During last week’s meeting of the Metro Board of Directors, staff presented their transit service proposal for the remainder of the current year. As highlighted by transit advocates throughout LA, Metro’s plan would reduce bus service by 20% from 7 million annual hours to 5.6 million annual hours this year, with an eye toward what is internally being called a “new normal” service cut of 8% from pre-Covid levels beginning next summer. If adopted, these cuts would be disastrous for transit riders in Los Angeles both during the immediate Covid recovery period and potentially for years afterward.
For more and more Angelenos, the pandemic does not correspond to an ability to remain sheltered safely at home. Rather, as places of business gradually reopen, workers in low-income service sector jobs in particular are being compelled to return to stores throughout the region. From the lowest depths that it hit when quarantine orders were at their strictest, system ridership on Metro has rebounded 25% already and can be expected to rise further for the simple reason that buses are a lifeline for Angelenos.
Given that, and the fact that buses are supposed to be running at less than full capacity so that riders and operators can safely distance from one another, the upshot of these cuts is clear: Metro is telling riders that they should find other means of travel. While for many riders the cost of car ownership is an expense that they cannot easily afford, in particular during these economically dire times, that does not mean that a bus rider today will not take Metro up on that and become a permanent car driver tomorrow. This is exactly the death spiral for bus ridership that Metro’s NextGen bus reorganization plan was intended to stop, which is why it is so disheartening now to see Metro preparing instead to undercut NextGen and accelerate the decline of the transit network.
The NextGen plan comprehended the vast disparities in bus ridership that exist between the counties busiest travel corridors in the LA basin and those in outlying suburban neighborhoods. That is why it sought, for the first time in Los Angeles, to redirect existing bus service hours to create a frequent all-day network on streets where demand was the highest. But NextGen cannot be achieved from a service level deficit like Metro is proposing. Although staff said that they would add back service hours over time according to the NextGen plan, the simple fact is that the proposed budget leaves us fighting to claw our way back to the poor service of the pre-Covid baseline and makes that frequent all-day network an unfulfillable promise.
Metro has said that the cuts are prudent financial management and that they are not giving up on the NextGen plan. But their actions tell a different story. At the same time that Metro is cutting bus service, they are also voting to accelerate unfunded capital rail projects, like the northern extension of the Crenshaw line, that will cost billions of dollars and that have groundbreaking dates decades in the future.
As riders and advocates, we can’t fail to notice that the checkbook is open wide for future rail construction and closed for the present day bus service that hundreds of thousands of Angelenos rely on. Further, without Metro providing any evidence that it cannot afford a gradual ramp up back to 7 million service hours or what it would cost the agency to get back to pre-Covid service, how can the public judge whether these drastic cuts are truly merited?
Later this month, Metro is planning to formally adopt the budget, with its bone-deep cuts to bus service. Transit advocates and riders have been clear that a vote for this budget is a vote against public transportation in Los Angeles, and not just in the near-term. By signalling so clearly that the quality of transit service is on the chopping block, Metro will have contributed to the longer term movement of riders away from the system. Angelenos who have left the system will be the first to tell Metro: even if you make the buses free, it takes good service to make transit worth it.
With the first month of the new fiscal year gone, Metro is still operating without an established budget for 2021. When the Board of Directors returns from its July recess, they will immediately be tasked with sorting through the mess that Covid and attendant restrictions on businesses and personal travel have made of Metro’s revenue streams and operations so that they can adopt a budget. While there are no shortage of transportation projects in need of funding in Los Angeles, it remains to be seen what Metro will decide to prioritize during this period of widespread hardship. There have been some early indications as to the discussions going on within Metro, however, and, for bus riders, the signs are not entirely encouraging.
On May 26, an internal memo by Metro CEO Phil Washington was posted for review by the agency’s Board of Directors. The memo, which contained a detailed snapshot of the evolving financial impacts of the Covid pandemic on Metro, divided “all projects and programs” into two buckets. What Washington refers to as Bucket 1 contains capital projects for which work is already being carried out under the terms of an executed contract. By contrast, Bucket 2 contains those projects and programs that have not been contracted and which, consequently, stakeholders can expect to be subject to delays pending an improvement in Metro’s financial standing.
