coalition politics and the expansion of l.a.’s transit...

This case was written by David Luberoff, Lecturer on Sociology at Harvard University, for the project on “Transforming Urban Transport – the Role of Political Leadership,” at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), with financing from the Volvo Educational and Research Foundations (VREF). Alan Altshuler, Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard emeritus, provided counsel and editing assistance. The author is responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the information in the case, which does not necessarily reflect the views of VREF or GSD.

© 2016 The President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Coalition Politics and the Expansion of L.A.’s Transit System

By David Luberoff

Table of Contents

Overview ....................................................................................................... 1 Context: Developm ent and Transporta tion in Los Angeles .............................. 4 Getting the MTA Back on Track ..................................................................... 9 Crea ting a Winning Coa lition ........................................................................ 18 The Measure R Cam pa ign ............................................................................ 29 Im plem enting and Accelera ting the P lan ...................................................... 35 Endnotes ..................................................................................................... 41 Acknowledgem ents ...................................................................................... 48 Bib liography ................................................................................................ 48

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (center) celebrating the passage of Measure R in November 2008 with (from left to right): Tracy Rafter, Jerry Givens, Metro Board Member Richard Katz, Matt Raymond, Metro Board Member and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Assemblyman Mike Feuer, Denny Zane, David Fleming, and Terence O’Day.

Figure 1: Current and Under Construction Rail Lines in Los Angeles County (a s of Decem ber 2 0 1 5 )

Version: February 10, 2016

Overview “Dream with m e,” urged Antonio Villa ra igosa , the firs t La tino elected m ayor of

Los Angeles in m ore than a century, a t his s ta r-s tudded inaugura l in July 2005 . “Dream with m e of a Los Angeles where kids can wa lk to s chool in s a fety and where they receive an educa tion tha t gives them a genuine opportunity to pursue their own dream s . Dream with m e of a Los Angeles tha t is the lead ing econom ic and cultura l center in the world . As Venice was in the 15 th century, a s London was in the 1 9 th century, Los Angeles can and will be the grea t globa l city of our century.”1

Turning to specifics , the new m ayor ca lled for m aking neighborhoods sa fer by hiring m ore police officers and im proving the city’s s chools by overhauling the L.A. Unified School Dis trict . Then, he sa id :

I’d like to now turn to another m a tter tha t m ay not sound like the s tuff of d ream s , but is crit ica l if we a re to im prove the qua lity of life of our city’s res idents . And tha t’s tra ffic. The tim e we spend s tuck in tra ffic is t im e we do not spend help ing our kids with their hom ework or being p roductive a t work. So, Los Angeles , join m e in fighting for the inves tm ent in pub lic transporta tion tha t is the ha llm ark of any grea t city. Join m e in im plem enting the com m on sense tra ffic p lans tha t have been bottlenecked for too long. Join m e in trans form ing Los Angeles into a city tha t connects our com m unities and b rings us a ll closer together.2

Though he d id not cite it specifica lly in his inaugura l rem arks , he had m ade it clea r in the cam pa ign tha t a centerp iece of his vis ion for the city was cons truction of a “Subway to the Sea” connecting centra l Los Angeles with Santa Monica . Discussed for a t lea s t s evera l decades , this line would extend a 6 .4 -m ile long downtown subway built in the m id-1990s from the its current term inus a t Wilshire Bouleva rd and Wes tern Avenue, wes tward through severa l m a jor com m ercia l and res identia l a reas , m os t notab ly the following: the Miracle Mile, a s tretch of Wilshire Bouleva rd tha t includes severa l m a jor m useum s ; Beverly Hills ; Century City, a 176 -acre dense, m ixed use developm ent jus t south of Wilshire; Wes twood , hom e of UCLA and a m a jor hosp ita l; and Santa Monica .

This initia tive faced daunting financia l, polit ica l, and lega l obs tacles . It would a lm os t certa inly require increas ing taxes in Los Angeles County, a sp rawling jurisd iction with roughly ten m illion inhab itants , fewer than 40 percent of whom lived in the city of Los Angeles its elf. Moreover, s ta te law required tha t such an increase would require approva l by the voters of L.A. County in a referendum , and not jus t a m a jority but two-thirds of those voting on the ques tion.

The his tory of trans it in the region – where voters had approved sa les tax increases to fund trans it in both 1980 and 1990 – a s well a s the his tory of s im ila r referenda in other pa rts of the county, s trongly sugges ted tha t any such referendum proposa l would have to include m uch m ore than the Wilshire p roject a lone. Ra ther, it would have to include a geographica lly d ispersed package of s evera l long-d iscussed ra il lines ; a va riety of highway projects such a s im proved interchanges , new HOV lanes , and , in som e cases , new or widened genera l-

Coalition Politics and the Expansion of LA’s Transit System Page 2


purpose highways ; funds tha t the county’s 8 8 loca lit ies could use for loca l road and trans it im provem ents ; and m oney to support the buses used by the bulk of the region’s trans it riders . Moreover, m obilizing voter support would require build ing a b road-based coa lit ion includ ing not only loca l e lected officia ls but a lso leaders of bus ines s , labor, civic, and environm enta l groups throughout the county. It would a lso require a sophis tica ted and expens ive polit ica l cam pa ign.

His tory a lso sugges ted tha t getting such support would be extrem ely d ifficult . The two ea rlier referenda had jus t ba rely gotten the m a jority support then needed to becom e law. And in 1 9 9 8 , in the wake of cos t overruns and cons truction p rob lem s with ea rlier phases of the city’s subway line, m ore than two-thirds of the county’s voters had supported a referendum tha t banned the use of the s a les tax revenues genera ted by those two referenda to fund any new underground trans it p rojects . While polling sugges ted tha t the trans it agency’s im age was im proving and tha t there was growing concern about tra ffic conges tion throughout the county, Villa ra igosa and the m anagers of “Metro,” the county trans it agency, judged tha t the tim e was not ripe for another referenda . Ins tead they focused on continuing to rebuild Metro’s im age and on rem oving other obs tacles to the Wilshire subway, m os t notab ly a longs tand ing ban on us ing federa l trans it funds for tunneling in the a rea .

By m id 2007 , polling was beginning to sugges t tha t intens ifying pub lic concern about conges tion (which was am ong the wors t in the country3) and im proving res ident views of Metro m ight m ake it pos s ib le to get the needed two-thirds support, pa rticula rly if the m easure appea red on the ba llot in Novem ber 2008 when the P res identia l e lection was likely to p roduce an unusua lly la rge voter turnout by peop le m os t likely to support a tax increase for transporta tion. Convinced by the da ta , Metro’s leaders , s evera l key elected officia ls , and som e long-tim e activis ts with ties to the region’s environm enta l and labor groups began working together to develop such a m easure. Villa ra igosa initia lly was skep tica l but by m id 2 0 0 8 he cam e on boa rd and helped cra ft the fina l vers ion of wha t eventua lly cam e to be labeled “Measure R,” which ca lled for ra is ing the county’s s a les tax from 8 .25 to 8 .75 percent for 30 yea rs and for spend ing the approxim a tely $40 b illion p lanners es tim a ted the tax would ra ise during this period on a geographica lly and subs tantively d iverse a rray of p rojects and p rogram s . This package, which was approved by Metro’s Board in ea rly Augus t, included a lm os t $14 b illion for a dozen new ra il and bus rap id trans it lines (includ ing $ 4 b illion for the Wilshire subway, enough, p lanners p rojected , to extend the line to Wes twood); a lm os t $8 b illion for highway projects such a s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and interchange im provem ents ; about $8 b illion to support the county’s bus sys tem ; and a lm os t $ 6 b illion for a va riety of im provem ents to loca l s treets and intersections .

By m id 2007 , polling was beginning to sugges t tha t intens ifying pub lic concern about conges tion and im proving res ident views of Metro m ight m ake it pos s ib le to get the needed two-thirds support, pa rticula rly if the m easure appea red on the ba llot in Novem ber 2008 when the P res identia l e lection was likely to p roduce an unusua lly la rge voter turnout by peop le m os t like ly to support a tax increase for transporta tion. Convinced by the da ta , Metro’s leaders , s evera l



key elected officia ls , and som e long-tim e activis ts with ties to the region’s environm enta l and labor groups began working together to develop such a m easure. Villa ra igosa initia lly was skep tica l but by m id 2 0 0 8 he cam e on boa rd and helped cra ft the fina l vers ion of wha t eventua lly cam e to be labeled “Measure R,” which ca lled for ra is ing the county’s s a les tax from 8 .25 to 8 .75 percent for 30 yea rs and for spend ing the approxim a tely $40 b illion p lanners es tim a ted the tax would ra ise during this period on a geographica lly and subs tantively d iverse a rray of p rojects and p rogram s . This package, which was approved by Metro’s Board in ea rly Augus t, included a lm os t $ 14 b illion for a dozen new ra il and bus rap id trans it lines (includ ing $4 b illion for the Wilshire subway, enough, p lanners p rojected , to extend the line to Wes twood); a lm os t $8 b illion for highway projects such a s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and interchange im provem ents ; about $8 b illion to support the county’s bus sys tem ; and a lm os t $6 b illion for a va riety of im provem ents to loca l s treets and intersections . (See Figure 1 )

After m ounting succes s ful cam pa igns to get reca lcitrant s ta te and county legis la tors to approve m easures needed to put Measure R on the ba llot, backers turned to quickly m ounting a cam pa ign in support of Measure R. In a very short t im e, Villa ra igosa and a few other key officia ls – notab ly County Supervisor (and Metro Board m em ber) Zev Yaros lavsky, Metro Board Mem ber Richa rd Ka tz, and Sta te Assem blym an Mike Feuer – ra is ed a lm os t $4 m illion, m os t of it from a rela tively sm a ll group of rea l es ta te developers and p roperty owners , cons truction-rela ted firm s and unions , and civic leaders , to fund a sophis tica ted referendum cam pa ign in support of the m easure tha t was run by Villa ra igosa ’s own cam pa ign m anager. At the s am e tim e, form er Santa Monica Mayor Denny Zane, who had spea rheaded the efforts to get labor and environm enta l support for the m easure, continued to build up a b road-based coa lit ion in support of the m easure tha t included leaders of the region’s m a jor environm enta l, labor, bus ines s and civic organiza tions . In contra s t, only a handful of officia ls and entit ies opposed the m easure and opponents ra is ed a lm os t no m oney to cam pa ign aga ins t it .

Thanks to the concerted cam pa ign and the unusua lly high turnout the m easure pas sed with 67 .93 percent of the vote. With this vote, the county’s voters had voted to ra is e m ore than twice a s m uch m oney as any other loca l jurisd iction (or m etropolitan a rea ) s ince a t leas t 1990 , and had done so by a la rger m argin than any other m a jor transporta tion tax increase referendum , for any purpose, during tha t period .4 The succes s of Measure R is pa rticula rly s triking because Ca lifornia has long been a hotbed of voter res is tance to higher taxes , going back to the pas sage of P ropos ition 13 , a 1978 s ta tewide m easure tha t grea tly lim ited loca l p roperty taxes . Moreover, the Los Angeles region has long been known as an a rea with pa rticula rly fragm ented leadership and power on key civic is sues . As Feuer la ter noted :

This turned out to be every b it a s com plex, contentious , t im e consum ing, reward ing, and s ignificant a s I anticipa ted it m ight be when we firs t s ta rted ta lking [about wha t becam e Measure R]. … And this is am ong the bes t tes tam ents to the im portance of collabora tion in solving a b ig p rob lem , a s any legis la tive p rob lem I've been involved with. … There is not enough a ttention



pa id in litera ture about effective governance to the im portance of find ing pa rtners with whom to collabora te and lis tening ca refully to wha t they b ring to the tab le and then trying to coa lesce into a force tha t will b ring change. And this was a rea lly good exam ple of tha t.5

Since the m easure’s pas sage, Metro has m oved forward with the p rom ised p rojects , includ ing the firs t s ection of the Wilshire subway extens ion, which is now under cons truction. In Novem ber 2 0 1 2 , in an effort to further speed up cons truction, Metro and transporta tion supporters a sked voters to rem ove the 30 -yea r sunset p rovis ion on the sa les tax increase approved in 2008 , which would have a llowed Metro to is sue add itiona l bonds , with even longer m a turities , backed by the future revenues . Voters aga in s trongly supported tha t m easure but in the end it fa iled because it ga rnered 6 6 .1 1 percent of vote , jus t short of the two-thirds support required to becom e law. As of this writing, Metro is cons idering whether to m ount another referendum cam pa ign in 2016 . Moreover, leaders m any other m etropolitan a reas have looked to Los Angeles for les sons on how to build succes s ful coa lit ions in support of increased regiona l inves tm ents in transporta tion.

Context: Development and Transportation in Los Angeles The Los Angeles m etropolitan region, now the na tion’s s econd la rges t (a fter

New York), is a pa rticula rly cha llenging a rea to s erve with m ass trans it . On the one hand , the region is surpris ingly dense, with an average of jus t under 7 ,000 peop le/ square m ile of urbanized land in 2010 , a lm os t a third m ore than the New York region.6 This dens ity is sp read very widely, however. As Michael Manville and Dona ld Shoup have observed , “[the] New York and San Francisco urbanized areas look like Hong Kong surrounded by Phoenix, while the Los Angeles urbanized area looks like Los Angeles surrounded by . . . well, Los Angeles.”7

Jobs a re s im ila rly d ispersed in the region. Illus tra tively, of the 4 .5 m illion jobs loca ted within 35 m iles of Los Angeles ’ Centra l Bus ines s Dis trict (CBD) in 2006 , only 8 .2 percent were loca ted within 3 m iles of the CBD. Of the 4 5 US m etropolitan a reas tha t had m ore than 500 ,000 jobs , only Detroit’s CBD had a sm a ller sha re. Alm os t two-thirds of the jobs in the Los Angeles region were loca ted m ore than 1 0 m iles from the CBD, m ore than any other m a jor m etropolitan a rea excep t Detroit , Chicago, and Da lla s .8 However, the outlying jobs tend to be concentra ted in the region’s m any em ploym ent subcenters , which include severa l a reas in the Wilshire Bouleva rd corridor – such a s Century City, Wes twood , and Santa Monica – and severa l nodes outs ide of Los Angeles , such a s Long Beach, Glenda le, and Pasadena . In fact, a s of 2010 , m ore than three-qua rters of the jobs loca ted outs ide the CBD in Los Angeles were in Zip Codes tha t ranked in the top qua rtile na tiona lly for em ploym ent dens ity (a t leas t 1 ,330 jobs / squa re m ile). This was m ore than 20 percentage points higher than in any other m etropolitan a rea in the United Sta tes .9

The polycentric pa tterns m ean tha t a rela tively sm a ll sha re of the region’s res idents use trans it and those tha t do tend to use buses and a re poor.



