ALPERN AT LARGE - On so many levels, and in so many arenas, it seems that the year 2012 is one in which so many questions remain unanswered, so many crossroads are to be confronted, and so many directions remain questioned as the right ones to follow. Transportation is as appropriate an example to bring up as any, but it is as metaphorical an example as it is a tangible one.
For example, who will be our President at the end of the year? Is an Israeli/Iranian/Western war inevitable? Will Europe and the US fall into an economic rabbit hole? Will the Affordable Healthcare Act be partially or entirely overturned by the Supreme Court? What about the Court’s decision on Arizona’s SB1070 addressing the enforcement of illegal immigration laws?
California is no longer the land of unending growth which is an opportunity for better planning but which also means that our working paradigms have to shift. Our Governor is a blast from the past, but his vision for the future might need reworking in an environment where the state Legislature is so opposed to pension and fiscal reform that Governor Brown will have a hard time making his case to raise taxes –even if such a tax hike is necessary to balance Sacramento’s budget.
Furthermore, Governor Brown’s once and future California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) plan needs so much reworking that even liberal stalwarts like LA Times’ George Skelton is demanding an honest re-vote as a statement of voter rights and consumer protection.
That an outside group of financial experts has concluded that the CAHSR project will require billions of annual taxpayer dollars for maintenance after it opens for service isn’t helping the credibility of the Governor and those promoting this as a cost-effective effort. Of course, these “experts”—and so many of those opposing the CAHSR project—have their own credibility problems.
And while many Republicans have a knee-jerk anti-rail bias, there’s some Republican (and even Democratic) politicians such as Orange County Assemblywoman Diana Harkey who want to ask the voters whether they'd like to convert the nearly $10 billion they approved for high-speed rail into money to upgrade regional train systems like Metrolink, Caltrain and Amtrak.
Count me in as one who agrees with Assemblywoman Harkey that voters haven’t given up on commuter rail, or long-distance passenger rail—they just want honest, critically-examined projects that do NOT appear to be a bait-and-switch. And I doubt that I’m not the only proponent of the CAHSR project who’s seeing where this state and country are headed, and want to preserve the possibility of $10 billion being spent on current commuter rail successes and not lose the money altogether.
It should be remembered that the nation’s second-highest Amtrak passenger rail route (behind the #1 Acela Line in the Northeast U.S.) is the Los Angeles-San Diego (LOSSAN) Corridor. Both the Metrolink (Southern California) and Caltrain (Northern California) networks are both successful in their own right, and connect with the LOSSAN Corridor and other Amtrak routes; they would be excellent investments if the CAHSR project is just too darned expensive for enough transit advocates to agree with.
Which means that not only the direction of the planning, bidding and construction of the CAHSR project is up in the air, the trust between Sacramento and its state voters is similarly up in the air. Does Jerry Brown and the Legislature really want to lose any chance for raising voter/taxpayer rates to balance the budget by clinging to what might be a CAHSR albatross hanging around its neck?
After all, if even the very liberal-leaning National Memo is decrying that California taxes are going to teacher pensions and not the schools, it’s not hard to wonder if more than just “the evil 1%” will vote against more state taxes.
Closer to home, Metro is forging ahead with some first-rate rail transit and freeway projects, but the question of what the proposed extension of Measure R would pay for is both relevant and appropriate. Where is our transportation future, our planning future, and our economic future going, anyhow, with our taxpayer money?
An extension of Measure R would not only expedite construction of current Measure R freeway and rail projects, it would also expedite the planning and future construction of the next phase of needed freeway and rail projects, such as the I-5 expansion between the 710 and 605 freeways, improvements of the South Bay 405 freeway, extending the Foothill Gold Line to Claremont, extending the Green Line to South Bay with a first-rate connection to LAX and the San Fernando Valley, and extending the Crenshaw/LAX Line northwards underground to connect with the future Wilshire Subway.
So therefore San Gabriel Valley’s political leaders are representing their voters (and all LA County voters) well when they demand an accounting of where the money from an extended Measure R is going to go. To begin with, it’s only fair to balance an expedited full Wilshire Subway/Purple Line to the 405 freeway with an expedited full Foothill Gold Line to Claremont.
It’s the Wilshire Subway that’s making all the news, however, and not everyone in eastern LA County is foaming at the mouth in their opposition to the subway as County Supervisors Antonovich and Molina are. Most just want to know if that subway project will be built at the exclusion and delay of other needed projects throughout the county.
Furthermore, with the Mayor doing yeoman’s work on getting the Green and Crenshaw Lines to LAX, he’s losing the opportunity to be the man who would connect MetroRail to not only LAX but to LA City-owned Ontario Airport as well. Being environmentally-friendly, being economically-friendly, and being politically-savvy need not be mutually exclusive.
Should Measure R get extended with a transparent and balanced spending sheet on countywide road and rail projects, Mayor Villaraigosa would rightfully claim that he, and not anti-Measure-R-all-the-way Michael Antonovich, was the man who took care of eastern LA County’s freeway and rail needs.
Governor Brown and his Legislature allies are moving in a direction, on a train (high-speed or otherwise) that will take them in a rather uncertain and dangerous direction if they don’t grasp the reality of the heightened credibility and transparency demanded by our modern society.
Mayor Villaraigosa and his Metro Board allies are also moving in a direction, although whether that direction is parallel to that of Governor Brown is yet to be determined…although, as with each and every one of us, Mayor Villaraigosa’s direction will be ultimately determined not by a light rail or subway train—but by his own personal train of thought.
(Ken Alpern is a former Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Vice 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 [email protected]. 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.) –cw
Tags: Ken Alpern, Transportation, High Speed Rail, Measure R
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 34
Pub: Apr 27, 2012