The LA Times praised the Southern California Association of Governments’ 2012 Regional Transportation Plan. LA Streetsblog offered a neutral assessment, while The Wall Street Journal criticized it. The focus in all cases was on transit-oriented development vs. suburban sprawl, the result of a state requirement for incorporating a Sustainable Communities Strategy. Major coverage ignored the SCAG plan’s biggest flaw: allocating billions for freeway construction to accommodate more trucks from the ports instead of funding a zero-emission freight to rail system.
The Goods Movement Strategy at this point means more pavement, more trucks, more congestion, and more pollution in Southern California. Electrified rail systems are only acknowledged in the plan as long-term possibilities, even though detailed proposals for systems such as GRID, which would dramatically reduce the number of trucks on congested urban roadways, are circulating.
Billions are allocated to study the SR-710 gap closure EIR instead of funding transit alternatives now. Billions more will go to plans for a new East-West corridor for trucks carrying freight instead of building a separate rail system starting now. Billions are already allocated to expanding the ports’ real estate instead of modernizing and computerizing container storage. And all this was approved over the opposition of the majority of community members living nearby these proposed expansions and extensions.
The plan’s environmental impact report only considered residential development alternatives for achieving a sustainable communities strategy. The EIR should have offered a direct comparison between conventional goods movement practices (more real estate, freeways, and trucks) and electrified rail systems (smaller footprints, separate transportation, fewer trucks).
SCAG has overlooked a key opportunity to 1) use taxpayer funds wisely, 2) move ahead with a 21st century technology transportation project, 3) improve air quality, and 4) stay competitive with ports in Mexico, Panama, and the Gulf Coast which are expanding and modernizing to capture export business.
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The 2012 SCAG RTP is just one more example that our transportation leaders are looking solely to highway projects to solve our transportation problems in the next 20 years. The report is front-loaded with highway projects to go through quickly while good transit projects will have to wait. Why? Particularly puzzling to the No 710 Action Committee is the inclusion of the SR-710 North Extension (Gap Closure) in the Plan which is named on several pages and maps as a TUNNEL with TOLLS and a cost of $5.636 BILLION. Not only has no preferred alternative been chosen in the EIR but the project does not have ANY funding to build or operate it. This inclusion is highly inappropriate and premature. The SR-710 North Extension along with the I-710 South Expansion and the High Desert Corridor are part of Metro and Caltran’s Business Plan to expand the freight corridor northward from the Ports and continue to move goods by truck. See “Everything Long Beach” http://www.everythinglongbeach.com/metro-transportation-projects-2011/