Public Comment during a meeting about the Westside subway extension

In an August 20, 2009 Los Angeles Times Blog, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stated a huge and unrealistic Subway to the Sea Construction Plan:

As the most outspoken advocate for the so-called Subway to the Sea, the mayor has long been frustrated by that timetable and it was evident again when he and other officials gathered for a news conference in a UCLA parking lot. There, final soil samples had been drawn for a line that would follow Wilshire Boulevard from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica.

“I’m 56 now,” the mayor said. “We are here today to make sure that it gets built before I am 66.”

There are many flaws to what the Mayor is asking for; a subway to Santa Monica is not possible in the timespan he wants it to be constructed. Even from public comment meeting where citizen from different communities opposed the subway to the sea plan, Mr. Villaraigosa still wants to continue to build it. What concerns me is he will to actually go through with this project, shoving aside the opposition of those who have concern over the construction of the subway.

In reality the subway to the sea will take much longer to build especially from obstacles that are similar to those that once stopped the hopes of the subway heading to the westside as well, such as soil strength, chemical issues and many other factors. Regardless of these issues Antonio Villaraigosa still wants this subway to be built, no matter at what cost.

Ara Najarian leading an MTA Board Meeting as chair for the first time

On July 23rd, 2009, the MTA held its monthly board meeting, and a hot ticket item – the 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan – was on the agenda.  There were so many supporters that the new chair, Ara J. Najarian, asked supporters to skip the speeches, acknowledge their support and sit down to keep to meeting moving.

The most controversial part of the LRTP concerned the rail plans funded by Measure R. The bulk of the rail money will be spent on the subway to the sea or The Westside Subway Corridor with other funds for a Crenshaw Corridor, Gold and Green Line extensions and a Regional connector. The subway to the sea would run entirely underground. The Crenshaw corridor would either be a Rapid Bus or a Light rail, both of which are at grade (street level), and the Regional connector would come above ground in Little Tokyo. As underground trains cost significantly more to install and run and are faster and eventually less disruptive than light rail and buses, I don’t think it unreasonable to question the motives behind the discrepant plans, especially when one looks at the racial composition of each neighborhood. The Westside is White; Crenshaw is Black and Hispanic; Downtown is becoming more diverse, but is still mostly minority. I personally have no doubt that race played an important role in the decision to use the much more expensive, more convenient and less socially impacting strategy in white neighborhoods.

The most intriguing part of the meeting for me was the glaring discrepancy between the opinions of the white commenters and the minority commenters, particularly Japanese-Americans and African-Americans. Japanese Americans stressed the detriment that the downtown connector would have on the most vital part of Little Tokyo. Blacks made clear that the differences in grade separation and funding for rail plans in white and minority neighborhoods was not only blatantly racist, but also illegal because it violated various civil rights laws. White commenters wanted the Westside subway and the downtown connecter, and they wanted it immediately. They had only positive things to say because, for Westsiders, the benefits of the plan far outweigh the negatives. One or two white people mentioned that the Little Tokyo problem should be addressed, but not one non-black commenter disscussed or appeared to care at all about, for lack of a better term, the Black portion of the LRTP.

Little Tokyo Stop on the Gold Line

I don’t believe that necessarily results from bigotry, but from the completely different experiences that most minorities and whites have with the public transportation system and with the physical and social environment in LA. Minorities have always borne the brunt of urban problems, particularly environmental, educational and economic ones, and the LRTP as is would uphold that tradition. Part of the train would run right by Dorsey High School, which would never be acceptable at a school in Santa Monica or Beverly Hills. The trains will run frequently only twenty feet from the school, which raises safety and noise pollution issues for students, and they will run slower than subways, change traffic patterns and be an eyesore. Even if the board determines that these problems are acceptable sacrifices for more mass transit, why is it that only minorities should have to endure it and not the Westside as well. It really scared me that no one seemed to care.

