« June 10, 2007 - June 16, 2007 |
Main
| June 24, 2007 - June 30, 2007 »
 Evelyn Catron decided to leave her car at home and take the bus to downtown L.A. to see "Jersey Boys." She provides a travelogue to Valley News readers, saying the trip was something of an adventure, family history lesson and a trip down memory lane:
We reach Fletcher Drive and I can see the old Van de Camps [sic] Bakery ... or at least its façade. I hear it's a school or something now, but they kept that lovely outer structure, God bless them! This area belonged to me when I was a kid, and to my cousins, and to our barefoot friends and our schoolmates, in the thirties ... My Aunt Nonie's house, where I was baby-sat, is buried behind that factory wall; the market on the corner is still here, but has become small units, supporting small endeavors.
 The MTA budget is a step closer to being a done deal, despite an appeal by the Bus Riders Union:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s proposed $3.121-billion budget for the coming fiscal year was recommended for approval today by the agency’s Finance and Budget Committee. The MTA Board of Directors will vote on the budget June 28. During a budget workshop last week, board members Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke and Long Beach City Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal asked the agency staff to find an additional $4.5 million to hire more mechanics. The committee’s decision to approve the budget followed a 10- minute public hearing, during which members of the activist group the Bus Riders Union expressed their disappointment in the agency’s decision to raise fares on bus and rail lines. "It is a real raw deal for a lot of bus riders. At the core [of the budget] is this new fare increase," said BRU member Manuel Criollo. (CNS)
Continue reading "'Raw deal' at MTA?" »
 As Santa Monica moves forward with its plans to rebuild the California Incline, the city is getting some static from Pacific Palisades. PP residents tell the Palisadian-Post that they worry the reworking of the legendary roadway connecting Pacific Coast Highway with Santa Monica's Ocean Avenue and the bluffs overlooking the ocean will bring more traffic their way:
"If you look at this project," said [Pacific Palisades Community Council] Vice Chair Richard Cohen, "the overwhelming costs are going to hit residents of L.A. And the clear benefits are going to the residents of Santa Monica. We ought to raise hell! We have to stay on our elected leaders."
Among many other complaints, members want Santa Monica to complete improvement of the bluffs before it begins working on the Incline; they want the city to reconfigure the Ocean Avenue-Moomat Ahiko Way intersection to allow two right-turn lanes; and they fear that a traffic signal at 415 PCH during incline construction will create more congestion. Members also want to require around-the-clock construction and provide a bonus for early completion.
 The L.A. City Council is getting aboard the (increasingly long-shot) bid to build a high-speed rail line up and down the state. In our area, some see it as a good commute alternative between L.A. and OC:
Efforts to fully fund construction of a 700-mile high-speed rail link that would begin in San Diego, travel through Los Angeles and end in the Bay Area won the unanimous support of the Los Angeles City Council today. The proposed electricity-operated train would travel 220 mph, whisking passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours. The council also agreed to support a $9-billion bond measure that will go before voters in November to begin construction on a portion of the $40-billion rail system. Backers say the rail system is projected to carry 68 million passengers annually by 2020. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that California cannot afford the bond money to pay for construction of elevated and underground tracks at a time when more highways, levees, schools and prisons must be built. (CNS)
 Could we be close to the first major increase in fuel economy standards in two decades? Looks possible:
Senators reached agreement Thursday on a proposal to increase automobile fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon, the first significant boost demanded of automakers in nearly 20 years. The agreement, expected to be announced at a news conference, would scale back a proposal already in an energy bill but still was considered strong enough to have wide support from environmentalists. The compromise aimed to head off attempts by senators sympathetic to the auto industry from pressing a less stringent proposal. Supporters said they had the 60 votes needed to prevent opponents from blocking it. Earlier Thursday, Senate Democrats fell three votes short of the 60 they needed to advanced a tax package that would have levied $29 billion in new taxes on the oil industry to pay for development of renewable fuels and clean energy programs. (AP)
 Dump the Pump Day arrived around Southern California with various events urging people to take mass transit to work. The Orange County Transportation Authority was offering juice and muffins to commuters in Fullerton. In L.A., the MTA used the day to unveil its new Rapid bus lines. But did if feel like less traffic out there? (Not to the few people the BB talked to.) Did you dump the pump?