Missing altogether from either bucket is perhaps Metro’s most important initiative: the NextGen bus service reorganization. NextGen is the plan to save Metro from a decade of declining ridership, service quality, and rider satisfaction. NextGen was meticulously assembled over several years, as riders waited with strained patience for Metro to begin implementing the urgently needed system-wide improvements.
When Metro debuted the completed NextGen study in January of this year, the plan’s aims were clearly among the most ambitious that the agency had ever sought to achieve, in a category with the decades-long project to build the city’s subway or the still-elusive goal of tunneling under the Sepulveda Pass. But even Metro’s recent history is filled with false starts and plans that were announced with fanfare only to falter and ultimately result in no lasting changes for riders. This is why Metro’s silence on the priority of establishing dedicated, protected funding streams to keep NextGen moving forward is so concerning.
A full buildout of NextGen is proposed by Metro to take place over 6 years, including nearly $1 billion in capital spending and reallocated bus service hours creating an all-day frequent network the likes of which this city has not enjoyed since the glory days of the old streetcar networks, if ever. By contrast, without NextGen, Metro has no clear hope to establish itself as a high-quality transportation system for Los Angeles. The stakes are that high.
Within the first phase of the NextGen action plan, the number of high-frequency lines running service every 10 minutes or better was set to nearly double while the number of Angelenos living near high-frequency lines would increase by a stunning 238%. But without adequate funding, this plan cannot succeed. Indeed, the capital elements are essential to accomplishing the transition to a high-quality bus network.
A NextGen plan without funding, where stops are consolidated but service remains infrequent and the stop environment remains unfriendly will only further burden the Angelenos who continue to rely on Metro during Covid. And if Metro cuts bus service in response to Covid, the plan’s goals become that much further out of reach.
Budgeting during the time of Covid has been challenging. Uncertainty regarding aid bills at the federal level has trickled down to every other level of government, and Metro, like other agencies, is working to establish a path forward at this critical moment. But we are also in Summer 2020, beyond when work on NextGen was supposed to begin with no clear indication or commitment from Metro to proceed with its reconstruction of a bus network that was failing long before Covid reached our city.
Metro’s faltering relationship with bus riders is sufficient reason to view any unwillingness on their part to be direct about the future of NextGen with suspicion. It is time for Metro to state clearly that they will fund NextGen and how they intend to make sure that it is completed in full.
When Metro merely mitigates for inequitable impacts of already formed projects, Metro sustains economic disparities to resources and opportunity throughout greater LA.
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Today, Metro attempts to achieve equitable outcomes by minimizing disparate impacts on new projects. Metro projects routinely include mitigation measures to compensate for the parts of a project they see negatively impacts communities that Metro defines.
Compensation plus systems change is needed to address inequity’s root cause. Discriminatory public policy like redlining starts with exclusionary thinking and abets discriminatory outcomes when applied to investments over time. Rather, Metro can achieve fair (read: equitable) outcomes by acknowledging the role its legacy has played in the past. In their Equity Platform Framework, Metro acknowledges that “historically and currently, inequity exists and has been largely defined by race and class – as well as age, gender, disability, and residency. Metro commits to working with historically underserved communities to establish meaningful equity goals.”
Once Metro’s choices reflect a trend of more equitable outcomes then Metro can more genuinely engage with the public to shape and fulfill initiatives that not only lower travel burdens butalso transform underserved communities’ access to resources and opportunities. Metro’s 10-year strategic plan (Vision 2028), which the board adopted in 2018, further commits the agency to equitable outcomes. Here, the author of this article recaps Metro’s prior missteps and reviews the agency’s current attempts to more equitably serve LA’s residents and visitors than Metro has in the past.
How has Metro involved equity in the past?
