BUS
VS. RAIL or TRANSIT VS. HIGHWAYS?
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's soap opera
continues: Will Senator Richard Polanco succeed in his
maneuver to remove from the MTA board longtime rival
Gloria Molina and also Zev Yaroslavsky -- now the
archenemy of longtime Polanco ally Richard Alatorre?
(Polanco's SB 567, which has passed out of the Assembly
Transportation Committee, would remove the L.A. County
supervisors from the board and give them one appointee
from an unincorporated part of the county, thereby
increasing the influence of L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan,
who would then control four board seats out of nine
instead of 13.) Or will Yaroslavsky outflank the
"Eastside machine" that he accuses of corrupt
control of the rail construction program by going to the
voters with an initiative that kills the rail program
once and for all? And will the MTA ever be able to find
any CEO skilled enough to play this kind of hardball?
Meantime, as Riordan takes over the board chairmanship,
there's increasing talk about dedicated busways, express
buses, and delegations dispatched to Curitiba, Brazil.
And the bus versus rail debate rolls inexorably on...
Why do discussions about the wisdom of the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority's investments
always get reduced to a debate over bus versus rail? Why
don't transit advocates, environmentalists, union leaders
and advocates for the poor band together and recast the
debate as public transit versus highways?
Why is no one questioning the MTA's highway
investments? The agency has allocated $12 billion for
building and improving highways in the long range plan,
just short of the $15 billion allocated for rail --
despite the fact that we've already got the most
extensive system of highways in the world, that we aren't
even close to meeting federal air quality standards, and
that roads promote L.A.'s infamous sprawl.
Not to mention that the highway investment is a fiscal
timebomb: It's estimated the MTA and Caltrans underspend
by half the amount needed to maintain our aging highway
network -- choosing instead to build more new roads --
setting us up for a crisis.
The rail versus bus debate is cast as the haves versus
the have-nots, but who benefits from the highway
investment? The highway lobby, including the auto
industry and Big Oil, developers and other real estate
interests, the construction industry, cement, rubber and
asphalt manufacturers, and households owning one or more
cars. Who does not benefit? Poor people. And people who
live in urban communities already made unsafe and
unpleasant because of too much concrete and too many
cars.
Calculations by the Southern California Association of
Governments show that big spending on roads skews the
transportation investment so that 50 cents of every
dollar goes to the richest 15 percent of households, and
just two cents goes to the poorest 15 percent of
households.
Is that an argument against building urban rail lines
like the Blue Line and Red Line, both of which serve
low-income, minority communities? (Ridership on the Blue
Line, according to a recent study is 39 percent Hispanic,
31 percent black, 16.5 percent white and 13 percent
"other.") Rail critics often cite the MTA's
commuter rail lines to support the haves versus have-nots
argument. But Metrolink funding amounts to just 2 percent
of the MTA's bus and rail operations funding.
Moreover, urban rail lines can serve to revitalize and
leverage enormous economic benefits in low-income
communities. The Federal Transit Administration defines
three functions for public transit: low-cost mobility,
congestion relief, and the encouragement of economic
development through the creation of "livable
communities" -- where mixed-use development locates
homes near shops, employment and transit so people don't
need cars to get around.
The bus system provides the low-cost mobility, and in
a city as decentralized as L.A. the bus system will
always be the workhorse. Both bus and rail provide
congestion relief, but buses -- unless they are on
dedicated busways -- will always be at a competitive
disadvantage because they must weave in and out of
traffic, resulting in longer traffic times.
Rail, because it is a fixed, long-term infrastructure
investment along a particular corridor, serves especially
to attract and focus economic development, thereby
encouraging more compact land use patterns and livable
communities. Rail -- when it is accompanied by supportive
land use planning -- adds value to the neighborhoods
around stations and enhances property values, rents and
occupancy rates. The bus system can't leverage these same
economic benefits because a bus line can be unfunded or
re-routed at any time.
A recent study by UC-Berkeley's Robert Cervero, for
example, found that property values increase with
proximity to rail stations, and decline with proximity to
freeways. Frank Villalobos of Barrio Planners has made
this observation locally, noting that the seven freeways
that criss-cross East L.A. have contributed nothing to
the local economy.
This is not to condone the MTA's rail program, which
has been characterized by waste, fraud and abuse, with
rail projects selected because of political expediency
rather than because they would best serve riders. Neither
has the agency worked with communities to leverage
economic benefits by planning for transit-oriented
development along existing rail lines. And the fact that
the MTA underfunds and mismanages its bus system can't go
uncriticized.
But this doesn't mean the rail investment won't work.
When criticizing the MTA's budget all investments must be
scrutinized, not just in the context of which provide the
most mobility -- roads and bus -- but also in the context
of what land use patterns and economic benefits each mode
promotes and what each mode does for quality of life.
Without the rail program, around which livable
communities can be built, what infrastructure investment
is there to counteract sprawl?
It is rail's potential to revitalize urban
neighborhoods and to promote more compact land use
patterns that make it essential in L.A. By spending so
much money on improving the road system we're promoting
automobile use and land use patterns that sap the
vitality and viability of urban neighborhoods. There's
been little discussion of sprawl in L.A. and the social
equity issues it raises, but consider what these
unsustainable land use patterns do to communities where
poor people live.
Roads open up new land for development on the far
fringes of the metropolitan area. The middle class moves
to these new communities because they appear clean and
safe, are surrounded by open space and have good, new
schools. Businesses move there because land is cheap,
taxes are lower and development isn't as strictly
regulated. New jobs are created there. Retail and
supermarkets move there too.
Who pays to build the expensive new infrastructure --
roads, sewers, water mains, gas lines, schools, police
and fire stations -- servicing these new communities?
Developers pay for some of the cost, but the rest is paid
for by taxpayers and rate-payers in existing communities.
The effect is a big drain of public and private
investment dollars and jobs, and a serious undermining of
the tax base in existing communities.
Inner city communities are left with an increasing
concentration of the poor and unemployed who draw more
heavily on social services and who can't get to the new
jobs being created in the suburbs -- but who can't
themselves afford to move there.
Sprawl is happening here now. The population of
Southern California is expected to grow another 44
percent in the next 20 years -- as if two cities the size
of Chicago grew up around Los Angeles -- with most of the
growth projected to occur in far-flung northern L.A.
County and Orange, San Bernardino and even western
Riverside counties. The result is expected to be a
whopping 330 percent increase in congestion as people
drive further distances, and a corresponding demand for
more and wider roads.
The L.A. region faces an enormous challenge. After a
lengthy recession we now face a new era of growth coupled
with major demographic changes and significant financial
restraints. The transportation system we build will
determine how we grow and whether we can protect the
environment and the quality of life in our communities.
This is the context in which we must broaden the bus
versus rail debate and examine whether our best interests
are being served by all the MTA's investments.
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