TICKET TO RIDE

the Surface Transportation Policy Project's SoCal newsletter

June 1997 Volume 1 Issue 1

Readers: After a lengthy recession California is facing a new era of growth along with major demographic changes and significant financial constraints. The transportation system we build will determine how we grow and whether we can protect quality of life and the environment. Are you troubled by increasing traffic in your neighborhood? Has your life become increasingly hectic as you drive from here to there and there to somewhere else? Do you wish there was less concrete and more green space in your neighborhood? Are local merchants struggling to stay in business? This monthly publication will address these concerns. NOW is the time to effect policy: Congress is debating a new federal transportation policy; the Southern California Association of Governments is struggling to come to grips with projected growth in its new long-term Regional Transportation Plan; the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is setting priorities in a new Long-Range Plan; and the City of L.A. is codifying the Transportation Element of the General Plan.

SCAG's Regional Transportation Plan

LA to Put Pedestrians First?

ISTEA or HOTEA?

Bikes Belong

Myth of the Month

Short Cuts

SCAG's REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLAN --
THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES

Is the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) waving its preliminary draft regional transportation plan (RTP) like a red flag? The plan would spend $81 billion on transportation projects in the six-county area over the next 20 years, but the resulting scenario it paints for the year 2020 is grim:

• congestion will increase by 330 percent
• the plan doesn't meet existing air quality standards, not to mention the proposed stricter EPA standards
• transportation expenditures are inequitable -- with an average benefit of $650 per person in households with annual incomes of less than $12,000, and $12,750 per person in households with incomes over $70,000 (because it most benefits those with the most cars)
• the plan yields a mere 24 cents per $1 dollar invested when measured in terms of success in reducing congestion, achieving air quality benefits and improving safety
• in spite of the billions spent on rail and HOV lanes, use of both will drop as a percentage of total travel

How can that be? Because the population of the Southern California region -- including L.A., Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties -- is forecast to increase 44 percent, an increase equal to two cities the size of Chicago. But growth will not be channeled into existing communities. It will occur mostly in far-flung north L.A., San Bernardino and western Riverside counties, requiring massive new public infrastructure investment and resulting in an increase in vehicle miles traveled of 60 percent.

The plan, which is required by the federal law called ISTEA (the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act), is designed to provide a regional long-range strategy that, says SCAG, "enhances economic competitiveness and raises the standard of living through sustained growth." Sustained, but sustainable?

Because SCAG hasn't come up with a successful plan it has postponed release of a draft -- it has released only a preliminary draft -- until September, with adoption put off until February.

What's the problem? "Growth in automobile travel, particularly single occupant vehicle travel, and the dispersed sub-regional growth and land development patterns which virtually compel auto dependence, are the driving forces behind our transportation crisis," wrote Mike Fitts, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a recent reminder to SCAG that the plan doesn't meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act, federal transportation law (ISTEA) or the Civil Rights Act.

The authors of the preliminary draft RTP explain the situation this way in the document: Southern California boasts the largest highway system in the world, built up during the ë50s and ë60s in a valiant attempt to keep up with explosive growth in the region. But by the ë70s existing rights of way had been maxed out, and new lanes had to be added to the medians and shoulders of the region's freeways and highways. In the ë80s and ë90s we continued to build, adding HOV lanes and the rail network. But increased maintenance costs for the aging highway system coupled with budget constraints on the one side, and the increased vehicle miles traveled coupled with an increase in freight movement due to NAFTA and Pacific Rim trade on the other side, equals a big regional problem.

"SCAG hasn't yet come up with a solution. It was a brave move to release a draft plan that essentially admits that the emperor has no clothes," says Rick Cole of the Local Government Commission.

Next issue: SCAG staff advocates a brave new course for regional transportation.

ISTEA or HOTEA?

Congress is right now debating these same issues. Should federal policy make more money available to build highways? Or should it stay the course set six years ago when it passed ISTEA -- the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act -- redirecting federal policy to de-emphasize road-building, to begin reorienting communities around transit and to fund alternatives to the automobile. The debate is sure to heat up as the summer progresses.