Since April 1993, the state of California has authorized Metro to plan, fund, build, and operate LA County’s transportation system [1]. However, Metro has not always carried out its duties fairly. In fact, over the last three decades Metro has gone from being sued for overlooking its most vulnerable customers to now mitigating for inequitable outcomes of Metro initiatives. Next, Metro should prospectively apply equity to transform greater LA into a thriving region.
Below is a summarized timeline of how Metro has involved equity in the past.
I. Mandated compliance with Bus Riders Union/Metro consent decree
Long before Metro’s founding in 1993, LA transportation officials ambitiously sought to grow a rail transit system that effectively outshined their efforts to cultivate a robust and reliable bus network. In the early 1990s, LA County bus riders — who overrepresented LA County’s population of people of color — shouldered the burden of the regions’ investment in growing a rail network (arguably still the case today). For instance, in 1992, Metro’s buses “carried 94 percent of the agencies ridership, yet the agency dedicated less than a third of its annual budget to bus operations.” At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the agency’s budget (71 percent) went to budding rail programs “that served only 6 percent of Metro’s ridership” [1, p. 163].
While the total number of rail riders was limited by a scant rail network at the time (only Metro’s Blue line was open by 1992), transportation officials willingly decided to invest in rail transit to an extent that dwarfed their investment in bus transit. Rail transit generally costs transit agencies more than bus transit to build and operate because of the many expensive components of rail transit like installing steel tracks and electrical power systems. Although bus passengers in the early 1990s were crowding onto Metro’s buses, transportation officials failed to invest in ways that would directly alleviate overcrowded buses by buying more buses or by operating buses more frequently and reliably in dedicated bus lanes, for example. In spite of this paradigm, LA’s transportation officials in 1994 proceeded to propose a fare increase whose burden would fall heavily on Metro’s bus riders, while simultaneously spending on expensive rail expansion.
In 1994, the Bus Riders Union (an organized coalition of bus riders) and their attorneys from the NAACP’s Legal Defense Funds (LDF) successfully stopped Metro’s proposed fare hike. In 1996, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Hatter Jr. ruled that such a fare hike would result in “disparate impacts” to the Metro’s bus riders who were over 80 percent people of color. By comparison, people of color comprised of less than 60 percent of LA County’s population at the time [1]. Now popularly known as the ‘consent decree,’ this court order precipitated a cap on Metro’s transit fares for 10-years (which has since expired in 2006) and required Metro to buy more buses to alleviate overcrowding. Significantly, this intervention shifted Metro’s attention to address the needs of their current (mostly bus) riders who overwhelmingly represented low-income communities of color, which remains the case today.
II. Indirect attempts to apply equity in planning
In the first decade of the 2000s Metro remained the rail, bus, and highway agency it had already been for more than three decades. Metro’s 30-year (long-range) transportation planning (LRTP) document from 2009 reflects transportation officials’ continued rail building ambition. It also shows how relatively little investment and attention Metro pays to enhance walking and biking infrastructure, which enable basic human-powered mobility. Metro’s 2009 plan dedicates a mere one percent of the agency’s planned investments over 30 years to improve biking and walking linkages to transit (see 2009 LRTP, Figure F) — outspent twice over by ‘Administration and Other’ costs and thirteen times over by ‘Street and Road’ costs, which until recently have been designed with a singular focus: how to make it easier to drive a private automobile.
Source: Metro’s 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan, p. 15
The 2009 LRTP does not address nor ameliorate mobility disparities based on race and income. Although the 2009 plan includes a ‘job accessibility’ metric to show mobility disparities, Metro fails to address the implications of these disparaging metrics. The 2009 plan accepts weak outcomes like taking three decades to achieve small gains. For example, Figure 11 of the 2009 plan (copied below) shows that Metro will take 30 years to lower transit commute times to under an hour for a small additional (12 percentage point) share of transit dependent neighborhoods, which have mostly carless, low-income, or senior households. The 2009 plan ignores the remaining 41 percent of work trips from transit dependent neighborhoods that will take more than an hour by transit for, at least, another 30 years.
