The Projects of the 30/10 Initiative

Orange Line Extension Exposition Transit Corridor Phase 2 Gold Line Foothill Extension Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor Regional Connector Transit Corridor Van Nuys Bl Rapidway

Westside Subway Extension (to be opened in segments) West Santa Ana Transit Corridor Eastside Transit Corridor Phase 2 Green Line LAX Extension South Bay Metro Green Line Extension Sepulveda Pass Transit

For more of the specifics of each project, click on this link: http://www.metro.net/projects/30-10/

The 12 projects that make up the 30/10 initiative to improve mass transit in greater Los Angeles (metro.net)

1. Orange Line Extension
2. East San Fernando Valley North-South Transit Corridors
3. Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor
4. Westside Subway Extension
5. Regional Connector Transit Corridor
6. Gold Line Foothill Extension
7. Exposition Transit Corridor Phase 2
8. Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor
9. Eastside Transit Corridor Phase 2 (alternatives)
10. Green Line LAX Extension
11. South Bay Green Line Extension
12. West Santa Ana Transit Corridor

LA Metro 30/10 Initiative

The Concept is Simple

The 30/10 Initiative is a funding proposal that would

accelerate construction of 12 key Metro expansion projects

originally scheduled to be built over three decades – and

complete them by 2019.

The concept being explored is to use the funding for these

projects, which will be collected over the next 30 years from

the Measure R sales tax, as collateral for long-term bonds

and a federal loan so the projects can be built much faster.

The bene>ts of this initiative include generating hundreds

of thousands of construction and other jobs to improve the

local economy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ease

tra;c congestion.

How 30/10 Would Work

Measure R, a local tax approved by LA County voters in

2008, is funding new transportation projects and programs.

Over 30 years, it is projected to generate $40 billion for

congestion relief projects throughout LA County.

The 30/10 Initiative is a concept that is being explored is to

use the funding for these projects, as collateral for longterm bonds and a federal loan so the projects can be built

much faster. In turn, the funds coming in from Measure R

would be used to repay those loans.

*Early completion dates will ultimately be evaluated

based upon chosen delivery method for each project and

presented to the Metro Board for approval.

3 articles by the Daily News on the Red Line and its impacts and other lines

Articles 1

RIDING THE RAILS

Red Line 10 years old but still in its infancy

By Kevin Modesti, Staff Writer

Posted: 06/20/2010 12:51:50 AM PDT

Updated: 06/20/2010 09:16:26 AM PDT

People exit the Metro Red Line at the North Hollywood station on Friday, June 18, 2010. | See photo gallery. (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)

RED LINE
PHOTO GALLERY

• Officials say subway has slowed growth of freeway congestion in Valley
• The push is on to improve existing lines, add new ones

The San Fernando Valley's decade-old subway stations show their age in small ways.

At the North Hollywood station, sun and storms have faded the rainbow colors of the entryway awning. One stop down the line at Universal City, vandals have added key-scratchings to the pillars near the platforms' distinctive mosaic art.

In both places, escalators creak and lurch under morning commuters' hurrying feet, floor tiles are scuffed, and the trains have lost their original gleam.

But mention these blemishes to an out-of-towner, and expect a laugh.

"I'm from Philadelphia. Our subway doesn't touch this," Bill Thompson said last week as he and a colleague waited for a Metro Red Line train to take them on a 24-minute underground journey from Universal City to downtown for a business meeting.

"In Philadelphia, I hold my breath going up and down the steps because it smells so bad," said Thompson, who said subway crime is another problem back home. "I haven't noticed any of that here. It's still clean, it looks like it's well-maintained.

"You can tell we're in California. It's the art and the architecture. The colors. The openness."

It will be 10 years ago Thursday that the North Hollywood and Universal City stations opened, marking the subway's arrival in the Valley, connecting the giant suburb with Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles.

In many ways, not only do the stations and trains feel comparatively new, but the concept

of a subway in this car capital still seems to be in its infancy.

Fewer people use the overlapping Red and Purple lines on the average workday than Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials had forecast in 2000. That places Metro's ridership sixth among U.S. cities and 77th on a worldwide list.

The addition of Valley stops, tacking 6.3 miles onto the 11.1-mile Red Line route that opened 17 years ago, has hardly eliminated congestion on the 405 and 101 freeways.

