There are some big changes in store for the Bottleneck Blog starting this week: in short, Bottleneck Blog is being folded into The Times' L.A. Now Blog.
The idea is to provide a local news blog that covers a wide range of issues that people deal with each day in the Southland, including traffic and mass transit. I'll still be posting on a frequent basis about the same issues that have been covered here at Bottleneck and readers can still post their comments.
Readers who want only transportation-related posts can bookmark this link and they'll be redirected to a version of L.A. Now that filters out those items. All the older posts from the Bottleneck Blog will also remain available at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck.
The goal of this change is very simple: we're trying to construct the best blogs we can for our readers.
As always, feel free to email me with story ideas, concerns, praise or a stiff wag of the finger. And I hope to see you over at L.A. Now.
Update: The new Bottleneck Blog RSS feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/latimes/cSWs
The Los Angeles County registrar finished counting ballots on Friday, and here's the final line score for Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase for transportation projects -- including the start of the Westside subway extension -- in Los Angeles County:
Yes: 2,039,214 votes, 67.93%
No: 962,569 votes, 32.07%
Measure R needed two-thirds votes to pass, meaning it won by a raw vote total of about 37,000 votes. The county Board of Supervisors is scheduled to declare the results official at its meeting on Tuesday.
Measure R was the seventh countywide transportation bond or tax to go to voters in Los Angeles County since 1968. Of those, Measure R received the highest percentage of the vote and the most votes. The list, courtesy of Matthew Barrett at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's library:
2008: 1/2-cent sales tax for 30 years, 67.93% yes, 32.07% no. PASSED
If you were a proponent of Measure R and want to know which politicians worked this issue, here's a short list -- all people we've mentioned before on this blog:
-- Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles). Feuer took an old state bill from 2004 that would have authorized a sales tax back then and revamped it for 2008 and helped navigate the often tricky currents of the Legislature. He also stumped hard for it in recent weeks on both the airwaves and with community groups.
-- MTA and Metrolink board member Richard Katz. He did a lot of the behind-the-scenes work, meaning he negotiated with a lot of other concerned pols who wanted to see their projects included in Measure R.
-- County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. He wrote the countywide measure in 1998 that banned sales tax money from the 1980 and 1990 elections from being used for subway tunneling, saying that the subway was consuming too much resources. But he got behind the subway extension this time around, saying that with a new pot of money the project could become a reality.
-- And, finally, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. When trying to oust James K. Hahn from office in 2005, Villaraigosa campaigned on building the subway to the sea -- and at times was mocked by the Hahn campaign for making such a promise. Upon taking office, he commissioned a study to show tunneling in methane gas-prone areas was safe, used that study to convince Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) to repeal the congressional ban on subway tunneling in those areas and then, as an MTA board member, voted to launch the ongoing alternatives analysis to see if a subway is needed and what route it might take.
Measure R was the fourth step and could provide the subway up to $4.1 billion. Measure R proponents say that should get the train from its terminus at Wilshire and Western to Westwood.
In addition, Villaraigosa ran the Measure R campaign -- meaning he did a lot of the fund-raising -- and he also put his longtime political strategist Ace Smith in charge of a campaign. "When he ran for mayor, everyone told us that it" -- the subway -- "was not doable," Smith told me on Monday. "But the guy did it."
Interestingly, the subway was not mentioned per se in Villaraigosa's inaugural speech in July 2005 -- a speech that carried a theme of dreaming big:
I’d like to now turn to another matter that may not sound like the stuff of dreams, but is critical if we are to improve the quality of life of our city’s residents. And that’s traffic.
The time we spend stuck in traffic is time we do not spend helping our kids with their homework or being productive at work.
So, Los Angeles, join me in fighting for the investment in public transportation that is the hallmark of any great city. Join me in implementing the common sense traffic plans that have been bottlenecked for too long. Join me in transforming Los Angeles into a city that connects our communities and brings us all closer together.
All that said, the hard work is likely just beginning. Measure R is expected to bring in as much as $40 billion over the next three decades for a variety of transit and road projects. It also freezes MTA fares for everyone until mid-2010 (and some longer) and will return millions of dollars to cities in the county to spend on transportation projects.
What remains to be seen is whether the Measure R transit projects are built in a first-class way that provides a good alternative to driving and whether the road projects can help erase some of the longstanding tie-ups that cause congestion. It's one thing to talk about transportation, it's another to pick up the shovel and to start digging.
Shell was prohibited by a federal appeals court from drilling new wells off Alaska's North Slope. Why? The U.S. Department of Interior failed to conduct an environmental review of how the drilling would affect whales and indigenous communities. That's the pipeline that carries oil south from the North Slope in the above pic.New York Times
Curious who is reviewing transit agencies for the incoming Obama administration? Streetsblog has the rundown. One of the team has some expertise in public-private partnerships, which is interesting given that private money is likely going to be needed for some big projects in California, most notably the proposed high-speed rail line.
The Utah Transit Authority wants to expand its "contactless" fare payment system, allowing users to use credit cards and other types of smart cards to pay fares. Finextra
Chicago could get the 2016 Summer Olympics, but is its transit system ready? The Tribune's John Hilkevitch doesn't seem to think so and points to the fact that while Californians were approving transportation-related sales tax hikes and bonds on election day, there was nothing similar on the ballot in Illinois.
A federal judge ruled that automakers -- including General Motors and Chrysler -- can't sue the state of Rhode Island for trying to adopt tighter emission standards for cars. But some auto dealers can go ahead with the suit. Associated Press
The ocean in the Pacific Northwest is getting more acidic, and scientists blame rising carbon dioxide levels. CO2 is a greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels. BBC
The federal government has been building a big fleet of flex-fuel cars that can use ethanol and other alt-fuels. Problem is, the vast majority of those 112,000 vehicles are still running on regular gas. Washington Post
An interactive map by the NYT allows you to see where the city of New York issued nearly 10 million parking tickets over the last year. The hot spots look to be be side streets between 5th and 8th avenues south of Central Park.
The majority of the United States is paying less than $2 a gallon for regular gasoline, and California could see those kind of average prices within the next few days. Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles County Registrar updated the vote totals for Measure R late Wednesday. The half-cent sales tax increase for transportation in L.A. County now has 67.89% of the vote, its largest total yet.
Measure R needs two-thirds of the vote to secure passage. I'll post the number of votes left to be counted on Monday when the Registrar's office reopens. As of now, Measure R has a raw vote lead of about 35,550 votes -- so, if there are fewer outstanding ballots than that number, it's over. Measure R will have won.
Black Friday is a good day to highlight this neat little piece of technology: Google maps and the city of Santa Monica have teamed up to produce a real-time Google map that helps you find parking in downtown Santa Monica.
The map debuted a while back, but I just learned about it recently from Google. Icons are used to show the different parking structures and how many open spaces are in each of them. The city of Santa Monica's parking space website doesn't seem to work as well -- when I click on different parking structures, I'm getting information from about 12:30 a.m. Friday, not 12:30 p.m.
I'm having trouble getting the Google map to load on my iPhone. If you know how to do this, please leave a comment.
