California State Sen. Ben Allen and Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian will join officials from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) as well as key regional transit advocates to call for over $900 million annually for critically needed public transit funding in California. Hundreds of millions of dollars would flow to L.A. County to help expand public transit options and maintain the existing transit system in a state of good repair.
Gov. Jerry Brown has called for a Special Session on Transportation that focuses on increasing funding to repair streets, bridges, and freeways. Legislators and public transit advocates are calling for a more balanced approach that repairs roads but also invests in public transit that accounts for more than 1.4 billion passenger trips annually in California.
The state’s transit infrastructure faces a funding shortfall of approximately $72 billion over the next decade. Transit is the “pressure relief valve” for roads and highways, which can no longer be easily expanded. Transit must be included in the mix of multi-modal transportation funding solutions to keep L.A. moving.
Officials will show the latest evidence of Los Angeles County’s transit expansion boom by staging the press conference at the future Palms Expo Line Phase II Station immediately adjacent to the I-10 freeway, one of the busiest freeways in the L.A. region.
