Scream If You
Hate Traffic

See report cards on the mayor and other conference participants in Frontlines.

Zev Yaroslavsky
Denny Zane
Antonio Villaraigosa

Call it Diamond Lane Paranoia, named for the failed, five-month experiment in carpool lanes on the Santa Monica Freeway in 1976. The way-before-its-time Jerry Brown administration plan led to a ban on Caltrans ever again taking existing freeway lanes and turning them into carpool lanes.

Or diagnose it as a bad case of Methane Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, after the explosion of seeping gases in the Fairfax district in 1985. Political and racist forces combined to produce a federal law that stopped the westward route of the Red Line subway. Only last month was this unnecessary law finally extinguished.

Or consider it Zev’s Act of Revenge, the 1998 voter-approved ban pushed by County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to keep sales taxes from paying for subway projects and punish and reform an often wayward transit agency.

All three of these skeletons in L.A.’s transit closet haunted – or seemingly returned to life – during some of the most crucial moments at the “Move L.A.” conference last week. Or, more like they danced around in the heads of a few of the panelists and paralyzed them when the time came to plot the next steps. Someone should have called for the Jaws of Life to extricate them from the wreckage of the past. Negativity and hyper-caution strangely seemed out of place in a room full of energetic and inspiring speakers, from County Federation of Labor’s boss Maria Elena Durazo, who pledged her union members are “ready to work to get new transportation measures,” to Phil Angelides, who could have whipped Arnold in 2006 if he had fired up voters the way he did with his opening remarks that likened the importance of solving L.A.’s traffic mess to JFK’s promise in 1961 to land on the moon by the end of the decade.

The next time you’re in your car inching along Santa Monica Boulevard, with the 405 looming in the distance for the next 30 minutes, consider this question: How hard should it be to ask voters if they’re sick and tired of traffic jams and wouldn’t mind spending a few cents every day to build a subway? Or a light-rail to San Dimas? Or a train from Newhall to downtown or LAX?

“If something backfires, we won’t have a second chance to try it in the very near future,” said Martin Wachs, a Rand Corporation transportation expert with four decades of experience studying the way traffic moves or fails to do so in California.

Come on, Martin, you’re too wise to believe in ghosts. Voters are fuming about traffic. Chances are they’d give up their firstborn for a fast commute. But if they don’t go for a tax increase, so what? Wait another year or two and ask again. No one’s going to run out and lobby a judge or a politician to bar such questions from future ballots. One thing seems pretty clear: We’ve learned enough from the mistakes of reactionary politicians in the past three decades and there would be an uprising before anyone would let them pass a ban on using the ballot box.

Convened by former Santa Monica Mayor Denny Zane, a champion of extending the subway to the sea, the all-day affair focused on ways to pay for the region’s road and transit needs. Ideas ranged from a half-cent sales tax, adding a fee on car registrations, assessing property owners along transit routes to involving private contractors in the building and managing of projects.

But by the end of the day, no decision was reached on what to do. Coverage of the conference that showed up that night on TV news and in the next day’s headlines made it sound like a sales tax measure was imminent; the operative word, it “could” happen. Zane’s goal is to land a funding measure, a sales tax or other fee, on the November 8 ballot, when a large turnout in a presidential election promises a high turnout of young and lower middle class voters prone to support transit projects. Before that happens, smaller meetings will follow, with each of the constituencies present last week: Labor, social justice and the business interests.

And the volume promises to rise above conference-room mellow. Some of the players want to throw road, bridge, and freeway extensions on the table, and there was even talk of one of the most divisive projects of modern times, the 710 connector that would rip 5.5 miles through South Pasadena. Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member David Fleming put in a plug for the project during his noon-hour speech when the conference hall emptied out for the lunch line in the lobby. His colleague, Richard Katz, called South Pasadena’s opposition an example of “a handful of people delaying a project that could benefit from the region.”

The conference fostered such conflict and open dialogue, good and bad. One of the cornerstone presentations came from pollster John Fairbank, of Fairbank, Maslin & Maullin. His poll of 1,200 voters last November found that most would support a half-cent sales tax increase for transportation. The poll questions are loaded up with road projects, and do not focus on subway or light-rail projects. Nor was that the purpose of the $65,000 survey paid for by Metro, which, of course, must worry about more than transit projects.

Examining the poll, and hearing survey question after question about roads and bridges in Long Beach and Pomona and the Santa Clarita Valley, you can’t help but wonder how well the goals of Zane and his coalition, particularly the transit advocates, mesh with Metro. Certainly they share common ground, but there are differences. And Zane knows it, but seems confident that he can navigate the waters and find the life raft that satisfies all the interests.

“Either for congestion reduction or greenhouse gas emission reduction, you can’t be talking predominantly about highways. It’s just not going to work,” says Zane, in a post-conference interview. “On the other hand, the environmental community needs to appreciate that there are highway needs. A successful effort at the ballot box is going to reflect some blending of those objectives.”