And the rhetoric has changed little in the debate about the value of the Red Line's $4.5 billion construction cost - including $1.3 billion for the Valley extension - and $91 million annual operating budget.

What's the impact of the Valley extension?

So far it's largely intangible, said California State University, Northridge, professor Tom Hogen-Esch, who teaches about civic government.

"It's been kind of a success in this transformation of Los Angeles from an automobile society (back) to its origins as a public-transportation-based society," Hogen-Esch said.

"The San Fernando Valley was the automobile suburb. For the subway to emerge in this heartland of Southern California automobile culture gets to the transformation that is taking place."

One way to describe the L.A. subway's progress: People who use it and know it mostly love it. The same holds true among people whose businesses are fed by local stations.

But this is not yet as many people as had been hoped.

When the North Hollywood and Universal City stations opened June 24, 2000, Metro officials said they expected ridership to reach 200,000 daily boardings by the following year.

A decade later, however, Metro reports a weekday average of 153,000 boardings.

"I think if you move beyond the ridership estimates, you would find the Red Line performs very well," said Metro spokesman Dave Sotero, who notes that the Red Line is L.A.'s busiest rail line.

Red Line ridership is expected to rise as connecting rail and bus lines are added to the Metro system, such as when the Orange Line busway linking North Hollywood to Woodland Hills is extended to Chatsworth in 2012, Sotero said.

More than 14,000 people a day in North Hollywood and more than 6,500 a day in Universal City board trains heading toward downtown.

On a recent morning, platforms were busy and trains were nearly full.

Attorney Barry Greenberg of Northridge said he began taking the Red Line downtown when his car broke down a few years ago and he enjoys tunneling under freeway traffic.

"I didn't know whether it (an L.A. subway) would work," Greenberg said. "I worried about earthquakes. But I'm impressed.

"I think it fits (Los Angeles). But it's 10 percent of what we need."

Angelenos using New York's notorious subways as a reference point had wondered if crime would be a problem here.

Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Patrick Jordan said subway crime rates are low and getting lower, thanks to open and well-lit platforms and hundreds of patrol cameras.

Violent and property crimes numbered fewer than three a day throughout the Metro rail and bus systems that carry about 1.5 million people a day, Jordan said.

"It is very safe," Jordan said.

Subway fares, scheduled to rise from $1.25 per boarding to $1.50 on July 1, cover only 28 percent of operating costs.

Rail systems are more expensive to build but more cost-efficient to operate than buses, Sotero said.

That hasn't changed bus proponents' contention that even if the 17.4-mile subway system is expanded, it is too small and inflexible to serve the nation's largest county.

"You continue to see investment in a mode that hasn't demonstrated a massive increase in ridership (or) reduction in auto traffic," said Esperanza Martinez, an organizer for the Bus Riders Union.

Ten years ago, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich called the Red Line project a "fiscal catastrophe." The Valley extension came in under budget and on time, but only after the rest of the Red Line was plagued by cost overruns, construction accidents and delays.

Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said last week the stations are too hard to get to - and parking is too limited - to make the subway a convenient alternative to the 101 Freeway. Bell said above-ground rail can serve more county residents than "one tunnel in Los Angeles."

Among the Red Line's fans are owners of businesses near the North Hollywood transit hub, which has spurred retail and housing development across the street and boosted the nearby NoHo Arts District.

"We're happy it (the Red Line) ties into the whole renaissance going on here in North Hollywood," said Jack Witt, president of the Universal City/North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Witt, who owns a private fitness-training business near the North Hollywood station, said he'd like Metro to reduce the number of homeless people riding the subway.

Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, called the subway a "revenue generator" for the local economy and concluded: "I think people (subway critics) have been proven wrong."

At the Universal City station one morning last week, Burbank resident John Mardirossian praised the Red Line as he walked quickly toward a train he said he has ridden to 7th Street every workday for five years.

"It's very good. You take it and you get there right away, no headache," Mardirossian said.

He was asked why more people don't like the Red Line the way he does.

"Until you use it," he said, "you don't know."

Articles 2

Officials say subway has slowed growth of freeway congestion in Valley

By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer

Posted: 06/19/2010 08:33:57 PM PDT

Updated: 06/20/2010 08:46:48 AM PDT

Cars on the 101 Freeway in the Cahuenga Pass, Friday, June 18, 2010. (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)

Although traffic on the 101 Freeway has increased slightly over the last decade, congestion would be even worse if not for the Red Line subway that has helped ease the commute out of the Valley, officials say.