For me, the comment period was, above all, a testament to how segregated Los Angeles is, to how powerful physical separation can be. One comment from a White Westside resident who attempted to downplay oppositional comments stuck with me the most. To paraphrase, he asserted that you (non-Westside residents) consistently use our (Westside residents’) streets, our amenities, and contribute to our congestion, so the LRTP as is would benefit you as much as it would us. He was understandably frustrated that people would oppose a plan that could provide beneficial public transportation, but I’m not sure even he realized how his emphasis on pronouns, his need to distinguish between what belonged to whom, reinforced the Black commenters’ points: a huge difference exists between yours and ours, ours and yours, and the plan as is would help maintain that distinction, that distance, that uncommon experience.

Thankfully, the LRTP was postponed until the next Board meeting because Mark Ridley-Thomas and Michael Antonovich proposed amendments.  I hope they will honor the concerns of the Japanese and African American citizens’ complaints as much as they will the praise of the Anglo-Americans by making more equitable changes on both the Westside and Minority neighborhood lines. If they don’t, this plan will continue a pattern of segregative choices which have maintained the social vulnerability of LA minorities and allowed for significant environmental racism and injustice here for so long.

I woke at 6:40 AM to attempt to attend a meeting that started at 9:30 PM. I just have to say that if public transportation was easier to use that I probably could have gotten up at 7:45.  If the MTA trip planner which I attempted to use was better I wouldn’t have wasted so much time taking the round about way to Union Station for this meeting.  During the meeting all one lady had to say was that it took her 65 minutes to get there.  I took about 150 minutes or so to get there.  I don’t mean to complain I just have to say that the public transportation is not always the easiest to use.

Today, I attended the MTA Board meeting. Upon arrival I did not expect such a large amount of people to attend this meeting. I knew that the MTA was important but I did not expect so many people to show an interest and come to the meeting. Before last month I had only taken public transportation a handful of times and now that I have used it more frequently I know the importance of the MTA and public transportation. Towards the beginning of the meeting there hardly and of the directors were present as it was time to begin the meeting. There was time for people to speak but I felt that it was sort of pointless because hardly anyone was there to listen to them. Anyone who has ever been to one of these meetings knows of John Walsh who is nearly unforgettable and speaks often. On my way to the meeting I entered a subway station at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Normandie and there were turnstiles.  I thought they were nice but I thought whats the point of having them if you can just walk right around them.  I know that the trains get checked to see if you have a ticket but if you used a tap card is there anyway to know whether or not you paid?  I’m not sure the answer to this question but would like to know the answer.  The Board of Directors voted to approve prices for use of HOV or carpool lanes by cars that do not meet the minimum occupancy requirement, mainly alternate fuel or hybrid vehicles. There was much discussion of the LRTP or Long Range Transportation Plan and a contract with a company that would build rail cars. In the end the vote for the LRTP was postponed until further study could be done and a company was chosen which left many workers there happy. What I found difficult about this meeting was how so much time was wasted during it. The directors have a big long discussion and then in one they decide to return to the original idea wasting a lot of time. Also, I am all for people having a voice but there a lot of what some people had to say got quite a bit repetitive for me. I must admit that not all of this was interesting to me but I have to say that parts of the meeting kept my attention. One of the directors had an article about how contrary to what the representative from this company stated that they were working in Iran. The funny thing is that they criticized another company for working there.  It was an event filled day with my first MTA board meeting as well as AJ Najarian’s first meeting as Chairman.

When I read the the July 10th, New York Times, there was a story that attracted my attention and curiosity,  I was astonished and pleased to hear about Bogota, Colombia’s newest battle against the threat of traffic congestion and climate change. That battle is called TransMilenio, a new system that is composed of high occupancy articulated buses. They have been designed to carry B.R.T. (Bus Rapid Transit) commuters along the most busiest and most condensed road corridors in Bogota in efforts to get people out of their cars and onto a sustainable mass transit system. A system, that has been one of the most successful ways to reducing the amount of carbon emission from cars, and other polluting vehicles. Since Bogota and many other high populated cities in the world such as London, Paris, Brisbane, Toronto, Curitiba, New York, have adopted this type of high occupancy transportation. I say kudos to the rest of the world in trying to reduce the use of auto and reducing the fossil fuels that plague our atmosphere, when will Los Angeles adopt this idea and bring it to existence?