As for what will appear on any ballot measure, or how it will be paid for, Zane says: “I’m hoping to get it focused by the constituency groups that might have their discussions separately but then come together and form a steering committee to try to advance some kind of campaign vision.”

Seven months remain before a decision must be made whether a transportation measure will be ready in time for the Nov. 8 ballot. At this time, while the various constituencies are still talking, it makes sense to push for the Metro board to place the item before voters. But if the agency’s 13-member board gets stuck in low gear, or seeks to include projects that stall progress on a world-class transit system, Zane and his coalition should consider a petition drive to gather 434,000 signatures to force the board to place a transit-dominated measure before voters. While the legal authority of a community-based effort to impose a tax or fee would be doubtful, or downright impossible, according to the state Board of Equalization, the political force of hundreds of thousands of constituents demanding the item be placed before voters could not be ignored. It’s an option Zane is not considering – yet.

Right now, his money is on the Metro board taking action and placing the item before voters. “My hunch is there will be a ballot measure,” Zane says. “I’m not certain it will be a sales tax. But the shape of the electorate is too significant to not make a real good effort. A high turnout means lower-income and younger voters come out in larger numbers. Those are voters who are generally receptive and want to make investments in things like public transportation and education.”

Tickets, please, this train is leaving the station

He tapped into the muses of leadership in a rousing speech filled with his legislative agenda. The first-term assemblyman and former member of the L.A. City Council will not be sitting around waiting for others to act. He says up to two-thirds of his bills will deal with transportation issues. 

For General Feuer, the casualties of lost time and pollution caused by the carbon-dependent economy are mounting. No long windy sentences for him: “The first word is urgency. The second key word is coalition. The time for action has to be now. The coalition that has been focused on transportation issues hasn’t been muscular enough and we can do better. Today I view as a very important moment of beginning a resurgence to do better.”

Feuer backed up his strategy chatter with deeds. He’s pushing legislation to lower the threshold for tax measures to be approved by a 55 percent majority instead of the two-thirds now on the books. And he asked the group to help him win Republican support for his bill.

“Unless there is some transformative work in this coalition, particularly by members of the business community, this bond measure is going to have a very hard time getting through the legislature,” says Feuer, who chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee. “Transportation is not a partisan issue. It is an issue for all of us. Republicans need to join Democrats in putting this on the ballot. This is the year to get past the talk and to get it done. We’ve done it for education. We should do it for transportation.”

Of all the speeches, Feuer’s alone focused on specifics. He challenged the crowd to join his fight. “I want to inspire people to find something in this agenda to move forward right now. This is an urgent matter. I am here to issue a call to action that’s concrete and that’s tied to specific legislation that we can do as a team.”

One law already on the books allows Metro to assess properties along transit routes special fees. A few amendments proposed by Feuer would extend some of the deadlines built into the bill, and make it easier for Metro to set up assessment districts. Another proposal would set aside a portion of property tax revenues along Wilshire Boulevard to help pay for the subway to the sea.

“If this happens properly, the pool of funds that could be before the voters could be adequate to do everything in terms of transportation that everyone wants to achieve in metropolitan Los Angeles in the next 20 years. Think about that. That’s what on the table.”

Down the line, Feuer wants Sacramento to change the structure for the gas tax. It’s been 18-cents-a-gallon since 1995, so it doesn’t go up when the price of gasoline goes up. More important, it doesn’t provide an incentive for the state to promote cleaner-burning cars, which use less gasoline. Similarly, car registration fees should take into account the state’s priority to see to it that people give up their gas guzzlers. “Voters should have the opportunity to decide this. Then we can ideally take real action to tie the problems that carbon creates to reducing those problems.”

By the way, if Gov. Schwarzenegger had not made the car tax one of his big themes in the recall election of 2003, the state would be pulling in about $8 billion. But changing that is off the table during the reign of no-tax Arnold. “It was a bad idea when it was eliminated,” Feuer said, in response to a question last Thursday. “It’s an even worse idea now. But the reason it will never be rolled back is the governor is utterly, utterly committed to keeping that position.”

Zane says his coalition will lobby the GOP legislators to help win passage of the 55 percent constitutional amendment in Sacramento. The amendment would then appear on ballots around the state on Nov. 8, and would require only a majority approval to win. An L.A. tax measure could appear on the same ballot and win by 55 percent.

Feuer deserves the Speaker of the Day Award. If he succeeds in Sacramento, we’ll pay his plane fare to Washington, D.C.

Pollster forgot apple pie and motherhood

People are enraged about traffic.

Pollster John Fairbank delivered what, at first blush, seemed to be wonderful news to the conference.