"The subway has given Angelenos an alternative to being stuck in traffic," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who sits on the Metro board.

"We are never going to reduce traffic to the point it was in the 1960s - that's just a pipe dream. But to the extent we can get people out of their cars and into public transportation, we reduce the impact on the freeways and surface streets."

From June 2000, when the Red Line opened in the Valley, to 2009, the annual number of boardings has soared from 28 million to 47 million. Average weekday boardings increased during that time from 83,230 to 146,723.

During roughly the same period, annual average traffic on the 101 Freeway - as measured near Laurel Canyon Boulevard - increased from 283,000 to 290,000, according to the California Department of Transportation.

Although Caltrans hasn't studied the impact of the Red Line on freeway traffic, officials believe it has made a difference.

"Over the last decade, we have experienced a steady increase in traffic on almost all our highways throughout the region," said Doug Failing, a district director for Caltrans. "But when you take a look at the 101 - particularly when you look at the Cahuenga Pass - we haven't seen

the growth there that we've seen in other places around the county."

Over the last decade, traffic on most freeways in the county has increased by 10 to 15 percent, Failing said. Yet, traffic on the 101 Freeway over the Cahuenga Pass increased by only 2 percent.

"It's obvious that the Red Line is picking up that expected growth," Failing said. "Over a 10-year period, you'd expect at least a 25,000-vehicle increase, which is clearly not there."

But Tony Bell, spokesman for county Supervisor Michael Antonovich, a subway critic, said Metro officials are overstating the impact of the Red Line on 101 traffic.

"The Red Line doesn't even save time," Bell said. "It's difficult to park at the Red Line station, and the 101 continues to be a congested mess."

But Metro spokesman Marc Littman said the 101 Freeway is often congested due to heavy traffic, accidents and other factors - making the Red Line quicker.

"You are guaranteed that your ride from the San Fernando Valley to downtown is always a half-hour or less because we don't compete with traffic or weather," Littman said.

"As far as parking at the stations, there are many bus lines that serve the rail stations, there are park-and-ride services and you can bicycle there. All the joint development plans call for additional parking, too."

As Metro pursues the 30/10 Initiative to accelerate construction of a dozen transit and highway projects, Littman said he expects further reductions in traffic congestion.

Already, more than 20,000 people ride the east-west Orange Line busway across the San Fernando Valley, many of whom catch the Red Line to downtown and other locations.

The California Center for Innovative Transportation at the University of California at Berkeley conducted a study in 2005 that found the line has made a "measurable difference" in traffic congestion, Metro spokesman Dave Sotero said.

Regardless of the Red Line's impact on traffic, Littman said riding the train has many other benefits, including saving money.

A study released June 17 by the American Public Transportation Association found people who ride public transportation save an average of $9,330 annually in vehicle and parking expenses.

In Los Angeles, the average savings are $10,163, or $847 a month.

"If I'm going to Staples Center, I always park at North Hollywood and ride the Red Line because I know I'm going to get to the game on time and won't have to spend 15 or 20 minutes looking for a parking space I'll pay $10 or $20 for," said Bart Reed, executive director of The Transit Coalition. "Riding the train is healthy, too, because you get to do some walking."

Articles 3

The push is on to improve existing lines, add new ones.

By Rick Orlov, Staff Writer

Posted: 06/20/2010 08:47:43 AM PDT

Updated: 06/20/2010 08:52:43 AM PDT

Mike Race carries a surfboard onto the Metro Red Line North Hollywood station during a trip to San Diego, Friday, June 18, 2010. (Michael Owen Baker/staff photographer) (Michael Owen Baker)

To many motorists in Los Angeles, traffic seems to fit the phrase Mark Twain once used about the weather: Everyone talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.

Even as billions have been spent over the years on transit projects, frustrated drivers continue to sit in bumper-to-bumper congestion on the 405 and 101 freeways every day, and wonder why things never seem to get better.

But local officials insist they have been doing something about it, and they have even bigger plans in store.

With the Red Line subway this month marking its 10th year of operating in the San Fernando Valley, local agencies continue pushing for more projects to improve the subways and local transit.

Most of those will be funded by Measure R, the half-cent per dollar sales tax approved by voters in November 2008 that is expected to generate $40 billion over 30 years.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been actively lobbying the federal government to accelerate the $40 billion so the work can be done in just 10 years, in what he has dubbed his 30-10 initiative.