The photo was taken this morning at the corner of Melrose Avenue and Crescent Heights Boulevard in Los Angeles. The contributor said that fellow motorists were a bit bewildered, but most of them stopped to see what everyone else would do -- as it's not everyday that you get a red light and green light at the same time.
The problem? The light shorted out and went into default mode -- flashing red -- while also continuing to cycle through green lights, said city transportation officials, adding that it's very rare to get a red and green simultaneously.
"The problem we determined was the older control box housing, which allowed some water to get inside. We've fixed it, but will replace the whole controller box with a new one," wrote Bruce Gillman, spokesman for the city's Transportation Department, in an e-mail.
Here's the news release out of the Big Apple. They've rigged up a system that uses text messages and e-mails to tell riders about service changes. Metrolink here has such a system using Twitter, the text-messaging service, but the Los Angeles County MTA offers only updates for rail service, and not its buses, which carry many more people.
Caltrans District 7, which includes Los Angeles and Ventura counties, has said it's studying Metrolink's approach, but it hasn't done anything yet on providing live freeway condition updates. Caltrans does have a system that allows people to get the same travel time information displayed on overhead freeway signs.
As I've posted before, this is kind of frustrating. The MTA here could be doing the same thing. The MTA here also refuses to hand over bus and train schedules to Google for their inclusion in the Google Transit service -- something that might encourage new riders and help current ones. Caltrans desperately needs a way to tell motorists in real time about freeway closures instead of making users go to their road conditions web page and type in the road number to find out its status. This is a need vividly demonstrated during the recent wildfires, when freeways across the region were shut down.
Today's eyebrow-raiser of a story comes courtesy of the Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley student newspaper: The paper says that "state officials" -- it's not really specified who that is -- say high-speed trains could be running between Los Angeles and San Francisco as early as 2018. KCBS in the Bay Area has also quoted rail officials saying the system could be carrying 68 million passengers by 2020.
Not to be a grumpy bear on this -- I know there's a lot of people that want to see the trains up and running -- but I think the odds of the system running in a decade are long. First, there's the little issue of coming up with the $33 billion that the California High-Speed Rail Authority says the project will cost (and some people say that's a low-ball estimate). The bond passed by California voters earlier this month was only for $9.95 billion.
And then there's this: Look at how long it takes just to build a few miles of light rail. Take, for example, the Expo Line, which is planned to run from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, a distance of some 15 miles. Construction began in 2006 and the first 8.6 miles may be done by 2010, with the remainder by 2015. That's nine years to build 15 miles of light rail, versus a decade to build 400-plus miles of 220 mph rail.
Do you really think high-speed rail can happen that quickly? Making big promises is a good way to get the public excited. It's also a good way to make them cynical when those promises fail to materialize.
UPDATE, 5:30 p.m.: Robert Cruickshank, at his California High Speed Rail blog, says the 2018 date comes from the California High Speed Rail Authority's business plan. He also has several criticisms of this post.
Here's a map of Measure R results in Los Angeles County that was assembled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, using only the results from polling places. That will likely turn out to be about 75% of the votes cast for Measure R, so it's a good sample but not complete one.
The map certainly provides a broader view of results by percentage than the Google map I posted a few weeks ago. That map looks strictly at whether Measure R passed or failed in cities around the county.
Click on the link below to see a version of the MTA map that allows you to zoom in and out to see how Measure R fared in different parts of the county.
I want to call your attention to a good item at CityWatch, which keeps an eye on things at Los Angeles City Hall. Stephen Box, the cycling advocate, has an item there about a push to get the City Council to endorse the cyclists bill of rights. Excerpt:
[Wendy] Greuel spoke of the need to support cyclists and [Bill] Rosendahl referred to it as "a no-brainer!" Public Works Commissioner joined the Committee and spoke in favor of the need to work to create a safe environment for cyclists. Speakers from the community recounted their experiences on the streets of L.A. and of their hope that our City leadership would support cycling as a transportation and environmental solution by endorsing the Cyclists' Bill of Rights "as written -- as ridden!"
It's hard to disagree with anything in the bill of rights, but I am curious what readers think about this one. I covered the City Council for three years, and I find the resolutions that they do in support or against anything to be political cover. Ultimately, it's easy for pols to say they like cycling, but it's much harder to actually build something to improve cycling in L.A. -- that would require diligent, hard work instead of glad-handing, yammering at endless meetings, fundraising and running for higher office in midterm of their current job.
I'm not trying to be unfair. If you're a member of the L.A. City Council and you've actually done something to help cyclists, I'm glad to go on a field trip with you and see the evidence myself. Please bring the paperwork to show the improvement actually required your involvement and wasn't done by a predecessor or community group who had to beg you for your blessed help.
This photo was taken in Stockholm on Monday during the city's first major snowstorm of the year. The storm blew in from the Baltic Sea with hurricane-force winds, but this one cyclist wasn't to be deterred. Gotta love the spunk.
The end is near on the counting of ballots: The Los Angeles County Registrar updated the numbers again on Measure R today. The half-cent sales tax increase in L.A. County for transportation projects now has 67.79% of the vote -- the first time it has led by a full percentage point. The lead in raw votes is about 32,164. The results are still unofficial.
The registrar's office said about 75,000 votes still need to be counted -- about 65,000 provisional ballots and 10,000 absentee.
Though it's mathematically possible for Measure R to lose, it's extremely unlikely from a statistical point of view.
The crash on Thursday between a Metrolink train and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railway train in Rialto caught the attention of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She has asked the Federal Railroad Administration to speed up granting waivers to Metrolink that would allow the commuter rail line to install automatic train stop devices to stop its trains before collisions occur. Feinstein suggests that the FRA is standing in the way.
I've posted the Feinstein press release and letter to the FRA after the jump.
The Blue Line light rail between Los Angeles and Long Beach has claimed its 91st victim since the train opened in 1990. The 54-year-old man who was hit by a train Saturday has died of his injuries, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Officials think the death may have been a suicide.
In case you missed it, here's the story that ran in the paper Sunday:
By Jia-Rui Chong, Chong is a Times staff writer.
A 54-year-old man was hit Saturday evening by a Blue Line Metro train in the same area of downtown Los Angeles where another Blue Line train hit a vehicle earlier in the day.
Witnesses said they saw the man step in front of the southbound train about 5 p.m., near where the train goes beneath the Santa Monica Freeway, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey. Nothing was known about the man's possible motivation.
The man was taken to California Hospital Medical Center in critical condition with multiple fractures and contusions, Humphrey said. No other people were injured.
The collision with the car occurred about 2:30 p.m., just south of the station at Pico Boulevard and Flower Street, where the light rail runs at street level, said Metro spokesman Rick Jager. The vehicle got in front of the train and sustained minor damage, but there were no injuries, he said.
Jager said that part of the track has not been problematic in the past and the two accidents on Saturday were coincidental.
"It's an unfortunate situation. But our trains are safe," he said. "The trains have the right of way. People have to pay attention out there."
Ever been stuck driving behind a truck carrying live chickens? Here's some news that may inspire a lane change in the future: antibiotic resistant bacteria from chickens has been inside cars that follow chicken trucks, according to a new Johns Hopkins study.
