LaBonge: Raise Parking Fees to Pay for Dash

At a recent meeting of the City Council's Transportation Committee, LADOT reccomended delaying two new DASH lines to help balance it's budget for the next year. The Committee's reaction was not positive.

Councilmember's Wendy Greuel and Richard Alarcon both asked for a study to look at perhaps cutting less productive DASH Lines to cover the cost of new ones. Greuel noted that it would be a tough decision to take transit service away from people that are used to it, but that 2008 is "a year of tough decisions."

Councilman Rosendahl, suggested looking at Public-Private-Partnerships and other "outside the box" methods for funding DASH services.

But the award for "Outside the Box" thinking goes not to Rosendahl, but to Councilman Tom LaBonge not for his suggestion that other LA County municipalities that benefit from DASH should pony up some money or see their lines cut or his suggestion that the acronym be changed to NASH (Neighborhood Area Short Hop), but for his suggestion that LADOT should examine raising parking fees at certain locations and put the new revenue aside to subsidize new NASH (DASH) Lines. Somewhere, Donald Shoup is smiling.