Source: Metro’s 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan, p. 54 (red underline added for emphasis)
Secondly, the same ‘Environmental Justice’ section of the 2009 plan overstates the positive impact the 2009-plan proposed projects could have on communities of color. For at least 30 more years (through 2040), around half of LA County’s African American, Hispanic, and Asian American ‘subgroups’ and around 70 percent of ‘non-Minority subgroups’ will remain over an hour away from work by transit — an outcome that reflects the need for transportation officials to focus more meaningfully on changing their relationship with policies that govern housing and job growth, which underlie people’s need to travel. Finally this 30-year plan focuses heavily on work trips largely sustaining difficulty for people whose access and independence relies on transit.
III. Broadening the agency’s engagement with local officials and advocates
In the current decade, Metro accounted for city-controlled infrastructure by committing Measure M funds to cities through two programs: the ‘Multiyear Subregional Program’ (MSP) and continuing the ‘Local Return’ program. Metro also lowers cities’ costs of applying for state transportation funds by assigning Metro staff to write grant proposals for cities. Metro offers this service, called Technical Assistance, to cities free-of-charge.
In the years leading up to 2016, Metro officials built a broad-based coalition that included local officials and advocates to campaign for a sales tax measure, which officials expect will raise $120 billion over 40 years for transportation purposes. Subsequently, Metro’s CEO convened a Policy Advisory Council to help develop the 2020-50 Long Range Transportation Plan “and other work plans and policy areas that the Metro Board may request.” When the measure passed, coalition members representing local jurisdictions, consumers, and other transportation providers gained seats on the Metro Policy Advisory Council (PAC). Members of the PAC’s ‘consumers’ constituency group especially advocate for social equity.
In 2018, Metro Board adopted a 10-year strategic plan (Vision 2028), which validates equity’s importance to fulfilling Metro’s mission. In the plan Metro commits to prioritize communities with need, but stops short of designating who in the agency would guide and how they would hold the agency accountable to its equity commitment. At a public meeting in February, Metro CEO Phil Washington alluded to hiring an officer to champion equity for Metro. We support this notion and urge Metro to hire a CERO – Chief Equity & Race Officer – with multiple staff to define equity and set performance measures, which reinforces all four pillars of the Equity Platform Framework and helps fulfill Vision 2028 strategic goals.
Also in 2018, Metro directors promised to prioritize investments to communities based on need by adopting the Equity Platform Framework. With the framework, Metro challenges its staff to approach every decision with the goal of achieving equitable outcomes countywide. Immediately, the framework should impact how Metro redesigns Metro’s bus network (NextGen), develops a 2020-50 Long Range Transportation Plan, deliberates which projects to accelerate, designs a congestion pricing program, and distributes Measure M’s Active Transportation Funds.
What’s next? Centering equity at the outset of every initiative
When Metro focuses on equity prospectively communities all over greater LA gain higher-quality access to more resources and opportunities.
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A little over one year ago, Metro adopted a set of “pillars” to outline how Metro will transform its decision-making practices to center the needs of LA County’s most vulnerable communities. Anointed Metro’s “Equity Platform Framework,” the four pillars challenge all staff and board members to think differently as they fund, expand, and operate LA County’s main public transportation system. Every day, millions of people’s lives and livelihoods depend on the quality of Metro’s operations and investments. Whose lives in LA County will benefit in the coming years as Metro funds and expands LA’s transportation system depends on whether and how Metro staff and board members prioritize the needs of our most vulnerable communities.
Why does it matter that public agencies focus on equity?
Social equity differs from equality. Public officials who make choices with an equity mindset make choices fairly — they account for innate and socially-imposed differences that exist among communities. When public officials make decisions equitably, they resist the false assumptions that ‘all communities can equally access opportunity ’ (they can’t) and that ‘social differences among communities reflect fair decisions’ (they don’t). By Metro’s own data, just under half of transit dependent neighborhoods with mostly low-income, carless, or senior households in LA County will remain over an hour away from jobs by transit through 2040.