Researchers took a good hard look at a car that closely followed a chicken truck for 17 miles. The car had its windows down. And what did they find? "Air samples collected inside the cars, showed increased concentrations
of bacteria (including antibiotic-resistant strains) that could be
inhaled," states the school's press release. "The same bacteria were also found deposited on a soda can
inside the car and on the outside door handle, where they could
potentially be touched."
Full press release after the jump for those who didn't have chicken for lunch today. I'm not sure I've ever been behind a chicken truck in California, but my car got beaned by some carrots that fell from a truck on the Golden State Freeway in the San Joaquin Valley on a recent trip.
Metrolink schedules are now available on Google Transit. You can access the trip-planning service at the Metrolink website, Google Transit website or through the Google maps home page. You type in your starting point and ending destination and Google Transit gives you a list of trains that will get you there. The most recent 2.2 software update for the iPhone also makes it much easier to use Google Transit on the maps feature.
There remains one huge glitch with Google Transit, and it's not Metrolink's fault. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been in talks with Google Transit about providing its bus and train scheduling data, but the talks haven't gone anywhere.
So while many other large cities (New York and Chicago, to name two) are on Google Transit, we're stuck here in the technological backwater known as Los Angeles County. So if you want MTA schedules, you've got to get them through the Metro website, which is loaded with cumbersome and slow-loading pdf files for many schedules.
The net effect of this is that you can only get Metrolink schedules from Google Transit. In some cases, that may be all you need, but if you also want connections to local buses or rail, it's not there. At least not yet.
The news release from Metrolink is after the jump.
I was driving in WeHo Friday afternoon when the phone rang. I tapped the talk button on the phone speaker and got ... "It's Rosendahl." It was Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl and he was ticked.
Not at me. At the Dodgers. He had earlier in the day been in the City Council's Transportation Committee and heard a report on the Dodger Trolley. It seems the shuttle between Union Station and Dodger Stadium went over budget due to its popularity (blogdowntown reported this last month) and Rosendahl said that the price had gone from an expected $70,000 to $150,000. About 704 people on average took the trolley to games, according to a city report released last month.
What really steamed Rosendahl was that, according to him, city officials were saying it would cost $350,000 to run the trolley for a full season in 2009, if the council decides to continue it. This past year, the trolley was basically a test program and didn't start until late July.
Furthermore, Rosendahl was ticked because the Dodgers wouldn't pick up any of the cost this year, saying that baseball teams shouldn't have to pay for mass transit. That's government's job, the team said. Of course, not every team builds its stadium far from the downtown street grid, behind residential neighborhoods, and surrounds it with 16,000-plus parking spaces that are currently going for $15 a pop.
"The city isn't going to pay for it if I have my way," Rosendahl said.
He also wanted the Dodgers to open their books for the city. Good luck with that -- the players union has wanted to see the real books of Major League Baseball teams for years. Nonetheless, as ESPN reported at the time, the last labor negotiations in 2006 were a cinch simply because teams were making so much money.
This will be a fun standoff, should it transpire. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is saying the city budget is already deep in the hole, but the Dodgers have proved in the past to have a lot of friends on the City Council. At the same time, the Dodgers may be rolling the money trucks up to free agent Manny Ramirez any day now -- giving the team cause to plead poverty.
What do you think should happen? Should the city send the Dodgers to the showers? Or is the city getting good bang for its buck (or in this case 350,000 of them)?
Congress told the Big Three automakers "no thanks" -- at least for now -- to Detroit's request to borrow $25 billion to keep their business alive. Here's CNN's story about how the chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler flew to hearings in Washington in private jets, noting that it was Rep. Brad Sherman -- local boy! -- who asked the CEOs to raise their hands if they flew commercial or were planning to sell their airplanes. No hands were raised. Surprised? Those are Ford F-150s awaiting shipment in Detroit in the photo above.
New cars are sitting around with nowhere to go at the Port of Long Beach. Press-Telegram
The one-eighth-of-a-penny sales tax increase in Santa Clara County looks as if it's going to win. The money would go to extending the BART system south to San Jose from the East Bay. A story in the Mercury News contemplates what San Jose's train station may look like in the future when BART and high-speed rail are both serving the area.
Interesting week for BART: A woman also delivered her baby on the platform of the San Leandro station. Mercury News
From the Department of Space Transportation: Kudos to the Houston Chronicle copy editor who wrote the headline "Water recycler not quite right, works in spurts" about NASA's difficulty getting its urine-to-drinking water system to work aboard the space shuttle.
L.A. Times editorial board member Dan Turner's favorite car at the L.A. Auto Show this week: the Honda CR-Z(at right). "It makes the hover-vehicles soaring between skyscrapers on the planet Coruscant look like antiques; imagine a white shark that has swallowed a bright purple video-game console and you get the general design concept," Dan writes. If you don't know the significance of Coruscant -- capital of the once-mighty Republic -- then you might as well go back to Dagobah, as far as I'm concerned. That's Coruscant in the background in the photo below; Sen. Palpatine is at right.
The Times' editorial board says it's a big mistake by the city of Los Angeles to spend money renovating the Bradley Terminal without first moving the north runways farther apart.
Sue Doyle in the Daily News writes about some Valley residents calling for the Orange Line busway to be converted to light rail. It's just talk at this point, but Sue also notes that efforts to speed up the slow-as-syrup bus (14 miles in just 40 minutes!), such as adding express service or syncing lights to favor the bus, have gone nowhere. The issue might be a good one for a member of the L.A. City Council interested in accomplishing something on the mass-transit front. Yes, I know. I wrote that just for fun.
Lack of money is just part of the problem when it comes to building infrastructure and transportation projects in the United States, writes the New York Times' David Leonhardt:
It's hard to exaggerate how scattershot the current system is. Government agencies usually don't even have to do a rigorous analysis of a project or how it would affect traffic and the environment, relative to its cost and to the alternatives -- before deciding whether to proceed. In one recent survey of local officials, almost 80 percent said they had based their decisions largely on politics, while fewer than 20 percent cited a project's potential benefits.
You've probably seen all those ads by oil companies touting their new green initiatives. Not getting as much p.r. are their efforts to extract oil and gas from tar sands in Alberta, Canada (above), a process that one environmental group calls "the most destructive project on Earth." Grist
Fun Curbed LA item on historic photos posted online of Los Angeles traffic from the archives of Life magazine. "Among the highlights are photos of 1940's and 50's Los Angeles before it was ruined by traffic and ungodly shadow casting skyscrapers. Oh wait. We're not sure that Los Angeles ever existed except in the minds of cranky old people in the Valley," writes JWilliams.
The lead for Measure R reached almost a full percentage point on Friday, as the Los Angeles County Registrar updated vote totals from the Nov. 4 election. Measure R now has 67.65% of the vote, the largest lead it has had. Two-thirds approval is needed for passage. The vote totals are still unofficial.
The lead for Measure R in terms of raw votes now stands at about 27,630. I'll find out the number of outstanding votes still to be counted on Monday. At this point, the majority of absentee and provisional ballots have been counted.
Measure R, if approved, would raise the sales tax by a half-cent in Los Angeles County to pay for mass transit and road projects. The largest project is an extension of the subway to the Westside.