ISTEA was hailed as landmark legislation that declared an end to the Interstate Highway building era begun in 1956 -- for 40 years federal policy focused on building roads. But change has been slow, in part because of the long-time institutional relationships built up between highway officials and the highway lobby. While ISTEA transferred some of the authority over transportation planning and funding away from state departments of transportation down to regional officials -- in California, from Caltrans to SCAG -- Caltrans still must approve most projects for funding. And Caltrans is still an agency comprised of engineers who build roads.

The debate over ISTEA took a new turn last month following the failure of an amendment to the budget resolution that would have increased funding for transportation. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leaders, including Chairman Bud Shuster (R-PA), are reportedly considering a number of options that include just about everything except a bill based on the transportation funding set out in the budget resolution (which would provide about the same funding levels as the current authorization). Consideration is being given to a one-year extension.

MYTH OF THE MONTH:

Myths abound in L.A., especially when it comes to transportation. This is the first of a series--complete with facts to debunk the myths!

Myth #1: Los Angeles was built up around the automobile. It was actually built up around the extensive network of streetcar lines developed by early developers to enhance their real estate holdings. At one time more than 10,000 miles of interurban and streetcar tracks criss-crossed the L.A. Basin. E.H. Harriman's Pacific Electric was the largest electric trolley system in the country. The Big Red Cars ran on 1,164 miles of light-rail tracks from downtown to Santa Monica, Long Beach and San Bernardino. By 1924 the Pacific Electric was the nation's largest interurban electric railway, with over 6,000 scheduled trains on 144 routes extending into four counties. The Red Cars were ubiquitous, and more people used the trolleys than all other forms of transport combined. This is partly why L.A. developed as a "poly-centric" city -- metropolitan centers were linked via streetcar, allowing them to flourish independent of, yet connected to, downtown L.A. If you look at a map of major transportation corridors in L.A. today most are along old street car lines. (Maps are available from the San Jose Historical Museum, 1600 Senter Road, San Jose, CA 95112-2599.)of of ISTEA in the hopes of revisiting the budget deal next summer during an election year.

Other alternatives include passing a five- or six-year bill that "front-loads" all spending into the first three years; pushing through a multi-year bill with the higher funding levels Shuster and others advocate and reconciling differences with the budget agreement later on; or even not passing a bill at all and allowing the pressure of expiring transportation funding to force lawmakers into a deal.

The uncertainty in the House along with continued gridlock over three competing proposals in the Senate has delayed the mark-up of bills until after the July 4 recess.

In the Senate, both Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein have signed on to a bill called "ISTEA Works," authored by Senator Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), who also helped design ISTEA in 1991. It would keep ISTEA's programs and funding categories intact, doubling the money for the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program and increase Enhancements funding -- the two categories that have done the most to spur innovation and facilitate local control over planning and funding decisions.

We shouldn't forget the big picture: 75 percent of federal transportation funds still get spent on road building and maintenance projects.

L.A. TO PUT PEDESTRIANS FIRST?

L.A. could join the ranks of cities that strive to accommodate pedestrians as well as automobiles -- or not. The not-yet-adopted Transportation Element of the revised General Plan had included language making it standard procedure to add cross striping or alternative paving to crosswalks at signalized intersections when the adjacent property is being improved by a developer or government agency. But the L.A. Department of Transportation (DOT) said no, disputing the notion that this would enhance pedestrian safety -- and then asserting it may even increase the city's liability by making the pedestrian feel safer. Contrast this mind-set with that of officials in Pasadena, where the General Plan states up front that residents need to be able to get around without a car. The Planning Commission is expected to sign off on the document July 24, and send it to the City Council -- where the pro-pedestrian language could be re-inserted if the public speaks up.

The Transportation Element is otherwise a great leap forward for a city that has 14,000 "curb miles" of streets but that has never had such an explicit and detailed transportation policy -- which for the first time talks about the circulation of people as well as vehicles. But it's still just policy. The Sisyphean part of the task has to do with getting the DOT and Bureau of Engineering to implement the changes it embodies.

Dan Rosenfeld, the city's assets manager, graphically described how far we have to go in a recent Planning Report interview about why New Urbanist-style development is the trend everywhere but Southern California. "Nearly every public works project in this city is in direct conflict with good urban practice," he said. "Our standard is to widen streets and not to calm traffic, our sidewalks and crosswalks are specified for gray concrete, our standard city lighting pole looks like the perimeter lamps at Buchenwald. All of this belies a devotion to car culture and a focus on faster flowing traffic that is somehow embedded in the psyche of post-war Los Angeles."