"Mayor Villaraigosa has made this one of his top priorities," spokeswoman Lisa Hansen said. "Measure R includes projects for the 405 corridor that are being defined.

"If we are successful in implementing 30-10 and getting all the projects rolling, we will be able to begin environmental work soon and include studies of a subway as well as surface, above-grade and other

options."

Also, work is under way to extend the Orange Line from Canoga Park to Chatsworth.

The Valley busway has proven to be one of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's most popular programs, with more than 23,000 daily boardings. Plans call for adding four stations and developing more bikeway and pedestrian paths.

"It has been terrifically successful," Hansen said. "It connects to the Red Line and has allowed us to expand service without adding more subways."

Deputy Mayor Jaime De La Vega, who oversees transportation issues, said a number of projects are in the works for the Valley to complement the Red Line and Orange Line.

"The mayor and the City Council, along with the MTA board, have authorized environmental study on an Orange Line-like busway on Van Nuys Boulevard to provide a north-south artery," De La Vega said.

The $2.5 billion project has money earmarked from Measure R and would be completed in 2040.

Measure R also set aside $1billion for initial studies of improvements through the Sepulveda Pass to the Westside along the 405 Freeway corridor. However, no decision has been made on what exactly will be involved.

"The project would provide a rapid transit option to improve traffic flow between the Westside and the San Fernando Valley," Metro spokesman Dave Sotero said, adding a link is planned with the "Subway to the Sea" program that would extend the subway through the Westside to the Pacific Ocean.

"We haven't begun to study what transit service would best meet the requirements, but the idea is to provide some kind of transit service to connect the Orange Line Sepulveda station with the planned Westside subway extension project in Westwood."

De La Vega said all options are being considered, from using the car-pool lanes on the freeway to a subway to hook up to the Subway to the Sea in West Los Angeles.

Sotero said officials are analyzing various locations in Westwood for a station. The goal is to bring in workers from the Valley to the Westside, but also students to UCLA.

Beyond the Sepulveda Pass project, the state is also looking at plans for the high-speed rail program approved by voters.

The High Speed Rail Authority is still in the preliminary phases of its work and has been looking at stations in Sylmar and Burbank, with some speculation it might be located at Bob Hope Airport.

De La Vega said whatever is decided, officials know there will be at least one San Fernando Valley station for the high-speed rail.

One advantage of having a station is the amount of development that is triggered in the area, much like when the railroads first came West.

"Transit-oriented development has helped revitalize major areas of Los Angeles," Sotero said. "We have seen it throughout the subway line, including at Hollywood and Highland, Hollywood and Western, Wilshire and Vermont and Wilshire and Western."

Hollywood, for example, has seen the opening of the W Hotel and surrounding ground floor retail.

In the San Fernando Valley, Sotero said there have been plans for a major Universal City project, while North Hollywood has seen the opening of new residential, retail and commercial developments.

Senator Boxer, 30/10 and Transit-Oriented Development in LA (Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com)

Joel Epstein

Corporate communications, public affairs and philanthropic giving professional

Posted: June 9, 2010 12:40 PM

Senator Boxer, 30/10 and Transit-Oriented Development in LA

One of the interesting things about living in Los Angeles is the contrasting views one sees and hears of what life in the City of Angels should look like. Do Angelenos want a house with a yard, an apartment within walking distance of stores and transportation, or a hilltop townhouse in a gated community miles from downtown? The answer is "yes," or so it would seem from the way LA has developed to include ample examples of all of these visions and more of life in the Southland. It was my interest in what might be for Los Angeles that took me to the recentUrban Land Institute (ULI) Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Summit. The conference held Friday at the Hollywood and Highland Metro Red Line station-friendly Renaissance Hollywood Hotel and presented in partnership with Metro, AECOM, ARUP, CRA/LA, CIM, MVE & Partners,SCAG, Globe Street and others was a chance for ULI presenters and vendors to show the field what parts of greater LA may look like in the years to come. As the future home of what could become America's leading mass transit system, what better place to profile possible mixed use residential, commercial and retail developments built at critical transit hubs?

