tax-increment financing
(TIF). No, Governor Brown has not yet committed to reinstating TIF,
which he virtually eliminated when he dissolved all community
redevelopment agencies in 2011. But some observers believe he will
revive the use of TIF to help finance the creation of sustainable
communities before he leaves office, and the nodes of activity and
development that would spring up along Grand Boulevards would be ideal
locations for TIF.
The layering on of all these improvements could have a multiplier
effect that would indeed make these boulevards grand — and it’s all a
natural spin-off of the transit system development. Because there’s more
bus capacity, there is potentially enough ridership to justify
systematic upgrades from improved service, to bus-only lanes, then to
bus rapid transit — if that’s what a community wants.
And for businesses worried about the loss of on-street parking to
bus-only lanes there could also be Measure R2 funding as well as Cap
& Trade funding and/or TIF when the state legislature and the
governor reinstate it — for off-the-street structured district parking.
Funding for structured parking would provide an additional benefit: It
would take some of the heavy, heavy cost of building parking (estimated
as about 25-30 percent of development costs) off the pro formas of
mixed-use developers, enabling them to construct housing that’s more
affordable for renters and buyers and to make communities attractive for
new development.
All of this takes us back to the original reason we wanted to write this opinion piece:
We agree with Daniel Jacobson,
who wrote on Streetsblog earlier this summer that
a “spectrum of bus improvements, including bus rapid transit” — not
just new rail lines — is needed to enhance transit ridership in Los
Angeles. Given the concerns of business owners about the loss of parking
for bus-only lanes and BRT, this could take more time than less —
years, maybe a decade or more
—
but we agree that BRT is an essential part of the mix, and that
this Grand Boulevards program would help move us toward a comprehensive
BRT system.
One can imagine the view out the window of a new BRT line, with
people walking and visiting along tree-shaded streets, bicycles parked
in front of local businesses, an air of shared prosperity and
friendliness, and development that happens incrementally — with second
floors being renovated as apartments, then new development appearing on
vacant lots or replacing decrepit buildings, with new development
inching up from two stories to three and then four.
This is how L.A. communities can evolve over time in a way that
honors existing architecture, development patterns and long-time
residents, rather than blasting them into a high-density future that
some communities are not ready for yet. And it’s a peaceful evolution
that started with the Measure R transit investment.
