{"id":25316,"date":"2012-01-23T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T14:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=25316"},"modified":"2012-01-22T23:50:09","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T04:50:09","slug":"lorinc-how-los-angeles-found-religion-on-transit-a-lesson-for-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/01\/23\/lorinc-how-los-angeles-found-religion-on-transit-a-lesson-for-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: How Los Angeles found religion on transit: A lesson for Toronto?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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This just in: thanks to the fiscal disciplinarians in the Ford administration, the TTC will be able to sock away $135 million for transit vehicles. Can we surmise that in Rob Ford\u2019s Toronto, we\u2019re now building transit on the lay away plan?<\/p>\n

Just 37 more years and we\u2019ll have enough to buy us a subway on Sheppard\u2026.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m being facetious, but that $135 million will do nothing to alleviate the persistent lack of capital for transit development in and around the City of Toronto.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the mayor\u2019s perverse decision to bury $2.1 billion of provincial transit funding in the soil under Eglinton Avenue East \u2013 about a quarter of which comes from provincial taxes collected inside the City of Toronto \u2013 is a capital-B boondoggle, and leaves nothing but crumbs for other transit expansion projects (including the Sheppard subway) for years to come.<\/p>\n

But as TTC chair Karen Stintz said in a speech to the Board of Trade a few weeks ago, the Commission (and, by inference, the Ford administration) wants to completely cede responsibility for financing transit expansion to Metrolinx, which has a $50 billion plan for Greater Toronto, but no clue how to pay for it. (The agency has pledged to release a revenue-generating plan in 2013.)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my unsolicited advice for both Stintz and Metrolinx chair Rob Prichard: If you want to figure out how to rapidly and permanently crack the long-term funding riddle, then look to Los Angeles \u2014 a quintessentially car-addicted city that, in the past three years, has found religion on transit in a serious way.<\/p>\n

But be warned: the story of LA\u2019s dramatic conversion puts us to shame.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Before anyone starts lecturing me about how LA and Toronto have little in common, consider this: while LA County is more populous and geographically larger than the GTA, the two regions have almost identical population densities (just under 800 inhabitants per square kilometre). Both struggle with crippling gridlock and virtually unrestrained sprawl, support competing commercial centres, and have highly diverse populations with large numbers of low-income immigrants.<\/p>\n

Now cue Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of the City of Los Angeles. <\/a>In the summer of 2008, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which serves LA County, voted to ask the California state assembly to approve a half-cent on the dollar increase in the regional sale tax. With a mandated 30-year duration, that tax hike would raise an estimated $40 billion that would pay for new subways and LRTs, highway and local road improvements and even cycling infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Villaraigosa, a wiry Democrat with a keen sense of retail politics, championed the proposal both locally and in Sacramento, ultimately ensuring \u201cMeasure R<\/a>\u201d would end up on the ballot in the November, 2008, election. While Californians in the state\u2019s conservative south have been responsible for tax revolts that crippled local government, voters there endorsed Measure R by more than the required two-thirds of votes cast \u2013 an indication that Angelinos had finally grown sufficiently weary of LA\u2019s mind-numbing congestion to sign off on a historic spending plan.<\/p>\n

And this in a city where the affluent simply do not use transit. LA\u2019s poor, of course, have long relied on municipal buses to get around, meaning that in LA\u2019s car culture, transit use is strongly equated with poverty and race. In other words, the support for Measure R cut across the extreme social divisions in a city riven with freeways \u2013 not a small accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Over the three years since then, LA has witnessed a rollicking public debate over what gets built and where. Supported by the editorial boards of LA\u2019s major dailies, Villaraigosa has pushed his agenda even harder, vowing to fast-track the whole show \u2013 he wants much of the work completed in 10 years instead of 30 \u2013 and lobbying for additional federal stimulus funds. He hasn\u2019t sought to pit transit users against drivers. And he\u2019s pledged to use some of the funds from Measure R to quadruple the size of LA\u2019s bike network, to over 2,700km in the next few years.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Villaraigosa hammered away at a critical theme, which is that this massive amount of civil construction activity will create over 200,000 jobs and pump $32 billion into the region\u2019s hobbled, high-unemployment economy. The comparisons to Fiorello La Guardia, New York\u2019s New Deal mayor, are unmistakable.<\/p>\n

To put this in perspective, in just three years, LA laid the political groundwork, hashed out the plans, began collecting the revenue, established accountability mechanisms, and commenced construction. As it happens, some of the earliest projects have involved road\/overpass repairs, which just strikes me as incredibly savvy staging.<\/p>\n

Back here in Toronto, we\u2019ve spent the same period sucking our thumbs and making bad decisions.<\/p>\n

So the question, with apologies to Frank Sinatra, is this: if transit can make it in LA, can make it anywhere, even Greater Toronto?<\/p>\n

In theory, we are, or should be, far further ahead than Villaraigosa was in 2008. From a planning perspective, Metrolinx\u2019s Big Move<\/a> strategy is finished and waiting to be switched on. Politically, transit use here isn\u2019t nearly as alien and freighted with cultural baggage is it is in LA. As for the problem, well, everyone knows the GTA\u2019s traffic crisis is hurtling towards some kind of tipping point.<\/p>\n

What we don\u2019t have is a political champion (sorry, Mr. Prichard) with the credibility, optimism, and raw courage to do what Villaraigosa accomplished in LA.<\/p>\n

Which, in a nutshell, was this: He was honest, telling millions of Angelinos, state legislators and local business interests that they simply can\u2019t wish their way out of the region\u2019s transportation nightmare. But then he persuaded them that there\u2019s much to be gained from that half-cent premium on the region\u2019s sales tax.<\/p>\n

Villaraigosa, in short, is leader for the ages \u2013 LA\u2019s gamechanger. Who\u2019s ours?<\/p>\n

photos from Metropolitan Transport Library & Archive<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This just in: thanks to the fiscal disciplinarians in the Ford administration, the TTC will be able to sock away $135 million for transit vehicles. Can we surmise that in Rob Ford\u2019s Toronto, we\u2019re now building transit on the lay away plan? Just 37 more years and we\u2019ll have enough to buy us a subwayContinue reading “LORINC: How Los Angeles found religion on transit: A lesson for Toronto?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19228,5070,1153,19223,856,19227,1349,19230,19225,19229,1174,16543,1849,1969,19231,2345,460,606,426,10874,19222,7806,469,21,19224,11804,19221,1631,19,19226,362,391],"class_list":["post-25316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transit","tag-antonio-villaraigosa","tag-bike-network","tag-california","tag-california-state-assembly","tag-car-culture","tag-car-addicted-city","tag-cent","tag-deal-mayor","tag-even-cycling-infrastructure","tag-fiorello-la-guardia","tag-ford","tag-ford-administration","tag-frank-sinatra","tag-karen-stintz","tag-la-county","tag-leader","tag-los-angeles","tag-louisiana","tag-mayor","tag-metrolinx-chair","tag-metropolitan-transport-library","tag-metropolitan-transportation-authority","tag-new-york","tag-other-cities","tag-retail-politics","tag-rob-prichard","tag-sacramento","tag-sheppard-subway","tag-toronto","tag-transportation-nightmare","tag-ttc-chair","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: How Los Angeles found religion on transit: A lesson for Toronto? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/01\/23\/lorinc-how-los-angeles-found-religion-on-transit-a-lesson-for-toronto\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: How Los Angeles found religion on transit: A lesson for Toronto? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This just in: thanks to the fiscal disciplinarians in the Ford administration, the TTC will be able to sock away $135 million for transit vehicles. 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