Junior city staff is trying to bring L.A. into the 90s as is the City Council, but senior managers at the city's Public Works Bureau were faulted for "carrying the torch" for outdated policies.

BIKES BELONG

Multi-modal means that the non-motorized among us belong as a vital component of a balanced transportation system. But how are we to be included? The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is trying to link Angelenos and their bicycles to the greater L.A. transportation network. Committing over $10 million to bicycles, the agency recently approved a number of proposals through its Call for Projects process. These include continued funding for bikeway improvements and the Long Beach Bikestation, and start-up funding for bikestations at Union Station/Gateway Plaza, Santa Clarita Metrolink Station, and the Chatsworth Rail Depot and Transit Center. An exciting project bringing bicycles and buses together is the installation of front-mounted bicycle racks on all MTA buses. Says bike advocate George Smerk, "A bicycle can be a handy way of adding to transit patronage where the bus or rail stop is too far distant for potential passengers to walk conveniently to their transit ride." Also a good reason for providing decent bicycle parking facilities. . . .

Want more money for bikes? The people behind the California Bicycle Coalition do, and they're going after it with gusto. Currently in the works is their state legislative bill, AB 1020, which would increase the state's bicycle project fund from $360,000 to $5 million. Monies come out of the $975 million allocated by the state to local streets and highways. AB 1020 would dedicate more of these transportation funds to local bicycle projects across the state.

In total, about $24 million is spent on bicycle projects in California each year. AB 1020 seeks to increase an existing funding source that presently yields little for bikes. While the increase represents a mere half percent of total local street and highway funds, AB 1020 would increase total statewide bicycle funds by nearly 20 percent.

Caltrans would distribute the money. Each year, cities submit applications for bicycle projects that are funded on a competitive basis. These cities must have a formal bicycle plan in accord with the criteria established by another CBC bill adopted several years ago. The winners, then, are clearly those cities that see bicycles as an important component of a balanced, multi-modal transportation system.

The future of AB 1020 looks promising, but remains tenuous. The bill recently passed out of the Assembly by a vote of 65-4. The Senate Transportation Committee will hear the bill on either July 1 or July 15. Senator Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) is a key swing voter and needs to hear from his constituents that bicycles (as well as all modes of alternative transportation) matter. If you live in District 22, voice your support for bicycles before July 1! Senator Polanco can be reached at 213-617-0077 or 916-445-3456.

SHORT CUTS

You can find the full text of ISTEA-related bills introduced into the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee at http://www.house.gov/hotissue/ref.html.

Bills introduced into the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are at http://senate.gov/activities/index.html. . . .A recent study published in Transportation Research A (Vol. 31, No. 3) finds that increasing roadway capacity generates more new traffic than previously thought, adding to the growing body of evidence that challenges how much widening and new construction actually helps mitigate traffic congestion . . . Two bills brought forward this session state Senator James Brulte (R-Cucamonga) and Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) would provide incentives for heavy-duty diesel truck operators to retrofit their engines for cleaner diesel technology or to purchase new alternative-fuel engines. Both bills are on hold in conference committee. And a statewide initiative is being prepared for the ë98 ballot that would provide tax credits in order to achieve the same goal . . . The draft of a new report by the California Environmental Protection Agency proposes identifying diesel as a "toxic air contaminant," which would provide advocates with another weapon in their "dump diesel" arsenal. The report notes that diesel exhaust includes more than 40 substances listed by U.S. EPA as hazardous air pollutants and by the state Air Resources Board as toxic air contaminants, and concludes that a "reasonable and likely explanation" for increased rates of lung cancer is the "causal association" between lung cancer and exposure to diesel exhaust . . . Some staff and board members at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are seeking to undermine the agency's alternative fuels policy and open the door to purchasing more diesel buses. Cost is the driving concern -- the difference per bus ranges from $20,000 to $30,000. However, that cost goes down significantly as the number of buses ordered increases. The bus fleet has been ignored and the agency needs to order 500-600 new buses to maintain the 12-year-or-500,000-mile turnover considered appropriate for large metropolitan areas. The MTA's fleet numbers about 2,000, and 800 of those buses are older than 12 years.