If Metro operates from an equity lens, and intentionally increases access in the areas that need it the most first, Metro can diminish persistent disparities and help overcome legacies of discriminatory public policy. Economic research shows that regions with low economic disparities and high racial inclusion have more thriving regional economies.
How can Metro implement equity today?
Step 1: Finalize and apply a regional definition of equity
A year after Metro adopted its first-ever Equity Platform, nearly 30 partners from all over the region stood up for equity implementation at Metro. In the past 12 months, Metro has started creating a methodology for a regional definition of equity and equity performance measures. But this work remains unfinished and transportation officials proceed making policy and funding decisions unconstrained by an equity framework.
“Define and Measure,” the first pillar in the Equity Platform, commits to “involve the diverse range of voices that must collaborate” on goals and metrics. A community-driven conversation on a regional definition of equity will also ensure that local priorities are met and protected. Local priorities include funding to sustain or expand local transit service, Vision Zero, first-last mile and complete streets, sidewalk and road repair and transit oriented communities.
Step 2: Establish an Office of Race & Equity with Chief Race & Equity Officer and team of staff
It was so exciting to hear Metro CEO Phil Washington publicly state that he intends to hire a Chief Equity Officer to shepherd Metro’s equity work. The monumental lift to build equity into Metro’s culture, governance, and investment decisions needs all the help it can get. Will Metro walk the walk and budget for an equity team? Good thing the annual budget process is here!
Step 3: Apply equity definition, performance measures, and community engagement to Metro’s annual budget, financing policies, public investments and programs, and capital projects
In January 2019 Metro launched an initiative named Reimagining LA County: Mobility, Equity, and the Environment to study traffic management tools that can alleviate vehicle traffic congestion and simultaneously generate additional transportation revenue. The two-year study will explore congestion (relief) pricing and charging fees for transportation companies who sell rides on the public right-of-way.
A congestion pricing scenario and/or transportation network company fees could revolutionize how Greater LA manages driving. It is imperative that a robust equity framework apply to these initiatives to prioritize and serve high-need communities, including low-income drivers.
But first, we need a regional definition of equity.
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This post was initially published on March 13, 2019.
[This post was updated on April 4, 2019 to include the following recap of Metro’s latest decisions on two initiatives: Reimagining LA County (think: congestion pricing) and 28×28 (think: a project list).]
In late February we stood with nearly 30 equity partners to boldly call on the LA Metro Board of Directors to define equity and establish equity performance measures by May. In doing so, LA County’s main transportation agency would make progress on implementing their one year-old Equity Platform Framework, which sets the parameters to routinely achieve equitable outcomes countywide. We continue to urge Metro to integrate equitable decision-making in every aspect of their work — in funding, planning, building, operating, and maintaining LA County’s public transportation system.
Thank you to our partners who joined us to deliver an equity-centered comment letter on Metro’s Reimagining LA County initiative and testified before Metro (ACT-LA, Climate Resolve, ELACC, People for Mobility Justice, and SAJE). Here’s a brief update of what we’ve learned through mid-March.
1. LA Metro CEO, Phil Washington, intends to hire a Chief Equity Officer
In the CEO’s response to a Director’s question on succession planning for Metro’s equity leader, Mr. Washington said he intends to hire a Chief Equity Officer to shepherd LA Metro’s equity work, which Metro’s former Chief Planning Officer had focused on through the end of February.
Urge Metro to hire multiple full-time staffers to focus on equity — We realize that any single full-time staffer at LA Metro would be tasked with a profound duty of championing equitable decision-making in an agency authorized to fund, build, and operate public transportation for a diverse county of nearly 10 million people. Thus, in Metro’s upcoming budget deliberations, we will be calling on Metro to hire multiple full-time staffers to focus on equity.
Importantly, the board voted (1) to studycongestion pricing for two years, (2) to study imposing fees on ridehail and scooter companies, and (3) to prepare a detailed financial forecast by July to deliver 8 as-yet underfunded projects (prioritizing 4 of which are transit projects) on the 28×28 project list.
