Unlikely Partners Oppose L.A. Transit Funding Plan

"With emerging numbers now showing that the Westside will get far more transit investment per capita, heavily subsidized by pissed-off taxpayers in the San Fernando Valley, and with the Bus Riders Union furious over the heavy emphasis on rail at the expense of bus lines, a proposed half-cent local sales-tax hike is creating really strange new bedfellows - united by their suspicion of Metro."

"If the sales tax is approved this month for placement on the November ballot by the state Legislature and Arnold Schwarzenegger - and that question is up in the air as chaos unfolds over the budget in Sacramento - and if voters approve it this fall, the new sales tax would raise $40 billion over 30 years."

"Most of the grandest projects would serve the Westside and South Los Angeles: $1 billion to build the Expo light-rail line from downtown to Santa Monica; $235 million for the vaguely defined Crenshaw Transit Corridor; nearly $1 billion to partially build a Subway to the Sea."