As these things tend to be, the well-organized conference was as much a chance to shmooze with other attendees about transit-oriented development and vendors like Bike Station (a convenient bike parking solution), as it was an opportunity to hear from ULI's technical assistance panels. During a morning session the panels let loose about the challenges and opportunities faced at the suboptimal Slauson Avenue Blue Line, Vermont Green Line and Jordan Downs/103rd Street Blue Line Metro stations, as well as the promising Monrovia Transit Village along the Gold Line (Foothill) San Gabriel Valley extension. But as I opined in my last blog, what about the parking for bikes and cars? Is this a missed public-private partnership (P3) opportunity? Is it enough that Metro relies on the private sector to build parking at existing and planned transit stations? As one panelist put it, there is a need that has not yet been met, years after the station's construction, for safe, well-lit and mixed-use parking at Slauson so Metro riders don't have to drive south to the Florence station to park safely. This lesson should ring true for the planned Expo, Gold, Green and Purple Line stations as well since the fact is, many Angelenos will be driving to those stations too.

On a more upbeat note, when it is completed in 2014, Monrovia Station Square will be one of the first of the dozen projects built under Measure R, a County voter-approved half cent transportation sales tax. Recognizing the need to create a "place" in Monrovia the project will be a mixed-use transit-oriented development built around an attractive former rail station. The locale will be truly multimodal, conducive to travel by rail, bus, automobile, bike and foot.

For many, the ULI conference was also a chance to hear Senator Barbara Boxer express her unflagging support for the 30/10 Initiative. Based upon the lengthy standing ovation Boxer received before launching into her remarks, I expect if she wanted one the Senator wouldn't have any trouble landing a spacious apartment in the nearly fully rented mixed-use transit oriented development above the Wilshire Vermont Metro Red Line Station. Unlike her opponent in November, Senator Boxer is a proven commodity who has delivered on projects that have significantly benefited the Los Angeles region in terms of economic development, job creation, and a cleaner environment. For example Boxer's unsung work on the Alameda Corridor, a freight rail project running from the busy ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles 20 miles north to downtown LA, is a forecast of what she is, and will be, doing to advance the 30/10 Initiative for LA and the nation as Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Though the Alameda Corridor which moved considerable freight off the roads to more fuel efficient rail is ancient history by current news standards, it is worth a look as voters go to the polls in November.

Aside from hearing Boxer voice her full-throated support for LA's plan for build within a decade thirty years of mass transit projects, the tour of the Wilshire Vermont project was the highlight of the day for me. The visit started with a quick door-to-door trip on the fast, clean Red Line subway from Hollywood and Highland to Wilshire and Vermont. Exiting the station on the building's plaza we were greeted by a weekly farmers market brimming with fresh fruit and vegetables and prepared foods. Our tour of the rental complex continued in the lobby of one of its two connected seven story buildings. In addition to amenities including a pool, fitness center, party room and business center, residents of the smartly appointed, light and spacious apartments can sleep that much later on work days as they live at one of LA's most transit friendly locations, a straight shot to downtown and to North Hollywood. Though the project has had its bumps along the way and is now with a new management company (the old one didn't accommodate tenants who sought convenient bike parking, etc.), how often in LA does one get the chance to take the subway door to door from home to work?

But among the lessons shared by the candid guides were the added cost and inconvenience of doing one of these projects above an existing subway station. Considerable time and money went into relocating subsurface Metro infrastructure that would not have been located where it was if Metro had anticipated building on the site when the station was first constructed. Going forward, one would expect that Metro will consider transit-oriented construction opportunities at all of its stations and will plan and build accordingly.

The most sobering thing for me about the day-long conference was to see how, from an architectural and planning perspective, many of the most exciting projects are ones the conference sponsors are building in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere rather than in the United States and more pointedly, Los Angeles.

If you care about LA, congestion, energy consumption and the environment, and support mass transit and a plan that will jump start the economy, now is the time to vote. And if you are a company or individual who can afford to, now is the time to step up financially and support broad based business, labor, environmental and civic coalitions like Move LA (for which I consult) andThe Transit Coalition.

Senator Boxer gets it and is in the bus driver's seat on the 30/10 Initiative that Move LA and The Transit Coalition are so effectively advocating for. So if all goes well, in the future, more of those transit-oriented development plans for Shanghai, Singapore and Dubai will be built right here in LA. With that in mind I'm already on the waiting list.

3 articles on the 30/10 plan

Article 1

Mayor Villaraigosa's 30/10 plan: Moving forward

The innovative plan for funding local transit projects moves closer to reality.

