{"id":11250,"date":"2012-06-11T08:31:09","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T15:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingvancouver.ca\/?p=11250"},"modified":"2013-01-21T07:19:20","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T15:19:20","slug":"price-points-l-a-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2012\/06\/11\/price-points-l-a-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Price Points: L.A. Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have missed this:<\/p>\n

With the passage of Measure R (November, 2008), Los Angeles bought itself a massive expansion of its rapid transit network. The system, which currently consists of three light rail lines and two heavy rail corridors, is already being expanded in two directions. Over the next thirty years, new services are planned<\/a> for virtually everywhere in the 10 million-person county.<\/p>\n

– Transport Politic<\/a><\/p>\n

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

\u00a0.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Two reasons\u00a0you\u00a0did not know that Los Angelenos taxed themselves $40 billion over 30 years to pay for a massively expanded transit system:<\/p>\n

(1) There was this other guy, a certain Barack Obama, up for election the same night.<\/p>\n

(2) Los Angelenos taxed themselves!\u00a0 For transit!\u00a0 By a super-majority!\u00a0 That’s just not supposed to happen.<\/p>\n

In the land where the anti-tax movement began (Proposition 13, Reagan Revolution, etc.), how could voters approve any new tax by a supermajority, much less one for transit in the\u00a0land of the auto?<\/p>\n

But as political science professor and historian Steve Erie points out, this is in fact the norm for the people of the Southland.\u00a0 From 1873, when they gave a huge whack of dough to the Southern Pacific Railway to get them into town, to the creation of a harbour at San Pedro, to the famous water and power projects associated with the name Mulholland (and dark conspiracies), to the airport and highways,\u00a0“the foundational base of LA is public support for infrastructure\u00a0.”<\/p>\n

In fact, Los Angeles citizens have in the recent past voted for bond measures to support schools, parks and libraries by supermajorities.\u00a0 They just wait until there’s a crisis to do it.\u00a0 After decades of neglect and\u00a0denial, Los Angeles will decide to reinvent itself by drawing on this tradition of collective funding.<\/p>\n

After spending immense resources on Motordom, providing a model to the rest of the world on how to build a region around the automobile, L.A. found itself stuck in traffic with no prospect of relief – but still holding on to its essential vision of regional mobility in a sprawling metropolis.\u00a0 So now transit is the\u00a0new connective tissue;\u00a0mobility is the new water.<\/p>\n

As Denny Zane, the executive director of Move L.A.<\/em> – the coalition for\u00a0Measure R – put it: “A majority of the voters voted for something the majority may not use.”\u00a0 (Or think they won’t.)\u00a0 “The car is in our history, not our DNA.\u00a0\u00a0Measure R aims to provide a network of convenience, sufficient to offset car dependence – not to supplant the car but to make it\u00a0viable.”<\/p>\n

Although the first light-rail expansion\u00a0– the Expo Line (map here <\/a>of station at USC shown below) – has just opened,\u00a0it was technically not part of Measure R, having been supported by a previous initiative.\u00a0 But voters are nonetheless seeing some results for their taxes, and the prospect, once the line connects with Santa Monica, is of a gamechanger for the region:\u00a0the possibility of living in L.A. without having to be car dependent.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
.<\/div>\n

The projects assembled under Measure R, and its timeframe, are still not good enough for a lot of Los Angelenos, including the Mayor. They want to add on to the Measure R commitments, and push the whole agenda forward, building out a 30-year plan in a decade:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
.<\/div>\n
Different economic times, different politics, than those in which Measure R was first passed.\u00a0 But if they only continue in building out what is already funded, Los Angeles will be a different kind of\u00a0place, or at least one that will contradict\u00a0its\u00a0stereotype; it will be a\u00a0Post-Motordom City.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
***<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Gordon Price is the Director of The City Program at Simon Fraser University. He sat for six terms as City Councillor in Vancouver, BC and also served on the Boards of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (Metro) and TransLink. He publishes an electronic magazine and blog on urban issues, with a focus on Vancouver, called “Price Tags” – www.pricetags.ca<\/a> as well as www.pricetags.wordpress.com<\/a> He has written several extensive essays on Vancouver and transportation issues – The Deceptive City, Local Politician’s Guide to Urban Transportation \u2013 and in 2003, he received the Plan Canada Award for Article of the Year – “Land Use and Transportation: The View from ’56” – from the Canadian Institute of Planners.<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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