Many cities in the U.S experience the largest traffic gridlock in the nation, a story from Forbe’s July 7, 2009 article talked about America’s Congested Cities, it comes to know surprise that Los Angeles is in first place. But a city who claims to be green is still behind in implementing a stable and reliable source of high density public transportation, since the 1950’s Los Angeles has been one of the most biggest havens for the automobile, thanks to the GM corporation for buying out the entire Electric Red Cars that roamed all over Los Angeles County and Beyond. The city has became a place where it is necessary to have a car, and if you don’t you are out of luck, but Los Angeles has tried to become a city where the auto is not needed. The way this has been done was by implementing what would now be a 3rd class transit system called Metro. This will be a short detailed journey on where this whole business of Car vs Transit, and Bus vs Rail.

In the late 1980’s, the LACTC (Los Angeles County Transportation Commission began plans on reviving the old Red Car corridors, their first phase was to revive the Long Beach to Los Angeles. With a budget of 877,000,000 the Metro Blue Line opened in July of 1990, its purpose as the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission said was to reduce the traffic congestion on high populated freeways that go to and from the port cities, but even then it still wasn’t the solution to Los Angeles’s high auto use.  So the LACTC decided to merge with the RTD (Rapid Transit District), and become the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authorities) in 1993, that same year the new Metro Red Line subway that operates from Union Station to Wilshire/Western and later to North Hollywood was open, efforts for the subway corridor at the time were to reduce the traffic congestion along one of the most heaviest Los Angeles corridors, Wilshire BLVD and the interstate 101 through the southeast section of the San Fernando Valley. It was a start to the reduction of the auto, but MTA would still hit an obstacle, one that that would create a huge gap in M.T.A’s transit budget.

In an effort to gain revenue and help the Cold War aerospace industries, the MTA constructed one of the most budget crunching and wasteful transit corridors in the country, the Metro Green Line, spanning from the western part of Norwalk, all the way towards the inland coastal region of Manhattan/ Redondo beaches. The line opened in 1995 at a construction cost of 718 million dollars, but had no purpose four years after the war ended,  except acting as an intercity Airport tram. In the later years MTA would become a new image for the world of public transit, because of efforts from many grassroots organizations the MTA would adopt new clean fueled buses due to the consent decree made by the federal courts after the Bus Rider’s Union won the 1994 transit civil rights case. But that wouldn’t be the end to MTA’s goal for a total rail system. In 2003, MTA who would soon be known as Metro opened the Pasadena-Los Angeles Metro Gold Line at a cost of . But it turned to out the line would not make Metro nearly enough revenue from the new line opening. Turns out that the line only receives enough passengers during morning and evening rush hours, making it the second budget crunching rail line in the city of Los Angeles.

In the present, Los Angeles still faces the same problems of traffic and congestion, but my question to the LACMTA is have you really studied the most highest traveled car driven corridors in the county? this is how Bogota, Colombia was able to design their system of bus rapid transit, you have only decided to build rail lines that semi parallel the busiest traffic corridors in the city, whether it is the 710, 101, 105 0r 405, and soon they will find their way to relieve the traffic down the Santa Monica Freeway, the Metro Expo Line. The LACMTA has yet to solve the issue of the growing traffic congestion in the city. Sure you created the Harbor Transitway along the 110 freeway, the El Monte Busway along the 10 freeway, and the San Fernando Valley Orange Line. That is well and good I can see that you are making an effort in relieving Los Angeles from the use of auto, but have you studied the other freeways that could use the B.R.T. idea, freeways such as the westbound 10 heading in both directions in the West Los Angeles area, have you studied the heavy flow of traffic along the 405 freeway, it can sometimes take more than an hour to get from West Los Angeles to the South Bay cities. I know the idea of Bus Rapid transit can be done in Los Angeles, its being implemented on one of the busiest streets in the city, Wilshire BLVD. It can be the start to many new B.R.Ts in the city, it can span county wide, it can reduce the way car drivers commute, it can reduce pollution and save money. If Bogota, Colombia can implement a dedicated B.R.T and bus lane system to move faster. Support the use of the Bus Rapid Transit in Los Angeles and help get the use of auto reduced and moderated.