Hi folks. A fair amount of news broke since this afternoon when I posted there were no new details about the Metrolink crash in Rialto on Thursday. Here's the story that is being published for tomorrow's editions:
By Robert J. Lopez, Rich Connell and Steve Hymon
Federal investigators said human error or brake problems may have caused a Metrolink train to run a red light before it slammed into a freight train Thursday in Rialto.
The Metrolink crew noticed two lights prior to the red signal, said Ted Turpin, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator supervising the inquiry. One was flashing yellow and the other solid yellow, which should have alerted the crew that they had to stop so the other train could move off the single line of shared track and onto a side rail.
“They used the brakes but they didn’t stop,” Turpin said.
The Rialto crash, which injured five passengers, was the second time in less than three months that a Metrolink train had failed to heed a stoplight before hitting another train.
Investigators in the catastrophic Chatsworth crash in September have said the engineer raced past a red light before slamming into an oncoming freight train, killing 25 people and injuring 135 others. The engineer was also text messaging seconds before impact.
The latest accident prompted Metrolink’s board of directors on Friday to direct staff to explore what would be required to terminate the agency’s contract with the private company that runs the commuter trains.
“If it turns out to be operator error, then it raises serious issues about how [the contractor] is responding to what happened in Chatsworth and the concerns raised by Metrolink,” board member Richard Katz said in an interview.
Thursday’s crash was similar to the Chatsworth collision, except that the commuter train was moving slowly when it hit the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train.
Experts said the crash, coming on the heels of the Chatsworth collision and other deadly Metrolink accidents in recent years, raises safety questions about the popular commuter line.
The Rialto collision, experts noted, was especially troubling because the Metrolink train had two engineers — a measure enacted after the Chatsworth crash to prevent accidents.
“It’s just intolerable to have so many accidents on one system in a relatively short period of time,” said Barry M. Sweedler, who spent 30 years with the NTSB as an investigator and administrator.
Najmedin Meshkati, a USC engineering professor who has studied rail safety systems, said the accidents point to systemic problems with the agency. “We are dealing with a deep-seated issue that involves the safety culture of the organization,” he said.
Part of the problem, Sweedler said, is that Metrolink contracts out for its engineers, creating a layer of bureaucracy that makes it difficult to hold individuals accountable.
A spokeswoman for Veolia Transportation, whose subsidiary employs the engineers, said Friday evening that officials from the firm were unavailable for comment.
Turpin, the NTSB investigator, said the inquiry would continue for several more days and that investigative teams would be poring over computer data from the trains, signals and Metrolink dispatch center.
He said the Metrolink train slammed into the freight train about 120 feet past the red light. Investigators had interviewed the Metrolink crew and taken statements from the Burlington Northern crew, Turpin said.
“We know pretty much where everything was and what was going on,” he said, adding that it would probably be months before a probable cause is determined.
A Metrolink spokesman said Friday that all of the agency’s trains will undergo complete mechanical inspections before beginning service Monday.
Metrolink released no other details about the cause of a crash Thursday between one of its passenger trains and a freight train in Rialto. Five passengers suffered slight injuries.
The Metrolink Board of Directors at its meeting today did ask agency staff to explore what would be required to terminate the agency’s contract with Veolia, the private firm that is contracted to run Metrolink’s trains.
“If there’s an issue” –- with Thursday’s crash –- “that turns out to involve train engineers, that’s another one in a short period of time and that raises issues,” said Richard Katz, a board member.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators, citing several tests conducted after the Sept. 12 crash that killed 25 in Chatsworth, have said they are confident that the signal system was working and that engineer Robert M. Sanchez sped past a red light before slamming into the oncoming Union Pacific freight train. Sanchez was killed in the crash.
Three witnesses, however, have told The Times that the light was green as Sanchez pulled Metrolink train No. 111 out of the Chatsworth station.
In related news, the California Public Utilities Commission said today that it would consider requiring commuter rail lines to install collision avoidance systems. A new federal law requires advanced systems to be in place by 2015, although Metrolink and two big freight operators have said they are trying to have the equipment on trains by 2012.
It's official: the price of gas at the Chevron station I've been watching for months has been halved from its summer high. Back in July, the price was $4.73 for a gallon of regular. This morning, the price was $2.359 for that same gallon. The station is located at the corner of Hill and Colorado in Pasadena.
The Energy Information Administration on its website has weekly average gas prices going back to 1990, but I couldn't find another occasion when the price fell by half. In the past 18 years, most of the price dips were on the order of 20% or so.
Another remarkable threshold: the national average for a gallon of regular is now $1.989, according to AAA. The last time that the average price for a gallon of regular was under $2 a gallon was in early March 2005, according to the EIA statistics.
Late-night DASH bus service begins tonight in downtown Los Angeles, with buses running every 10 minutes from 6:30 p.m. until 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays through the holidays. I hope they do a better job sticking to schedule at night than during weekdays, when I often find the buses off the mark. That said, service is free.
Late-night service every 20 minutes until 3 a.m. on weekends also begins tonight on the Red Line subway between Los Angeles' Union Station and North Hollywood. A number of businesses kicked in more than $54,000 to keep the subway running the extra 2 1/2 hours. The extension is also through the holidays.
And now ... a Bottleneck Blog public service announcement! If you're partying late into the morning and decide to take the bus or subway, please have the courtesy of getting sick at curbside before boarding the bus or train.
QUESTION FOR READERS: Hi folks. Is anyone out there having problems viewing the Google map I posted earlier of the location of today's Metrolink crash? I've had a couple of issues in recent weeks with one map subbing for another. I also want to know if Google maps slow down loading of the blog on your computer. Please leave a comment and I'll try to remedy any problems.
Here's a statement released a few minutes ago from Metrolink about the crash earlier today between a San Bernardino-bound Metrolink train and a freight train in Rialto:
Today at
approximately 11:30 a.m. Metrolink Train 306, traveling from Los Angeles to San
Bernardino, came into contact at low speed with a Burlington Northern Santa Fe
local freight train, which was entering a siding in Rialto. The Metrolink train
was traveling eastbound, with a locomotive in the lead, with two crew members on
the locomotive. The contact between the Metrolink locomotive and the freight
train is characterized as a minor sideswipe, not head-on, with no attendant
damage to passenger coaches or freight cars, nor to track and signal
facilities. There were 15 passengers on board the train. Four passengers
reported minor injuries and have been transported to local medical facilities.
The National Transportation Safety Board has responded to the scene.
“Although
this incident occurred at a low speed, any incident on the Metrolink system is
unacceptable,” said Metrolink Board Vice Chairman Keith Millhouse. “This
incident will be fully investigated to determine the cause, and measures will be
taken to ensure that incidents like this do not happen again.”
Train service
on the San Bernardino Line continues to operate on schedule between Los Angeles
Union Station and Rancho Cucamonga, with bus service between Rancho Cucamonga
and San Bernardino. Train service between Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino
will resume once the NTSB releases the scene.
At this time, Metrolink officials say that regular afternoon service will resume to Rancho Cucamonga. Buses will be provided for passengers traveling beyond that point. If this changes, I'll update this post.