In honor of Dump the Pump Day, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced today the launch of four additional Metro Rapid and Metro Rapid Express bus lines. Metro Rapid Line 704 on Santa Monica Boulevard and Metro Rapid Line 760 between downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach Boulevard will begin operating on Sunday, bringing the number of rapid lines in Los Angeles County to 18. The transit agency expects to operate 28 Metro Rapid lines by mid-2008. Metro Rapid Express Line 920 will start running on Monday along Wilshire Boulevard. The line will begin at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont and make stops at Western Avenue, Fairfax Avenue, Beverly Drive, Westwood Boulevard and 4th Street in Santa Monica. Metro Rapid Express Line 940 will also start Monday, with stops at the South Bay Galleria Transit Center, Metro Green Line Hawthorne Station, La Brea and Manchester avenues, King and Crenshaw boulevards, King Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, Broadway and 6th Street, and Union Station. (CNS)
 Michael Krikorian has found what he calls the most expensive intersection in L.A. Not because of the upscale real estate. At the corner of Clinton Street and La Brea Avenue south of Hollywood, you cannot turn RIGHT during certain hours. And there is a $159 ticket if you do:
IT’S 1:30 P.M. ON FRIDAY and a blue-gray 2007 750Li BMW tooling along Clinton Street in the Hollywood flatlands pulls up to the southwest corner of Clinton and La Brea Avenue. Suddenly, three children from the nearby Bais Yaakov school begin frantically knocking on the Beemer’s passenger window — startling the driver as other children, aided by a crossing guard, walk in front of his car and cross La Brea. Kids or no kids, two cars waiting behind the BMW begin honking at the luxury car to get going. With the crosswalk now free of kids, the hassled driver turns right onto La Brea. He’ll pay for it — $159, in fact. About 80 yards ahead of him on La Brea, an LAPD officer steps into the slow lane and gives the approaching BMW the “Stop! In the name of the law!” gesture. The officer, Regina Smith, informs the driver that he has just made an illegal right turn and will be ticketed. He’s clearly fuming.
 There's been a thoughtful dust-up on The Times' opinion page the last few days about traffic, "smart growth" and the future of development in L.A. It's between author Robert Bruegmann and activist Gloria Ohland. Bruegmann today says:
Rather than put as our goal a reduction in vehicle miles traveled, we should instead be looking first of all to maintain or increase mobility for all citizens. This will, of course, involve major changes to our current transportation system that we have clearly outgrown. Public transport can and should play an important role in this, but given the low densities of our cities, the scattered locations of homes, jobs and other activities and the enormous gains in efficiency provided by private transportation, it is highly unlikely that traditional buses or trains will supplant private transportation in any significant way.
 Ever since the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro was fitted with blue lights in 2005, it's been a picture-postcard icon. Ever wonder why blue? There's a back story to that, according to Caltrans' Inside Seven, which wrote about an award the lighting project recently won:
The blue lights were chosen, the committee explained in its award application, because they stand out from the amber-colored lights and maritime navigation indicators in the harbor area, “making the bridge a landmark clearly visible from land, sea and air.” Directional placement of the lights prevents them from disturbing the Peregrines roosting on the substructure of the bridge and also prevents light from shining upward, so the project doesn’t contribute to sky-glow or affect migratory birds flying overhead. LED bulbs consume minimal electricity and require infrequent changing, reducing the exposure of maintenance personnel to the risk of working below the bridge deck or on the bridge cables.
