Given the historical challenges of fighting for bus centered transit in an auto dominated city and nation, every step towards implementation marks a victory for the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes campaign (BOL). We want to highlight two major breakthroughs of the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Campaign this past month.
First on Wednesday September 22nd the Los Angeles City Council approved [1] the recommendations made by L.A. Department of Transportation and the MTA to conduct a full Environmental Impact Report [2] for the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project. The EIR will be completed by June 2010 while groundbreaking and running of the actual project can take up to a year after the EIR process is finished. This decision comes after 9 months of deliberation by the MTA and the City of Los Angeles when the project was put on hold for an initial environmental clearance process because of the opposition of some Westside residents to the project.
Secondly, Congress has approved [3] the FY 2010 budget [4] for transportation which includes the second installment of $13.5 million, awarding a total of $23.3 million of federal funding for the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project. Only a week ago, the funding for the project was in jeopardy when Senator John McCain (R-AZ) put in an amendment to the Senate budget to eliminate the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project and 20 other transit projects nationwide off of the funding list. Luckily that amendment was defeated. This is yet another step towards implementation and the success of this project will also have implications on future transit funding in Los Angeles from the federal government.
Calling on the environmental leadership of the LA City Council
We will be encouraging the strong environmental leadership of the new transportation committee chair, councilmember Bill Rosendahl and newly elected councilmember and vice chair, Paul Koretz to ensure this project gets fully implemented with no further delays. So far councilmember Rosendahl has been the most supportive ally for the Wilshire BOL within the city council since the former chair, Wendy Greuel left.
Critical months for the Wilshire BOL !
As part of the EIR process, there will be a series of community scoping meetings for the public to express their support or opposition about the Wilshire BOL project. Please join the BRU at these meetings and testify your overwhelming support for this project. The EIR public scoping meeting schedule [5] is as following:
Monday, October 5, 6:00 – 8 pm
Felicia Mahood Senior Center
11338 Santa Monica Bl
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Wednesday, October 7, 6:00 – 8 pm
Wilshire United Methodist Church
4350 Wilshire Bl
Los Angeles, CA 90010
Thursday, October 8, 6:00 – 8 pm
Westwood Presbyterian Church
10822 Wilshire Bl
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Tuesday, October 13, 6:00 – 8 pm
Good Samaritan Hospital, Moseley-Salvatori Conference Center
637 Lucas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90017
The impacts of this project goes beyond just moving buses faster but making major environmental history to put the mobility of Black, Brown and low-income communities, public health and the environment before cars-a threatening concept in the auto capital of the world where over 60% of the space is dedicated to cars! For once cars will take the back burner while sustainable transit gets the upper hand. Join us today to win the Wilshire BOL!