A Taxing Proposition: a Century of Ballot Box Transportation Planning in Los Angeles
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
A TAXING PROPOSITION: A CENTURY OF BALLOT BOX TRANSPORTATION PLANNING IN LOS ANGELES PREPARED FOR THE HAYNES FOUNDATION FEBRUARY 2018 MARTIN WACHS and MICHELLE CHUNG MARK GARRETT HANNAH KING RYLAND LU MICHAEL MANVILLE MELISSA SATHER BRIAN D. TAYLOR 1 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Martin Wachs was the project Principal Investigator, managed the process of compiling the manuscript, drafted Chapters I and VI, and contributed to editing every chapter. The other authors are listed alphabetically on the title page and all have contributed directly to drafting this document. Hannah King was the lead author of Chapter II. Ryland Lu gathered information for and wrote many sections of Chapters III, IV, and V. Melissa Sather wrote other sections of those chapters and was the lead author of the historical narrative in Chapter V. Michelle Chung carried out the statistical analysis of voting data that appears in Chapter V. Her work was overseen by Michael Manville. Michael Manville and Brian Taylor participated in framing all aspects of the manuscript, they edited every section, and participated in interviews of individuals who had been involved in regional transportation planning. Mark Garrett carefully edited and formatted the document and references, and wrote several sections of every chapter. The authors thank the many parties who made this project possible. First, we thank the Haynes Foundation who generously funded this project, and acknowledge a matching grant from the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. The opinions and conclusions expressed in this document are those of the authors and not of the sponsoring organizations. We also thank the staffs of the UCLA Library, the Huntington Library, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority who provided valuable assistance. Finally, we thank the several senior former transportation officials who were interviewed as part of this study, including former County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky; Jerome Premo, former Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, Paul Taylor, former Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, and Richard Katz, former California Assemblyman and former member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ballot measures that raise money for transportation through local sales taxes have become startlingly successful across the United States. This is especially true in California, and particularly in Los Angeles County. In November of 2016, more than seven out of ten (71.5%) of those casting ballots approved Measure M which added a half percent to the county sales tax for transportation improvements. The extra half-percent is forecast to raise over $120 billion over the coming 40 years to construct the region’s ambitious new rail transit system and other street and highway improvements. Measure M was the ninth transportation sales tax ballot measure in 40 years to be put before LA County voters, and the fourth to be approved. As a result of voter-approved taxes, LA County today raises well over half of its annual budget for transportation programs through county sales taxes. This report presents an historical analysis of the evolution of and support for local transportation finance in Los Angeles, with a focus on the nine transportation sales tax measures considered since 1968. LOSTs have come to play a central role in not just funding, but in shaping the transportation future of this ethnically diverse region famous for freeways and traffic. We examine the political motivations for the nine measures, consider their principal supporters and opponents and their arguments, the campaigns and media coverage, and their outcomes. This study is based on archival research of published analyses, media accounts, public records of important meetings, the papers of political figures, statistical analyses of voting on recent measures, and interviews with former local public officials who participated in the campaigns for and against the ballot measures. We begin with a review of transportation ballot measures in Los Angeles that stretch back to the 19th century, and then analyze in more detail three unsuccessful transit ballot measures in the 1960s and 1970s, together with the campaign arguments both for and against, and the various transportation investment projects proposed to be funded by each measure. Despite their failure to win voter approval, these efforts marked the beginning of a comprehensive approach to ballot box transportation planning in Los Angeles designed to deal with both serious traffic congestion and the region’s air quality concerns. We turn then to two successful ballot measures in 1980 and 1990 that together increased the local sales tax by one percent to fund rail construction and other public transit projects in the region. These 4 measures provided the foundation for the present countywide rail transit system. We also look at a subsequent 1990s measure crafted to respond to public perceptions of mismanagement by the regional transportation authority and which sought to reform agency practices as well as limiting the use of sales tax funds for future subway construction. Lastly, we examine another trio of ballot measures that collectively raised the sales tax by another one percent for a variety of local highway and transit projects. We statistically analyze the geographic voting patterns to determine the role population, socio-economic, and demographic characteristics (including educational level, income, race, and gender) played in support for or opposition to the proposed measures and consider whether and how residents’ proximity to proposed transportation investments affected the voting outcomes. Because there have been nine different transportation ballot measures over four decades, it is possible to consider how the outcomes of each election influenced voter attitudes toward later ballot measures and the ways in which electoral politics influenced transportation policy choices over time. We conclude with a discussion of the evolution of regional electoral politics and transportation, and what local option sales tax finance may mean for the future of Los Angeles and, by extension, metropolitan areas around the country. Los Angeles County now depends heavily on voter-approved sales tax revenues for transportation – the MTA today receives over half of its total revenues ($2.3 billion/year) from local sales taxes – and these revenues are profoundly shaping the region. We conclude that the ballot measures crafted for voter approval to generate these enormous sums of money have likely had more influence of the development of the region’s transportation (and particularly public transit) systems that the transportation planning processes ostensibly intended to guide that development. While tax ballot measures have undeniably increased transportation funding in LA County, it is possible that in building support for transportation tax increases the county has also sacrificed some efficiency and efficacy in its transportation system. It may be that the most politically acceptable transportation proposals—those that could win two-thirds of the vote in an election—are not the proposals that would provide Angelinos with mobility most cost-effectively. Elected officials may be tempted to propose LOST- funded projects that will attract voter support over more mundane, but necessary, system maintenance and operating expenditures. Promises that appeal to the car-driving middle class, that does most of the county’s voting, may be emphasized over improvements that would serve low-income residents who do most of the county’s transit riding. It may also be that public transit services would be better financed through mechanisms that are less opaque and regressive than sales taxes. 5 LOS ANGELES HAS A LONG HISTORY OF FUNDING TRANSPORTATION While many observers have marveled at the Los Angeles “innovation” of funding transportation through ballot measures since 1980, historically a large proportion of the transportation infrastructure in LA was built through local voter-approved revenues, mainly bonds. This began in 1868 when voters narrowly approved a $225,000 bond measure to build the region’s first railroad between downtown and the port at San Pedro Bay. That was followed in 1876 by a measure to grant the Southern Pacific railroad a $602,000 subsidy to entice the company to route its transcontinental line through the region. These public investments helped to expand the region’s economy and led to rapid and sustained population growth. Between the passage of the Good Roads Act in 1908 and the end of the New Deal in 1937 – a key period of Los Angeles’ history that saw further significant population increase and with it political contention over the direction of the region’s growth – Angelinos voted on 23 different transportation related ballot measures including major improvements to the Port of Los Angeles and construction of a downtown Union Station to improve railroad operations. Not all of these measures passed: attempts to fund rapid transit fell short as voters’ growing dissatisfaction with local transit service was met with increasing public support for extensive road building and road expansion. In 1924, voters backed a $5 million bond measure to implement the city’s Major Street Traffic Plan. Two other unsuccessful rail transit proposals, one in 1939 and another nine years later for developing rapid transit in roadway medians engendered