Los Angeles
is at a crossroads with our transportation system. Los Angeles is
already the number one most congested region in the nation, and more
and more people are moving to Los Angeles County
each and every year. Our region will add six million people by 2030. To
make matters worse, the distance that we drive in our cars each year is
growing much faster than our population. Angeleno drivers spend an
additional 93 hours a year behind the wheel stuck in traffic. 88
percent of travel in Los Angeles during peak hours is in traffic. Not surprisingly 78 percent of Los Angeles County
residents surveyed in a 2005 PPIC poll listed traffic congestion as a
major problem – higher than affordable housing, air quality, quality of
education, and lack of job opportunities.
We
need the transit services to allow people who do not have access to
cars to go to school, work for a living, and shop for their needs. We
also need to develop public transit that attracts drivers to get out of
their cars and ride public transit – to reduce our dangerous dependence
on oil, ease consumers’ vulnerability to gasoline price spikes,
decrease unhealthy air and global warming pollution, and give more
people a way out of traffic congestion.
Therefore,
we urge this Board to reject this trap of thinking “How much can we
recover from fares?” A fare increase would hurt the very ridership
increases that should be this Board’s number one priority. Similarly,
cuts to train or bus service are also not the solution. Inconvenient
public transit also equals fewer riders.
Instead,
your number one priority, and the question that this proposal should be
measured up against should be, “What can we do to generate the most
riders on our public transit system?”
We
couldn’t agree with this Board more that we need stable, increased
funding for public transit. We disagree that asking riders to pay more
or suffer service cuts, are the only solutions to the operating
deficit. Therefore, we urge this Board to reject draconian fare
increases, or service cuts, and instead be visionary when it comes to
investing in our public transit system.
* First,
use your political clout to increase public transit funding in the
state budget, which is being decided in the coming days and weeks. One
of CALPIRG’s top priorities this spring has been to leverage our time,
resources, and membership base to stop the diversion of more than $1.3
billion in public transit funds from the state budget. Although I am a
proud Los Angeles native, I am based in Northern California
so that I can lobby our state Legislature, and will continue to work
with your staff to fight back against any cuts. We want to publicly
thank Assembly member Mike Feuer for putting forth a visionary
transportation budget proposal yesterday that would increase reliable,
stable funding for public transit for years to come, and we urge this
Board to support him on that proposal, despite concerns from road and
highway interests. * Likewise, make sure more federal transportation dollars go to public transit. Between 1945 and 1980, U.S.
government spent 75 percent of transport money on highways, and only 1
percent of money on public buses, trolleys, and subways. While that
ratio has improved slightly in more recent years, we still could be
investing so much more in public transit.
* Finally,
reject the idea that the only solutions to an operating deficit are to
make riders pay more or suffer from less service. There are many local
revenue tools to consider – local sales taxes, gas taxes, vehicle and
parking fees, development fees to promote smart growth, and the list
goes on. A thriving public transit ridership benefits everyone, riders
and drivers, and so our tax system should encourage more transit
riders, rather than encouraging more cars, more congestion, and more
pollution.