Accord ing to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 , five-yea r Am erican Com m unity Survey (ACS), only about s ix percent of the approxim a tely 13 m illion res idents of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Sta tis tica l Area (MSA), which includes Los Angeles County, use trans it to get to work (and of these 90 percent travelled by bus ). In add ition, the m edian incom e of those who use trans it to get to work in the Los Angeles MSA was only 5 1 percent of the m edian incom e of those who drive a lone. The trans it sha re in the Los Angeles MSA was about one-s ixth of the trans it sha re in the New York City-a rea MSA and about ha lf the trans it sha re in the Chicago- and Bos ton-a rea MSAs . Moreover, les s than ha lf the com m uters in those m etro a reas used tra ins and there was lit t le d ifference between the m edian incom e of trans it users and those who drove a lone. On the other hand , only 1 .4 percent of the com m uters in the Da lla s / Fort Worth-a rea MSA used trans it , 7 1 percent of those trans it com m uters traveled by bus , and trans it users ’ m edian incom e was only 6 2 percent tha t of those who drove a lone. Moreover, in sha rp contra s t to m any other m etro a reas , the sha re of those us ing trans it to get to work in the Los Angeles region has rem a ined fa irly cons tant for s evera l decades .10

Transportation Policymaking in the Decentralized Region The region’s decentra lized developm ent pa tterns a re the result of decades of

deba te and decis ions about both land use and transporta tion. When the city began to grow in the decades a fter World War I, its leaders conscious ly chose to d iscourage high-dens ity developm ent, because, accord ing to his torian Robert Fogelson, they “as sum ed tha t the grea t [dense] city was no longer the m os t p leasant p lace for living or the m os t efficient loca tion for working. They p roposed a s an a lterna tive, res identia l d ispers ion and bus ines s decentra liza tion.”11 These growth pa tterns were facilita ted by a vas t network of p riva tely-owned but pub licly authorized s treetca r lines whose owners , m os t notab ly Henry Huntington, took the lead in develop ing the a reas s erved by those lines . By the m id-1920s , the em ergence of the autom obile began to speed up the p roces s of decentra liza tion, so m uch so tha t downtown bus ines s leaders unsuccess fully p roposed cons truction of an am bitious ra il sys tem focused on the city’s com m ercia l core. While those p roposa ls fa iled , the region m oved forward with an extens ive freeway sys tem , inita lly built with loca l and s ta te fund ing and la ter with fund ing from the federa l Inters ta te Highway program . The extens ive network of new highways helped fuel the region’s rap id and decentra lized growth a fter World War II. Although subsequent p lanning – notab ly the city’s m id-1970s “Centers P lans” – d id help p roduce denser developm ent downtown and in pa rts of the Wilshire corridor and other a reas , in the 1980s voters rejected s im ila r p lans for m any other pa rts of the city.12

The anti-highway backlash tha t sp read throughout Am erican urban a reas in the la te 1 9 6 0 s and ea rly 1 9 7 0 s s tym ied or s ta lled m os t efforts to further expand the region’s highway sys tem which saw its la s t m a jor expans ion in 1993 with the opening of the Century Freeway, a 1 9 -m ile highway from Norwa lk to El Segundo tha t had been the sub ject of a b itter court ba ttle in the 1970s tha t ended in 1979 with a groundbreaking consent decree es tab lishing an am bitious hous ing rep lacem ent p rogram , extens ive outreach to m inority and wom en-owned



contractors and workers , and cons truction of a trans it line in the highway’s m edian.13 Oppos ition to p lanned highways com bined with increased concerns about the environm ent spurred grea ter interes t in m ass trans it , pa rticula rly ra il trans it , which had been unab le to com pete with the convenience p rovided by autom obiles . In the pos t-World War II era , Los Angeles ’ p riva te trolley and bus opera tors were rep laced by pub lic entit ies and trolley service rap id ly contracted , culm ina ting in abandonm ent of the la s t line in 1963 . Throughout the 1 9 6 0 s and 1970s , the region’s two trans it entit ies (one cha rged with opera ting the bus sys tem , the other with develop ing a region-wide p lan tha t m ight include new ra il lines ) regula rly tried but fa iled to convince voters to ra is e s a les taxes to fund a county-wide ra il sys tem tha t would include subways in and nea r the center of Los Angeles and a s eries of light ra il lines connecting the county’s other m a jor cities with Los Angeles a s well. 14

Desp ite these defea ts , in the la te 1970s , one of the region’s trans it agencies was ab le to m ove forward with am bitious p lans for a downtown-oriented subway sys tem tha t would be funded m a inly by grants from the then-new federa l trans it p rogram with m a tching funds from the s ta te of Ca lifornia (d rawing on gas tax revenues ). The p roject, which was a top p riority for Tom Brad ley, who was m ayor of Los Angeles from 1 9 7 3 to 1 9 9 3 , ca lled for build ing a m a inline tunnel from Union Sta tion, a t the eas tern end of downtown Los Angeles , wes tward a long Wilshire Bouleva rd , the city’s m a in com m ercia l corridor before turning north to Hollywood (where p roperty owners hoped it would spur redevelopm ent) and continuing under the m ounta ins to North Hollywood in the San Fernando Va lley, hom e to a la rge num ber of the city’s res idents . P lanners and backers anticipa ted tha t a subsequent p roject would extend the subway a long Wilshire Bouleva rd to Wes twood while another p roject would extend the line eas t from Union Sta tion to la rgely m inority, lower-incom e neighborhoods on the city’s Eas ts ide. Work s ta rted on this p roject in the ea rly 1980s but in the m id 1980s its route was changed a fter Representa tive Henry Waxm an, a powerful Dem ocra t whose d is trict included m os t of the Wilshire corridor, s ecured pas sage of legis la tion banning the use of federa l funds to build a subway in the m id-Wilshire d is trict. The os tens ib le reason was concerns about potentia l exp los ions from underground pockets of m ethane gas in the corridor. In add ition, som e res idents and bus ines ses in the a rea opposed the subway, som e because they fea red it m ight b ring unwelcom e outs iders into the a rea while others fought it because they worried tha t the line m ight d rive up rents and force them out.15

Creating a Transit Coalition The his tory of fa iled referenda , a s well a s the succes s of referenda in other

loca les , m os t notab ly a succes s ful 1971 referendum in the Atlanta region, m ade it clea r tha t voters would m ore likely to approve a referendum tha t went beyond jus t fund ing new ra il lines and ins tead funded a va riety of transporta tion im provem ents . This p roved to be the tem pla te used to fina lly pas s a s a les tax increase for trans it in 1980 , and with som e m odifica tions it was used to pas s another increase in 1990 and , with further m odifica tions , to shape Measure R in 2008 .



Propos ition A, which pas sed in 1 9 8 0 , increased the sa les tax in the county by .5 percentage points and d ivided tha t m oney in three ways . Firs t , 3 5 percent of the m oney (about $ 2 1 0 m illion a yea r) was ded ica ted for capita l spend ing on a 180 -m ile, countywide ra il trans it sys tem in b road ly defined corridors throughout the county. (See Figure 2 )16 The second key fea ture was a “loca l return,” p rovis ion requiring tha t 25 percent of the m oney from the tax be d is tributed to the county’s 88 loca lit ies , which could use the m oney to enhance loca l bus services or to build facilit ies such a s pa rk-and-ride lots or trans it s ta tions .17 Fina lly, for the firs t three yea rs m os t of the rem a ining m oney was set a s ide to subs id ize a reduction in bus fa res , which had recently increased , from 50 cents to 85 cents . After tha t t im e, the Los Angeles County Transporta tion Com m iss ion (which oversaw trans it p lanning a t the tim e) could use the m oney for continued subs id ies , for ra il cons truction, or som e com bina tion of the two.

The m easure pas sed with a 5 4 -46 m argin, with the s tronges t support com ing from com m unities tha t would be served by the new ra il lines , includ ing Los Angeles where 61 percent of the voters backed it .18 The firs t ra il line funded by the m easure was the Blue Line, a light ra il line from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles tha t opened in 1990 . It was followed in 1995 by the Green Line, a light ra il line built in the m edian of the Century Freeway tha t runs close to (but not into) Los Angeles Interna tiona l Airport.

The reduced bus fa res spurred a subs tantia l increase in bus ridership , from 354 m illion boa rd ings in 1 9 8 2 to a lm os t 5 0 0 m illion in 1985 . Nevertheles s , in 1985 , the subs idy was curta iled to p rovide m ore m oney for ra il, the bus fa re was increased to 8 5 cents and bus ridership fell s tead ily over the

next s evera l yea rs before it p la teaued a t about 400 m illion boa rd ings a yea r in the la te 1980s and ea rly 1990s .19

In 1 9 9 0 , by a 5 0 .4 -to-49 .6 m argin, the county’s voters approved P ropos ition C, an add itiona l ha lf-cent s a le tax increase for transporta tion. About 4 0 percent of the approxim a tely $360 m illion a yea r tha t the new tax ra ised was to build or opera te ra il or bus lines ; 20 percent went to the county’s cities for loca l transporta tion p rojects ; 25 percent was set a s ide for trans it-rela ted highway im provem ents , such a s high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes ; 10 percent was set

Figure 2: Map Accompanying Proposition A



as ide for com m uter ra il and rela ted cons truction (e .g., pa rk-and-ride lots ); and the 5 percent was to finance expanded security on buses and tra ins .

Emerging Problems with Ambitious Plans Throughout the 1 9 8 0 s and ea rly 1 9 9 0 s , the region’s two trans it entit ies (the

Southern Ca lifornia Rap id Trans it Dis trict the Los Angeles County Transporta tion Com m iss ion) regula rly ba ttled over a va riety of is sues , includ ing whether d iscretiona ry funds should be used to further subs id ize the region’s bus sys tem or to p rovide m ore funds for the am bitious ra il p lan, which by the ea rly 1 9 9 0 s ca lled for spend ing $78 b illion over 30 yea rs to build over 400 m iles of ra il. Fina lly, in 1993 , the s ta te legis la ture pas sed a long-d iscussed m easure, ordering a m erger of the two entit ies into a new Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transporta tion Authority (MTA, known s ince the ea rly 2000s a s “Metro”) tha t would build and opera te the region’s trans it sys tem , pa rtia lly fund highway projects (includ ing trans it re la ted p rojects such a s HOV lanes ) tha t genera lly were built by Ca lTrans , the s ta te highway agency, and subs id ize loca l bus sys tem s in the county’s m a jor cities . The MTA is governed by 13 -m em ber boa rd tha t includes the county’s five supervisors (who a re elected by d is trict), the m ayor of Los Angeles and three peop le appointed by the m ayor, and four elected officia ls from the county’s other cities . This s tructure, observed Roger Snoble, who served a s the agency’s CEO from 2001 until 2 0 0 9 , ensured tha t “the polit ics on the boa rd a re a ll geographic” because each m em ber tries to ensure tha t his or her d is trict is getting its “fa ir sha re” of Metro’s spend ing.20

The new ins titutiona l s tructure d id not resolve the long-s tand ing d isputes , pa rticula rly because m a jor cos t overruns on ea rly p rojects intens ified the fight for resources . In 1 9 9 4 a fter the MTA’s boa rd voted to increase bus fa res , curta il a popula r m onthly pas s p rogram , and p rovide add itiona l fund ing for a p lanned light ra il line to Pasadena , s evera l advocacy groups filed a suit aga ins t the MTA in federa l court. The key p la intiff was the Bus Rider’s Union (BRU), an advocacy group tha t was pa rt of the city’s Labor/ Com m unity Stra tegy Center, a “m ultiracia l think-tank/ act-tank” tha t works to spur “rad ica l, s tructura l change.”21 Filed with the support of s evera l of the city’s polit ica l leaders , includ ing Villa ra igosa then a young labor leader who served a s an a lterna te m em ber of MTA’s boa rd , the suit contended tha t s ince bus riders were m uch m ore likely to be m inorities while ra il riders , pa rticula rly those us ing the new com m uter ra il lines , were m uch m ore likely to be white , the MTA was “intentiona lly d iscrim ina ting aga ins t racia l and ethnic m inority groups and perpetua ting a pa ttern of racia lly d iscrim ina tory delivery of transporta tion services .”22 After a lm os t two yea rs of wrangling, MTA’s boa rd – reported ly acting a t the urging of then Los Angeles Mayor Richa rd Riordan who was running for reelection – agreed to a consent decree settling the suit . As im plem ented , the decree, which d rew s ignificant a ttention from schola rs and activis ts interes ted in equity is sues , not only required tha t Metro reduce bus fa res but a lso tha t it spend a lm os t $1 b illion over the next decade to upgrade and expand its bus fleet.23

Cons truction p rob lem s – m os t notab ly a giant s inkhole tha t appea red on Hollywood Bouleva rd in July 1995 – further underm ined pub lic confidence in the



agency. Fina lly, in 1997 , acting on the recom m enda tions of then-CEO Julian Burke, a corpora te res tructuring expert b rought in to addres s the agency’s growing fis ca l p rob lem s , the MTA’s boa rd ha lted des ign work on severa l subway and light ra il lines (though it d id a llow cons truction work to continue on the subway to North Hollywood and on a short spur a long Wilshire Bouleva rd tha t was to be the s ta rt of the long-p lanned wes tern b ranch). And in 1 9 9 8 , by a m ore than 2 -to-1 m argin the county’s voters approved a referendum (proposed by County Supervisor and Metro Board Mem ber Yaros lavsky, a one-tim e subway supporter) banning the MTA from fund ing new subways with any sa les tax revenues genera ted by P ropos itions A or C.24

Getting the MTA Back on Track Over the next s evera l yea rs Burke and Metro’s Board were ab le s tab ilize the

agency’s finances and to s ta rt cons idering potentia l new inves tm ents tha t would help addres s increased highway conges tion in the county, which was continuing to grow a t a s teady pace. The BRU’s backers and m any of the region’s academ ics focused on transporta tion believed tha t the agency should focus on buses and tra ffic m anagem ent m easures and be wary of add itiona l ra il p lans (excep t perhaps in the Wilshire corridor where there was a ban on us ing federa l funds to build a subway). However, polit ica l and civic leaders in a hos t of the county’s loca lit ies succes s fully p res sed for p rojects in corridors where p revious p lans (and the m ap tha t accom panied the 1 9 8 0 referendum ) had p rom ised new ra il lines .

Mos t notab ly, supporters of the p roposed light ra il line to Pasadena had continued to p res s for tha t p roject . This effort was actively opposed by leaders of the Bus Riders Union but was supported by severa l key legis la tors , includ ing Villa ra igosa , their one-tim e a lly who had been elected to the Sta te Assem bly in 1994 and served a s the body’s speaker from 1998 to 2000 .25 In 1 9 9 8 , the legis la ture crea ted a new specia l authority to p lan and build the line with fund ing p rovided by the federa l governm ent, the s ta te governm ent, and the MTA (which was to opera te the line once it was built).

Officia lly ca lled the Gold Line, the p roject – which serves downtown Los Angeles , s evera l lower-incom e, la rgely La tino a reas northeas t of downtown, and m ore a ffluent and m ore racia lly and ethnica lly d iverse a reas in Pasadena and South Pasadena – opened in 2 0 0 3 . While it d rew rela tively m odes t ridership , its supporters p res sed for extend ing the line eas tward into the San Gabriel Va lley to the county line in Cla rem ont, a s had been ca lled for in the m aps tha t accom panied the 1980 trans it referendum .

In add ition, in 1 9 9 9 , a fter s evera l boa rd m em bers went to Curitiba , Brazil to view its Bus Rap id Trans it (BRT) sys tem , the MTA began p lanning for an approxim a tely 14 -m ile long, $325 m illion BRT project in the San Fernando Va lley on a form er freight ra il corridor where ea rlier p lans had ca lled for build ing a light ra il line. The BRT project, which was nam ed the Orange Line, opened in 2005 . It currently ca rries about 25 ,000 -to-30 ,000 pas sengers on an average weekday, which m akes it one of the na tion’s m os t heavily used BRT lines .



Figure 3: Annual Boardings on Metro’s Rail and Bus Lines26

In 2 0 0 1 , work a lso began on a s ix-m ile long light ra il line to la rgely La tino

neighborhoods on the Eas t Side of Los Angeles tha t was to be a rep lacem ent for the Eas ts ide subway tha t had been cancelled in 1 9 9 7 . This line, which was com pleted in 2009 , is pa rt of the Gold Line, which follows a U-shaped route connecting both Eas t Los Angeles and Pasadena with Union Sta tion in downtown Los Angeles . With its introduction, ridership on the Gold Line increased from s lightly m ore than 20 ,000 weekday boa rd ings in ea rly 2009 to m ore than 40 ,000 weekday boa rd ings in FY 2 0 1 5 .27 (See Figure 3 )

Prioritizing Projects With new projects on the boa rds and severa l m ore being serious ly d iscussed ,

Burke wanted to m ake sure tha t MTA’s Board d id not com m it to build ing p rojects tha t it could not a fford . A key vehicle in this effort was an upda ted vers ion of the agency’s Long Range Transporta tion P lan (LRTP), which deta iled its b road spend ing p lans for the next 25 yea rs . Unlike the 1995 LRTP, the new p lan m ade it clea r tha t the MTA faced s ignificant fis ca l cons tra ints . In pa rticula r, the p lan es tim a ted tha t while the MTA was expected to receive $106 .4 b illion in loca l,

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2014 Expo Line - - - - - 9.2 Orange Line - - - - 7.0 9.0 Green Line - - - 4.9 9.2 13.6 Gold Line - - - 4.9 9.2 13.6 Blue Line - 11.6 18.5 23.0 25.2 27.6 Red Line - 5.6 19.6 36.1 47.9 50.4 Contracted Bus - - 9.3 13.0 12.9 16.4 Metro Bus 408.4 336.6 353.8 361.4 346.0 336.0

0

50

100

150

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300

350

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500 Annual Boardings (m

illions)



s ta te and federa l funds over the next 25 yea rs , a lm os t 90 percent of tha t m oney was a lready com m itted either to opera tions or a lready approved cap ita l p rojects includ ing new buses , the Gold Line, and the firs t s ection of the “Expo” light ra il line from downtown wes t to Culver City in a form er freight corridor ad jacent to Expos ition Bouleva rd , about three m iles south of Wilshire Bouleva rd .

