$6 Billion for Southern California's $40 Billion Need

Every four years, the Southern California Association of Governments lays out its expectations for the region’s next 25 years of transportation investments. It’s known as the Regional Transportation Plan, and the metropolitan planning organization recently released a draft of the latest RTP. In light of the state of California’s passage of SB 375, a bill requiring the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions produced under such planning efforts, this latest RTP includes the document’s highest ever amount of funding expectations for “active transportation,” or pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure: $6 billion dollars. It’s seemingly a drop in the bucket, with the RTP totaling more than $477 billion. But this $6 billion is a more than three-fold increase from the $1.8 billion estimated by the last RTP in 2008.

Still, the $6 billion proposed isn’t nearly enough, according to officials at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. By their own calculations, the region would need to spend $40 billion over the next 25 years to create the sort of walkable and bikeable communities it says it wants. That’s nearly eight times as much as SCAG is recommending.