 Here's a new way officials are trying to deal with street racers: Crush their beloved cars, in front of them. Leave it to the Inland Empire:
Charles Hoang winced when the whoosh went out of the tires. Daniel Maldonado took pictures with a digital camera as glass exploded and rained down to the ground. The two teens didn’t know each other but they shared a common grief standing near each other under the sweltering sun Wednesday. They both watched helplessly as the cars they had so meticulously souped up and tricked out were crushed and turned into metal pancakes as part of a crackdown on illegal street racing in Southern California. "That’s my heart, my dream," said a visibly upset Hoang, 18, of Chino, who was surrounded by friends as his 1998 Acura Integra was put into a compactor. "That’s my girlfriend, the love of my life. The cops can crush my car, but they can’t crush my memories." Six vehicles were destroyed at an auto graveyard as local law enforcement ramped up enforcement against illegal street racing, which is responsible for or suspected in 13 deaths in Southern California since March. The thrill-seeking, adrenaline-pumping activity is rampant in Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles where rows of tract homes line wide streets ideal for racing. Nearly 1,000 people have been arrested for investigation of street racing activities over the past two years in San Bernardino County alone. That includes spectators as well as drivers. (AP)
 Big changes could be coming to California's carpool lanes. The federal government has concluded the lanes are getting too congested. And the state is now looking into ways to clear them out, NC Times reports:
Under pressure from the federal government, California transportation officials said Tuesday they will devise a strategy by the end of August to free up clogged car-pool lanes. Measures could include adjusting the hours that the car-pool requirement is in effect, stepping up California Highway Patrol enforcement, allowing continuous access into the lanes and limiting access to hybrids on congested freeways, said Tamie McGowen, a Caltrans spokeswoman in Sacramento. On Friday, the Federal Highway Administration told the California Department of Transportation the state is out of compliance with federal law because it has allowed lanes to become congested, state officials said.
The Vatican has created a "Drivers' Ten Commandments." According to AP, the document says: "Cars can be 'an occasion of sin' — particularly when they are used for dangerous passing or for prostitution. It warned about the effects of road rage, saying driving can bring out 'primitive' behavior in motorists, including 'impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility or deliberate infringement of the highway code.' "
The rules:
1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others.
 Beverly Hills and West Hollywood are teaming up for a new generation of high-tech parking meters. They take credit cards (which given the price of parking is a major step forward):
The cities of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood today began testing solar-powered parking meters that allow motorists to use coins or credit cards. The FlexPay Parking Meters are being tested in Beverly Hills along the east side of the 300 block of North Canon Drive and in West Hollywood on the west side of the 1000 block of La Brea Avenue. According to officials from both cities, the FlexPay meters will use existing poles and will blend in with the traditional meters. But they will be clearly identifiable as FlexPay meters and offer step-by-step instructions for people using credit cards. The meters use encryption technology to protect credit card numbers. "The encryption technology used is the same as used by banks and credit cards," Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Delshad said. "All the transactions are very safe. Nobody knows your credit card number and nobody can mishandle that." Each meter will include a hotline number for people who run into troubles with the machines, which are monitored by city officials using wireless connections. (CNS)
 The battle over widening the 405 is not just a local issue in Brentwood and Sherman Oaks. The Times' Rong-Gong Lin II says it's become a measure of how Caltrans does as it embarks on major freeway widening projects around Southern California:
But the project has generated strong opposition from some residents — and created something of a test case as Caltrans embarks on new freeway-widening projects with the help of the bond measure. The state Transportation Commission decided to provide $2.7 billion for expanding and improving Southern California freeways over the next few years. Besides the 405 project, Caltrans plans to widen the 5 Freeway in the Valley and southeast Los Angeles County. Road widenings are also slated for sections of the 57 and 91 freeways in northern Orange County, parts of the 91 and 215 in Riverside County and portions of the 10 and 215 in San Bernardino County.
Caltrans has bought about 10 homes in the Norwalk area, where the agency plans to replace a freeway overpass and add four lanes along the 5 north of the Orange County line, hoping to end a major traffic bottleneck.
 When will they learn? The travel editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer comes to town, discovers our light-rail system and rides it. His piece actually offers an interesting outsider's view of the Metro Rail. He thinks the Gold Line affords lovely views. He seemed less impressed with the Blue Line:
I have been doing something both subterranean and subversive. I've been riding the Los Angeles subway. I felt like a renegade, riding the subway in L.A. Zipping through the depths of the city is not for L.A.; that's for Chicago or the other coast - back east, as they say in California. Where is your car? Where is your sense? Car sense, that's the Los Angeles culture.