Only $11 .2 b illion was ava ilab le for new trans it or highways , s ignificantly les s than the m ore than $ 3 0 b illion tha t the agency’s p lanners had es tim a ted was “needed” to accom m oda te the region’s p rojected growth.28 Given this gap , the p lan included a “cons tra ined” lis t of add itiona l p rojects tha t could be funded and a “s tra tegic” lis t of p rojects tha t p lanners and the boa rd believed were needed but tha t could not be funded given exis ting revenue sources . The “cons tra ined” lis t a lloca ted about ha lf of the ava ilab le $11 .2 b illion to trans it , a lm os t a qua rter of it for buses and sm a ller am ounts for three long-d iscussed trans it p rojects : the second section of the Expo Line (from Culver City to Santa Monica ), a light ra il or BRT line a long Crenshaw Bouleva rd , which pas ses through severa l his torica lly African-Am erican neighborhoods in South Centra l Los Angeles and cities jus t south of Los Angeles ; and a north/ south busway in the San Fernando Va lley. The lis t of unfunded “s tra tegic” trans it p rojects included the wes tern extens ion of the Wilshire subway and the eas tward extens ion of the Gold Line pas t Pasadena . The p lan had lit t le d iscuss ion about how any of these p rojects m ight be funded , noting only in pas s ing tha t a regiona l fuel tax or em is s ion fee m ight genera te needed resources while a lso d iscouraging peak-period travel in s ingle-occupancy vehicles .29 Although inclus ion in the p lan d id not form a lly approve or appropria te funds for specific p rojects , it s till was very im portant because it m ade it genera lly m ade it clea r which p rojects were im m edia te p riorit ies , which were next in line to becom e priorit ies , and which were not likely to be s ta rted for m any yea rs . In fact, m any of the unfunded p rojects lis ted a s the agency’s “s tra tegic” p riorit ies in the 2001 p lan not only received s ignificant fund ing from Measure R, they a lso were scheduled to be am ong the firs t p rojects tha t would be built with m oney from tha t initia tive.

Rebuilding the Agency’s Reputation Not long a fter the p lan’s release, Burke s tepped down and was rep laced a s

CEO by Roger Snoble, a well-respected trans it m anager who cam e to Los Angeles from Da lla s where he had overseen cons truction of tha t city’s new light ra il sys tem . Snoble believed tha t ca refully chosen, well-des igned trans it p rojects not only had the potentia l to s erve travel pa tterns but could a lso reshape land uses . He was a ttracted to Los Angeles by the MTA’s s till-am bitious trans it p lans , which he thought offered an im portant and unique opportunity to reshape a m a jor m etropolitan a rea .

Snoble a lso believed tha t he needed to keep rebuild ing the agency’s reputa tion so tha t it would be in a better pos ition to get add itiona l resources it needed ca rry out its p lans . To do so, he pursued a five-pronged s tra tegy. Firs t , he focused on im proving its day-to-day opera tions , m os t notab ly by reorganizing m anagem ent of its bus sys tem to better focus on opera tiona l is sues . Second , he began to focus on opera ting cos ts , pa rticula rly for buses , which covered a rela tively sm a ll



sha re of their cos ts . Consequently, in a decis ion a llowed by the consent decree but opposed by the BRU, in May 2 0 0 3 , the agency’s boa rd voted to ra ise fa res , d is continue trans fers , and increase the cos t of m onthly pas ses .

Third , recognizing tha t the “Board had m ore things tha t they wanted to do than Metro could a fford ,” he continued Burke’s s tra tegy of identifying key p rojects and sequencing them in fis ca lly respons ib le ways . For the firs t s evera l yea rs , this m eant build ing p rojects tha t were approved or close to approva l a t the tim e of his a rriva l. Therea fter, he p riorit ized the Expos ition Bouleva rd line, where in response to a gras s roots lobbying cam pa ign, the agency’s boa rd decided to build a light ra il line ra ther than a BRT project, though only a fter the p revious ly approved ra il p rojects were com pleted . The agency a lso began introducing new services , such a s expres s buses on its bus ies t lines , includ ing Wilshire Bouleva rd , where buses , which som etim es ran every 9 0 seconds , were routinely caught in the s am e s low-m oving tra ffic tha t s tym ied everyone else.

Fourth, Snoble actively worked to rebuild support am ong key bus ines s and civic leaders , m os t notab ly by working with leaders of the Los Angeles Area Cham ber of Com m erce and the Autom obile Club of Southern Ca lifornia to crea te “Mobility 2 1 ,” a group tha t b rought together elected officia ls , transporta tion p roviders , bus ines ses , loca l m unicipa lit ies , labor and com m unity leaders to d iscuss and develop solutions to the transporta tion is sues facing the county.30 Fina lly, he grea tly expanded its com m unica tions and m arketing efforts , which were headed by Matt Raym ond , who cam e with Snoble from Da lla s . “Marketing is lea rning wha t the cus tom er wants ,” Snoble exp la ined . “… Anyone going into city p lanning should lea rn about m arketing.”31 A key pa rt of this effort was to rebrand the agency as “Metro” and to com m unica te a new vis ion via a vas tly expanded advertis ing budget, which reported ly went from $450 ,000 a yea r to $4 .5 m illion a yea r.32 In add ition, Raym ond worked to ensure tha t Metro’s va rious elem ents p resented a unified and com pelling m essage.

Whether or not a s a result of these efforts , Metro’s pub lic im age s ignificantly im proved over the next s evera l yea rs . Period ic polling done by Metro found the sha re of county res idents s aying tha t Metro “uses tax dolla rs wisely” ris ing from 42 percent in 2000 to 52 percent in 2002 and 58 percent in 2004 .33

There were other s igns of growing support a s well. In 2 0 0 3 , Sta te Sena tor Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), cha ir of the Sena te Transporta tion Com m ittee, p roposed a m easure authorizing Metro to put a 6½ -yea r, .5 percent increase in the sa les tax on the ba llot to fund a specific lis t of transporta tion im provem ents . (Such a law was needed because tota l taxes in Los Angeles County were a t s ta te-im posed lim its .) Murray’s b ill, which pas sed in fa ll 2003 , included 15 specific trans it and highway projects , a lm os t a ll of them drawn from the “s tra tegic” lis t in the 2 0 0 1 LRTP. In add ition, the m easure included fund ing for a long d iscussed “Regiona l Connector,” a p roject in downtown Los Angeles tha t would connect the Gold Line with both the Blue Line and the soon-to-be built Expos ition line. While this p roject had d rawn lit t le a ttention from elected officia ls or loca l bus ines s groups , it was s trongly backed by Metro’s p lanners who believed tha t by connecting the lines , the Regiona l Connector would have d ram atic effects on ridership and sys tem efficiency. Desp ite the b ill’s succes s in the legis la ture,



Metro’s boa rd and senior s ta ff d id not put a m easure on the ba llot, judging tha t it was unlikely to a ttract the two-thirds support tha t s ta te law now required to pas s such a tax increase. However, the b ill (includ ing the lis t of p rojects tha t it would fund) becam e the bas is for subsequent legis la tion needed to get Measure R on the ba llot.

Making Transit a Mayoral Priority Expanding the region’s ra il trans it sys tem was not a p riority for Jam es Hahn,

who had been elected m ayor in 2 0 0 1 by a 5 4 -46 m argin over Villa ra igosa . Ra ther, with federa l and s ta te a id in very short supp ly, Hahn once observed , “The ques tion is , ‘How do you squeeze capacity from wha t we’ve got?’”34 Consequently, his adm inis tra tion focused on sm a ller-sca le , city-led initia tives , such a s im proving tra ffic flow a t key intersections and exped iting pothole repa irs .

As the econom y im proved in the firs t pa rt of the decade, res idents becam e increas ingly concerned about conges tion. Los Angeles annua lly ranked firs t or s econd , it bea rs note, in the Texas Transporta tion Ins titute’s annua l ranking of U.S. m etropolitan a reas by conges tion severity.35 Polling done by The Los Angeles Times before the May 2 0 0 5 run-off m ayora l e lection, which fea tured a rem a tch between Hahn and Villa ra igosa , showed tha t 2 4 percent thought “tra ffic conges tion” should be the m ayor’s top p riority. Another 7 percent cited “road / s treet/ highway im provem ents” and 6 percent cited “pub lic transporta tion” a s their nom inees for top p riority, for a tota l of 37 percent s aying tha t a transporta tion ob jective should be the m ayor’s top p riority. In 2 0 0 1 only 1 8 percent had done so.36 Villa ra igosa , who preva iled in this cam pa ign by a 5 9 -41 m a jority over Hahn, s trongly advoca ted a m ore robus t trans it agenda pa rticula rly highlighting the long-dorm ant Wilshire subway line, which he dubbed “The Subway to the Sea .”

He la ter reca lled tha t the p roject was pa rt of a la rger vis ion he had , to m ake “L.A. the cleanes t green city in Am erica .” This vis ion, he s a id , was three-pronged . He wanted , firs t , “to m ove L.A. from its add iction to the s ingle-pas senger autom obile , and freeways , to a world -cla s s sys tem of buses , light ra il, busways , and subways where they m ade sense.” Second , he thought, “our absolute [p lanning] p riority should be [to] … crea te an elegant dens ity a round ra il and busway routes , and pa rticula rly a round s ta tions .” Third , he a sp ired to achieve s ignificant im provem ents in a ir qua lity.37

Villa ra igosa appointed Ja im e de la Vega , who had been Riordan’s transporta tion advisor, a s deputy m ayor for transporta tion is sues and m ade form er Assem blym an Richa rd Ka tz, author of the legis la tion crea ting Metro and a long-tim e leader in the San Fernando Va lley, one of his three appointees to Metro’s boa rd , where he would subsequently p lay a crit ica l behind-the-scenes role in shap ing Measure R. Moreover, unlike Hahn, Villa ra igosa becam e an active m em ber of the boa rd and a vis ib le pub lic advoca te for his transporta tion p riorit ies , above a ll the Wes ts ide subway. “The rap on m e,” he la ter observed , “is tha t I used the ‘bully pulp it’ and tha t I loved a cam era . But wha t the p res s rea lly doesn’t unders tand is tha t… without the ‘bully pulp it ,’ the Mayor rea lly isn’t anything.”38



The Wilshire Subway and the New Long Range Plan While Villa ra igosa was “announcing his p lans to do the Subway to the Sea ,”

David Ya le, who has overseen transporta tion p rogram m ing and long range financia l p lanning a t Metro for m any yea rs , rem em bered the agency’s financia l ana lys ts were saying “we can’t fit it in,” the agency’s long range fund ing p lan, “no way, no how.”39

A key firs t s tep in addres s ing this p rob lem was to rem ove the ban on us ing federa l fund ing for tunneling in the corridor. Working with Snoble and others a t Metro, Villa ra igosa and his appointees ram ped up nascent efforts to convince Waxm an to lift the ban on federa l fund ing for a subway in the Wilshire corridor. Waxm an agreed to have an expert “peer review” panel convened by the Am erican Public Transporta tion Associa tion review the is sue. After the panel reported tha t tunneling could be done sa fely in the corridor, he agreed to push for a rem ova l of the ban, which was fina lly done in legis la tion tha t pas sed in la te 2 0 0 7 .40

The next s tep was to m ake the Wilshire p roject a top p riority for fund ing in the agency’s upda ted Long Range Transporta tion P lan. Work on tha t p lan began in m id 2005 , not long a fter Villa ra igosa took office . Metro’s s ta ff began this p roces s by reviewing financia l and p roject cos t p rojections from the p resent to 2 0 3 0 . Initia l ana lyses , during the firs t ha lf of 2 0 0 6 , sugges ted tha t the fund ing p icture was cha llenging but m anageab le. On the opera ting s ide, s ta ff p rojected tha t Metro faced a $1 .5 b illion deficit tha t could be closed with severa l m easures , m os t notab ly fa re hikes .

On the cap ita l s ide, s ta ff es tim a ted tha t because of ris ing cos t es tim a tes for p lanned p rojects Metro would have no capacity to fund new projects until the ea rly 2020s when they p rojected Metro would have about $ 7 b illion ava ilab le to fund new trans it or highway projects .41 This was m ore than enough to fund the “Subway to the Sea” (a s fa r a s Wes twood), then es tim a ted to cos t about $ 4 .8 b illion (in 2 0 1 5 dolla rs ).42 However, com m itting such a la rge sha re of ava ilab le funds to one p roject clea rly would be polit ica lly cha llenging, pa rticula rly because the county was growing rap id ly – by a p rojected 2 4 percent (or 2 .4 m illion peop le), over the next 2 5 yea rs – and p rojected growth was fa s tes t in a reas fa r from the Wilshire Corridor.43 (See Figure 4 and Figure 5 )

Congestion Pricing: The Road Not Taken Given these p rojections , Metro’s p lanners warned tha t jus t build ing p rojects in

the 2 0 0 1 “cons tra ined” p lan would not im prove travel speeds in the region. Ra ther, they p red icted tha t even if a ll these p rojects in the cons tra ined p lan were built , average m orning peak-period speeds on the region’s freeways would d rop from 34 .4 m iles per hour to 22 .9 m ph. They added this was better than the 20 m ph peak-period freeway speeds tha t would occur if Metro d id not build any of the p rojects . 44

Meeting the travel needs of over 1 2 m illion peop le will require m ore than new infra s tructure. It requires changes in travel behavior. … Speeds could s ignificantly im prove and trans it ridership would double if sm art growth and p ricing s tra tegies were aggres s ively im plem ented .45



Figure 4

Figure 5



The p lanners a lso reported tha t the only way to sus ta in current peak-period travel speeds was for the county and s ta te to take the polit ica lly d ifficult s teps of im pos ing conges tion cha rges on the region’s highways and revis ing land-use policies so tha t loca lit ies had to d irect virtua lly a ll new growth to dense p rojects nea r trans it s ta tions . As they noted in a p resenta tion for the agency’s boa rd :

This a s sertion was cons is tent with severa l ana lyses done over the la s t two decades by the region’s p lanning and a ir qua lity agencies a s well a s by m any loca l s chola rs . Moreover, the policies had been actively d iscussed (both regiona lly and na tiona lly) by schola rs and policym akers and were s im ila r to those included in the officia l land-use p lan for the region developed by the Southern Ca lifornia Associa tion of Governm ents ’ (SCAG) in the ea rly 1990s .46 However, SCAG’s p roposa ls had never been adop ted , la rgely because they were very unpopula r with voters and the officia ls who represented them . Apparently judging tha t there s till was lit t le support for road p ricing and m ore s tringent land -use controls , Metro’s Board d id not s erious ly cons ider pushing for them . Consequently, the p roposa ls received lit t le pub lic a ttention. One notab le excep tion tha t s eem ed to confirm the Board’s judgm ent, was a Decem ber 2007 ed itoria l in The Los Angeles Daily News t it led “Double Jeopa rdy: Pay Twice for The Sam e Old Roads? No Thanks , Metro.”47

With the p ricing and land-use op tions off the tab le , the p lanners focused on the cos t and ridership p rojections for a hos t of potentia l p rojects . In the end , they developed a ranking sys tem tha t gave equa l weight to “project perform ance” (a s m easured by boa rd ings / m ile and annua l boa rd ings / m illion dolla rs in cap ita l cos ts ) and “corridor need” (a s m easured by dens ity, sha re of popula tion tha t was trans it dependent, m a jor activity centers / m ile , and current trans it use).48 The highes t s coring p roject was the $ 7 2 3 m illion Regiona l Connector, which p lanners es tim a ted would have 9 ,547 annua l boa rd ings per m illion dolla rs inves ted , s ignificantly m ore than any other p roject under cons idera tion. The next highes t-ranked p roject was the $2 .5 b illion Wes ts ide subway extens ion to Century City, which d id not do a s well on the boa rd ings / dolla rs m etric but d id very well on m os t of the other m etrics . Critics , who included the BRU and m any loca l transport s chola rs , contended tha t it would be fa r m ore cos t-effective in the Wilshire corridor to focus on enhanced bus s ervice. Snoble and others retorted tha t given the exis ting tra ffic conges tion in this corridor add itiona l bus service would be ineffective unles s Metro were to take the polit ica lly unpopula r (and p robab ly im poss ib le) ta sk of converting genera l-purpose lanes to reserved bus lanes .