Here's a map showing the location of the crash Thursday afternoon between a Metrolink train and freight train. The Metrolink train was heading east when it hit the westbound 102-car BNSF freight train that was pulling onto a siding. You can zoom into the map for a better view.
I just spoke with Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railway spokeswoman Lena Kent:
The two trains collided in an area of single track just west of the Metrolink station in Rialto. The westbound Burlington Northern-Santa Fe freight train was pulling onto a siding when the eastbound Metrolink train hit the tail end of the freight train, Kent said.
“We were cleared to go into the siding,” Kent said. “It had almost cleared the mainline when it was struck.”
Metrolink owns that section of track and oversees the operation of trains on it, according to an agency map of the Metrolink rail system.
The BNSF freight train, which was headed from Barstow to Rialto, was being pulled by four locomotives and had 102 freight cars with two more locomotives at the end of the train. The Metrolink train hit the 96th car in the train, a flat car carrying iron, Kent said. She said the 96th through 102nd cars sustained damage but that it didn’t appear to be major.
None of the BNSF crew members suffered any injuries, Kent said. None of the freight train’s cars derailed.
An eastbound Metrolink train scraped against a westbound
Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train in the Rialto area on
Thursday morning, according to Lt. Joe Cirilo of the Rialto Police
Department.
There are no major injuries, but five passengers are complaining of
some type of pain and they are being evaluated and treated, Cirilo
said. The accident happened a little before noon near where Lilac
Avenue crosses the tracks in Rialto.
Metrolink officials indicated the train involved is believed to be
No. 306, which runs between Union Station and San Bernardino with a
stop in Rialto.
Metrolink's most recent Twitter update, posted about 12:25 p.m. says:
"Metrolink San Bern. Line trains will only operate between Los Angeles and Rancho
Cuca. stn. til further notice due to incident involving train 306."
Metrolink officials just confirmed that a train apparently heading to San Bernardino was involved in some type of incident Thursday morning involving a freight train. No injuries are reported and there are no details as to the extent of the accident or precisely what happened or where it happened. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department had no information on the incident as of noon. More details when we get them.
There's been a lot of talk in Washington and the media lately that one way for the federal government to give the economy a boost would be to start making massive investments in the nation's infrastructure. Such spending would both create jobs in the short term and give the U.S. the kind of infrastructure to build its economy around in the future.
In that vein, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would allow bonds to be issued to raise more than $23 billion for high-speed rail projects around the country. Some of that money -- it's not clear exactly how much -- could be used on the proposal to build a high-speed rail line in California. Here's a link to a story about the bill in the Boston Globe.
That is interesting, of course, since voters here earlier this month approved Proposition 1A, which allows the state to issue $9.95 billion in bonds to plan and construct a high-speed rail line. It's not nearly enough to finish the proposed line from Anaheim to San Francisco -- the California High Speed Rail Authority said recently the cost will be $33 billion; critics say it will be much more.
Still, the federal bill is worth watching. If it passes, it would arguably be a boost for passenger rail along some Amtrak corridors after decades of the nation making heavy investments in the nation's airports and highways.
The press release from Kerry's office is after the jump.
Passengers at Union Station in Los Angeles were having their bags searched by police Wednesday afternoon as part of a new security push by the rail carrier.
Sheriff's deputies and Transportation Security Administration officers were conducting the searches. Metrolink received a federal grant earlier this year to do the searches and left fliers in June for passengers, telling them that the searches would soon begin.
At the time, agency officials said the searches were not in response to any specific threats but instead were being done as an overall push to tighten security, as other rail carriers have done.
The agency has been searching passengers' bags at other stations, but Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said this was the first time searches were done at Union Station.
Trolling the wires yesterday, this photo caught my eye for obvious reasons: might it not be necessary to have a few such signs here? The photo was taken earlier this week in Manila. The Automobile Assn. there has called for a complete ban on using cellphones while driving.
I don't know about you, but I still see people holding phones to their ears while driving. Which reminds me that it's time to start pulling stats from local agencies on the number of cellphone tickets handed out so far. Anyone out there been nabbed? Seen anyone else pulled over?
The half-cent sales tax for transportation projects in Los Angeles County known as Measure R took its largest lead yet on Tuesday, as the Los Angeles County Registrar posted updated results from the Nov. 4 election. The results are unofficial.
Measure R now holds 67.51% of the vote out of the almost 2.85 million ballots cast. It needs 66.67% to be approved. The Registrar estimates there are still approximately 185,000 votes to be counted, with most of those provisional ballots. The next update of results is scheduled to be posted on Friday afternoon.
In terms of raw votes, Measure R's lead is now about 23,051 -- an increase from about 16,675 after last Friday's update. The fewer votes there are to be counted, the more difficult that lead will be to overcome.
In related news, a sales tax increase in Santa Clara County to extend the BART rail system to the southern Bay Area has taken an extremely narrow lead after trailing since Election Day. The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting today that the difference between winning and losing is less than a dozen votes. About 9,800 votes remain to be counted, reports the Chronicle.
Good evening. Here's an article I wrote today that may run in some editions of The Times tomorrow, space permitting. Some of the information has already been posted here, but I thought I'd go ahead and post the story anyway for those interested:
Remember all those mass transit ridership records set this summer as gas prices spiked?
Those records appear to be history, at least for now, as ridership on some large California transit agencies fell slightly in October. In most cases, the number of riders was higher than a year ago – but off from the peaks of June and July.
Meanwhile, some motorists report that traffic has worsened in the past two months, as it usually does this time of year.
“If I get on the 405 at Century at 7:30 or 8 p.m., I can some days make it to the Studio City area in half an hour,” wrote Marion Jewell, who works near Los Angeles International Airport, in an email to The Times. “That seems like a miracle.”
Many miles away, Oxnard attorney Fred Rosenmund said rush hour traffic remains stinky. “It’s awful and the 101 is still capable of coming to a standstill,” he said, adding that traffic at other times seems to have lightened.
However, data collected by road sensors suggest that traffic on many Southland freeways was typically moving at a slightly faster clip in October of this year than in 2007, according to the UC Berkeley Freeway Performance Measurement System.
So what’s going on out there?
Mass transit officials offer a variety of explanations: seasonal variations in ridership, higher unemployment due to the sour economy and gas prices being the top three. In the last six weeks alone, the price of a gallon of regular gas has fallen about $1.30 on average on the West Coast, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Prices are now under $2.50 at many local outlets in Southern California.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say I think that gas prices have something to do with it, but I wouldn’t say it has everything to do with it,” said Ed Muncy, director of service planning for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “It’s hard to get a read on what’s going on with the economy and its effect.”
The MTA is the largest transit provider in Southern California, but its numbers are mixed. Overall, about 1.55 million people took MTA buses or trains on an average weekday in October, down from a month earlier and also down about 70,000 from July, when ridership peaked. The subway, however, had more riders in October than in September.
(correction: an earlier version of this post said 1.55 million people took MTA buses or trains in October. It's 1.55 million people on an average weekday.)
The agency sees it another way: Ridership is up from a year or two ago, suggesting that people are either shifting to transit or the number of transit-dependent is growing.
