Romero hops aboard the Sprawl Line gravy train

On Tuesday, I wrote about the BRU’s use of the politics of resentment and entitlement to manipulate the people they claim to represent. In the current debate over the Foothill Extension, we are witnessing the same kind of manipulation being deployed by politicians like Gloria Romero, Mike Antonovich, and the Foothill Board of Directors. Responding to Steve Hymon's interview with State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero over at Bottleneck Blog, commenter Ism lays out clearly how this manipulation plays out:

Speaking publicly about "putting ornaments on a Christmas tree," or asking "Why should we stand in the back of the line?" or alleging "folks who live east of the Los Angeles River" have been "short-changed on mass transit over the years" is cheap demagoguery. Predictably, it has sparked responses in this thread about "west-side pigs feeding at the trough," "chiding a jurisdiction for wanting to get that money returned to it for their projects instead of just giving it away to a subway in LA City" and disbelief that any of us have "actually BEEN in the SGV during the rush hour." Sen Romero's public comments pander to our baser instincts, are guaranteed to scuttle any chance of passage of vitally needed funding for county-wide mass transit and will condemn us to tearing at each other as we all sink together. We need to get past this petty Balkanization and we must make sure our leaders work for us rather than against us.

In their polarizing rhetoric, Foothill advocates and politicians are deliberately pitting northern San Gabriel Valley residents against Westside residents. But exactly whose interest does it serve to have this pitched battle between regions and to reduce this entire debate to nothing more than a petty grudge match and money grab?

Proponents of the Foothill Extension refuse to acknowledge two obvious realities in arguing for their project. The first reality is that there is a fundamental hierarchy of transit priorities that places both the Expo and the Westside Subway ahead of the Foothill Extension. No, this does not mean that the San Gabriel Valley’s transit problems are unimportant nor does it deny the reality that the Expo and the Subway will produce more immediate benefits to the Westside than to the San Gabriel Valley. However, the entire region’s economic health depends upon applying our limited resources to worthy, effective projects in the proper sequence. We have only one shot at this and creating transit access to the job centers Downtown and on the Westside is both our first priority and in the entire region’s best interest. Only after we have fulfilled that fundamental priority of making our regional economic engines transit accessible should we turn our attention to extending that same transit deeper into the residential periphery.

The other reality that Foothill proponents refuse to acknowledge is the fact that the Foothill Extension is a fundamentally flawed project that will actually exacerbate the problems the San Gabriel Valley and the region as a whole currently face. In their rush to grab at funding and a political trophy, proponents of the project have willfully refused to acknowledge the glaring shortcomings of their proposal or reveal the real interests that are pushing for its construction. The Foothill Extension has little to do with solving our regional transit crisis and everything to do with stoking the stalled engine of Foothill cities' economic growth machines and the political apparatuses that serve them, the greater region be damned. As such, it is a real estate venture, not a transit investment. If you have any doubt about the real motivation behind the Foothill Extension, go take a drive out to the halted Rosemead Azusa development conveniently located along the Foothill ROW.

All but one of the home builders working on Rosedale Azusa's New Master Planned Community has stopped building, with the downturn in the housing market. Residents are angry because they are not getting the package they bargained for when they moved in and monthly fees and accessments have increased considerable [sic].

Do people really believe that the Rosedale Asuza development would have survived the current housing downturn if it had only been built at higher densities and been served by a single rail line? That’s the $400 million (or so they claim) question San Gabriel Valley politicians and developers are gambling LA's transit future and economic health on.

Don’t get me wrong. I know real estate development and land use play fundamental roles in these kinds of infrastructural investments. LA was largely built upon land speculation bolstered by the railroads, the port, the red cars, the aqueducts, and the highway system. However, the Expo and the Subway projects represent a true break with the region's previous land use strategies that have now proven to be so egregiously short-sighted and wasteful. At the same time, these projects will serve the pressing, established needs of the existing population. In contrast, the Foothill Extension represents a continuation of the same land-use policies that created this mess we are in today. In fact, the line’s success is entirely dependent upon the continuation of those policies. The San Gabriel Valley needs its own solutions; the Foothill Extension just isn't one of them.

Failing to address either the lower priority or the lower regional worth/effectiveness of the project she is championing, Senator Romero's argument boils down to the following soundbite arguments that have been repeated so often and gone un-rebutted for so long that they are like background noise. I'll crib the responses from the commenters of Steve's post:

(1) "This is a project that's ready to go."

[I]t is a mis-statement that the Gold Line is ready to be built; the documents cited by the Authority fall far short of any signficant design work having been done.

-Dana Gabard, Southern California Transit Advocates

(2) "We definitely don't want to be shortchanged."

As for receiving "fair share" of county transit dollars or coming out of nowhere to the front of the line, the Wilshire subway was promoted as the anchor or main line of the regional transportation system back in 1980 when Prop A proposed before LA County voters. Since then, Westsiders have helped fund the entire Metrolink system for the county including in the SGV and which none goes to the Westside as well as MetroRail projects all over the county of which none go to the Westside. This includes the lightly used Gold Line in the SGV, which has just 1/7th the ridership of the current subway. The SM freeway is still waiting for carpool lanes, which much of the county has as well including the 10 in the SGV, which has had them for 30 plus years. Fair share of taxes has to include Prop A and C as well as the current proposed sales tax.

- Matt

(3) It will only cost a fraction of the cost of the Subway to the Sea.

In fact going all the way to Ontario would probably cost about two billion dollars. And that is for a line with very weak projected ridership. Condescending comments on westside pigs glosses over that the subway on cost benefit comparison beats the Foothill extension by a mile.

-Dana Gabard, Southern California Transit Advocates

Last week, SGV leaders said they needed $80M from the MTA and they could get the rest from federal sources to fund the extension to Azuza. Now they say $328M is not enough in local money for the entire extension. This is really just political pandering to appease local developers and say to local voters that they fought for their local project. All of this for an extension of a line that is so poorly used now, it is the embarrasment of the MTA. Some individual stations along the subway extension will have more boardings than the entire Gold Line extension to Azuza per MTA ridership studies!!! Funny thing is there may actually be more SGV residents using the subway extension than the Gold Line extension because so many SGV residents commute to Mid-Wilshire and Westside of LA.

- Matt