Who am I?
Am I really the future like everyone says or just another court case
Below the federal poverty line is where the majority is based
So how can one afford a $250 truancy ticket for being 30 minutes late
Especially since unemployment among minorities is highest in the state
Not to mention that lausd has a 50% high school drop out rate

See, the students here is not to blame
When our public transportation system is lame

But imagine MTA if students had better transportation
To better their chances at receiving an education
And not end up at a police station

Imagine if schools would realize
That being able to criminalize our youth is where the problem lies
Tardiness can be dealt with in other ways

Instead they put us in the hands of the ones that say they “protect and serve”
Giving us tickets for simply being late is a punishment we do not deserve

MTA imagine living in a city where transportaion was priority
And not ticket terriority
Where the handcuffs placed on the rists of youth were considered pelicular
And police unfamiliar

Imagine MTA if you put 500 new expansion buses on the street
And reversed the ‘07 fare increase
Maybe the number of tardy students would decrease

Imagine if schools weren’t a pipeline to prison
Introducing our youth in the court system at an early age
Imprisoning them like an animal in a cage
Its time for a change

Imagine how much transportation means to a student striving for success
But daily tardiness is makin u stress, depressed, leading to your future arrest

Imagine MTA being the student disabled from participating in after school activities because the 115 comes once an hour
Or causing you to come home at an undecent hour

Imagine MTA the change transportation can make for me and my peers
A better life in our future years

Mayor Villaraigosa speaking with members of the Bus Riders Union

The Bus Riders Union posted a blog entry and slideshow about last week’s vote.

Mayor Villaraigosa speaking with members of the Bus Riders Union

The MTA Board of Directors decided this afternoon to postpone the approval of their Long Range Transportation Plan because community groups (and, as it turns out, the Directors themselves), had less than 24 hours before the meeting to review the 63 page document.  Despite the short notice, the Bus Riders Union was able to distribute this press release, and many groups were able to make it to speak at the meeting.

Many politicians from the San Gabriel Valley advocated the Gold Line Foothill extension, and it was honestly a bit disheartening to hear so many people emphasizing “shovel-readiness” for a long range planning document that is supposed to broadly guide transportation investment for the next thirty-five years.

Damien Goodmon spoke on behalf of Fix Expo, highlighting the environmental injustices of the Expo Line (currently under construction in South LA) included in the LRTP.  Damien Newton, who tweeted the meeting for Streetsblog LA,  asked the Board where funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects in the 2008 Draft LRTP had gone.  He was not the only advocate of complete streets.  The LA County Bike Coalition and the Bus Riders Union stressed the importance of funding walkability and bikeability enhancements that help increase transit ridership.  The BRU also spoke against the billions of dollars in the proposed LRTP going to ineffective (see induced demand) and environmentally unsustainable highway expansions.  Instead, BRU speakers urged the Board to consider their Clean Air and Environmental Justice Plan, which would prioritize improved bus service and reduced fares.

After the meeting, BRU members spoke briefly with Mayor Villaraigosa.  He tried to assure them that communities of color would be protected from fare increases, either through temporary freezes or the implementation of zonal fares.  These assurances, however, seem a bit hollow when the LRTP is mandating a 33% fare recovery ratio.  If the MTA expects riders to cover one third of the systemwide operating cost, the agency’s long history of transportation racism makes it pretty clear who will pay the most: the bus riders who can afford it the least.

[Read the Proposed LRTP here (PDF, 30 MB)]