There are two key current long range transportation planning efforts in Southern California for the period 2001 to 2025. The Southern CaliforniaAssociation of Governments (SCAG) is distributing for comment the 2001 Draft Regional Transportation Plan which covers the following six counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial. The plan proposes $130 billion for transportation maintenance and improvements in the six-county region over the next 25 years.
In addition, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has a preliminary draft long range plan recommending how to spend $89 billion over the next 25 years within Los Angeles County.
The Coalition for Sustainable Transportation has prepared a set of recommendations for Solving Southern California’s Transportation Crisis. They are available in either Adobe PDF format with footnotes or in HTML text format without footnotes. Please send your comments and endorsements to [email protected].In addition, SCCED has prepared comments on the Draft Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR). They are available in either Adobe PDF format with footnotes or in HTML text format without footnotes.
BACKGROUND ON THE ISSUES
With an additional 3.5 million residents to be added to L.A. County by 2025 (a total of 6 million additional for the entire region), congestion is projected to become much worse. Average freeway speeds will be nearly cut in half, slowing morning and evening rush hours to a crawl. In spite of this, the preliminary draft plans being discussed by the SCAG and MTA transportation agencies expect that over 70% of home to work trips will continue to be by single occupancy automobile and less than4% of all trips will use transit. Only minimal resources are being put into land use/smart growth solutions or bicycle, pedestrian options.The plans also do not address rising fuel costs, energy supply disruptions or possible future federal mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the transportation investments recommended so far leave our region vulnerable to these possible scenarios, which could have severe impact on our regional economy.
Your suggestions for alternatives need to be communicated to decision-makers.Your comments are crucial in determining whether these plans will address concerns for mobility, environment and our quality of life.