A good example of that phenomenon comes from Metrolink, which specializes in long-haul commuters. Its ridership slipped from 49,261 average weekday riders in September to 48,629 in October. But in October 2007, Metrolink was carrying 44,448 riders each weekday.
Whether they're riding transit or not, more than two-thirds of Los Angeles County voters favored the half-cent sales tax increase for transportation spending in the county, with a heavy emphasis on building more rail. Ballots are still being counted, but Measure R is now holding a comfortable lead.
Some transit agencies continue to see more riders. Foothill Transit –- which operates buses in the San Gabriel Valley –- had a better month in October than in July, and Orange County Transportation Authority buses had their best month ever in October with 6.3 million riders.
“I think there’s a long-term relationship between gasoline and ridership,” Art Leahy, chief executive officer of OCTA. “I was a bus operator in 1974” –- he drove a bus in Los Angeles –- “when the energy crisis caused a jump in ridership that never really went down. We actually saw a similar thing on the Metrolink system. It only dropped off a little.”
Leahy believes it’s only a matter of time until gas prices jump again. And he says his agency will be ready. Instead of selling 150 old buses as planned, the agency decided to keep them in storage for the next big ridership surge.
In case you missed the news, Amtrak's chief executive stepped down on Friday. The railroad did give a reason for the resignation. Alex Kummant was with Amtrak for less than three years, but he leaves with two huge accomplishments: the rail carrier set record annual ridership in the past year and President Bush signed a bill this fall that provides nearly $13 billion in funding for Amtrak.
Here's the story from the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Amtrak Chief Executive Alex Kummant resigned
Friday after two years marked by significant growth in ridership and
revenue, the national passenger railroad said.
Kummant's resignation is effective immediately, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.
William
Crosbie, the railroad's chief operating officer, will serve as acting
president and CEO. Amtrak said Kummant will help with a transition to
new leadership.
Donna McLean, chairwoman of Amtrak's board, thanked Kummant for his service in a statement released Friday.
"During
the past two years, the company experienced exciting economic times,
strong ridership and revenue growth, solid profit and loss performance,
and the advancement of the Amtrak brand overall," McLean said.
Kummant,
hired as president and CEO in 2006, also is credited with overseeing
the completion of labor agreements with all Amtrak's union employees.
He took over for David Gunn, who was fired in 2005, a year in which
Amtrak had to suspend all high-speed Acela service after discovering
cracks in some brakes.
Kummant previously served as an executive with Omaha, Neb.-based railroad operator Union Pacific Corp.
Amtrak's
board said it will continue to try to increase ridership as fuel costs
and other economic concerns send more commuters to trains and buses.
"Current
economic conditions highlight the need for us to continue finding ways
to drive quality and customer service across the system," said board
vice chairman Hunter Biden, the son of Vice President-elect Joe Biden.
Now there's a scene straight out of the Westside, eh? Just kidding. The photo was taken today in Baghdad, where there's some big news on the mass transit front. The mayor of the city on Monday announced plans for a subway that would run across the city and connect Shia and Sunni areas. The project isn't exactly a go, as the Baghdad government will have to raise much of the money from private investors. Here's an excerpt from today's story in the Guardian:
In a city where raw waste often spills from an antique sewer system, where power goes off hourly, no postal service exists and where public transport has long been a fantasy, lofty ideas have recently been capturing imaginations.
On the subject of mass transit in Baghdad, I'd also like to turn your attention to a story published today in The Times about Baghdad's new commuter rail line. It's not exactly a high-tech train, as my colleagues Tina Susman and Caesar Ahmed explain:
"I'm very committed to my schedule," says Jassem, who explains the importance of timeliness: This train shares a track with the train running between Baghdad and Basra. That train is barreling toward central Baghdad as the commuter train is leaving and arrives about an hour after Salim leaves the station. Staying on schedule helps prevent collisions.
"We're coming now! Clear the way for me!" Salim yells into his radio to alert employees at the first station out of central Baghdad -- Mansour -- of his approach. As he nears the station, a shaggy black dog appears on the track, barking furiously at the oncoming engine. At the last minute, the dog darts to the side.
Salim and the others laugh. They know the dog. He's there every time.
On the left side of the track, a man faces the oncoming train, his left arm held high. One of the guards leans out the door and snatches a slip of paper from him. It's an affidavit stating that the train is running on time.
Farther along, a man in a corduroy jacket kneels at the point where two tracks meet, using a tool to adjust the rails to steer the train to the left, off the main track and onto the Dora-bound one.
You get the idea. Give the whole story a read. Besides the interesting mass transit angle, it gives you the flavor of life in Baghdad circa 2008. It also raises a question: Do you think Los Angeles will get its subway extension underway before Baghdad starts building their line?
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority just released their statistics for October ridership: with the exception of the subway, ridership fell slightly from September as gas prices began their free-fall.
The agency's press release is below. They put a different on the numbers, pointing out accurately that ridership overall is up over a year ago. So, it depends how you look at it. The chart at right shows ridership on the Blue Line to help offer some perspective. (Click on it to see a larger image).
Quickly, here are the September and October numbers:
MTA buses: From 1,253,620 in September to 1,222,589 in October. Subway: From 149,699 in Sept. to 154,935 in Oct. Blue Line: From 84,917 in Sept. to 80,577 in Oct. Green Line: From 45,346 in Sept. to 41,746 in Oct. Gold Line: From 25,511 in Sept. to 24,004 in Oct. Orange Line: From 27,987 in Sept. to 25,428 in Oct.
You can see the numbers from the past three Septembers at Metro's website.
This trend of falling ridership seems common. Metrolink, for example, went from 49,261 average weekday riders in September to 48,629 in October. But in Oct. 2007, Metrolink was carrying 44,448 riders each weekday.
One exception is the Orange County Transportation Authority, which set a record for ridership on its buses in October. See Thursday's post, which explains the agency is actually holding onto 150 old buses for the next time gas prices spike.
The Metro press release on their October numbers is after the jump.
A few thoughts on getting around the Southland and elsewhere...
1. Someone needs to create a simple real-time Web page that immediately posts freeway closures. If I wanted to find out that the 57 was closed this weekend due to the brush fires, I would have had to go to the Caltrans road condition website and type in a road number to see its status. As I posted recently, Caltrans District 7 Director Doug Failing said the agency was looking at using Twitter updates to tell motorists about road closures. That's a fine idea, but a real-time Web page accessible to everyone would be great too.
2. I think it was a good call to cancel the Pasadena marathon due to the fires on Sunday. The air went from bad in the morning to worse by sunset on Sunday in Pasadena and temperatures were about 80 degrees by 9 a.m., when a lot of people would have still been running. The course was a tough one, too, with 1,009 feet of elevation gain.
3. Attentive readers may recall all those photos I posted over the summer of gas prices at the Chevron station at the corner of Hill and Colorado in Pasadena. Something I should have mentioned, but didn't: just across Colorado, the Pasadena Ford dealership also closed a few months ago. I had thought they moved. Turns out they were bought out by the parent company and closed, according to the Star News. A couple of Chrysler dealerships in the San Gabriel Valley have also gone under.
4. I think Pasadena will never get around to fixing the traffic signal at Chester and Del Mar. It frequently turns red even when there's no cross-traffic or pedestrians present. It's been that way for years.
