financing

Communities and utilities across the nation face the challenges of aging infrastructure, climate change, increased costs, and limited funding. With such challenges come opportunities to be innovative and for our utilities and communities to become more efficient, sustainable, and resilient. Solutions such as green infrastructure and renewable energy projects are addressing these issues while enhancing the quality of life in our communities. Funding them, however, is a major challenge. With creative financing ideas being tried across the nation to help utilities and communities meet these challenges, what are some of the best ideas and examples in the water and energy sectors?

Mark Gold, Associate Director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, recently opined on Former President Bill Clinton’s visit to Los Angeles, during which he co-hosted a workshop with Mayor Eric Garcetti to discuss infrastructure and resiliency in the city. Gold questioned Clinton and Garcetti’s optimism that infrastructure issues can be readily remedied, pointing out financing roadblocks that could stand in the way. VX News has reprinted the piece, originally published by the LA Observed online journal, with permission of the author.

With state and federal transportation funding slow, Metro and Caltrans are embracing public-private partnerships to finance and accelerate planned infrastructure projects. Doug Failing, Metro’s Executive Director of Highway Programs, tells VX News about their Accelerated Regional Transportation Improvement (ARTI) program, a series of small projects through which the county transit agency plans to demonstrate its viability and desirableness as a partner with private enterprise. Failing outlines the specific focus of ARTI (including the I-710 gap between the 10 and 210, the high desert corridor from LA to San Bernardino, and the 710 freight corridor), the benefits of P3 funding, and what Metro and Caltrans expect to learn about project delivery under a P3 system.

VerdeXchange News is pleased to share the following remarks by former Santa Monica City Councilman, Mayor, and Move LA founder Denny Zane at the latter’s event, "Making the Most of MAP-21 in Los Angeles," in which he recasts disappointment with the failure of Measure J to pass last November as a call for more creative and collaborative thinking among transit advocates. Zane’s own suggestions include population-specific promotion of transit ridership, construction acceleration via a combination of federal loans and local investments, and reforming the 2/3rds voter threshold.