Metro’s p lanners a lso found tha t the p roposed extens ion of the light ra il Gold Line from Pasadena through the San Gabriel Va lley to the county line was not pa rticula rly cos t-effective. However, the independent authority tha t had built the Gold Line to Pasadena d isagreed . Whereas Metro p rojected tha t p roject would cos t $2 .2 b illion, the Authority es tim a ted tha t it would cos t $1 .2 b illion. Both used the s am e ridership es tim a tes , but the cos t d ifferentia l m eant tha t the Authority p rojected 5 ,120 annua l boa rd ings / m illion dolla rs , where Metro es tim a ted jus t 2 ,8 5 5 . Metro’s p lanners added tha t even if the authority’s cos t es tim a tes were correct, the p roject should be low priority because it was loca ted



in a low-dens ity corridor with few trans it-dependent res idents or m a jor activity centers .49 Am ong its m any influentia l supporters , however, were severa l powerful federa l and s ta te legis la tors , who continued to actively p res s for it .

Since Metro is a lso cha rged with develop ing county highway p lans , the s ta ff a lso a s ses sed a va riety of highway and HOV projects . Of these, the highes t ranked was a long-d iscussed and heavily d isputed p roposa l to “close” a five-m ile gap in SR-710 , m os t of it in South Pasadena . P relim ina ry p lans , which had both a rdent supporters and adam ant opponents , ca lled for a tunnel under the res identia l neighborhoods in the “gap ,” (m os t of them in South Pasadena ) es tim a ted to cos t $2 .2 -$2 .8 b illion (ha lf from Metro; ha lf from tolls ). It was followed closely by a $161 m illion p lan to build HOV lanes on the I-605 highway in the San Gabriel Va lley.50

The Difficult Funding Puzzle Becomes More Complicated Over the next 18 m onths ris ing cos t es tim a tes for com m itted p rojects , p lus

som e reduced revenue p rojections , led Metro’s s ta ff to reduce its es tim a tes of future fund ing ava ilab ility. At the s am e tim e, there was increased pushback aga ins t s ta ff’s efforts to rank p rojects tha t had been on the 2001 lis t of s tra tegic but unfunded p rojects . Illus tra tively, in Augus t 2 007 , s ta ff es tim a ted tha t funds ava ilab le for new projects had shrunk to $ 4 .2 b illion from the $7 b illion p rojected two yea rs ea rlier. Moreover, recognizing the b read th of support for va rious p rojects beyond those they had highlighted for p riority two years ea rlier, the s ta ff’s p resenta tion to the Board no longer ranked the va rious potentia l p rojects . Ins tead , they p resented 13 geographica lly d iverse trans it and highway projects tha t they believed should be included in the new lis t of “Firs t P riority Stra tegic P rojects ,” to be funded if other resources becam e ava ilab le . The lis t included the Regiona l Connector and the Wes ts ide subway extens ion – but only for about four m iles to La Cienega Bouleva rd ra ther than seven m iles to Century City. It a lso included extend ing the Gold Line to the county line, which Snoble s a id , “was not m y highes t p riority” but was a p roject whose polit ica l support could not be ignored .51

The fund ing p icture becam e even b leaker in Janua ry 2 0 0 8 when Snoble and Carol Inge, Metro’s chief p lanning officer, inform ed the boa rd tha t due to a m odes t d rop in p rojected future revenues and a “s ignificant” increase in cons truction cos ts for a lready com m itted cap ita l p rojects , Metro would have to delay som e a lready-com m itted p rojects and could not undertake any new cap ita l p rojects before 2030 . Sum m ing up the s ta rk new rea lity, the s ta ff’s p resenta tion to the boa rd noted tha t while the p lan s till was an “am bitious p rogram of Countywide transporta tion im provem ents” tha t p reserved a ll of the p rojects in the 2001 LRTP’s baseline and the “cons tra ined” p roject lis ts : “It is not enough, however, to reach the level of m obility tha t this County requires . We m us t aggres s ively pursue new revenue sources [tha t] should accelera te the s chedule of funded Baseline p rojects … [and] be used to add new projects to the P lan.”52



Creating a Winning Coalition Even as the fund ing p icture continued to deteriora te , pub lic concerns about

conges tion continued to grow, a s d id pub lic support, a s ind ica ted in polls , for Metro. To a va riety of key actors – som e within Metro, som e on its boa rd , and others outs ide the agency – this convergence sugges ted an intriguing poss ib ility: tha t contra ry to conventiona l wisdom , perhaps it m ight be feas ib le to persuade two-thirds of the county’s voters to approve a tax increase for new transporta tion im provem ents . If so, the idea l t im ing for such a referendum was a lm os t certa inly Novem ber 2008 , when the p res identia l e lection would p roduce a surge in voter turnout, pa rticula rly am ong the lower-incom e and m inority voters who polling and experience ind ica ted were m os t well-d isposed toward trans it and m os t open to tax increases for it .

This m eant tha t key decis ions about exactly wha t to p ropose, and key actions to organize a polit ica l cam pa ign, had to be taken by m id-sum m er a t the la tes t . The m os t p rom inent loca l e lected officia ls , m os t notab ly Villa ra igosa and Yaros lavsky, were unwilling to com m it until m ore evidence accum ula ted tha t succes s was within reach. Consequently, a va riety of other actors , both ins ide and outs ide Metro, took the initia l lead .

Externa lly, the m os t s ignificant developm ent was the crea tion of Move LA, a b road-based coa lit ion of environm enta l, labor, and bus ines s leaders who supported increased spend ing on trans it . The group’s roots went back to ea rly 2007 when Denny Zane, a form er m ayor of Santa Monica , and Terence O’Day, a longtim e environm enta l activis t , had crea ted a “Subway to the Sea Coa lition” on beha lf of the Wes ts ide subway project. Metro officia ls responded tha t, in their view, new fund ing could not be ob ta ined for any s ingle p roject a lone, but only for a regiona l, b road ly d ivers ified set of p rojects and p rogram s . Zane reca lls tha t he was unconvinced until he m et with J im Thom as , a m a jor developer and p roperty owner who, Zane sa id , is “revered in the bus ines s com m unity.” Accord ing to Zane, Thom as “sa id : he thought wha t we were doing was rea l im portant but tha t we were too focused on the subway. The only way you get a two-thirds [county-wide] vote is if a ll pa rts of the county think it 's im portant.”53

Additiona lly, Zane and his colleagues rea lized , a tax-increase ba llot m easure would only have a chance if it had s trong support from key labor, bus ines s , and environm enta l leaders and organiza tions . Drawing on their connections , Zane and O’Day invited about 35 such leaders to a m eeting in fa ll 2 007 – m any of whom , Zane sa id , “had never been in the s am e room before”54 – to d iscuss whether such a referendum m ade sense and , if so, how to jum ps ta rt efforts to get it on the ba llot. Every entity but one accep ted their invita tion, and the group agreed to hos t a m a jor pub lic event a im ed a t persuad ing key officia ls (such a s Villa ra igosa ), who would be invited to speak, tha t key cons tituencies would actively support a well-des igned m easure.

The event, which was held Janua ry 2 0 0 8 a t the Ca thedra l of Our Lady of the Angels , s ea t of the Archd iocese of Los Angeles , d rew m ore than 300 peop le . Speakers included John Fa irbank, a polls ter whose firm regula rly d id work for Metro, who reported tha t in a Novem ber 2007 poll 60 percent of respondents had expres sed “initia l” support for a ba llot m easure and 69 percent had expres sed



support a fter hea ring a b rief s ta tem ent on wha t the m easure m ight fund and why it was needed . “We’re even getting Republicans to support this ,” he noted . “Tra ffic is a t such a frus tra ting level.”55

The focus on the sa les tax, which is regres s ive, was not accidenta l. Ra ther, Snoble s a id , a t Metro’s reques t, Fa irbank’s firm had “tes ted a ll the poss ib le revenue sources ,” and found tha t a ll m a jor ca tegories of voters , includ ing those with lower incom es , clea rly p referred the sa les tax to other p laus ib le op tions , m os t com m only because “it doesn’t feel like you’re being punished and it’s sha red by everybody.”56 Zane echoed this find ing, noting: “The is sue was winab ility … and the only op tion tha t cam e close was the sa les tax.”57

Overa ll, reca lled Zane, “the na ture of the d iscuss ion … the b read th and s ignificance of the leadership in the room , and the excep tiona l cla rity of d irection tha t em erged was rem arkab le.”58 Consequently, the m eeting’s organizers officia lly launched Move LA, a group tha t would help develop and , hopefully support, a transporta tion fund ing m easure tha t would go on the ba llot in Novem ber. Zane becam e executive d irector of the group , which was funded by severa l a rea founda tions , labor unions , and bus ines ses 59

However, Villa ra igosa , who was p repa ring to run for reelection in 2 0 0 9 (and who was in the m ids t of another tax-rela ted referendum cam pa ign), was not yet ready to com m it. Nor was Yaros lavsky, who told a ttendees a t the m eeting: “I’m a cynic by design. I’m skeptical you can get 66 2/3 [percent of the vote] during a recession.”60 On the other hand, Metro Board chair Pam O’Connor, who was also mayor of Santa Monica, did advocate proceeding to a referendum. And State Assemblyman Mike Feuer, who represented West Side communities and parts of the San Fernando Valley, began working with Metro Board members and senior staff to draft state authorizing legislation for a November referendum.

Laying the Groundwork Throughout the la tter pa rt of 2007 , Snoble reca lled , Raym ond , Metro’s chief

m arketing and com m unica tions officer, and Fa irbank, Metro’s polls ter, kep t m eeting with him “saying ‘we can do this .’” Fina lly, som etim e in la te 2007 , Snoble reca lled , “I s a id , ‘we’re close. Let’s s ta rt trying to s ell peop le on this .’”61

The firs t s tep was to ob ta in s ta te authorizing legis la tion. In Februa ry, Assem blym an Feuer introduced a b ill a llowing Metro to p ropose a referendum tha t would increase the county sa les tax by 0 .5 percentage points for a period of 30 yea rs to finance m ass trans it and highway expenditures , both cap ita l and opera ting. (Technica lly, Feuer’s b ill am ended the 2 0 0 3 law tha t had given Metro authority to p ropose a 6 .5 -yea r. 0 .5 percentage point tax increase). Metro’s s ta ff p rojected tha t, if adop ted , this increase would genera te $35 -to-$40 b illion over its 30 yea r term . As required by s ta te law, Feuer’s b ill required tha t Metro’s reques t had to include a deta iled spend ing p lan and m ade it clea r tha t Metro had to fund a ll the p rojects lis ted in the 2003 law a t levels a t lea s t equa l to wha t they would have received under tha t law.

In March, Metro released a d ra ft of its revised LRTP for com m ent. The docum ent included a “s tra tegic” lis t of p rojects tha t m ight be funded if add itiona l funds becam e ava ilab le , but d id not rank them by m erit . In an effort to b roaden



the d iscuss ion beyond those who typ ica lly com m ent on d ra ft p lans , Raym ond conceived and spea rheaded an innova tive “Im agine” cam pa ign, which sought not only to m arket the LRTP vis ion but a lso a t ob ta in citizen views on wha t a better transporta tion future m ight look like. The effort d rew a lm os t 7 0 ,0 0 0 responses on Metro’s webs ite . Snoble and m os t others a t Metro believe tha t this initia tive p layed an im portant role in genera ting pub lic interes t and support. In add ition, Snoble m a inta ined an active speaking schedule; he m et with the ed itoria l boa rds of the region’s newspapers , includ ing those with sub-regiona l foci; and he m et regula rly with key interes t group and op inion leaders , usua lly joined by Raym ond and som etim es by Metro’s polls ters . He found increas ingly favorab le responses to the idea of a fa ll referendum cam pa ign.

In April the Metro Board , led by Cha irm an O’Connor, d irected Metro’s s ta ff to p repa re for its next m eeting, in June, “a com prehens ive package of p rojects and p rogram s” tha t could be funded by a 3 0 -yea r, .5 percent increase in the sa les tax. The Board’s d irective added tha t this package “would include m oving up” the cons truction schedules for p rojects currently in the Cons tra ined portion of the d ra ft LRTP and fund ing “the highes t-perform ing p rojects” in the currently unfunded portion of the d ra ft LRTP Stra tegic p lan. In add ition, the Board d irected the s ta ff to p rovide it in June with a d ra ft ba llot m easure and an exp lana tion of wha t would be required to get it on the Novem ber ba llot.62

Throughout this t im e, Move LA and others were b ringing together key cons tituency groups to p rovide subs tantive and politica l feedback on the em erging fund ing p lans . Mos t notab ly, Move LA, the polit ica lly powerful Los Angeles County Federa tion of Labor, and the Los Angeles -Orange County Build ing and Cons truction Trades Council co-convened a Labor Transporta tion Working Group tha t m et every few weeks , usua lly a t the federa tion’s offices . At the m eetings , representa tives of about 12 -to-15 cons truction-rela ted unions genera lly were joined by Zane, Metro Board Mem ber Richa rd Ka tz; Ja im e De La Vega , the city’s deputy m ayor for transporta tion; and key Metro s ta ff m em bers . Accord ing to Zane, who genera lly ran the m eetings , “the goa l … was to m ake sure tha t the m easure under d iscuss ion would have [the unions ’] full support.”63

Move LA a lso convened an Environm enta l/ Trans it Advoca tes Working Group tha t m et every few weeks a t the offices of Environm ent Now, a loca l environm enta l group . Attendees – who usua lly included leaders of the loca l chap ter of the Na tura l Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club , the Coa lition for Clean Air, the Trans it Coa lit ion, Southern Ca lifornia Trans it Advoca tes and others – usua lly were joined by Zane, Ka tz, De La Vega , and Metro s ta ff, who would b rief them about the s ta tus of the d iscuss ion and get feedback or ob jections . Zane, who a lso ran these m eetings , la ter reca lled , “Genera lly we were a ll happy because the m easure was so heavily trans it focused .” However, he sa id , NRDC ultim a tely d id not support the fina l m easure because (a s is d is cussed below) it included fund ing for the SR-710 tunnel p roject.64 In add ition, the Los Angeles Area Cham ber of Com m erce, which had helped found Mobility 2 1 , a lso convened m eetings of bus ines s leaders and others about the em erging p lan tha t Zane and other Move 2 1 leaders were invited to a ttend . Reca lling these and other



efforts by Zane and Move LA, Snoble la ter noted : “Denny Zane getting into the m ix was a huge boon for us .”65

Desp ite this growing support Villa ra igosa continued to hold back. Yaros lavsky, who was s im ila rly keep ing his op tions open, la ter reca lled tha t they were both unwilling to join in this effort unles s reasonab ly confident of victory. In la te sp ring, though, Villa ra igosa had his own polls ters conduct a survey which, like sepa ra te polls a t the tim e done for both Move LA and Metro, found about 70 percent of the voters expres s ing support for language sum m arizing the p roposed ba llot m easure. These find ings b rought both Villa ra igosa and Yaros lavsky into the fold . Jus t before the Metro’s Board’s June m eeting Villa ra igosa , who was about to becom e cha ir of the Metro Board , told Los Angeles Times transporta tion reporter Steve Hym on, “I’d like to get a s a les -tax initia tive on the ba llot. We have to build a consensus on tha t firs t . I’m working on tha t a s we speak.”66

Assessing Voter Support A poll done for Metro in June 2 0 0 8 found tha t a fter hea ring about the p rojects

and p rogram s tha t m ight be funded by the tax increase, a s well a s a rgum ents for and aga ins t, 66 percent of those surveyed sa id they would support the m easure . Support was s tronges t in the Wes ts ide com m unities , Centra l Los Angeles , and the San Gabriel Va lley where the m easure d rew m ore than 70 percent support. Support was weakes t in the les s dense and polit ica lly m ore conserva tive Santa Cla rita and Antelope Va lley a reas of northern Los Angeles County where jus t fewer than 60 percent were favorab le.67

Build ing on ea rlier polling and focus groups showing tha t peop le were pa rticula rly interes ted in “loca l” p rojects tha t d irectly a ffected them , the new poll a lso a s ses sed which policies and p rojects were especia lly popula r within the county’s va rious sub-regions . More than 75 percent of those polled in the Wes ts ide, Centra l Los Angeles , and the South Bay, s a id they were “m ore likely” to vote for a tax increase if it resulted in “ded ica ting m illions of dolla rs to every com m unity” in the subregion “to fund such loca l tra ffic relief p rojects a s synchronizing tra ffic s igna ls , add ing left-turn lanes , fixing potholes , and im proving sa fety a t key intersections ,” a s d id m ore than 70 percent of those polled in the San Fernando Va lley. No other policy or approach topped the 7 5 percent threshold , but s evera l were over 70 percent. These included expanding regiona l and neighborhood bus services in the Wes ts ide, Centra l Los Angeles , and the San Gabriel Va lley, a s well a s specific highway and ca rpool p rojects in the San Fernando Va lley and in the San Gabriel Va lley. Only two ra il trans it p rojects topped the 70 percent m argin within a subregion: extend ing the Gold Line beyond Pasadena in the San Gabriel Va lley and , in the South Bay, extend ing the Green Line to the a irport. No policy or p roject topped 70 percent in the les s dense and polit ica lly m ore conserva tive Santa Cla rita and Antelope Va lley a reas of northern Los Angeles County.68