 That shooting last Friday that killed a motorist on the 710 -- the second on the freeway in three days -- seems to combine all the things you hate about driving in L.A. Sounds like it started as a road-rage incident, continued as a drag race, and ended as a freeway shooting:
A scary chase between a motorist in a small rental car, and an SUV with tinted windows trying to run it off the road, may have led up to yesterday’s murder on the Long Beach (710) Freeway, police said today. Los Angeles resident Jaime Raul Saldana, 37, was found dead behind the wheel of a small car that had crashed into the median of the 710 freeway, said coroner’s Lt. Joe Bale. Police believe his rental car may have been pursued by a driver in a black SUV with tinted windows. The SUV was seen swerving into the victim’s vehicle shortly before the wreck. Both cars apparently went north on the 710 Freeway to its end at Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, where they made two left turns to speed back south on the same freeway, police said. (CNS)
 Here's something interesting from AP about why rising temperatures are just one more reason you are feeling a pinch at the pump:
It’s not just increased demand that sends summertime gasoline prices soaring. It’s also the increased temperature. As the temperature rises, liquid gasoline expands and the amount of energy in each gallon drops. Since gas is priced at a 60-degree standard and gas pumps don’t adjust for any temperature changes, motorists often get less bang for their buck in warmer weather. Consumer watchdog groups warn that the temperature hike could end up costing consumers between 3 and 9 cents a gallon at the pump -- adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The effect could cost U.S. drivers more than $1.5 billion in the summertime, including $228 million to drivers in California alone, according to the House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, which recently addressed it in hearings.
 What causes the most traffic? A fast-food eatery? An apartment? A car dealership? A gas station? The Times' Steve Hymon (who else?) goes through the numbers:
What causes more traffic — commercial or residential properties?
Mindful readers may recall this column proposing a few weeks ago that one way to rid the city of its housing shortage would be to force each of Los Angeles' council districts to allow apartment buildings up to four stories to be built on its monstrously ugly commercial boulevards. That led some readers to suggest that this column had dangerously misplaced its head. Why? Those big boulevards couldn't handle all those extra cars that new apartment dwellers would bring. In the meantime, we got our paws on two traffic-trip volumes by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. By their count, a lot more cars drive on and off commercial properties than residential lots. See the top part of the chart, above. But as the bottom part of the chart shows, the number of vehicles in Los Angeles County has risen with the population over the decades. So it stands to reason that the more people you allow to live someplace, the more cars and traffic overall there will be.
(See chart below)
Continue reading "Traffic: The biggest magnets" »
 Back in the day, the killer commute was from the Westside to downtown. Now it's east to west (where Westside commercial construction has boomed). Howard Leff tells in colorful detail the horrors of his commute from east to west. As he writes in the Downtown News, he tried a train-bus combo:
I've actually done the one thing no person living east of La Brea, let alone near downtown, should ever contemplate. And it's too late to turn back, since my gracious new employers have already provided me with a desk, cubicle, e-mail account, stapler, free hat and a bunch of colorful thumbtacks. I have taken a job on the Westside, meaning I'm an authentic Eastside-to-West L.A. commuter. The ugly facts: I live a seemingly manageable 18.4 miles from work. But during drive time (anytime except 3:15 a.m.), it's sheer agony. Driving to the Westside from my neighborhood northeast of downtown involves a gut-wrenching choice between jammed freeways and crowded, slow-moving boulevards.
 Century City is a part of L.A. famous for its lack of pedestrian life (though we've reported that there is a new push from urban planners to fix that with better street furniture, cafes, etc.). Would a new DASH bus line help? There is now talk of adding the minibus service (fairly popular downtown) to Century City:
The Los Angeles City Council directed transportation officials today to study the feasibility of implementing a DASH bus route in Century City. The Department of Transportation was asked to study possible routes within the area, as well as connections to the planned Metro Expo Line light-rail system. "In order to ensure the long-term success of Century City, it is critical that the city examine transit connections to, from and within Century City that provide for optimal local circulation and regional connectively," Councilman Jack Weiss wrote in his motion requesting the study. (CNS)
|
|
Evelyn Catron decided to leave her car at home and take the bus to downtown L.A. to see "Jersey Boys." She provides a travelogue to Valley News readers, saying the trip was something of an adventure, family history lesson and a trip down memory lane:
