Posted November 7, 2011 in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
A recent LA Times article about “Buy Here Pay Here” used car dealers highlighted a local single mother (Tiffany Lee) who works at UCLA Health Clinic. Riding the bus to work took her two hours, and she had to ask friends to drive her son to doctor appointments for his asthma. She was desperate for a car and had to accept a terrible, predatory deal ($3,000 down plus over a 20% interest rate on payments on a used car), to get one.
With stories like these, the results of a recent poll of Southern California voters should come as no surprise: Southern Californians want more mobility options! In particular, more than 80% of Southern California voters want their local governments to invest more money to expand and improve buses, trains, and light rail.
If they were in charge of the purse strings, voters would dedicate more money to expanding buses, trains, and light rail ($25), improving existing buses, trains and light rail ($17), and expanding bike lanes, and sidewalks ($14). Voters would spend a total of $58 out of a $100 budget on public transportation. Compare this to $20 they would spend to expand roads and highways and $24 to repair existing roads and highways.
(See more about these poll results here and here .)
Local lawmakers take heed: your voters want you to invest in public transportation to give them more mobility options.
Tiffany Lee was desperate to get a car to solve her mobility problems, and an immediate challenge is providing better options to people like her who have limited resources. Immediate solutions could include
But the longer term challenge for all Southern Californians will be to invest in public transportation that will not leave people in the situation of desperately needing a car because there is no other way to get where you need to go. I don’t own a car, and although I am grateful that my commute is not two hours like Ms. Lee’s, there is still much room for improvement in my bus-riding experience. Here are some of the solutions we need to invest in, followed by a few of my personal anecdotes. To give Southern Californians mobility options, we must:
Source:
