| Shown are finishing touches underway at the Jefferson Station platform, one of three stations serving the University of Southern California area. |
New funding is in place that will allow Los Angeles to remake its transportation/land use connection. In 2009, a countywide half-cent sales tax increase took effect. Measure R, approved by two-thirds of Los Angeles County voters in November 2008, is providing $40 billion for congestion relief and transportation system investments over the next 30 years, including more than a dozen rail and rapid transit projects and adding 160,000 new jobs to the local economy.
Local transportation advocates have since asked whether it might be possible to carry out all 30 years of investment in only the next decade. The concept, dubbed 30/10, has won bipartisan backing. The question is to what extent current leadership and policy debates will be resolved in favor of the concept’s vision. Because the 30/10 concept could also help other cities across America bolster infrastructure investment, generate jobs, and ultimately set the stage for a new phase of more environmentally conscious urbanization, what was initially a local concept has risen to the level of a federal policy initiative known as America Fast Forward.
New steps are being considered and implemented nationwide to expand transit infrastructure (see “Transportation Blueprints,” July 2009). Among other ideas, a national infrastructure bank, such as has already been created in Europe and elsewhere, could help provide loans to communities that have taxed themselves to meet their own infrastructure priorities in the face of stiff competition for federal program funding. In L.A.’s case, the two-thirds vote for Measure R represents a significant convergence of interests in transportation, land use, and global environmental awareness.
The applicability of L.A.’s approach extends beyond the city because Los Angeles alone constitutes the world’s 18th-largest economy. The opportunity to expand this vision beyond L.A. to the rest of the country comes at a time when, despite growing recognition of the need for and benefits of national infrastructure investment, the political climate has been dominated by voter backlash and a focus on deficit reduction. Officials therefore have worked to understand how America Fast Forward would support private sector job creation and empower local communities without harming the federal budget. Just as the development profession understands the benefits that local communities can derive from a strong connection between transportation and land use, a growing cadre of business, government, and labor leaders has recognized that the America Fast Forward plan stands to deliver on that connection.
Development professionals also understand that transportation investment is followed by many forms of strong urban infrastructure, such as schools and quality-of-life amenities, and ultimately helps raise land values. The history of urbanization in Los Angeles has been centered on connecting transportation infrastructure to development opportunity. That is the story of Henry E. Huntington and the Red Car line, for instance. Development of the Huntington Beach community in the early 1900s was the direct result of extension of the Pacific Electric Railway’s Red Car line to the area.
Drawing on America Fast Forward principles would enable transit projects funded over the long term to be implemented in a shorter time frame through the use of financial instruments that leverage existing funding as a downpayment. For example, under Measure R, the Westside Subway Extension is slated for completion in 2036; under the 30/10 plan, that schedule would accelerate to as early as 2022. Similar implementation of the America Fast Forward approach would allow other cities across the country to leverage their own funding programs—and add jobs—sooner rather than later. If America Fast Forward principles were followed and planned infrastructure programs were accelerated, that could amount to just under 1 million additional jobs nationwide.
Though few U.S. cities have as many people as Los Angeles and therefore could not implement the heavy rail systems that are among the main beneficiaries of federal funding, other transit modes such as light rail are a viable option for accelerated funding, benefiting communities that want to emphasize more responsible urbanization after decades of sprawling development patterns.
America Fast Forward proposes a package of financial instruments for use in accelerated funding of infrastructure projects. A key element is expansion of federal loans approved under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA). Cities across the country have already used TIFIA loans since the program began in 1998 and have expressed interest in obtaining billions more in funding. Another element calls for the creation of a qualified transportation improvement bond (QTIB) program, a form of tax code incentive.
While not a part of the formal package, more transit-oriented developments (TODs) may also be expected as a result of introduction of new rail lines. Though the number of TODs is by their nature relatively low because they are located within walking distance of a station, when the development focus is expanded to the broader station vicinity, businesses, developers, local property owners, and taxing authorities are likely to see land values rise.
Metro Projects under Construction
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This broader approach constitutes transit-adjacent development, or transit-oriented districts, an economic development approach that has benefits extending beyond the transportation infrastructure itself. Local and regional governments in California and nationwide understand this and have worked to expand planning for these opportunities by focusing development incentives within a half-mile radius of a station. In the Los Angeles area, because nearly all developable land has already been built up, station-area planning is more difficult than it is elsewhere. Government agencies seeking to increase TOD will leave the added right-of-way costs, planning and design, and permitting activity to the private sector more often by necessity rather than by choice. Over the two-plus decades of remaking the modern system in Los Angeles, construction budgets usually have not included elective land purchases. Nonetheless, both infrastructure investment and TOD opportunities are of clear interest to the great majority of communities seeking to benefit from implementation of America Fast Forward.
Meanwhile, labor groups and businesses have banded together to back the focus of transportation policy initiatives on job creation, while at the same time recognizing the brewing infrastructure crisis. This past July, the law schools of the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of California at Berkeley released a report titled All Aboard: How California Can Increase Investments in Public Transit, sponsored by Bank of America, stressing the importance of public transit and endorsing a package of short- and long-term solutions, including the principles of America Fast Forward. This report is part of a growing body of literature on the importance to the national economy of mobility and maintaining transportation infrastructure.
While traffic congestion may be a sign of success in an urban area, it grinds away at productivity. That is one reason why solutions like truck-only highway lanes are being explored—because in addition to making roads safer for drivers of cars, movement of goods is important to the health of the economic system. As described in ULI’s Infrastructure 2011: A Strategic Priority report, America still lags behind many other countries in giving infrastructure the priority needed to overcome financial hurdles and bolster regional competitiveness.
Even without the 30/10 plan, Los Angeles will continue to expand and remake transit/land use connections under Measure R. Five major construction efforts are now underway (see box). Because providing jobs in a down the economy is of paramount importance, it is a happy coincidence that the environmental benefits associated with transit/land use connections will also take place on an accelerated time frame. Earlier this year, Los Angeles became the world’s first major metropolitan area to have a bus fleet made up completely of clean-air vehicles. L.A. is already working to take the first steps to bring new options to a transportation system dominated by solo drivers in private vehicles. Building a legacy of leadership in Los Angeles is now a matter of alerting urban communities across the country to those same opportunities.