Dividing Up the Money At Metro’s June boa rd m eeting, the s ta ff a lso p resented a d ra ft spend ing p lan,

cra fted to reflect both technica l p lanning criteria and voter concerns . As Snoble



la ter put it , “everybody had to have their s lice of the p ie ,”69 while Richa rd Ka tz, a Villa ra igosa appointee on the boa rd who p layed a m a jor role in develop ing the package noted : “We tried to do it on m erit but you can’t a lways do it on m erit .”70 The d ra ft p lan ca lled for a lloca ting the new funds a s follows :

• 40 percent for new Metro ra il and / or BRT projects ;

• 20 percent to be d is tributed to loca lit ies for a m ix of trans it , s treet, b ikeway and pedes trian p rojects ;

• 15 percent to expand and opera te Metro bus services (though the m oney could be reprogram m ed for ra il opera tions )

• 15 percent for highway projects such a s widening, interchange im provem ents , and build ing HOV lanes ;

• 5 percent for com m uter ra il inves tm ent and opera tions ; and

• 5 percent for the opera tion and m a intenance of new ra il lines .71

The d ra ft p lan a lso p rovided s ignificant fund ing for five m a jor new ra il or BRT projects tha t would be s ta rted in the next decade: $4 .1 b illion for the Wilshire p roject (enough to extend the line to Wes twood); $1 .4 b illion for the Crenshaw corridor p roject; $958 m illion for the Regiona l Connector;72 $566 m illion for the extens ion of the Gold Line from Pasadena to Azusa (not, a s p roject backers hoped , a ll the way to Cla rem ont); and $250 m illion for two BRT projects in the San Fernando Va lley. In la ter yea rs , the p lan ca lled for spend ing $2 .8 b illion on four add itiona l p rojects : $ 1 .3 b illion to extend the Eas ts ide Gold Line to Whittier; $1 b illion for a light ra il line or BRT project in the Sepulveda Pass in the m ounta ins tha t s epa ra te the San Fernando Va lley from the Wes ts ide; $200 m illion to connect the Green Line with the a irport and $280 m illion to extend the Green Line south of its current term inus in Redondo Beach. The p lan a lso ca lled for s etting a s ide $6 .1 b illion in new sa les tax revenue a s a contingency fund to cover infla tiona ry and other cos t increases . This was im portant because the spend ing p lan’s revenue es tim a tes were in nom ina l (esca la ted) dolla rs while its es tim a tes of the trans it p rojects ’ cos ts were in uninfla ted 2 0 0 8 dolla rs .73

The p lan for highways – which would be ca rried out by Ca lTrans with pa rtia l fund ing from Metro – was m uch les s specific. It s ta ted m erely tha t virtua lly a ll of the $ 6 b illion in funds for highways would be used for “m a jor highway im provem ents (m a tching funds required),” and it included a lis t of p rojects tha t m ight be pa rtia lly funded from the new sa les tax revenue. Of these, by fa r the la rges t was the SR-710 tunnel p roject. Metro a lso p roposed tha t the ba llot language p rovide for the es tab lishm ent of an independent taxpayer overs ight com m ittee to regula rly review and aud it Metro spend ing, som ething polls ters had found would increase voter support for the p roposed tax increase.

The p roposa l was well received by m any key cons tituencies . Notab ly, in June, LA County Federa tion of Labor Executive Secreta ry-Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo, cons idered by som e the m os t influentia l figure in Los Angeles polit ics ,74 hos ted a joint m eeting of the labor, environm enta l, and bus ines s working groups tha t had been m eeting to d iscuss the em erging fund ing p lan. After the m eeting, Zane



reported : “We found tha t peop le rea lly [unders tood] the p rob lem . The judgm ent for the sa les tax ranged from s trongly supportive to ‘We will support this if we like the fina l language.’ Nobody sa id anything d iscouraging. Tha t was very good news .”75

Desp ite the extens ive outreach, support was by no m eans universa l. The BRU, with support from bus em ployee unions , focused on the a lloca tion of fa r m ore m oney to ra il than bus im provem ents and opera tions . The Autom obile Club of Southern Ca lifornia thought tha t highways were short-changed . This was of pa rticula r concern not only because approxim a tely ha lf the households in the county belonged to the organiza tion but a lso because severa l key bus ines s groups often looked to it for guidance on transporta tion is sues . In add ition, backers of the Pasadena Gold Line extens ion were angered by the decis ion to extend the line only a s fa r a s Azusa , and som e officia ls from the “Ga teway Cities” in the southeas tern portion of the county sa id they would oppose the tax if it d id not fund enough projects in their com m unities . Moreover, Sta te Sena tor Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach) ind ica ted she would hold up the b ill a llowing the referendum to p roceed unles s the m easure p rovided ea rlier and gua ranteed fund ing to connect the Green Line with the a irport. Sim ila rly, Sta te Sena tor Gil Ced illo, whose d is trict included South Pasadena , p ledged to hold up the b ill unles s it p rovided gua ranteed fund ing for the SR-710 tunnel p roject.76

Desp ite these ob jections , Metro’s boa rd voted 9 -2 to p roceed toward a Novem ber sa les tax referendum , ins tructing its s ta ff to p repa re a fina l p roposa l for its July m eeting. Sum m ing up the s ta te of a ffa irs , The Los Angeles Times’ Steve Hym on, whose a rticles and b log pos tings had becom e an inva luab le source of inform a tion for everyone interes ted in transporta tion, wrote: “There’s t im e for the whole thing to fa ll apa rt” because “this is Los Angeles County and there’s tons of polit ics involved .”77

Honing the Plan Over the following m onth, key m em bers of Metro’s boa rd , s enior s ta ff and a

va riety of civic leaders m odified the d ra ft p lan to addres s a s m any of the ob jections a s poss ib le . In response to concerns expres sed by the autom obile club and others , the p lan increased the sha re of fund ing for highway projects from 15 to 20 percent. Responding to concerns expres sed by the BRU and the bus workers ’ unions , it ra is ed the sha re of funds set a s ide for bus service im provem ents and opera tions from 15 to 20 percent and elim ina ted the p rovis ion a llowing som e of tha t m oney to be used in the ea rly yea rs for ra il. (See Tab le 1 ) The boa rd a lso adop ted a m otion by Villa ra igosa to delay the p lanned bus fa re increase for one yea r and to freeze fa res for s eniors , s tudents , d isab led persons , and Medica id users for five yea rs .

To fund the increased spend ing on highways and buses , the revised p lan ca lled for reducing “loca l return” from 20 to 15 percent. In add ition, it reduced the fund ing for new ra il trans it p rojects from 4 0 to 3 5 percent of the funds , a cut of m ore than $ 2 b illion over the p rojected 3 0 -yea r life of the sa les tax increase. Moreover, based on negotia tions and further ana lyses , the revised p lan added $1 .5 b illion for s evera l cap ita l p rojects . In response to concerns about



geographic equity expres sed by representa tives of Ga teway Cities , the new p lan included $240 m illion for an undefined p roject tha t would run in a form er ra il freight corridor from the Ga teway Cities to Union Sta tion. It added $150 m illion to fund the purchase of clean fuel buses , which polling had shown to be a pa rticula r favorite with voters . And in an a ttem pt to respond to Oropeza ’s concerns , the revised p lan ca lled for build ing the Green Line a irport connector ea rlier than had been p rojected in the initia l p lan.

Table 1: Programs to Be Funded by Measure R78

Program % of Sales Tax (net of administration)

30-‐year amount (m illions )

New Rail and/or Bus Rapid Transit Capital Projects -‐ project definition depends on final environmental review process

35% $13,790

Metrolink Capital Improvements (Operations, Maintenance, and Expansion) 3% $1,182

Metro Rail Capital -‐ System Improvements, Rail Yards, and Rail Cars 2% $788

Carpool Lanes, Highways, Goods Movement, Grade Separations, and Soundwalls 20% $7,880

Rail Operations (New Transit Project Operations and Maintenance) 5% $1,970

Bus Operations (Countywide Bus Service Operations, Maintenance, and Expansion) 20% $7,880 Major street resurfacing, rehabilitation and reconstruction; pothole repair; left turn signals; bikeways; pedestrian improvements; streetscapes; signal synchronization; and transit

15% $5,910

Total Programs $39,400 1.5% for administration $600

Grand Total $40,000 Adding p rojects while reducing the tota l am ount of p rojected revenue for

trans it crea ted wha t Snoble ca lled a “Sudoku fund ing puzzle” tha t had to be solved if the referendum was going to p roceed . David Ya le, the senior Metro executive officer respons ib le for long-term fis ca l p lanning, took the lead in resolving this puzzle, ultim a tely p roducing a revised financia l p lan tha t reduced the s et-a s ide of Measure R revenues for contingencies , includ ing infla tion, from $6 .1 b illion to $3 .3 b illion. The new p lan a lso cut the a lloca tion for the Regiona l Connector from $958 m illion to $160 m illion. It anticipa ted tha t the Regiona l Connector shortfa ll p rim arily would be closed by rea lloca ting funds other than the sa les tax tha t had p revious ly been reserved for the Expos ition Corridor p roject (which was s la ted to receive m ore m oney from the new sa les tax) and by securing federa l grants . Ya le and Metro’s legis la tive s ta ff believed the Regiona l Connector



was a pa rticula rly s trong cand ida te for federa l fund ing because it s cored very well in rela tion to the Federa l Trans it Adm inis tra tion’s criteria .79

While these changes won over som e crit ics of the June p lan, such a s the auto club , the BRU (whose leaders declined to be interviewed for this case s tudy) continued to oppose the m easure, which they felt p rovided too m uch m oney for ra il and road p rojects and not enough for buses . Ka tz, who had known BRU’s leaders for yea rs , reca lled tha t he told them :

You can't a lways be aga ins t everything. … You d im inish your power if you jus t s ay, “no” a ll the tim e.” … And they would say, “Well, we 're s till going ahead . … We have a cons tituency. We have a p rogram . We’re going to run it this way. Tha t 's where we a re.” … They were voca l and they were loud . They som etim es seem ed like they were m ore interes ted in getting p res s and a ttention than in solving p rob lem s .80

Where the June p lan had been vague about which road p rojects would be funded , the revised p lan now lis ted 16 specific p rojects m os t of them in pa rts of the county tha t were not going to be served by new ra il lines . Together, these p rojects would receive $7 .9 b illion in new sa les tax revenue, supp lem enting roughly $14 b illion p lanners believed would com e from other sources (m a inly federa l and s ta te). Sum m ing up the overa ll s tra tegy, Villa ra igosa exp la ined , “Outs ide of the city, they wanted m ore loca l m oney, and m ore im portantly, highway m oney. Within the City, we wanted m ore pub lic trans it . So we fa shioned it a long those lines .”81

The fund ing lis t included severa l short-term projects , m os t of them required by the 2 0 0 3 law authorizing a shorter-term sa les tax, such a s $400 m illion toward the $ 1 .1 b illion “Alam eda Corridor Eas t” p roject tha t was intended to a llevia te tra ffic in the conges ted ra il freight corridor running from the busy ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through the San Gabriel Va lley.

The p lan a lso p rovided s ignificant fund ing for s evera l other m a jor highway projects , m any of them s till a t very ea rly s tages in their p lanning. These included $780 m illion to pa rtia lly fund the m ultib illion dolla r SR-710 tunnel between the cities of Alham bra and Pasadena in the San Gabriel Va lley. In response to concerns about geographic equity, the p lan now included $ 1 7 0 m illion for “highway opera tiona l im provem ents” in the Arroyo Verdugo sub-region between the San Gabriel and San Fernando Va lleys and $ 1 7 5 m illion for s im ila r im provem ents in the Las Virgenes / Malibu sub-region, which includes cities a long SR-101 a t the fa r wes tern end of the San Fernando Va lley a s well a s Malibu on the Pacific Ocean. (See Figure 6 )



Figure 6



The Board Decides The new p lan won over som e but not a ll of those who had ques tioned the June

d ra ft spend ing p lan. Critics included County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, a fis ca lly conserva tive Republican from the northern pa rt of the county, who cha rged tha t even with the changes :

This m easure d isenfranchises County voters and does not return their tax dolla rs in an equitab le m anner to inves t in needed transporta tion infra s tructure.

The Antelope and Santa Cla rita Va lleys will get 5 percent of new project fund ing, but this sub-region will expand to 11 percent of the County’s popula tion in the next 30 yea rs . The San Fernando Va lley represents a lm os t 15 percent of the County popula tion, but a t m os t it will receive 5 percent of the p roject funds , with two-thirds of tha t m oney tied up in a m ythica l 4 0 5 trans it connector. The San Gabriel Va lley and Ga teway Cities will be shortchanged hundreds of m illions of dolla rs in this p roposa l. Meanwhile the Wes ts ide Cities will receive 9 percent of the fund ing with only 2 percent of the County’s popula tion.82

On the other hand Brendan Huffm an, p res ident of the San Fernando Va lley’s influentia l Va lley Indus try and Com m erce Associa tion, observed : “Beggars can’t be choosers…. We’ve ignored transporta tion and infra s tructure for way too long. Now we’re p laying ca tch-up .”83 Others pointed out tha t the Wes ts ide was a m a jor em ploym ent and recrea tiona l corridor (end ing a t ocean beaches ), accounting for cons iderab ly higher p roportions of regiona l travel than its sha re of regiona l popula tion would sugges t.

These a rgum ents ca rried the day and a t its July m eeting Metro’s boa rd rejected Antonovich’s m otion to revise the spend ing p lan to ensure tha t each region’s sha re of fund ing, from both the new sa les tax revenue and contributions from higher levels of governm ent, was roughly equa l to its sha re of regiona l popula tion. The boa rd then voted 9 -2 to approve a ca refully cra fted ba llot m easure a s well a s a five-point p lan tha t a long with a deta iled expend iture p lan would becom e pa rt of the ord inance they hoped voters would approve. The two d is senters were Antonovich and John Fasana , one of four loca l representa tives on the boa rd , whose cons tituency was in the San Gabriel Va lley. (Two other boa rd m em bers who had been crit ica l of the p lan were absent.)

Breaking the Legislative Logjam The next im m edia te hurd le was getting the County of Board of Supervisors to

put the m easure on the Novem ber ba llot. While the m easure’s backers believed tha t this vote was jus t a form a lity, in ea rly Augus t the Supervisors voted 3 -2 aga ins t putting it on the ba llot. (The three votes cam e from Supervisors who represented the county’s outlying a reas ). Two days la ter, am id a m aels trom of controversy, Supervisor Don Knabe, whose d is trict included Long Beach and m any Ga teway Cities , reversed him self, s aying tha t while he persona lly opposed



the m easure, he would vote to p lace it on the Novem ber ba llot because Metro had an a lterna tive way to do so tha t would have cos t the county an add itiona l $2 -3 m illion.

Things were m ore cha llenging in Sacram ento, where the b ill a llowing the referendum to p roceed was s t ill s ta lled in the Sta te Sena te. The p rob lem was tha t desp ite the changes m ade to the fund ing p lan, Oropeza and Ced illo s till d id not believe Metro was fully com m itted to their favored p rojects and p lanned a t som e point to rea lloca te m oney set a s ide for them to other p rojects . “In order for the b ill to pas s the Sena te,” Oropeza told Hym on, the Los Angeles Times transporta tion reporter, in ea rly Augus t, “it is going to have to conta in the Green Line extens ion. Metro’s leaders “unders tand tha t. They a re p laying a gam e of chicken and b lam ing the Legis la ture.”84

Three days la ter, a t a pub lic event in support of the ba llot initia tive, Villa ra igosa a ccused the ba lking sena tors of p laying pork ba rrel polit ics . “We have,” he sa id , “p rovided m ore m oney for the p rojects tha t they want. Wha t they sa id is they want m ore and we can’t do tha t.” 85 At the s am e event loca l labor leaders weighed in a s well. “This is a rea l litm us tes t,” s ta ted Marvin Kropke, loca l chief of the Interna tiona l Brotherhood of Electrica l Workers . Richa rd Slawson, executive secreta ry of the Los Angeles and Orange Counties ’ Build ing & Trades Council, added , “If you’re wrong you’re going to suffer the consequences .”86

Metro d id agree to am end the b ill to include a “s ta tem ent of legis la tive intent,” reitera ting tha t Metro supported four “high-priority p rojects tha t would receive fund ing from the sa les tax:” the a irport extens ion, the 710 tunnel, extend ing the Gold Line’s Eas ts ide b ranch to Norwa lk or Whittier, and a package of im provem ents to the I-605 highway in the Ga teway Cities region and the San Gabriel Va lley. The revised b ill a lso included language requiring Metro to inform the legis la ture before am ending the expend iture p lan. With these add itions the m easure pas sed in la te Augus t, but for extraneous reasons rela ted to a genera l s ta te budget im passe, was not s igned by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger until la te Sep tem ber – jus t s ix weeks before Election Day.

