Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants to use the money for the subway extension, but he’ll need at least 7 votes on the board to get that approved. Interestingly, the person who might support a subway extension is County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the same guy who wrote a law preventing local sales taxes to be used on tunneling. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich will lead the obstructionist faction.

Then again, if you witnesses how choosing a color for a rail line can melt down the decision-making process, L.A. will be caught napping and our money may go to the Central Valley and the Inland Empire to widen their freeways.

The reason we don’t have the “dream map” system is that not all of the tax money goes to rail. A large chunk of it goes to fund bus operations as well, and there is also the local return money that L.A.’s 88 cities spend on their city bus systems. Only about a dozen of these are actually useful, though.

Much of the rail map was “salvaged” through Metrolink, but that’s only because construction costs are minimal and trains are oriented toward peak-hour commuters.

And re: Ward’s attempts — Maybe the 3rd time’s a charm? Simply giving up cuz the task’s a big one would REALLY keep any kind of change from happening –