Bus-Only Lanes and Wendy Greuel.pdf

September 13, 2007

Councilmember Wendy Greuel
Transportation Committee Chair
City of Los Angeles
200 North Spring Street, Room 475
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dear Chair Greuel,

We are writing to urge your leadership as Chair of the L.A. City Transportation Committee to secure funding for the Wilshire Boulevard bus-only lanes.  We appreciated your leadership at the City Council meeting last month, in which bus-only lanes for Wilshire Blvd. were officially approved and the City and MTA agreed to apply for a $27 million grant from the federal government to implement the project. However, we are concerned that your office has not started looking for other sources of funding while we hear back from the federal government.  We are concerned that L.A. City is solely relying on an award from the federal government to make bus-only lanes on Wilshire Blvd. a reality.  If the federal grant is not awarded, Wilshire bus-only lanes would be delayed until 2013 and beyond.

We understand that as Chair of the City Transportation Committee you have remained supportive of Wilshire bus-only lanes project despite many setbacks. We know you are a friend of the environment, mass transit and an advocate of finding alternatives to the pervasive auto-culture in the region.  As you know implementing a bus-only lane on Wilshire Blvd. is a first step toward building a countywide bus-only lane program that would start to reduce the harmful emissions of auto tailpipe toxins that harm our children’s health and contribute to global warming.  

The reduction of auto use is a life and death issue for communities in urban Los Angeles, especially for Black and Latino children with the highest rates of asthma and respiratory disease.  We are on the brink of a major environmental breakthrough and your leadership is critical today to make bus-only lanes a reality. As Chair of the L.A. City Transportation Committee and an environmentalist we urge you to work with Wilshire Boulevard elected officials, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa , MTA Board , and the Bus Riders Union to identify additional sources of funding as soon as possible to guarantee the implementation of bus-only lanes on Wilshire Blvd.

Sincerely,

Bus Riders Union Planning Committee

Call, write, e-mail Councilmember Wendy Greuel!
(213) 473-7002 , councilmember.greuel@lacity.org
City of Los Angeles, 200 N. Spring Street, Room , LA, 90012

Tell her to: Help secure immediate funding for the Wilshire Boulevard Bus-Only Lanes ASAP