The Los Angeles Streetsblog recently posted a quick article that asked whether the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“METRO” or “MTA”) will try to overload the 30/10 initiative, which should be designed to jump start transit funding with a bunch of highway projects.  Today, METRO will decide whether to support 30/10, but there have been significant attempts to add some fine print by the METRO Board.  The current language being pursued by METRO goes too far to appease the road building lobby and other business interests.   

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Coalition for Clean Air submitted a letter to METRO yesterday asking that it not advocate to load up the 30/10 initiative with a bunch of highway pork projects aimed at expanding our highway system.  Beyond the dramatic air quality issues we face in Los Angeles, we have a climate change dilemma that requires significant action to reduce our dependence on roads. My colleague in D.C., Colin Peppard outlines the climate concern in a recent post on the National Journal Transportation expert blog—

Transportation was responsible for 27% of total US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2008. This makes transportation the nation’s second largest end-use emissions source—larger than any other nation’s economy-wide emissions, with the exception of China. Over the past two decades, transportation has also been the nation’s fastest growing GHG source, responsible for 47% of the net increase in emissions between 1990 and 2007. (Transportation also accounts for close to 70% of US oil consumption, but that’s for an energy security post.)  

Colin also lays out a good vision for what is needed moving forward--

Practically, what does this mean? It means better road and congestion management and strong consideration of road pricing. It means increasing investment in efficient non-road transportation options, and a real multi-modal freight strategy. It means much better coordination of transportation plans with local land use. And when new road capacity is called for (yes, this environmentalist recognizes that a road is often the best way to get from here to there!), it means being cognizant of the long term energy and climate impacts. And of course, this vision also includes ever-more efficient vehicles running on new low-carbon fuels.

Initiatives like 30/10 help achieve this more sustainable vision.  And, supporting a transit-only 30/10 initiative does not mean we will not expand roads.  It simply means we will focus the next decade on the transit system, which has been neglected for decades.  All in all, I hope Mayor Villaraigosa will stand strong in making sure the 30/10 initiative stays a transit strategy and not just a grab bag to appease the road building lobby and other business interests that want to pave our way out of the Los Angeles transportation crisis.  Attempting to expand one road after another has been used in Los Angeles for decades and is fraught with peril.  It is time for us to take a fresh approach that will make Los Angeles a more transit-oriented city. 

Let’s use Los Angeles as an example because the American Trucking Associations generally has a disregard for the health and welfare of residents in Los Angeles.  One project in Los Angeles, the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement in the harbor area, will cost taxpayers more than $1 billion dollars.  The damage and need to replace this bridge was basically caused by one thing—the constant number of trucks that have rumbled over this bridge and made it deteriorate over the years.  You see, the environmental report for the Desmond project notes that trucks cause three times more damage to roads than passenger vehicles, yet it is those passengers that will foot the bill for trucking companies to have nicely paved roads and bridge.  Now, I wonder how much more of an impact a truck has on a road compared to a bike. 

At a recent meeting in Los Angeles, it came out that it would cost about $280 million to put in place all of the “shovel-ready” bike projects in the Los Angeles region.  Currently, transportation planners in the region want to spend more than $1 billion on the Desmond Bridge, $6.3 billion on the I-710 South project, which is designed to allow more and more trucks to go into the harbor in Los Angeles and Long Beach, and many more billions of dollars on infrastructure in the Los Angeles region geared towards subsidizing the trucking industry. Despite the predictions from lobbyists at the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Trucking Associations, I seriously doubt we will see some biking-induced economic apocalypse if our planners spend more dollars fixing and developing the desperately underfunded biking infrastructure in places like Los Angeles.    

Bill Graves has no facts to support his hyperbolic position, but instead the Virginia-based trucking lobbyist is simply evoking fear that bicycling may become a more effective means to travel in cities across the country.  As a multimodal commuter, I want effective bicycling infrastructure in my community, and trucking companies should want that too.  In fact, the Alaska Trucking Association had positive things to say about the Anchorage Bike Plan.  Also, we are talking peanuts when compared to the billions of dollars proposed to be spent on earmark projects to fix the problems on our roads caused by trucks.  I know it is hard for road builders and truck lobbyists to share the taxpayers’ transportation funds that they have spent so many billions of dollars lobbying for over the years in Washington, D.C. and states throughout the nation.  However, the day has come for a more responsible way to fund transportation where Ray LaHood, our Secretary of Transportation, and others will ask that not all the money be blindly spent on roads to fix damage caused by big trucks.  Will it help if Mr. LaHood says “please”?