5. iBART is the best transportation-related iPhone application I've seen. It provides maps, schedules and service updates for the BART rail system in the Bay Area. It's a freebie too.
6. From the Department of Reader Complaints, two criticisms:
a. Complaint: I have yet to write a comprehensive story for the paper and website on the disputed safety issues along the Expo Line in South L.A. With my docket a little more clear now, I'm working on it.
b. Complaint: I should have explained why public officials sought a sales tax hike in Los Angeles County for transportation needs instead of other types of funding. Answer: That's fair enough. As I explained often, state and federal funding is in short supply. The sales tax was sought because the other common alternative -- selling bonds -- runs up big-time debt that the Metropolitan Transit Authority would have had to pay back.
7. I think since I threw a major snit last week, the comment board is shaping up to be a better read now.
8. That was a very provocative editorial in The Times last week calling for Gov. Schwarzenegger to raise registration fees on vehicles. Also worth reading is an opinion piece by editorial board member Robert Greene, who last year wrote about Sacramento's shenanigans with the car tax.
9. I wish those dudes I saw racing on the 210 last week could go for a nice leisurely skate with the Kings' Dustin Brown. Here's some video.
10. Circling back to item #1, I think a freeway and road closure website would also be very useful for motorists heading into the mountains each winter. A few too many uncertain trips up and over Donner Pass in my 1993 Toyota Tercel is the exact reason I now own a Subaru Outback.
This short film was posted last week at Streetsblog Los Angelesand was made by Streetsblog, the group that promotes walking, biking, mass transit and people-oriented urban planning. The film, directed by Clarence Eckerson, is mostly a look at the Bicycle Kitchen, a do-it-yourself bike repair shop near Hollywood in Los Angeles. The co-op Bikerowave is also featured. It's worth five minutes of your Monday.
The lead grew larger on Friday for Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase for transportation in Los Angeles County. Measure R now has 67.31% of the vote, according to unofficial election results from the Los Angeles County Registrar. On Tuesday, Measure R had 67.23% of the vote. It needs two-thirds of the vote to pass.
In terms of raw votes, Measure R now holds a lead of about 16,675 votes -- an increase of almost 2,400 from the lead it held after the Tuesday update.
I wasn't able to verify Friday afternoon exactly how many absentee ballots and provisional ballots remain to be counted. I'll try to get that number on Monday. The next update on results will be Tuesday afternoon.
A bus rapid transit project opened last month in Cleveland and get this -- the local transit agency sold naming rights for the "HealthLine" for $6.25 million for 25 years to the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals.In a review of the line published Sunday in the Plain Dealer, writer Steve Litt says the bus line has turned Euclid Avenue "the city's once-crumbling Main Street into a well-designed image of hope and renewal." The 7.1-mile line cost about $200 million and was built instead of a light rail line. Hat tip: Streetsblog Los Angeles.
Speaking of big streets...it's hardly a secret that Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica and Los Angeles is super ugly, even when compared with some of the Southland's other wretched commercial thoroughfares. Now a group counting billboards along Lincoln have counted 85 billboards in a 4.2-mile stretch in the 11th City Council district -- a high concentration even by L.A. standards. Curbed LA
Some news from my hometown: voters in Cincinnati this month banned the city from installing red light enforcement or speed enforcement cameras by a 51% to 49% margin, according to the Hamilton County Board of Elections. The City Council had earlier declined to install them, but this was icing on the cake for camera opponents. Two other Ohio cities are now looking at taking the issue to voters, according to the Newspaper, a site dedicated to battling the cameras.
Amtrak ridership hit a new high in California, with 5.5-million riders on the three lines in the Golden State during the 2008 fiscal year, according to Caltrans. Attentive readers will recall that the California High-Speed Rail Authority is predicting more than 65 million riders annually if the system is built.
Remember the roadless rule that President Clinton signed before leaving office in 2001? It protected 58.5 million acres of national forest from road building, but President Bush quickly reversed it. In the time since, there have been contradictory court rulings and the rule remains up in the air. Bill Schneider at New West makes the case that President-elect Obama should make the rule the "law of the land" and enumerates the reasons why.
In Texas, the insurance carrier Mile Meter recently began offering pay-as-you-drive insurance, which offers lower rates to those who drive less. Environmentalists (here's the Environmental Defense Fund's release) are pushing the idea because they see it as a major incentive to drive less. Similar policies can be bought in a few other places around the United States and pay-as-you-drive is coming to California, as this recent Times story explains.
Red Flag "Restricted Parking - IN EFFECT" from 11/14/2008, 8:00 AM, through 11/15/2008, 8:00 AM.
This advisory is for: 11/13/2008. The National Weather Service has declared a Red Flag for 11/14/2008. Parking Restrictions will be in effect from 11/14/2008, 8:00 AM through 11/15/2008, 8:00 AM and until further notice. Please call 3-1-1 or visit our website at: http://www.lafd.org/redflag. Thank you for your Cooperation.
I’ve been gathering up transit ridership from agencies around the state, curious as to whether the number of passengers has dipped now that gas prices have cratered since their summer highs. Not all the numbers are in yet, but most agencies have seen a slight dip in ridership since it peaked in July.
One exception is ridership on buses run by the Orange County Transportation Authority, or OCTA. Ridership jumped to an all-time high of 6.3 million for October, surpassing the 6.2 million in July.
“I think there’s a long-term relationship between gasoline and ridership,” Art Leahy, the chief executive officer of OCTA, told me Thursday afternoon. “I was a bus operator in 1974” -– that’s right, he actually drove a bus in Los Angeles –- “when the energy crisis caused a jump in ridership that never really went down. We actually saw a similar thing on the Metrolink system after the [1994] earthquake and people tried it out and stayed. It only dropped off a little.
“There’s a long-term problem here in that oil consumption worldwide is climbing and production is not keeping pace,” he added. “We’re going to see increased market competition for fuel and energy and I think that leads to the conclusion that prices will continue to be unstable and we’ll see fluctuations. I hope it doesn’t happen, but the fact is it’s a fragile market. I think independent of why people take a bus or not, we should prepare for uncertain energy markets in the future.”
In fact, OCTA started preparing for such problems more than a year ago. Instead of selling off old buses that it was replacing, the agency kept about 150 of them in storage, figuring it was worth the $1 million annual cost of maintaining them.
“If we slip into a serious crisis where people can’t get gasoline or if gasoline prices did what they did a few months ago, those buses will be like gold because you won’t be able to get new ones,” Leahy said.
As you probably are aware, there was a giant earthquake drill in the region this morning, the idea being to practice response to a 7.8-magnitude shaker on the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault.
As part of the drill, the light-rail lines and the subway run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stopped at 10 a.m., the time of the massive make-believe temblor. “That gives the train operators a chance to look out the window to inspect the tracks to make sure they haven’t been torn up,” said Rick Jager, an MTA spokesman.
In a real earthquake, the protocol is for train operators to call the MTA’s rail operations center to get instructions on how to proceed. After the fake earthquake at 10 a.m., trains were then instructed to run at speeds under 20 mph for the next hour so that the MTA could stage mock inspections of the tracks.