RE: Reimagining LA County
April 2019 – Staff to report to the full Board of Directors on how staff intends to complete the congestion pricing and new mobility fee studies, which alludes to what may be in both studies scope of work.
RE: 28×28
May 2019 – Staff to report to Executive Management and Construction Committees on progress toward a detailed financial forecast to deliver 8 big projects (prioritizing the 4 transit projects) by 2028, which is sooner than their project schedules in Measure M.
July 2019 – Staff to submit to the full Board of Directors a detailed financial forecast to deliver the 8 accelerated projects in the 28×28 project list.
3. The LA Metro Board attached four caveats to the Reimagining Initiative.
Motion 32.1 – another one of the four motions focused on the equity implications of congestion pricing on low-income drivers. In response, Metro staff broadened the scope of a proposed congestion pricing equity strategy to include more underserved communities than just low-income drivers. While these signals are positive, Metro staff must now define equity and its performance measures, while simultaneously authoring a potentially consequential congestion pricing report that could profoundly change travel behavior countywide.
As we continue our advocacy at Metro, we will be urging Metro to (1) establish and staff an Office of Race & Equity, (2) define equity and performance measures by Metro’s May board committee meetings, and (3) necessarily involve community stakeholders in crafting the congestion pricing report and its accompanying equity strategy.
Ever wonder why so many sidewalks in LA are broken, narrow, or missing altogether? Decades of government funding choices that have not prioritized the public right-of-way (sidewalks plus road space) underlie the issue (watch this). Ever wonder how to improve your local parks or libraries or street lights? When constituents earnestly call on their elected officials to step-up a specific public service or to fix broken infrastructure (including sidewalks), we hear public officials tell their constituents: “if it’s not in the budget, we can’t do it.” While budget allocations don’t always directly lead to real-time repairs, how cities decide to spend their annual budget does directly impact what residents and stakeholders can expect from their local government. In this way, the city’s annual budget reflects the city’s priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and highlights the boundaries of what city officials collectively believe they can accomplish.
City of LA Budget 101
The City of LA starts its fiscal year on July 1 and ends its fiscal year 12-months later on June 30. The City of LA’s annual budget, which the LA City Council and Mayor officially adopt in June, serves as the city’s spending and revenue plan for the upcoming fiscal year. A ‘FY20’ budget, for example, refers to a budget that starts in July 2019 and ends in June 2020.
The LA City Council is only one legislative body in the city to contribute to the budget, albeit the only body that deliberates budgets in a manner that is visible to the public. City department staff and staff representing the LA Mayor substantially contribute to the earliest iterations of the city’s budget before city councilmembers host their budget deliberations. By the time the City of LA’s 15 Councilmembers deliberate budget allocations in the spring, city department heads and staff representing the mayor’s office have already shaped the budget for several months.
Here’s a rough timeline showing how the City of LA budget is created and passed every year.
September to November: City department heads coordinate with Mayor’s staff — Each City of LA department estimates the total amount of funds they need for salaries and wages for their department’s staff, plus new and ongoing initiatives assigned to that department. Then each department General Manager sends to the Mayor’s office staff a proposed annual department budget.
November to April: City department heads deliberate with Mayor’s staff — City of LA department General Managers meet with Mayor’s office staff and the City Administrative Officer (CAO) to review their department’s proposed budget. The CAO is the financial advisor to the Mayor and City Council and assists in the preparation and administration of the city budget each year. These discussions form the foundation of the Mayor’s annual proposed budget and occur privately, outside the purview of the general public.
April: LA City Mayor’s State of the City address — At this annual public event, the Mayor of Los Angeles outlines the city’s priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and unveils the Mayor’s proposed budget. This address sets in motion the public-facing segment of city budget deliberations.
May: LA City Council Committee budget deliberations — LA City Council’s 5-member Budget and Finance committee hosts public hearings on the proposed budget for each of the city’s departments, which include the LA Department of Transportation and the LA Department of Public Works, for example. These hearings are hosted at City Hall and members of the public may attend, listen, and give timed public comment on any of the agenda items. The Budget and Finance committee chairperson has authority to schedule these hearings, determine the agendas, and set the allotted time for public comment. Agendas for these public hearings will list which department budgets will be reviewed. State law requires the city to publish agendas no less than 72 hours before each hearing.
June: LA City Council budget approval — LA City Council’s 15-member legislative body reviews the budget and adopts the budget by June 1. The new fiscal year starts on the first of July.
How can I get involved?
When engaging with any city’s policy, legislative, or budget process we recommend three basic steps:
1) Relationships are everything
Anyone who wishes to shape the city’s budget in a meaningful way might consider cultivating relationships at multiple levels within city government. Principle players who most influence the City of LA budget include: staff representing department general managers, staff from policy and budget teams of Office of the LA Mayor, and the five city councilmembers who serve on the LA City Council Budget and Finance committee.
(Important to note! While you may live in a district of a councilmember who is not on the Budget and Finance committee, as a member of the public you can still engage with other council offices on issues covered by the committees they sit on.)
2) Know your issues
If you wish to strengthen your “asks” to city officials to deliver a public service or infrastructure, consider accompanying your requests with recommended allocation of resources. Some questions you might study ahead of the ask might include: With what funds could the city pay for the initial ask? Who would maintain the service or infrastructure after it is launched? If the city should maintain any new infrastructure, then how will the city pay to maintain its upkeep? Have any other cities done something similar to what you are requesting? Anyone can rely on relationships during city budgeting and a working knowledge of public finance to strengthen their asks.
3) Show, more than tell
Our elected officials understand that they are representatives. When members of the public can demonstrate huge support or opposition to an issue, our policymakers are more likely to listen. Anyone can show that they represent the interests of many constituents through sign-on letters, large groups at public hearings, widespread social media campaigns, and other methods. We find that the most effective advocacy is to combine individual relationships with city officials with public shows of vast support.
What’s the possible impact? A Vision Zero case study
City of LA officials tout a $9.9 billion budget for the fiscal year ending June 2019. This massive city budget breaks down into numerous departmental budgets. Departmental budgets break down further to fund specific initiatives, such as the initiative to save lives that end in traffic crashes, referred to as Vision Zero.
Prioritization — In 2015, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti launched the Vision Zero initiative in Los Angeles. In response, the City of LA’s transportation department (LADOT) developed long-term Vision Zero planning documents that chart out a course to eliminate traffic deaths in LA by 2025 while pointing out the forbidding reality of streets in LA where “motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death of children between the ages of 5 and 14” (LADOT, 2017, p. 18).
Investment — During the city’s budgeting process, Vision Zero advocates and supportive elected officials leveraged LADOT-published planning documents to raise the spectre of funding for Vision Zero from $3 million to $27 million in FY18. This show of support was also influential to continue increases to Vision Zero funding to $37 million in FY19 — a 1,100% budget increase in three years. While this upward trending financial commitment to road safety is encouraging to every road user, physical changes to streets saves lives.
Implementation — So far, some of the City of LA’s most visible Vision Zero accomplishments have included installing diagonal crosswalks in Hollywood (2015), MacArthur Park (2017), and Venice (2018) — an intersection design type that studies show cuts pedestrian collisions by half. Based on a Vision Zero screening of streets for exceedingly high* occurrence of human fatality and injury, city officials have begun reshaping parts of Reseda Blvd. in the West San Fernando Valley, Roscoe Blvd. in the East San Fernando Valley, and five other Complete Street corridors whose present street conditions have often resulted in human tragedy.
* Vision Zero initiatives promote the notion that traffic crashes are entirely preventable and declare any human fatality by traffic crash as unacceptable.
