The following excerpt appeared in the Los Angeles Daily News on July 28, 2017. To read the full opinion, click here.

L.A. County’s transportation future is ours to build together: Eric Garcetti – Los Angeles Daily News

Construction of the first Regional Connector rail tunnel under Bunker Hill continued in July. (Photo from The Source, a blog on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority website at http://thesource.metro.net/)

By Eric Garcetti

July 28, 2017

[Excerpt]:

Generations from now, history will remember that Los Angeles County voters rewrote their future at the ballot box last November when they passed Measure M and agreed to invest billions of their own dollars in a bold vision for public transportation. It’s a plan that will ease traffic, clean our air and create a world-class transit network for generations to come.

As I begin my term as chairman of the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors, the question I’m ready to answer is: What will history remember next? What will we do to fulfill the extraordinary, 40-year mandate the voters of this region have given us?

Measure M — the largest local infrastructure program in American history — will generate $120 billion to build out our public transportation network and create more than 465,000 good-paying jobs. We must use this funding to put shovels in the ground on new transportation projects quickly, so that we can grow the Metro Rail network and fix our worst freeway bottlenecks.

To read the full opinion, click here.