Cal Transit Association on State Budget: Armageddon Is Here

[Joanne98]

Yesterday, transit advocates from around the state strove to grapple with the new reality that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislature's "compromise" on the state budget completely abolished the State Transit Assistance (STA) and the $536 million that it dedicated to subsidizing transit operations.

There are multiple villains in this story, but the blackest hat is reserved for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. While the governor was out-in-front supporting a glitzy high speed rail line to connect San Francisco to San Diego last November; this budget will cause major fare hikes and service reductions from around the state. As Jeff Shaw, executive director of the California Transit Association notes in a press release:

We will see fare increases. We will see service cuts. We will see layoffs. I can say that with certainty simply because we’ve already seen those things happening even before the state apparently decided to abandon its responsibility to fund public transportation.

Of course, the Governor couldn't slash transit funds without the support of the state legislature. While the League of California Environmental Voters, Environmental Defense and the National Resources Defense Council placed the blame at the feet of a "radical minority" of Republicans who used the state's super-majority requirement for any budget to effectively stall democratic efforts, other transit groups blamed the Democratic majority for not not holding firm on protecting the environment.

In the short term, readers should call their legislators and demand that transit funding be restored to the budget. In the long term, the environmental groups want to change the super-majority law so that a small group of legislators can't hijack the entire budget process.

http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/02/13/cal-transit-association-on-state-budget-armageddon-is-here/