Measure R funds won't get rolling soon
Projects intended to relieve congested traffic are at least five years away, officials say
Don't expect new roads or rails to start spreading across Los Angeles County now that Measure R has passed; transportation officials say the first of a long list of projects are still several years from opening.
Early work is likely to include an extension of the Expo Line from Culver City to Santa Monica, an extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena to Azusa and placement of a busway or light-rail line along Crenshaw Boulevard in South Los Angeles, planners say.
But approval of a half-cent sales tax delivered a more immediate victory to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who came into office more than three years ago pledging to finally start the city's so-called Subway to the Sea. Now, money to begin such a subterranean route -- probably along the Wilshire corridor -- is assured by the Measure R plan.
"The commuters of LA were fed up with traffic and gas prices, and they responded by making an historic investment that will change the face of transportation in the region forever," Villaraigosa said.
The mayor and other elected officials are expected to hold a news conference in Westwood later this morning to talk about Measure R, which narrowly passed the two-thirds threshold needed for approval.
This assumes, of course, that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn't send the money someplace else or the subway project runs into unforeseen problems. The MTA has the power to decide what gets built and when, although the odds of a subway change are slim as long as Villaraigosa remains a member of the MTA Board with three appointees on it.
The western extension of the Purple Line, begun under former Mayor Tom Bradley, had been tied in political knots for two decades. First, as the city's subway network began to take shape, underground methane gas in 1985 triggered an explosion in the Fairfax district, leading to a bill by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) to ban the use of federal money for tunneling on the Westside.
Then, construction setbacks and cost overruns led voters to approve a 1998 ballot measure by county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to prohibit using local sales taxes for tunneling.
In the decade since, however, opposition to the subway began to melt as more jobs migrated to the Westside and traffic there grew worse.
The half-cent sales tax increase approved Tuesday is expected to raise as much as $40 billion for projects on the list. The biggest and costliest is the Purple Line extension west from its current terminus at Wilshire and Western to Westwood.
