We sit in traffic every day, just crawling along, fuming: Why the hell doesn't Los Angeles have better public transit? I could be home by now.
After all the empty talk by mayoral candidates - including Councilmen Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard Parks - somebody finally stepped up: The MTA - prodded by Councilman Tom LaBonge is considering building more subways.
About damn time. In the seven years since the MTA quit building after overspending on the Red Line, and pissed-off voters banned spending sales taxes on subway construction, traffic congestion has hardened L.A.'s major arteries and turned its "freeways" more often (Sepulveda Pass, anyone?) into 2-mph parking lots.
According to the Los Angeles Almanac, "Approximately 2,882,784 vehicle trips are taken on L.A.'s 650 miles of freeways and 22,000 miles of surface streets each day between 7-8 a.m. on weekdays. This is the equivalent of the entire population of Dallas, Texas ..."
We can do better. Unless, of course, you enjoy spending something like 520 hours a year of your life listening to Books on Tape and sucking exhaust fumes.
Lisa Mascaro reports in the Daily News:
"We're in the transportation business, so let's act like it. Let's be visionary," said LaBonge, an MTA board member. "The era of bulldozing neighborhoods and widening freeways is over... Let's have a full discussion."
However, the plan approved 11-2 takes does not name any new lines. It calls for studying cases in which underground tunnels might be a better alternative than building above ground.
The plan further calls for working to overturn a federal ban on tunneling in methane gas zones of the city.
It also calls for analyzing the impact on MTA's other projects if sales tax funds -- now off-limits for subway construction -- could be used. Lifting the ban on sales tax funds would have to go before voters countywide for approval.
If the MTA can do something about its laughable fare-collection system maybe we can soften the hit we'll take on our taxes, but the bottom line is Los Angeles can't keep growing as one of the greatest cities in the world without decent public transit.
Go, Tom.
Posted by: mack_reed on Friday, February 25, 2005 - 09:21 AM
