-thumb-110x110-455795.jpg)
Build Your Own BBQ for Under 10 Bucks!
Zenyatta Makes "Her"Story
Pixies 'Doolittle' @ The Palladium 11/4/09
Stadium to the Sea: LA Marathon Releases 2010 Course Map
A Buttermilk Truck Sneak Peek: Red Velvet Pancakes, Hawaiian Bread French Toast & More...
And this 'Subway to the Sea' is not just about funding at this point and time. Try planning studies, preliminary engineering, and environmental clearance according to Metro CEO Roger Snoble in the LA Times. But hey, all those steps take funding.
Villaraigosa's office over the last year has been quietly gauging whether the public would agree to foot the bill. In one of the many private polls it has commissioned on a variety of subjects, the mayor's office asked residents if they would support some type of tax increase to pay for the subway and other transit improvement.The results have not been released. But City Hall sources have said gaining the needed two-thirds majority for either a bond measure or a sales tax hike for the subway looks daunting.
[snip]
His aides say they are studying all possible scenarios. These include "benefit assessment districts" that would levy extra taxes on residents within half a mile of the subway line. Another idea is to find a private firm that could build and possibly operate the subway.
[snip]
In the end, local taxpayers will probably have to contribute heavily to the subway effort, as they do in most large mass transit projects being constructed around the country.
Art Guzzetti, vice president of policy for the American Public Transportation Assn., said the federal government rarely, if ever, pays 100% of big capital improvements, such as a new light-rail or subway line. Instead, the federal government usually chips in about half — and only after local agencies show they can provide the rest.
Read 'Subway to the Sea' plan still adrift by the LA Times.
Photo by The Bucky Hermit via Flickr
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Wow, I'm not so hot on "benefit districts." I already live in Koreatown for transit access, I don't need to be penalized because I'm doing something that City Hall ostensibly wants to encourage.
Special sales taxes should be assessed in "tourist areas" since tourists don't live in LA County, yet they use mass transit when they come here.
I'm sure people who live here (voters) would support a ballot measure putting in special sales taxes in "tourist areas" because they almost never go to tourist areas. I know I don't. I go to Citywalk about once a year and Third Street Promenade about three or four times a year. So that kind of tax might be able to pass a ballot measure. Even if it's only half a cent sales tax, it would raise a ton of money since tourism is one of our largest industries here.
I know they (out of towners) are paying part of the cost through federal taxes, but those are split up among a larger pool of people, and a lot of those people never use mass transit in LA County, but tourists here probably do.
What about tourists from foreign nations? They don't pay ANYTHING towards taxes to build the subway, yet they use it if they come here. Let's get them on board. I don't think this would discourage tourists from coming to LA, as another 1/2 cent sales tax can be absorbed into a temporary travel budget easily.