Voters surveyed last November would support a sales tax measure for a wide range of transportation and road projects. It was too heavy on roads and too light on visionary projects

Try to hold your breath and read the ballot item run by voters:

“Traffic Relief, Rail Expansion and Transportation Safety Measure:

“To relieve traffic congestion by adding lanes to the 5, 10, 60, 101, 210, 405 and 605 freeways, adding right and left turn lanes, synchronizing signals and repairing potholes, eliminating diesel buses and trucks, earthquake retrofitting bridges, tunnels and overpasses, and extending light rail and improving public transit, shall the County sales tax be increased by one-half cent, with local control, required annual independent financial audits and no funds to be used for administrators’ salaries?”

Anyone opposed to that is nicknamed Dr. No, picked up a call forwarded by mistake to a call center in New Delhi or is waiting for the government to send over someone to do their ironing for them. Fairbank says the support for the measure is overwhelming, but why wouldn’t it be?

Voter support nears the 70 percent range when details are spelled out about projects in their area. The spiel got very specific in seven Planning Areas, from South L.A. to the valleys. Results also were broken out by supervisorial district: “We walk the voter through what the problems are, what the needs are, why this money is needed and again, by zone, we tell what we will accomplish, what we will improve in their area. Then we come back and ask them, ‘Now that you’ve heard the facts on how this measure will affect your community, how will you vote?’ And when we do this kind of campaign with these voters about what they will see and what effect it will have, it’s goes up to the 69 and 70 percent range. We have a margin that is right on two-thirds.”

Voters, in this poll at least, see a mix of small- and big-ticket items, projects that take a year and a decade or longer

“Synchronizing traffic signals, extending light rail transit, pothole repair are among measures getting the most support,” Fairbank says. “Significantly, the light rail message has continually expanded and grown as one of the preferred solutions among voters of the last few years.”

But just because the numbers look good, including the $660 million a year a sales tax increase would bring in, don’t assume the politicians are sold on going to the voters with it. That would be too easy, and these politicians show too many scars from past battles.

Kicking and screaming to the ballot booth

Thirty-two years ago, Los Angeles commuters were in a tizzy about the new phenomenon of carpool lanes. Caltrans stole two lanes of the morning and afternoon commute from the rest of the drivers on the Santa Monica freeway and declared war: Only buses and vehicles carrying at least three people could use the lanes.

A fresh-faced city councilmember by the name of Zev Yaroslavsky signed onto a lawsuit that stopped what was to be a year-long pilot project in its fifth month. Federal Judge Matt Bryne found that Caltrans broke the law by failing to do up a battery of environmental reports. Then-Assemblyman Mike Antonovich tried to pass a law that would keep anything like it from ever happening again. An L.A. Times story on Aug. 15, 1976, matter-of-factly put it: “Never have transportation planners tried to oust motorists from an existing freeway lane and designate it for preferential use by special vehicles.” Still today too many people consider a car with three people in it to be a “special vehicle.”

Not as much has changed in the intervening years as you might think.

Pollster Parke Skelton sat on the last panel of the day with a couple of politicians – including Yaroslavsky and Richard Katz, chairman of the state Assembly Transportation Committee two decades ago and now a mayoral appointee on the Metro board.

Skelton, of course, looks at the numbers and sees the time is right to put the item on the ballot this fall.

“We have to get ourselves ready for the best election. It’s certainly November,” said Skelton. “The need to localize a measure like this is incredibly important. You’re not going to pass a subway to the sea bond measure in West Covina. You’ve got to run a series of inner-locking regional campaigns.”

He estimated the cost of the campaign at $6 million. “The caveat there is that the most effective campaign in the world is only going to move numbers on a tax measure by a handful of points – 4 or 5 points.”

Skelton urged caution, invoking some of the ugly ghosts from transit’s past. “The worst thing in the world would be to put this on the ballot and have it crushed. It would set you back for decades.”

Yaroslavsky didn’t need anyone to encourage him to be cautious. “I never say never, but it has been my experience in 32-and-a-half years as an elected official that you don’t try to ask people to raise taxes when they’re afraid they’re going to lose their income. I don’t care how bad the traffic is. People aren’t going to be inclined to vote this way. It’s just the way it is. Also, just to be a little more provocative, it’s been my experience in 32-and-a-half years, that when you have a recession, traffic improves because fewer people are working.”

Zane said he’s still pushing for a November vote. And if it’s on the ballot – and loses, will the world end?

Demand for action won’t let up until traffic does, Zane says, who learned a lesson or two from his rent control battle in Santa Monica. The first time it lost, but he rebounded six months later, and his victory in 1979 set off a national trend. “If there is a compelling need that you’re responding to, like the transportation need, it’s only going to get worse unless there’s major intervention. The conditions for voter support only improve over time.”

For commuters, the only thing to fear is cautious politicians stuck in the Diamond Lanes of the past.

Greg Katz contributed to this story.