City budgets reflect the city’s priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and highlight the boundaries of what city officials believe they can accomplish together. In order to influence public spending at the City of LA in a meaningful way, advocates can start by cultivating relationships at multiple levels of city government; matching their asks to city officials with funding source recommendations and proposed budgets; and showing support at budget hearings by building partnerships among allies and testifying at public hearings in the spring. The city’s budget cycle is active nearly all year round — starting with department managers and Mayor’s staff deliberations in the fall and ending with a City Council vote and Mayor approval in the spring (June 1). Once your desired initiatives appear in the budget, you and supporters can strengthen your appeal for change.
Richard France assists clients with strategic planning, visioning, and community and economic development. He is a strategic planner at Estolano Advisors, where he has been involved in a variety of active transportation, transit-oriented development, climate change resiliency, and equitable economic development projects. His work in active transportation includes coordinating a study to improve bike and pedestrian access to transit oriented districts for the County of Los Angeles, and working with the Southern California Association of Governments to host tactical urbanism events throughout the region. Richard also serves as a technical assistance provider for a number of California Climate Investment programs, including the Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities, Transformative Climate Communities, and Low Carbon Transit Operations programs. He has also taught at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Richard received a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and his M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA.
Accelerator for America, Milken Institute
Matt Horton
Matt Horton is the director of state policy and initiatives for Accelerator for America. He collaborates with government officials, impact investors, and community leaders to shape infrastructure, job creation, and equitable community development efforts. With over fifteen years of experience, Matt has directed research-driven programs and initiatives focusing on housing production, infrastructure finance, access to capital, job creation, and economic development strategies. Previously, he served as the director of the California Center at the Milken Institute, where he produced research and events to support innovative economic policy solutions. Matt also has experience at the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), where he coordinated regional policy development and planning efforts. He holds an MA in political science from California State University, Fullerton, and a BA in history from Azusa Pacific University. Additionally, Matt serves as a Senior Advisor for the Milken Institute and is involved in various advisory boards, including Lift to Rise and WorkingNation.
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Madeline Brozen
Madeline is the Deputy Director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. She oversees and supports students, staff, and faculty who work on planning and policy issues about how people live, move, and work in the Southern California region. When not supporting the work of the Lewis Center community, Madeline is doing research on the transportation patterns and travel needs of vulnerable populations in LA. Her recent work includes studies of low-income older adults in Westlake, public transit safety among university students, and uncovering the transportation needs of women, and girls in partnership with Los Angeles public agencies. Outside of UCLA, Madeline serves as the vice-chair of the Metro Westside Service Council and enjoys spending time seeing Los Angeles on the bus, on foot, and by bike.
Office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass
Luis Gutierrez
Luis Gutierrez, works in the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, as the Director of Energy & Water in the Office of Energy and Sustainability (MOES), Luis oversees issues related to LA’s transition to clean energy, water infrastructure, and serves as the primary liaison between the Mayor’s Office and the Department of Water and Power. Prior to joining MOES, Luis managed regulatory policy proceedings for Southern California Edison (SCE), focusing on issues related to equity and justice. Before joining SCE, Luis served as the Director of Policy and Research for Inclusive Action for the City, a community development organization dedicated to economic justice in Los Angeles. Luis holds a BA in Sociology and Spanish Literature from Wesleyan University, and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Cal State LA.
kim@investinginplace.org
Communications Strategist
Kim Perez
Kim is a writer, researcher and communications strategist, focused on sustainability, urban resilience and safe streets. Her specialty is taking something complex and making it clear and compelling. Harvard-trained in sustainability, she won a prize for her original research related to urban resilience in heat waves—in which she proposed a method to help cities identify where pedestrians spend a dangerous amount of time in direct sun, so they can plan for more equitable access to shade across a city.
For over almost two decades, Jessica has led efforts in Los Angeles to promote inclusive decision-making and equitable resource allocation in public works and transportation funding. Jessica’s current work at Investing in Place is grounded in the belief that transparent and strategic prioritization of public funds can transform Los Angeles into a city where inclusive, accessible public spaces enrich both livability and well-being. As a collaborator and convener, Jessica plays a role in facilitating public policy conversations and providing nuanced insights into the interplay of politics, power, and process on decision-making and fiscal allocations.
