Seeking to document the impact of investment in local transportation, Metro released its first “Quality of Life” report on Tuesday. The report compares 2008 — the year that Measure R was approved — to 2015.
The idea is to establish benchmarks against which the agency’s progress can be measured. This initial report will be followed by a full report later this year and then updates every two years.
Why compare 2015 to 2008? In 2008, nearly 68 percent of Los Angeles County voters approved the Measure R half-cent sales tax that largely funded the two rail extensions that opened this year (Expo Line to Santa Monica, Gold Line to Azusa), three other rail projects under construction and numerous other transportation projects and programs that are ongoing or in the works.
The full report is above. I encourage you to take a look — it’s digestible and has a lot of interesting stats. Some are flattering. Some show areas that are in need of improvement.
A few interesting nuggets from the report:
- More than 480,000 L.A. County residents live within a half-mile of several projects that have opened since 2009: the Expo Line’s first phase to Culver City, Gold Line extensions to East Los Angeles and Azusa and the Orange Line extension to Chatsworth. More than 22 percent of the county’s population now lives near Metro Rail, a Metro bus rapid transit line or Metrolink commuter rail.
- Measure R has resulted in $3.9 billion in sales tax revenues collected between 2008 and 2014. The Measure R funds help explain why the amount of state and federal grants received by Metro has increased from $112.9 million in 2008 to $522.9 million in 2014. The lesson: having local money is the key to getting state and federal money.
- Each year in L.A. County, transit operators provide about 600 million rides, with the lion’s share on Metro buses and trains. While Metro ridership has slipped in the past two years (a problem also at the national level), Metro rail ridership has increased 27 percent since 2008, which is better than the national averages.
- While the public’s focus is often on Metro’s bus and rail service — the most visible of the agency’s services — it’s worth mentioning that Metro vanpool trips have increased from 2.2 million in 2008 to more than four million in 2014. Usage of Metro’s paratransit services has increased 77 percent over the last four years. Wheelchair boardings on Metro’s regular bus service have increased from 489,850 boardings to more than one million in 2014.
Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects
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Its strange how the blueline is the work horse of rail but still hasn’t gotten the real true love and care and maintenance it deserves and it is in need of new rail cars as well as the green line and also in need of new art and decal and curb appeal and every rail station along blue green red purple and gold and expo and silverline and orange and e.t.c rail stations should all be transportation hubs and the canopy at Firestone blueline station needs paint8ng because during the metro blueline updates they only painted the bottom half and not the top and they need to fix the two decent size rusted holes in the poles that hold up the elevator at Firestone blueline station also and they need to either bring a safety ambassador person or extend the platform at Firestone station north and add elevators so riders csn stop running out in front of traffic just to catch the westbound 115metro firestone Manchester bus and stop unlicensed vendor at all stops and stations and add more buses or double buses to the 115,60,111,53,55,117,108,bus lines to help with over crowding and they also need to bring back the 315 metro bus or metro rapid 715 metro rapid bus back along manchester firestone line and add at least one more bus line to service Firestone blueline station or a dash bus at least and start back power washing these stations again and extend the metro blueline from 7th street and the greenline from norwalk and the expo line from 7th Street Station and the red and purple from union station and now since we have the news of the super bowl coming to the new Inglewood stadium in 2021 metro needs to prepare for that and since the rams are back now wheres the rams metro bus to take fans to the game like the Dodgers bus
I’ll be eagerly waiting for the future report including the full Expo and Crenshaw lines.