Reflecting on the legis la tive s truggles s evera l yea rs la ter, then-Assem blym an Feuer, who had shepherded the b ill through the legis la ture , reca lled : “It rea lly was a m ultid im ens iona l chess gam e because we had to negotia te with lawm akers and with key s takeholder groups . There were negotia tions back and forth between Sacram ento and Southern Ca lifornia . There were la te night phone conversa tions with Richa rd [Ka tz] and Antonio, and others … trying to reconcile … com peting cons idera tions to get a m easure tha t was a s true a s poss ib le to the initia l goa ls of Metro: to m ove a s m any peop le a s poss ib le in the m os t efficient way poss ib le , and a t the s am e tim e, go on and ra ise polit ica l support to m ake it happen a ll in the teeth of a reces s ion.” He added : “

Much of m y job was to s ay, “This can't be s im ply an exercise in the polit ics or pork. This has to be about wha t, a s a subs tantive m a tter on the m erits , will p roduce the m os t benefit for the region. It a lso has to be tha t from the s tandpoint of being ab le, in the teeth of the reces s ion, to get a two-thirds vote, which requires authentica lly p resenting to the voters a package tha t is based



on m erit .”… Obvious ly … everything's m ore com plex than tha t. There 's a lways trad ing back and forth … [and] it was very cha llenging to put a ll tha t m oney before a legis la tive body and fend off a ttem pts to red irect revenue from where it m ight otherwise be better spent, based on key m etrics . But I think tha t the package tha t was p resented to the voters was rem arkab ly close to wha t ob jective transporta tion p lanners would say was the highes t and bes t use of the voters ’ s ca rce dolla rs .87

The Measure R Campaign The m easure’s backers now turned to the cam pa ign in support of its pas sage.

With Barack Obam a on the ba llot, turnout was likely to be high even in com parison with other recent P res identia l e lections , pa rticula rly am ong lower-incom e and m inority voters who polling and p rior referenda ind ica ted were am ong those m os t likely to favor it . However, getting voters to focus on the transporta tion m easure would be cha llenging, because the ba llot would include severa l other referenda , includ ing one am ending the s ta te cons titution to ban sam e-sex m arriages .

Metro was forb idden by law to lobby or engage in polit ica l cam pa igns , but it d id p lan a m ass ive inform a tiona l effort to exp la in wha t Measure R would fund . Meanwhile , Villa ra igosa , with a s s is tance from Yaros lavsky, Ka tz, and Feuer, p lanned to take the lead in fundra is ing for the exp licit polit ica l cam pa ign on beha lf of Measure R. However, in m id-Sep tem ber, jus t a s they were about to s ta rt , the U.S. econom y and world equity m arkets went into a ta ilsp in tha t turned out to be the s ta rt of the “Grea t Recess ion.” Concerned about the potentia l consequences of this econom ic free-fa ll on support for Measure R, Yaros lavsky urged Villa ra igosa to do one m ore poll. He reca lled :

I s a id to Antonio, “ … I'm concerned tha t the support for this has to have suffered from a ll of this tum ult and ins tab ility in the econom y and the FDIC saying if [peop le] have m ore than $ 1 0 0 ,0 0 0 in their s avings account they a re not insured anym ore.” … For m e, it was a viscera l reaction, because it b rought to rea l life the s tories tha t m y fa ther would tell m e about the Grea t Depres s ion when the banks d idn't have any m oney and you would go try to withdraw your m oney, there wasn't any m oney there . Those were the kinds of things tha t were going through m y lit t le head a s a s a la ried pub lic officia l. I could only im agine wha t som ebody who's m aking a third of wha t I m ade was thinking.

So I s a id , “Antonio, le t 's — let 's do one m ore poll, becaus e I don't believe we can win this thing.” So we d id another poll… and it cam e back a t 66 percent. And I s a id , “Well, you live by the sword , you d ie by the sword .” … We’ve got to go with the resea rch, but I'm telling you — in m y gut I d idn’t think it would win. … What we were looking for was had it d ropped to 5 9 percent? And it not only hadn’t d ropped it was a point higher than we'd ever s een before . … Tha t’s when we pulled the trigger, and we s ta rted ca lling our lis ts .88



By la te October, Villa ra igosa , working with Yaros lavsky, Ka tz, and Feuer, had ra ised a lm os t $ 4 m illion for the cam pa ign. Alm os t a qua rter of tha t m oney – $900 ,000 – cam e from a non-profit entity tha t has a long-s tand ing contract to opera te the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which receives about one-third of its annua l $60 m illion opera ting budget from the county. When The Los Angeles Times ques tioned the dona tion, Melody Kanscha t, the m useum ’s p res ident, em phas ized tha t the p lanned Wes ts ide subway extens ion would include a s ta tion ad jacent to the m useum . She added , m ore genera lly tha t conges tion and the lack of good connections to both highways and trans it were am ong the top reasons peop le cited for not vis it ing the m useum .89

Other m a jor contributors included cons truction-rela ted labor unions , developers , engineering firm s , and civic leaders (m any of them connected to the m useum ). The Laborers Interna tiona l Union of North Am erica gave $200 ,000 as d id Jerry Perenchino, form er head of Univis ion and la ter a m a jor donor to LACMA. Casden Wes t LLC, a loca l developm ent firm active on the Wes ts ide gave $150 ,000 , while the Carpenters -Contractors Coopera tion Com m ittee p rovided $125 ,000 . Those giving $100 ,000 included AECOM, a firm tha t p rovides transporta tion engineering services ; the Anschutz Enterta inm ent Group , which owns the Stap les Center and num erous other enterta inm ent venues in downtown Los Angeles ; Eli Broad , Los Angeles ’ lead ing philanthrop is t and a m a jor donor to LACMA; and Occidenta l Petroleum , which has a long a s socia tion with the Arm and Ham m er m useum , which was founded by and nam ed a fter the firm ’s form er longtim e CEO and principa l owner and which is loca ted nea r another likely s top for the Wes ts ide subway (a t Wilshire and Wes twood Bouleva rds ).90

Crafting the Advertising Campaign In Sep tem ber, Metro unveiled a webs ite focused on Measure R and m a iled a

16 -page, color b rochure highlighting the p rojects to be funded by the m easure to the county’s 3 .8 9 m illion households , a t a cos t of jus t over $ 1 m illion. It d id not, on the other hand , ind ica te when those p rojects would be built or tha t in m os t cases Measure R revenue would p rovide only pa rtia l fund ing. The b rochure a lso avoided reference to p roject controvers ies . Thus , for exam ple, the SR-710 gap closure p roject was described s im ply a s “im provem ents to connections between the 7 1 0 and I-210 freeways” and the Gold Line extens ion beyond Pasadena was described vaguely a s going from the line’s “current term inus in Pasadena towards Cla rem ont.”91 Metro’s lega l s ta ff was confident tha t the webs ite and b rochure were in conform ity with the law banning Metro from taking a pos ition on a ba llot m easure, but supervisors who had opposed the ba llot initia tive (includ ing the two who had been absent for the actua l vote to p roceed) were angered by them nonetheles s . Consequently, Metro d ropped a p lan to purchase newspaper advertis em ents and rad io spots .

The p rem ature conclus ion of Metro’s inform a tion cam pa ign put add itiona l p res sure on the form a l cam pa ign for its adop tion. Ace Sm ith, a respected Dem ocra tic opera tive who had m anaged Villa ra igosa ’s 2 0 0 5 m ayora l cam pa ign, had been quickly b rought on to m anage this effort. His p rincipa l s tra tegy was an advertis ing cam pa ign highlighting the a rgum ents tha t polling had shown to be



particula rly effective, especia lly am ong swing voters . This m eant tha t none of the advertis em ents fea tured polit icians or Metro personnel. A pos t-m ortem review of the cam pa ign p repa red by Pa rsons Brinckerhoff concluded tha t, in light of opponents ’ a s sertions tha t the m easure unfa irly favored Los Angeles , “had the Mayor cam pa igned vigorous ly and vis ib ly in support of Measure R, it m ay well have changed the outcom e.”92

The cam pa ign p roduced five te levis ion advertis em ents tha t m a inly a ired on cab le te levis ion, which gave the cam pa ign m ore ab ility to ta rget its m essage. The firs t was an overview ad released in ea rly October, which noted tha t “Measure R is a countywide p lan, the m os t com prehens ive s ince the 1950s .” The ad went on to highlight such p lan elem ents a s : “expanded m ass trans it ,” “m odernized freeways , “light ra il to the a irport,” and “synchronizing tra ffic lights .” It concluded , tha t “from b ig p rojects to potholes ,” Measure R was “the roadm ap to tra ffic relief.”93 Three subsequent advertis em ents released in m id October spotlighted non-politica l ind ividua ls a s socia ted with trus ted groups or p rofes s ions to highlight is sues tha t polling had ind ica ted were im portant to swing voters . Illus tra tively, one fea tured the cha ir of the Am erican Lung Associa tion of Ca lifornia , who cla im ed tha t am ong other benefits , Measure R would “cut the ra tes of childhood as thm a by reducing sm og and a ir pollution.”94 In another, a UCLA profes sor of ea rthquake engineering sa id tha t by repa iring the m any bridges and tunnels tha t had been built in the 1 9 6 0 s , Measure R would reduce the likelihood of “devas ta ting” dam age from future ea rthquakes .95

Build ing on Move LA’s work, a wide va riety of environm enta l, bus ines s , and labor groups now cam e out pub licly in support of Measure R. Katz maintains that, by helping assemble such a broad coalition, Move LA “created the atmospherics that allowed people to support” Measure R because they could see that it had the support of a variety of groups and individuals they respected.96 Measure R’s backers a lso s ecured endorsem ents from a ll of the region’s m a jor newspapers , s ta rting with The Los Angeles Times, by fa r the region’s la rges t, in ea rly October. La Opinión, the region’s la rges t Spanish-language newspaper, soon followed . In la te October The Los Angeles Daily News, the region’s s econd la rges t newspaper, which genera lly focused on is sues of im portance to the San Fernando Va lley cam e on boa rd with an ed itoria l t it led : “Trans it Sacrifice: Measure R Flawed , but Needed .”97

Limited Opposition In contra s t to the d iscip lined , and reasonab ly well-financed , cam pa ign in

support of Measure R, the m easure’s opponents – who included officia ls in outlying a reas a s well a s the leaders of the Bus Riders Union – never m anaged to coord ina te their efforts . The BRU and its a llies were the m os t p rom inent opponents , contend ing tha t s ince Measure R d id not fully fund its p lanned ra il and highway projects , “we can only a s sum e the d ifference will be m ade up by ra id ing the bus sys tem .” The BRU’s anti-Measure R m a teria ls , which were pa rt of an overa ll cam pa ign focused on s ix d ifferent m easures on the Novem ber ba llot, a lso a s serted tha t the m any highway projects funded by Measure R would lead to “m ore pollution, m ore s ickness in a s thm a-ridden com m unities of color, and m ore dead ly greenhouse gases .” Moreover, the m a teria ls contended , “the sa les tax is



regres s ive: the rich and poor have to pay the sam e am ount – and the poor cannot a fford it .” Sum m ing up their pos ition, the BRU produced an anti-Measure R pos ter urging voters to “Stop Pork Barrel Polit ics , Stop Regres s ive Taxes , [and] End Trans it Racism !”98

The m os t s a lient oppos ition event occurred in la te October. U.S. Representa tive Hilda Solis , a Dem ocra t, joined Antonovich and representa tives from 18 cities in the San Gabriel Va lley in an anti-Measure R ra lly. At tha t event, John Fasana , a m em ber of Metro’s boa rd who a lso was the m ayor of Duarte (which is in the San Gabriel Va lley), contended tha t the m easure was unfa ir because va lley res idents would receive only “8 5 cents worth of im provem ents for every dolla r” of new tax tha t they pa id .99

In ea rly October, resea rchers a t the RAND Corpora tion released a com prehens ive report on transporta tion is sues in Los Angeles tha t ind irectly but clea rly crit icized m any of the a rgum ents being m ade in support of Measure R. The resea rch team leaders were Paul Sorensen, an opera tions resea rcher a t RAND, and Martin Wachs , a world -fam ous urban p lanning schola r who had long taught a t UC Berkeley and UCLA, and who was now d irector of RAND’s Transporta tion, Space, and Technology program .

While endors ing a va riety of trans it inves tm ents and highway im provem ents , and s ta ting tha t these could “p lay an im portant role in im proving transporta tion in Los Angeles ,” the report’s centra l a rgum ent was tha t: “As a region, … L.A.- a rea s takeholders m us t sum m on the polit ica l willpower to face a tough decis ion. Will Los Angeles begin to pursue p ricing to m anage dem and for peak-hour autom otive travel, or will it ins tead s im ply a llow conges tion to worsen in the com ing decades? These a re the only choices .”100 (This was , incidenta lly, a pos ition with which m os t independent transporta tion ana lys ts would agree and , a s noted ea rlier, one tha t had a t t im es been included in regiona l land use and transporta tion p lans p repa red by the Southern Ca lifornia Associa tion of Governm ents .)101

Metro and the other supporters of Measure R, of course, had been entirely s ilent on the is sue of highway pricing, believing it to be a polit ica l non-s ta rter, and one tha t if a s socia ted in any way with Measure R would a lm os t surely s ink it . This was in sp ite of the fact tha t Metro was in the m ids t, with federa l and s ta te fund ing, of converting high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes on two m a jor highways into high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes , with va riab le p ricing to m anage dem and during peak vs . non-peak periods . 102 Fortuna tely for the Measure R cam pa ign, the RAND report received virtua lly no m edia a ttention and never becam e pa rt of the pub lic d iscuss ion of Measure R. Wachs la ter com m ented , m ore genera lly, tha t “peop le a re unwilling to believe tha t build ing ra il won’t solve conges tion.”103

A few sm aller newspapers based in the county’s outlying a reas d id com e out aga ins t Measure R, though none fea tured the RAND report. These included both the Long Beach Press-Telegram and The San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Their p rincipa l com pla ints were tha t their a reas would benefit insufficiently from the inves tm ents to be financed with m oney ra ised by Measure R.



Narrowly Topping the Two-‐Thirds Threshold As expected , turnout for the Novem ber 200 8 election was extraord ina rily high,

with 8 2 percent of the county’s eligib le voters cas ting ba llots . To no one’s surpris e, Barack Obam a overwhelm ingly ca rried the county, ga rnering 69 .22 percent of the vote. And about 9 0 percent of those who voted in the P res identia l e lection a lso cas t a ba llot on Measure R, which pas sed with 67 .9 percent of the vote (though the outcom e was in doub t for m uch of the night because som e of the s tronges t support a reas were am ong the la s t to report their results ).