I've had some time lately to catch up on some e-mails and other items that have arrived recently over the transom. One I thought readers here may enjoy are the three winning entries in the Bus of the Future contest held by the Big Blue Bus in Santa Monica and the Art Center College of Design.
I'll post a photo of each, with a brief description. There's tons more info on the buses and their features at the contest website.
The Clear Volume bus, designed by Mike Peterson, has a glass ceiling that can be opened and closed and allows more light into the bus. It also features a hydrogen fuel cell motor and a middle section that lowers to the ground to make it easier to board and exit.
The Icon bus, designed by Gabriel Wartofsky, is a double-decker, with passenger loading in the front and exiting in the rear through revolving doors. It also has roof-mounted solar cells and exterior gills that would break down atmospheric ozone into oxygen to clean the surrounding air.
The Cougar Bus, designed by Giuseppe Fillippone, has "pod-style passenger cells" that can be changed depending on passenger needs. For example, pods on school routes can be outfitted with screens playing school-related content while commuter pods could turn into -- get this -- private working spaces.
Like everyone who has a blog, I want this one to gain a wide audience and to be part of the civic discussion. Up to now, I think that I've shown extreme tolerance at publishing reader comments as long as those comments did not include the kind of naughty language inappropriate for The Times.
But I'm completely weary of having to slog through Lord of the Rings-length comments, often left by the same group of readers and transit advocates. If you want to write a dissertation, that's great -- do it at UCLA or USC, both of which have programs in transportation studies. I'm also tired of the name calling and the accusations being made -- such-and-such (including myself) is ignorant, owned by the MTA, etc. In short, I'm not your professor or your mother. I'm a simple Road Sage.
So, as benevolent dictator of the Bottleneck Blog, here are two REALLY EASY ways to ensure your future comments are published:
1. Be brief and make your point. Think of it this way: if you are brief and make your point, normal people may actually want to read it.
2. If you want to dispute another reader's point, that's fine -- limit yourself to addressing the point and not the other person's character or right to existence. A really sharp commenter may find they don't even have to mention the other person's name! That will show 'em!
2b. If you really want a verbal knife fight with someone over, for example, sharrows or farebox recovery policy, then trade email addresses and take it to some Internet backwater I don't have to visit.
I very much want this blog to represent a wide range of views, even those that may not be popular. I'm not trying to censor anyone, nor am I trying to stifle criticism of yours truly. All I want is a better product for people to read and enjoy and, right now, there's plenty of room for improvement.
A quartet of public meetings begin tonight to discuss the proposed Wilshire bus lane project. The idea is to dedicate the right-hand lane to buses on Wilshire in the city of L.A. during rush hours. Transit officials have said in the past this will speed up the bus ride on Wilshire; I wonder if it means buses sitting behind cars trying to make a right turn.
The Federal Transit Administration earlier this year indicated a willingness to help fund the project -- but the agency can't fund it if it's not properly planned. It might be fun to ask transit officials if the project is still a go if the subway extension that would be funded by Measure R is indeed a go.
Here's a link to a March report from the city of L.A. on the lanes and here's a link to a city report from October 2007.
Press release from Metro (also known as the MTA) with meeting time and locations after the jump.
I wanted to call your attention to a story about the latest big development in Century City -- an expansion of the Westfield mall and a 49-story residential building that will replace an older office. My colleague Martha Groves wrote the article, which appeared in today's online and print editions.
Excerpt:
Century City in particular has been a hotbed of construction, with projects including 2000 Avenue of the Stars (which replaced the ABC Entertainment Center) and Westfield's $170-million first-phase redo of the outdoor shopping center, including a rooftop dining deck, enlarged movie theaters and, most recently, a parking system that directs patrons to available spaces (green light overhead) and away from occupied spaces (red light overhead).
Also underway is Related Cos.' 39-story condo tower at the site of the former St. Regis Hotel on Avenue of the Stars. Down the street at the corner of Constellation Boulevard, JMB Realty Corp. of Chicago plans three condo towers.
In nearby Beverly Hills, the Montage resort hotel is scheduled to open this month. And the Beverly Hilton is hoping that a final vote count on Measure H will allow it to proceed with a 12-story Waldorf-Astoria hotel and two luxury condo towers.
Some residents say that the accumulation of projects will inevitably exacerbate traffic problems. Westfield's environmental impact report concluded that the expansion would indeed worsen traffic.
The story also notes that Westfield has been generous with campaign contributions, particularly to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and 5th District Councilman Jack Weiss, whose district includes Century City. Martha quotes David Tyrone Vahedi, one of six serious candidates vying to replace Weiss on the council in March's election.
Vahedi lost to Weiss in the 2005 election and was a supporter of an effort to recall Weiss in 2007 in a dispute stemming from a mitigation fund for the JMB project. It appears that he's aligning himself with residents concerned over Century City, a move that may be politically deft.
I think the story raises a host of great questions. If the older version of Century City was a shapeless blob of office buildings, will the new version be better?
Can the area -- sans the Beverly Hills Freeway that was never built -- handle any increase in vehicular traffic?
Would a subway extension from downtown to Century City via mostly Wilshire Boulevard help traffic or just provide an alternative to it?
With most of the projects adding a lot of parking spaces, does that just guarantee that everyone is going to keep driving to Century City?
And, finally, does anyone out there have an idea how to fix the awful Santa Monica Boulevard exits from the 405 Freeway? The northbound exit merges with Pontius Cotner -- basically a glorified access road -- and requires traffic trying to head to Century City to crawl across three lanes of traffic to try to make the right turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard.
Feel free to leave a comment. Please try to be brief. Here's a link to a Google map with a satellite view that shows the residential neighborhoods bordering Century City.
What happens to someone who desperately needs a car and then wins the car of her dreams?
That's precisely what happened to my friend Colleen Donnelly on Sunday, when, after a painful 10 months of public transportation reliance, she won an 8-cylinder 1965 Mustang GT in a contest.
Earlier this year, Colleen totaled her 1998 Mustang in a otherwise relatively minor crash in Long Beach. Since then, she's been stuck either riding her bike or taking the bus to classes at Cal State Long Beach and social events. She even lost a potential internship for not having a car.
The rub is that Colleen isn't someone -- like me -- who really digs mass transit. She loves cars, especially Mustangs. She even has a blog for the school newspaperdevoted to her love of cars.
Earlier this year, Colleen entered a contest by Goodguys Rod & Custom Assn., which promotes class car events. In September, she was notified that she was -- really! -- one of 32 finalists, but to find out if she won the car, she had to attend a car show in Pleasanton in Northern California to see if a key she was given fit the Mustang's ignition.
The rest is history. Colleen still must pay taxes, registration fees and insurance -- no small feat for a struggling college student –- but her parents have agreed to help.
"It's the ultimate step up," Colleen recently said. "Not only a classic, but everything I ever wanted in a Mustang."
Steve Hymon is The Times' Road Sage. He covers traffic and transportation in a region united by a confounding network of freeways that frustrate drivers daily. The Bottleneck Blog is Steve's website home, where he breaks transportation news, reports on traffic tie-ups and brings a critical but humorous eye to commuting in Southern California. You can reach Steve at steve.hymon@latimes.com.
