This region's failure to score even a semi-finalist spot in the DOT's Urban Partnership Program got no mention in the local press. DOT's rejection of Los Angeles' application did get some media attention. The article's description of the weakness in the Los Angeles application sounds like the obituary for this region's application:
Despite being known as one of the nation's worst repositories for transportation gridlock, the Los Angeles area managed Thursday to miss out on qualifying for hundreds of millions of federal dollars for traffic-busting programs.
Although no official would say so on the record, several suggested privately that Southern California transit agencies and the elected officials who oversee them lost out because the grant required communities to offer some type of "congestion pricing": tolls that politicians know voters hate.
Instead, the application submitted by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority on behalf of local agencies requested money only to help pay for a study of congestion pricing.
A respondent to an earlier post on this subject said the Governor was to blame for the lack of a solid tolling/congestion pricing component in this region's Urban Partnership application. Does anyone else have information on that subject or the more general question of what institutional obstacles are in the way of an effective congestion pricing program in this region?
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3 comments:
You hit the nail on the head. There is no will on the part of IDOT or the Governor to pursue any progressive measures, not the least of which is congestion pricing.
Apparently, there's will somewhere -- on the rebellious Chicago City Council.
(Also, am I just slow or is this blog's name a play on a Latin phrase?)
pc--
I'm slow in responding. Yes, the title of this blog is a play on "Sic transit gloria mundi." See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_transit_gloria_mundi
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