Framework Recommendations for Metro’s potential 2016 Transportation Ballot Measure

We are excited to share our public comment letter to Metro with our recommendations for the framework for the potential 2016 Transportation Ballot Measure and we invite you to sign on and join us! The due date for the letter is September 1^st, so we are asking all interested partners to sign on via this google form by Monday August 31^st.

These recommendations emerged through a series of individual and group conversations with elected officials, policy makers, public agencies and community-based organizations that we have conducted across the Los Angeles region over the past year.

It also builds upon much of the momentum that began in 2012 while working with many of you through the Los Angeles County Active Transportation Collaborative – which advocated increasing funds for active transportation. Investing in Place was created to respond to what we began to realize during our work with the Collaborative, that increasing funds for active transportation wasn’t an isolated goal but rather as the entry point to expanding our focus on improving neighborhoods and communities. It became about finding ways to employ a collaborative model to help stakeholders deploy funding in a manner that achieves social equity, public health, and environmental policy goals. And we hope this framework just does that!

Key recommendations:

• Develop a data-driven framework that prioritizes funding for projects that advance social equity, enhance public health, and achieve environmental goals.
• Create prioritization investment areas based on income levels and race/ethnicity
• Better serve transit-dependent populations by maintaining low fares, increasing frequency of service on high-ridership lines, ensuring funding for transit operations, enacting policies that enable development without displacement, and supporting integrated housing and transportation initiatives.
• Increasing funding for Active Transportation and other travel options for low-income and carless households
• Supporting Meaningful and Authentic Participation during this process.

Please join us and sign on today!

We also encourage our partners to submit their own comment letters on framework ideas to Metro.  The deadline is September 1st and letters should be sent to Metro CEO Phil Washington.  If you do submit a framework letter – please send us a copy, we’d love to highlight it.  We encourage partners to feel free to borrow/be inspired by language from our framework letter and/or see our policy brief on Active Transportation Finance that documents research and recommendations for why we recommend 10 percent of the potential 2016 measure to go towards funding active transportation.

Huge thanks to our partners: Naomi Iwasaki at Community Health Councils, Tamika Butler at the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, Richard France at ELP Advisors and Fernando Cazares at NRDC for all their input, edits, and feedback on shaping this letter. We couldn’t have done it without their leadership and vision.