Measure R fa red pa rticula rly well in three a reas : the la rgely La tino, poorer Eas ts ide cities and neighborhoods ; the m ore a ffluent, his torica lly libera l White enclaves on the Wes ts ide; and low-incom e neighborhoods in South Los Angeles (and nea rby cities such a s Inglewood) where m ore than 3 0 percent of the popula tion was Black and about ha lf were La tino.104 In contra s t, the m easure, which was supported by a t lea s t a m a jority of voters in a ll but one loca le , d id leas t well in la rgely white and As ian, higher-incom e loca les in outlying pa rts of the county.105 (See Figure 7 and Figure 8 )

WESTHOLLYWOOD

INGLEWOOD

CULVERCITY VERNON

HUNTINGTONPARK

COMPTON

GARDENA

EL SEGUNDO

MANHATTANBEACH

BEVERLYHILLS

GLENDALE

BURBANK

WESTLAKEVILLAGE

AGOURAHILLS

HIDDENHILLS

CALABASAS

SANTAMONICA

LOS ANGELES

MALIBU

ARCADIA

IRWINDALE

TEMPLECITY

BALDWINPARK

DIAMONDBAR

POMONA

SANDIMAS

LA VERNECLAREMONT

GLENDORAAZUSA

DUARTE

BRADBURY

MONROVIASIERRAMADRE

PARAMOUNT

BELLFLOWER

SOUTHGATE DOWNEY

BELLGARDENS WHITTIER

LA MIRADA

SANTA FESPRINGS

CERRITOS

ARTESIALAKEWOOD

HAWAIIANGARDENS

SIGNALHILL

CARSON

HERMOSABEACH

TORRANCE

LOMITA

PALOS VERDESESTATES

ROLLINGHILLSRANCHO

PALOSVERDES

LYNWOOD

COVINA

WESTCOVINA

WALNUT

LA HABRAHEIGHTS

LA PUENTE

CITY OF INDUSTRY

PICORIVERA

MONTEBELLO

MONTEREYPARK

ROSEMEAD

SANGABRIEL

ALHAMBRA

SOUTHPASADENA

LA CANADAFLINTRIDGE

NORWALK

LONGBEACH

PASADENA

58%

BELL

CUDAHY

MAYWOOD

HAWTHORNE

REDONDOBEACH

ROLLING HILLSESTATES

CITY OFCOMMERCE

EL MONTE

SOUTHEL MONTE

SAN MARINO

SAN FERNANDO

65%

72%

64%

64%

69%

68%

59%

69%

52%

64%

55%

66%

55%

58%

61%

59%

62%

54%

66%

66%

57%

56%

69%

70%

69%

64%

59%

71%

60%

67%

69%

69%

72%

52%

55%

77%71%

60%

65%

68% 59%

76%

71%

64%

74%

64%

46%

68%

74%

72%

76%

60%

60%

68%

50%74%

74%

76%

54%

63% 57%

64%

54%

51%

67%

51%

71%

77%

71%

78%

71%

78%

58%

78%

67%

75%

61%

84%

61%

66%67%

77%

71%

61%

56%

53%

71%

V e n t u r aV e n t u r a

C o u n t yC o u n t y

O r a n g eO r a n g e


S a nS a n

B e r n a r d i n oB e r n a r d i n o


L o s A n g e l e sL o s A n g e l e s


0 6 123Miles

Map Produced By Countywide Planning and Development, LACMTA, November 2008Thomas Bros. Data Used With Permission

P:\Jobs3\Y08027_Measure_R\Measure_R_Votes_Cities_V5.mxd

UNINCORPORATED AREAS

Los Angeles County Measure R Vote TotalPercent of Yes Votes

North Los Angeles County

SANTA CLARITA

PALMDALE

LANCASTER

SAN FERNANDO

Measure R Vote Total % YES Votes

46% - 57%

58% - 66%

67% - 77%

78% - 84%

65% Unicorported Areas

Figure 7



The victory surpris ed m any key supporters , includ ing Yaros lavsky, who la ter reca lled

As a polit ician of 4 0 yea rs of experience in this county – p reda ting the P ropos ition 13 era and , living through the P ropos ition 1 3 era and a ll of its corolla ry m easures – … I do not unders tand how this thing pas sed with two-thirds of the vote. In fact, absent the [polling] resea rch … I wouldn’t have bet m y firs tborn tha t it would have gotten 50 percent of the vote . But we went with it , and we had a very good cam pa ign. The oppos ition was m uted for the m os t pa rt because they had no resources and we had a good m essage: there was som ething in this for every pa rt of the county.106

Figure 8



The m easure’s succes s was a lso a s igna ture accom plishm ent for Villa ra igosa , who was reelected to a s econd term and left office in 2 0 1 3 . Bill Boyarsky, a long-tim e Los Angeles polit ica l colum nis t, la ter noted tha t even if you believe, as som e of the m ayor’s crit ics contended , tha t Villa ra igosa had been “‘a polit ica l one-hit wonder who should have had a leas t a ha lf a dozen b ig wins ’ … tha t one hit – the trans it ba llot m easure – was a gam e changing hom e run, even m ore im portant than the one Dodger Kirk Gibson hit in the 1 9 8 8 World Series .”107

Implementing and Accelerating the Plan With Measure R’s pas sage, Metro’s s enior s ta ff m oved to fina lize the LRTP,

which had been put on hold pend ing the vote on Measure R. In ea rly Janua ry, they p resented boa rd m em bers with a new LRTP tha t included som e revised financia l p rojections . They noted tha t because Metro was lega lly required to spend m os t of its non-fa re revenues on cap ita l p rojects , it would have to cover a p rojected opera ting deficit by ra is ing fa res (a fter the one-yea r freeze funded by Measure R exp ired), cutting service, or find ing other s avings . Moreover, s ta ff noted , the opera ting deficit underscored the im portance of b ringing Metro to a point where 3 3 percent of its opera ting cos ts would be covered by fa res , a policy tha t would require fa re hikes , which the BRU p ledged to oppose.

Discuss ion of the cap ita l p lan a lso saw the return of p lace-based ba ttles over fund ing p riorities , pa rticula rly whether Metro was pushing the Wilshire subway project a t the expense of other p rojects , m os t notab ly extend ing the Gold Line in the San Gabriel Va lley a s fa r a s the county line but a lso the Crenshaw and Gold Line Eas ts ide p rojects a s well. The d ispute revolved a round the fact tha t financia l p lans for both the Wilshire subway and the Regiona l Connector relied on securing s ignificant grants from the Federa l Trans it Adm inis tra tion’s (FTA) New Sta rts d iscretiona ry grants p rogram to fund both of these p rojects . When they used FTA’s officia l criteria for eva lua ting p rojects (which relied heavily on m easures of cos t-effectiveness ) to a s ses s a ll of Metro’s forthcom ing p rojects , Metro’s p lanners found tha t the Regiona l Connector and Wes ts ide subway not only d id better than any other p roject in the LRTP , they a lso com pared favorab ly with p rojects from other m etropolitan a reas . While this a s ses sm ent could help the p rojects advance in the ea rly s tages of the federa l fund ing p roces s , it d id not ensure fund ing because Congres s approves the New Sta rts grants . This m eant tha t it was im portant for the region’s congres s iona l delega tion to speak in a unified voice about which loca l p rojects they thought should receive those funds . This , in turn, required tha t key officia ls and civic leaders in Los Angeles speak in a unified voice about which p rojects they wanted the delega tion to support.

However, the region’s leaders had not done been ab le to do this for m any yea rs . Glenda le Mayor Ara Na ja rian, who becam e cha ir of the Metro Board in July 2009 (rep lacing Villa ra igosa ), reca lled :

We would often go to Washington to ta lk with our Sena tors and Congres sm en and tell them we were pulling for a p roject tha t had som e loca l consensus . And they would say, “tha t’s funny, som eone else from Los Angeles was here la s t week saying tha t p roject is junk and you should fund a d ifferent p roject [in



Los Angeles ].” At the s am e tim e, other cities like New York, or Chicago or Da lla s were approaching Congres s with a unified pos ition. So a m em ber of Congres s would a sk, “Why should we dea l with Los Angeles , they can’t get their act together? … So let’s go with a winner and fund p rojects in other cities .”108

To p revent this from happening aga in, Metro’s s ta ff and supporters of the Wilshire subway and the Regiona l Connector a sked Metro’s boa rd to adop t a policy s ta ting tha t those p rojects were its top p riorities for New Sta rts fund ing. This p roposa l angered backers of the Gold Line and Crenshaw projects a s well a s key m em bers of Congres s whose d is tricts included those p rojects . The d ispute a lso sp illed over to Metro’s Board , which now sp lit a long geographic lines .

Na ja rian m ade it clea r tha t he would not s ide with either faction ins tead telling boa rd m em bers “we were shooting ourselves in the foot and the only way we were going succeed in Washington was to have som e unity and consensus on a pa red-down lis t of wha t we wanted to do.”109 After a hea ted d iscuss ion, Metro’s Board agreed in October tha t while the Gold Line and Crenshaw projects would not com pete for New Sta rts fund ing, their backers could and should actively s eek fund ing from other fund ing sources , includ ing ea rm arks in a new federa l transporta tion act, new econom ic s tim ulus p rogram s , and new laws rela ted to clim a te change tha t were then being actively d iscussed in Congres s .

With this agreem ent in p lace and other is sues resolved , in October 2009 , Metro’s Board voted unanim ous ly to approve the revised LRTP. With tha t vote , Na ja rian la ter s a id , “We could go to Washington with a unified boa rd of d irectors , a Long Range Transporta tion P lan and the fact tha t 67 percent of the voters had agreed to tax them selves to fund other p rojects . Tha t rea lly sped things up .”110 Over the next few yea rs , Metro was ab le to s ecure $1 .25 b illion in federa l New Sta rts fund ing for the firs t s ection of the Wilshire p roject (to La Cienega Bouleva rd) a s well a s $ 6 6 9 m illion in New Sta rts funds for the Regiona l Connector. FTA has a lso ind ica ted tha t Metro is likely to receive $ 1 .1 8 7 b illion in New Sta rts fund ing for the second section of the Wilshire p roject, which will extend the line to Century City.111 In add ition, in 2 0 1 2 Metro opened the 8 .7 -m ile-long firs t s ection of the “Expo” line (to Culver City) a s well a s an about five-m ile extens ion of the BRT Orange Line in the San Fernando Va lley.

Trying to Speed Up the Plan Less than a m onth a fter the Metro Board approved the LRTP, Villa ra igosa

ca lled for Metro to accelera te the am bitious cons truction p rogram , which, he a rgued would have severa l benefits , includ ing crea ting bad ly needed jobs in cons truction, where em ploym ent reported ly had d ropped by ha lf from its peak in 2006 .112 To do so, he p roposed tha t Metro borrow aga ins t future revenues from Measure R and tha t the federa l governm ent expand its support for s ta te and loca l borrowing to finance trans it p rojects . Over the next two yea rs he worked to build a coa lit ion in support of the federa l grant p roposa l, a ta sk tha t becam e m ore cha llenging a fter Republicans won control of the U.S. House of Representa tives in Novem ber 2010 . Ultim a tely, he s ecured the support of m a jor labor unions , the



U.S. Cham ber of Com m erce, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors , of which he was vice-pres ident in 2010 -2011 and p res ident in 2011 -2012 . Villa ra igosa la ter reca lled :

When I firs t b rought [it] … to the m ayors , I d idn’t get a lot of support … because m os t of them wanted grants . And I had to exp la in to them , “Mayors , grants a ren’t com ing with this Congres s . It’s a right-wing Congres s . … Even the Dem ocra ts a ren’t voting to ra is e the gas tax. There’s no m oney. So let’s get loan and bond program s tha t we can leverage [with] our own dolla rs .”

His a rgum ents p reva iled with the m ayors , and he was ab le to s ecure b i-pa rtis an support for this initia tive in Congres s , where it was backed by Sena tor Barba ra Boxer, a Ca lifornia Dem ocra t who cha ired the Environm ent and Public Works Com m ittee and Representa tive John Mica , a Republican who cha ired the House Transporta tion Com m ittee. Ultim a tely, while the m ayor and his supporters d id not get the expans ive p rogram they had sought, a two-yea r reauthoriza tion of federa l highway and trans it p rogram s s igned by P res ident Obam a in July 2012 d id increase fund ing for exis ting federa l transporta tion loan p rogram s from the $122 m illion a yea r they had received FY 2012 to $ 7 5 0 m illion in FY 2013 and $1 b illion in FY 2014 . This in turn a llowed the federa l governm ent to subs tantia lly increase loans p rovided by the p rogram from a tota l of $1 .4 b illion (for s ix p rojects ) p rovided in FY 2011 and FY 2012 to $10 .5 b illion in loans to 19 p rojects , in FY 2013 and FY 2014 . Fifteen percent of these funds went to three Los Angeles County p rojects : $ 8 5 6 m illion for the firs t s ection of the Wilshire subway, $ 1 6 0 m illion for the Regiona l Connector, and $546 m illion for the Crenshaw Corridor p roject.113

The Unsuccessful Effort to Extend Measure R Villa ra igosa and his a llies on the Metro Board a lso decided to p res s for an

extens ion of Measure R, for an add itiona l 30 yea rs . This would enab le Metro to is sue longer-term bonds , and with them accelera te p roject cons truction schedules , in som e cases by a s m uch as five yea rs . As in 2 0 0 8 , of course, this would require two-thirds voter approva l in a referendum . Drawing on the Measure R p laybook, backers of this approach looked to the Novem ber 2 0 1 2 ba llot, when P res ident Obam a would be running for reelection. Moreover, before p roceed ing they aga in conducted extens ive polling. Surpris ingly in view of the Grea t Recess ion, the m essage from these polls was tha t m ore than 7 0 percent of likely voters would support such a ba llot p ropos ition, which officia lly becam e Measure J . (The “J” was for “jobs ,” in keep ing with p roponents ’ focus on the cons truction jobs they sa id the m easure would crea te .)

As with Measure R, Villa ra igosa led the fundra is ing effort , which ra is ed about $3 .3 m illion, and aga in the m a jor donors included civic leaders and organiza tions , cons truction-rela ted labor unions , and cons truction-rela ted firm s . The county a rt m useum , which gave $ 5 0 0 ,0 0 0 , aga in was the la rges t s ingle donor. Eli Broad and the Los Angeles Dodgers each gave $ 2 5 0 ,0 0 0 , while $200 ,000 donors included the Laborers Union; Wes tfield LLC, which owns m a jor



m alls in Century City, Culver City and the San Fernando Va lley; and the Anschutz Enterta inm ent Group .114

The opponents of Measure J , la rgely the s am e as those who had opposed Measure R, such a s Antonovich and the Bus Riders Union, were m ore active than in 2008 , but only s lightly so. Mos t s ignificantly, they were joined by a group of Beverly Hills School Board m em bers adam antly opposed to Metro’s p lan to route the Wilshire subway d irectly (though a lso very deep ly) under Beverly Hills High School. Other new opponents included the Crenshaw Subway Coa lit ion, which wanted pa rt of tha t line to be built underground and for it to include an add itiona l s ta tion in Leim ert Pa rk Village, an a rea tha t has long been a center of Black a rt , m us ic, and culture in Los Angeles ; and groups opposed to the SR-710 gap p roject in Alham bra and South Pasadena . Opponents such a s Antonovich a lso m ade sure tha t Metro d id not p roduce or m a il out extens ive “inform a tiona l m a teria ls ” this t im e. However, the only contribution to the oppos ition cam pa ign was $ 5 ,0 0 0 from the Labor/ Com m unity Stra tegy Center, the BRU’s pa rent organiza tion.

While Measure J was supported by 66 .11 percent of the county’s voters , it jus t short of the 6 6 .6 7 percent it needed to pas s . Severa l factors appa rently contributed to the na rrow los s . P robab ly of grea tes t s ignificance, voter turnout was lower in 2 0 1 2 than 2 0 0 8 : down from 8 2 percent to 7 0 percent. Yaros lavsky believes tha t s ince the m argina l voters were pa rticula rly likely to support trans it this exp la ins why support for Measure J was s lightly lower throughout the county than it had been for Measure R. The d rop-off was pa rticula rly p ronounced not only in p laces with p roject controvers ies , notab ly Beverly Hills , but a lso in s evera l a ffluent South Bay com m unities and tha t were pa rt of a newly d rawn Congres s iona l d is trict where long-tim e Representa tive Henry Waxm an ran for reelection aga ins t retired Manha ttan Beach bus ines sm an Bill Bloom field , a form er Republican turned independent who spent m ore than $7 m illion of his own m oney on the cam pa ign. While the d is trict was overwhelm ingly Dem ocra tic, Waxm an, who had not p revious ly represented m any of these com m unities , received only 54 percent of the vote. Yaros lavsky believes tha t m any voters a ttracted by Bloom field ’s m essage of fis ca l respons ib ility a lso voted aga ins t Measure J . (See Figure 9 )

Building Projects and Considering Another Referendum With Measure J ’s defea t, Metro could not speed up cons truction of p lanned

p rojects . However, it has continued to m ove forward with the p lans deta iled in Measure R and the LRTP. Cons truction has begun on severa l p rojects , includ ing the Wilshire subway to Wes twood , which is now es tim a ted to cos t about $7 .7 b illion (in nom ina l dolla rs ), about $ 1 .4 b illion m ore than $ 6 .3 b illion (in nom ina l dolla rs ) tha t Metro had es tim a ted the p roject would cos t a few yea rs a fter Measure R was pas sed . (Both figures a re subs tantia lly higher than the $ 4 .2 b illion figure used in the Measure R expenditure p lan, which had reported p roject cos ts in uninfla ted 2008 dolla rs ). The firs t of three sections , a four-m ile , three-s ta tion segm ent p rojected to cos t $3 .1 b illion, is expected to open in 2023 .115



Four light ra il p rojects a lso a re under cons truction. The $ 1 .5 b illion seven-m ile extens ion of the Expo Line from Culver City to Santa Monica and the $741 m illion, 11 .5 m ile extens ion of the Gold Line to Azusa a re both scheduled to open in sp ring of 2 016 . The Regiona l Connector, now es tim a ted to cos t $1 .5 b illion, is s cheduled to open in the fa ll of 2020 . And the 8 .5 -m ile Crenshaw Line, now es tim a ted to cos t $2 .1 b illion is s cheduled to open in October 2019 . The other la rge p roject furthes t a long in des ign is the Eas ts ide extens ion of the Gold Line, now es tim a ted to cos t about $ 2 .5 b illion in nom ina l dolla rs , nea rly twice the 2 0 0 8 es tim a te (which was in 2008 dolla rs ).