By Tim Rutten

June 9, 2010

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The 30/10 transit plan is the most important initiative ever proposed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. If, as seems increasingly likely, it's embraced by Congress, it will become one of the nation's most significant public infrastructure projects..

Essentially, 30/10 proposes leveraging the half-cent sales tax increase to which 68% of Los Angeles County residents agreed when they passed Measure R with federal loans secured by those tax revenues. Those loans would allow the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build the 12 crucial projects specified in the measure in just 10 years rather than the projected 30.

When Villaraigosa first proposed 30/10 last fall, it seemed like the longest of shots, but his tireless lobbying — and the initiative's self-evident merits — won over powerful congressional allies, particularly Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, as well as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. In fact, 30/10 is one of those ideas that gets better under close examination. Consider, for example, that completion of the 12 transit projects would reduce annual particulate emissions by at least 500,000 pounds, reduce annual gasoline consumption by 10.3 million barrels and, by conservative estimates, cut automobile travel by 208 million miles each year.

Over the next decade, it also will create at least 166,000 well-paying construction jobs.

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That hasn't been lost on the Obama administration, which continues to struggle under the burden of intractable unemployment. As Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky put it when the MTA board unanimously voted to back Villaraigosa's initiative: "You can't turn the economy of this nation around unless you turn around the economy of California. The antidote to the recession is the 30/10 plan. It's a huge investment in jobs right now.... We're ready to do it, and we're ready to pay for it."

In fact, in a recent conversation with the mayor, President Obama called the proposal "a template for the nation."

It is, however, still an innovation, and Congress needs to approve a novel way of funding it. Late last week, Washington took two long steps in that direction. On Thursday, LaHood wrote to Boxer, promising that the administration would include 30/10 funding "in the next transportation reauthorization bill." The senator also said that LaHood already is "working with me on finding every opportunity under current law so we can accelerate 30/10 now." Equally important, Boxer announced that the Federal Transit Administration, which also reports to LaHood, has agreed that, for funding purposes, it will accept a single environmental review for the entire 9.3-mile subway extension west under Wilshire Boulevard rather than the three different assessments the project normally would require.

"That's a big deal," said Deputy Mayor Jaime de la Vega. "Now we can treat the whole extension as one project as we should … and the savings will be huge." According to De la Vega, construction bids submitted in anticipation of 30/10's accelerated schedule are coming in 15% to 30% under projected costs for Measure R's 12 projects. "With those savings, we actually could build more transit" than the ballot proposition included, he said.

"Eight months ago, people in Washington thought we were nuts," Jeff Carr, Villaraigosa's chief of staff, told The Times this week. "Now, the feds have come around to seeing this as a model for the nation." In fact, LaHood told Boxer in his letter that he shares her belief "that the 30/10 model — leveraging a comprehensive long-range transportation plan and a sustainable local funding stream — has the potential to transform the way we invest in transportation projects across the nation."

Carr and De la Vega point out that this isn't the first time Los Angeles has been at the cutting edge of transit funding. The Alameda Corridor — the dedicated 20-mile rail line that now links the busy ports of San Pedro and Long Beach to the intercontinental railway line east of downtown — was first conceived by local planners and officials in the early 1980s. They began piecing together rights of way, but it took until 1997 for Congress to pass the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which gave the project what it needed: federal loan guarantees secured by the corridor's future revenues.

Measured against that history, 30/10 has moved forward at the speed of light. Perhaps that's because, as Carr put it, "It's good policy and good politics." How often can you say that?

timothy.rutten@latimes.com

Article 2

L.A. plans for more rail lines gets a boost in Washington

June 5, 2010 |  8:13 am

L.A. got some good news this week in its effort to fast track some major transportation projects.

On Friday, officials announced that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had expressed support for L.A.'s fast-track plans and saw them as a potential model for other transportation projects.

"I can assure you that the U.S. Department of Transportation is committed to working with you to explore this promising approach in the next transportation reauthorization bill," LaHood wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Besides the proposed Westside subway, other projects Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hopes to speed up include a long-sought rail extension to Los Angeles International Airport, a Crenshaw Boulevard line, a Gold Line extension through the San Gabriel Valley and busways in the San Fernando Valley.

Villaraigosa said that any money Washington advanced to L.A. would be repaid from the $40 billion projected to be generated over the next 30 years from a half-cent sales tax approved by county voters last year -- a selling point that has resonated with lawmakers.

--Shelby Grad

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