Comment Sought on Transportation Plan

The Southern California Assn. of Governments will host a public forum Tuesday to discuss its preliminary draft of the 1998 Regional Transportation Plan.

The transportation plan is the basis for all federal transportation spending over the next 20 years. Every three years, SCAG updates the plan to cover topics ranging from developing new public transportation systems to updating old ones.

Under the 1998 draft, SCAG is allotted $82 billion to spend on transportation over the next two decades. But $64 billion has already been earmarked for several projects and the crux of the plan deals with how to spend the remaining funds, said Jeff Lustgarten, a SCAG spokesman.

The public is invited to hear the plan and make comments.

“The idea is to locate the needs of an area, in this case the San Fernando Valley, and figure out how we can spend the money to address those needs,” Lustgarten said.

SCAG, which completed the plan last year, has been seeking public comment on the plan since November. The public comment portion of the review will end on March 15, after which SCAG officials will review the comments, make adjustments to the plan and vote to ratify it in April, Lustgarten said.

Along with being a spending guideline, the plan must also guarantee certain results, including reducing air pollution and being fiscally realistic.

“This is not a wish list. SCAG knows how much money it will have to spend and the plan has to reflect that,” Lustgarten said.

SCAG is a government agency made up of representatives from city and county offices from six counties in Southern California--Ventura, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and Imperial.

The community forum will run from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Van Nuys State Office Building, Room 315, 6150 Van Nuys Blvd.

For more information, call (213) 236-1878.