In add ition, Metro’s leadership is actively cons idering a new initia tive, to be p laced on the ba llot in 2016 , tha t would a sk voters to extend the Measure R ha lf-cent s a les tax for an add itiona l 18 yea rs (until 2 0 5 7 ) and / or to approve a new .5 percent s a les tax for 40 yea rs , from m id-2017 until m id-2057 .116 Move LA, which is s till headed by Zane, is p res s ing for such a referendum , and polling done for

Figure 9



Metro has aga in ind ica ted there is a good chance of getting two-thirds of the county’s voters to support extend ing and / or increas ing the sa les tax.117 As of this writing, however, no decis ion has been m ade about whether to launch a referendum effort or p recisely wha t it would fund .

It rem a ins to be seen whether the p rojects funded by Measure R (and , poss ib ly, by another referenda ) will spur s ignificant changes in land use or travel pa tterns , or if – a s s evera l respected crit ics m a inta ined in 2008 – the rea liza tion of such changes required polit ica lly controvers ia l policies tha t would m ake d riving m ore expens ive and to require concentra ting growth in dense developm ents nea r trans it nodes . As Paul Shigley, form er ed itor of the well-respected California Planning and Development Reporter, observed in 2 0 0 9 : “Alm os t in sp ite of its elf, Los Angeles has em erged a s a city focused on trans it . The b ig ques tion now is whether L.A. can m ove from being a city focused on trans it to a trans it-oriented city.”118



Endnotes 1 (Villaraigosa, A City of Purpose: Inaugural Address 2005) 2 (Villaraigosa, A City of Purpose: Inaugural Address 2005) 3 (Texas Transportation Institute 2015) 4 Before 2008, the largest, voter-‐approved increase in local transportation funding since 1990

had been the $14.3 billion generated by a .5 percentage point increase in the sales tax approved in Maricopa County, Arizona (which includes Phoenix) by a 58-‐42 margin in 2004. Many other such proposals had gone down to defeat altogether, such as a 2007 three-‐county proposal in the Seattle metropolitan area that would have raised $18 billion, but which the voters rejected by a 45-‐55 margin. Sources: author’s calculations from (Haas and Estrada 2011) and (Werbel and Haas 2001).

5 (Feuer 2015) 6 (U.S. Census Bureau 2012) 7 (Manville and Shoup 2005, 238) as cited by (Sorenson, et al. 2008, 60) 8 (Kneebone 2009, 8) 9 (Kneebone 2013, 9) 10 The share of work trips taken by transit in L.A. County was 7 percent in 1980; 6.5 percent in

1990; 6.6 percent in 2000; 7.1 percent in 2013. The figures for residents of the city of Los Angeles show a similar trend, falling from 10.8 percent in 1980 to 10.5 percent in 1990 and 10.2 percent in 2000 before rising to 11.1 percent in 2013. In contrast, while the share of New York City’s residents using transit to get to work also rose between 1980 and 2013, the share fell for residents of Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, and Philadelphia. See (U.S. Census Bureau 2013) (U.S. Census Bureau 2013), (U.S. Census Bureau 1980), (U.S. Census Bureau 1990), and (U.S. Census Bureau 2000).

11 (Fogelson 1967, 250) as cited by (Wachs, The Evolution of Transportation Policy in Los Angeles: Images of Past Policy and Future Prospects 1996, 119)

12 For background on transportation in Los Angeles see (Bottles 1987, 122-‐157), (Fogelson 1967, 104-‐107; 176-‐178), (Garrett 2006, 258-‐383), (Richmond 2003, 11-‐31), and (Wachs 1996, 106-‐131)

13 See (Keith v. Volpe 1972) and (Dimento, et al. 1991) 14 For overviews of the transit debates in the 1970s see (Elkind 2014, 12-‐33), (Fulton 2001,

136-‐138), (Garrett 2006, 395-‐452), (Richmond 2003, 149-‐178), (Wachs 1996, 132-‐139), (Whitt 1982, 81-‐101) and

15 See (Elkind 2014, 81-‐94) and (Taylor, Kim and Gahbauer 2009) 16 Figure available online at

http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/maps/1980_proposition_a_rail_rapid_transit_system_map.jpg



17 In the unincorporated areas that make up two-‐thirds of the county’s land area and are home

to one-‐tenth of its residents, county government was responsible for these projects. 18 The measure won 61 percent of the vote in the city, and 68.5 percent in the city’s central

areas. It was also backed by a majority of the voters on the Westside, in Glendale and Pasadena, and, narrowly, in Long Beach. In general it did worst in outlying areas, like the Antelope Valley. See (Birkenshaw 1980)

19 (Garrett 2006, 481). For more on the development and early implementation of Proposition A see (Elkind 2014, 34-‐49) (Fulton 2001, 138-‐142), (Garrett 2006, 453-‐511)and (Richmond 2003, 178-‐213).

20 (Snoble 2015). For more on the merger see (Elkind 2014, 50-‐78) (Garrett 2006, 597-‐609) 21 (Labor/Community Strategy Center n.d.) 22 (Labor/Community Strategy Center et al. vs. Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation

Authority and Joseph Drew, etc. "Plaintiffs’ Revised Statement of Contentions of Fact and Law" 1996). See also (Labor/Community Strategy Center et al. vs. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority et al. 2001)

23 For more on the case see (Elkind 2014, 158-‐175), (Garrett 2006, 661-‐807), (Grengs 2002), (Mann 1997) and (Mann, Symposia: Radical Social Movements and the Responsibility of Progressive Intellectuals 1999).

24 See (Davis 1995), (Elkind 2014) (Garrett 2006) 25 See (Garrett 2006, 760-‐761) and (Elkind 2014, 182-‐184) 26 Author’s calculations from (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

2015) 27 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2015) 28 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2001, 8) 29 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2001, 8, 11-‐13) 30 (Mobility 21 n.d.) 31 (Snoble 2015) 32 (Mascaro 2003) 33 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 14) 34 (Bernstein and Liu 2005) 35 (Texas Transportation Institute 2015) 36 (Los Angeles Times 2005, 3-‐4) 37 (Villaraigosa 2015) 38 (Villaraigosa 2015) 39 (Yale 2015)



40 For a more detailed account, see (Elkind 2014, 202-‐205) 41 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 7, 12) and (Los Angeles

County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2001, 12) 42 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 38) 43 Illustratively, 19 percent of the population growth was projected to occur in the largely rural

northern parts of the county and another 16 percent was in the San Gabriel Valley, which extends east from Pasadena. However, only five percent of the projected job growth was in the northern parts of the county and only 16 percent was in the San Gabriel Valley. (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2009, 82)

44 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 18-‐19) 45 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 35) 46 For a good overview see (National Research Council/Transportation Research Board 1994).

See also (Bae 1993), (Cameron 1991), (Deakin, et al. 1996), (Giuliano 1992), (Southern California Association of Governments 1991), and (Wachs 1993).

47 (Los Angeles Daily News Editorial Board 2007). Metro later moved forward with plans to allow solo drivers to pay a premium to use uncongested HOV lanes on the 10 and 110 highways.

48 Projects were ranked in comparison to each other on a three-‐point scale. See (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 43)

49 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 39, 43) 50 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2006, 44) 51 (Snoble 2015) 52 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2008, 23) 53 (Zane 2015) 54 (Zane 2015) 55 (Hymon, Sales tax hike could fund subway to the sea, 2008) 56 (Snoble 2015) 57 (Zane 2015) 58 (Zane, Email to the author 2015) 59 According to its website, Move LA’s supporters include the Annenberg Foundation, Bohnett

Foundation, Environment Now, and the Lawrence Foundation as well as developers, engineering and construction firms, Metro and others. See (Move LA n.d.) and (Move LA n.d.)

60 (Hymon, Sales tax hike could fund subway to the sea, 2008) 61 (Snoble 2015) 62 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2008, 13)



63 (Zane, Email to the author 2015) 64 (Zane, Email to the author 2015) 65 (Snoble 2015) 66 (Hymon, Villaraigosa wants sales tax hike for transit 2008) 67 (Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates 2015, 33, 35), Attachment C to (Raymond and Snoble

2008) 68 (Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates 2015, 28-‐33) 69 (Snoble 2015) 70 (Katz 2015) 71 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2008), Attachment A to

(Raymond and Snoble 2008) 72 The Crenshaw and Regional Connector funding included a total of $419 million from the

revenue set aside over the long term for operating new projects, which the draft statute and ballot proposition said could be utilized for capital purposes during the first ten years.

73 The use of nominal dollars for revenues and 2008 dollars for costs also meant that on first glance it appeared as if the revenues from the sales tax increase would cover almost all of the projects’ total capital costs. Illustratively, the plan called for providing $4.074 billion for the Wilshire project which is estimated would cost $4.2 billion in 2008 dollars, which Metro later estimated, would require $6.3 billion in nominal (year of expenditure) dollars. The difference would be covered by the money set aside for contingencies, which also included $2.2 billion in federal funds and $1 billion in state funds –help cover those additional nominal costs (which, in the case of the Wilshire project. See (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2008), Attachment A to (Raymond and Snoble 2008) and (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2012, 6-‐3)

74 (Aron 2013) 75 (Brasuell 2008) 76 (Elkind 2014, 212-‐213) 77 (Hymon, MTA takes first step in getting tax hike on ballot 2008) 78 Figure in table from (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2008) 79 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2008) 80 (Katz 2015) 81 (Villaraigosa 2015) 82 (Williams 2008) 83 (Doyle 2008) 84 (Hymon, State senator says it's LAX or bust for the tax hike bill 2008)



85 (Hymon, Sales tax proponents ask Legislature for their support 2008) 86 (Hymon, Sales tax proponents ask Legislature for their support 2008) 87 (Feuer 2015) 88 (Yaroslavsky 2015) 89 (Hymon, Why LACMA spent $900,000 on Measure R 2008) 90 (Abendschein 2008) and (Hymon, LACMA gives $400,000 more to Measure R Campaign

2008) 91 (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2008, 6, 11) 92 (Kassoff and Giordano 2011, 7-‐8) 93 (Yes on Measure R Los Angeles 2008) 94 (Yes on Measure R Los Angeles 2008) 95 (Yes on Measure R Los Angeles 2008) 96 (Katz 2015) 97 (Los Angeles Daily News Editorial Board 2008) 98 (Labor/Community Strategy Center 2008) 99 (McLean 2008) 100 (Sorenson, et al. 2008, xviii) 101 See, for example, (Downs 2004), (Lindsay 2006), (National Research

Council/Transportation Research Board 1994), and (Winston 2010, 36-‐59) 102 These were a 15-‐mile stretch of I-‐110 (the Harbor Freeway) from downtown Los Angeles

south to Gardena and an about 11-‐mile stretch of I-‐10 (the San Bernardino Expressway) from downtown east to El Monte.

103 (Wachs 2015). 104 The measure received more than 78 percent of the votes in seven cities and three of Los

Angeles’ 15 city council districts. Five of the cities – Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Huntington Park, and Maywood – are mid-‐sized, Eastside cities that are predominantly Hispanic, low=-‐income communities. Similarly, two of the council districts (Districts 1 and 13), were predominantly Hispanic, low-‐income areas. The other two cities where the measure drew more than 78 percent of the vote were Santa Monica and West Hollywood, which are predominantly white and middle-‐class areas. The measure also won 80 percent of the votes in Los Angeles City Council District 4, a largely white, middle class area that includes the mid-‐Wilshire corridor. Measure R did almost as well in areas that were home to large numbers of Blacks and Latinos, winning 72 percent of the vote in Inglewood, a city of 110,053 people where 42 percent of the residents were non-‐Latino Blacks, 50 percent are Latino and median household income was $43,460, The measure also drew more than 71 percent of the vote in the three Los Angeles City Council districts (Districts 8, 9, and 10) where more than 30 percent of the residents were Black and median incomes were low. See (U.S. Census



Bureau 2010), (U.S. Census Bureau 2010), (U.S. Census Bureau 2000), (U.S. Census Bureau 2000), and (U.S. Census Bureau 2000)

105 The only place where a majority of the voters did not support Measure R was La Habra Heights, at the southeastern end of the county where about 25 percent of the 5,278 residents were Latino, virtually no one was Black, 15 percent were Asian; the median household income was $121,380; and almost no one used transit to get to work. Measure R also received less than 55 percent of the vote in five other locales. Two were outlying cities: Santa Clarita in the northern part of the county, which has 172,253 residents, and Glendora at the eastern end of the San Gabriel Valley, which has about 50,000 residents. About 28 percent of the residents of both cities were Latino; about 2 percent were Black; and about 8 percent were Asian. Median incomes were $82,642 and $75,954, respectively. The other three cities were all in the South Bay west of Long Beach: Ranchos Palos Verdes, a mid-‐sized city of 41,335 and the neighboring cities of Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, that together had less than 10,000 residents. In Ranchos Palos Verdes, about 9 percent of the residents were Latino, 2 percent were black, and 29 percent were Asian. The median household income was $114,668 and only one percent of the workers commuted by transit. In Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, more residents were White; median incomes were substantially higher; and about 1 percent of workers commuted by transit. See (U.S. Census Bureau 2010) and (U.S. Census Bureau 2010).

106 (Yaroslavsky 2015) 107 (Boyarsky 2015) In the 1988 World Series, star Dodger outfield Kirk Gibson, who had not

played because his legs were injured, hit a dramatic game-‐ending, pinch-‐hit home run to end Game 1. This set the stage for the Dodgers to beat the favored Oakland Athletics four games to one. (See http://m.mlb.com/video/v3364800)

108 (Najarian 2015) 109 (Najarian 2015) 110 (Najarian 2015) 111 See (Federal Transit Administration 2015), (Federal Transit Administration 2015), and

(Federal Transit Administration 2014) 112 (Myerson 2012) 113 Author’s calculations from (U.S. Department of Transportation 2015) 114 Those giving $100,000 included unions representing electrical workers, ironworkers, and

carpenters; Zenith Insurance, developers Casden West and AP Properties; the Kiewit Corporation (which was building a new lane on the I-‐405), NBC Universal, and Occidental Petroleum. See (Yes on Measure J -‐ Committee for Jobs and Traffic Relief, a Coalition of Charitable, Business and Labor Organizations 2012), (Yes on Measure J -‐ Committee for Jobs and Traffic Relief, a Coalition of Charitable, Business and Labor Organizations 2012, Yes on Measure J -‐ Committee for Jobs and Traffic Relief, a Coalition of Charitable, Business and Labor Organizations 2012), and (Yes on Measure J -‐ Committee for Jobs and Traffic Relief, a Coalition of Charitable, Business and Labor Organizations 2013)

115 Current costs from (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2015); estimated costs from (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2012)



116 (Hymon, New details on potential ballot measure 2015) 117 (Nelson 2015). 118 (Shigley 2009)



Acknowledgements The author thanks a ll the peop le who took the tim e to d iscuss this case, includ ing severa l who were interviewed but a re not quoted . Specia l thanks to William Parent, Associa te Dean for Stra tegic Initia tives a t UCLA’s Luskin School of Pub lic Affa irs and Jody F. Litvak, Metro’s Director of Com m unity and Municipa l Affa irs for p rovid ing introductions to s evera l peop le interviewed for this p roject a s well a s guidance and background inform a tion about the region and Metro. Fina lly, thanks to s evera l peop le – pa rticula rly Litvak, Roger Snoble, Martin Wachs , Zev Yaros lavsky, and Denny Zane – for p rovid ing very help ful com m ents on d ra ft vers ions of this case.

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