North Hollywood: Transit hub

The transit-oriented development boom continues with a $1 billion project in North Hollywood, reports The Times' Rong-Gong Lin II:

The NoHo Art Wave, which will be built on mostly vacant land or parking lots, will eclipse even the Hollywood & Highland shopping complex and underscores the efforts of transit officials to turn the once-declining North Hollywood business district into a major transit hub. The development will feature more than 1.7 million square feet of development on 15.6 acres, which would be the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's largest transit-oriented development. The MTA has made a priority of developing land the agency owns at its rail and bus stations. Officials believe that locating shopping and housing next to bus and rail lines will encourage people to get out of their cars and use mass transit. But some critics have questioned whether such projects actually result in fewer car trips. Similar developments -- but on a smaller scale -- have been rising at MTA subway stations along Wilshire Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard as well. The MTA is continuing to look at developing land at other Red Line and Orange Line stations, as well as on the Gold Line extension now being built to East Los Angeles.

Introducing Rita Robinson

The LADOT has a new leader, Steve Hymon reports:

At a 3 p.m. news conference, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to announce that he is replacing Gloria Jeff with Rita Robinson, the director of the city's Bureau of Sanitation and a former manager in the transportation agency.

Shake-up at LADOT

Gloria Jeff is out as L.A. transportation czar, according to The Times' Steve Hymon and David Zahniser:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today replaced the city transportation chief he once predicted would "be instrumental in easing traffic congestion." In March 2006, on a downtown bridge over the Hollywood Freeway, Villaraigosa held a news conference to announce his hiring of Gloria Jeff, who at the time was head of the Michigan Department of Transportation. On Thursday night, City Hall sources said, Jeff was told by the mayor's office that she had until Friday afternoon to resign or she would be fired. This afternoon, Villaraigosa sent out a news release announcing a "leadership change" in the Transportation Department, leaving it unclear whether Jeff had resigned or been fired. A few minutes after the news release was issued, Transportation Department spokesman Bruce Gillman told The Times that Jeff was still on the job. "She's had meetings and been here all day," Gillman said.

Help for parking meters

The Times' Steve Hymon has been exposing problems with the city's parking meters for a year now. It looks like there is finally an effort to make fixes, he reports:

With drivers' complaints soaring about the city's fleet of coin-munching beasts -- its 40,000 or so parking meters -- Los Angeles transportation officials Wednesday revealed more details about their plan to modernize the machines. The plan is initially to replace about 10% of the city's meters, with installation to begin in November. The last time the city replaced the meters was in the mid-1990s, when officials chose to blanket Los Angeles with just one brand, Duncan Eagle 2000. That, in essence, amounted to the city's betting all its chips on a single species of meter -- not the best strategy if the goal is long-term survival.  Perhaps to the surprise of few, the Duncan Eagles have expired over time. One of the problems has been frequent vandalism. The meters have also shown an uncanny ability to go from reading "failed" to resetting, resulting in parking tickets for those who were under the correct impression that it's legal to park at a "failed" meter. Making matters worse, those tickets are often hard to appeal.

Gold vs. Purple

The mayor is perhaps the biggest backer of the "Subway to the Sea." So it might raise some eyebrows that he is also backing light rail from Pasadena to Ontario Airport. The Gold Line extension is a rival to the Wilshire Purple Line subway extension in terms of funding (not enough for either right now):

As part of a plan to reduce congestion at LAX while increasing regional air-traffic capacity, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced his support today for extending a proposed light rail line to city-operated Ontario International Airport. Ontario Mayor Paul Leon and San Bernardino County Supervisor Gary Ovitt met with the mayor to discuss the possibility of extending the Metro Gold Line east to Ontario, even though the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has yet to approve any extension of the downtown-to-Pasadena line. The MTA is considering a proposal to extend the light rail line 22.4 miles from Pasadena to Montclair. Last year, Ontario officials announced their support for making the Ontario airport the end of the line. "Ontario must be a major point of entry into Southern California," Villaraigosa said at a City Hall news conference. "I think we’re actually onto something here. Stopping in Montclair doesn’t quite do it. Taking it to Ontario makes this something that we have to look at." The mayor said he wants to increase the number of passengers at Ontario airport from 7.9 million a year to 30 million by 2025. The relationship between LAX and Ontario would be similar to that of O’Hare International Airport, a major international hub, and Chicago Midway International Airport, which serves mainly smaller, domestic flights, Villaraigosa said. "I think we’re going to have to continue to strategize, to figure out how to get air traffic to Ontario," Villaraigosa said. (CNS)

New red light camera

Now there are 26. Here's details on the latest red light camera in L.A. -- this one on the Southside:

A fifth camera system designed to catch drivers running red lights in South Los Angeles will go into operation at noon today at Normandie and Gage avenues, authorities said. This is the city’s 26th red light system, which photographs license plates on vehicles that run red lights. About 32 will be installed, according to Sgt. Matthew MacWillie of the LAPD’s Traffic Coordination Section. In 2005, the city fired its original vendor because of the poor quality of the photos and contracted with a new vendor, Nestor Traffic Systems Inc., city officials said. The dual-digital video camera system photographs license plates from the front and rear, and officers anticipate that the rear-facing camera will increase the likelihood of convictions. The new system records 30 frames per second for each violation, allowing a greater opportunity to get a clear photograph of the driver. (CNS)

Gas prices going up -- for now

The Times' Ron White reports that gas prices in Southern California keep going up. But some experts believe we might have reached a peak:

Drivers took a hit at the pumps over the last week, the Energy Department said Monday, as gasoline continued its unusual September climb in most of the nation and U.S. diesel prices topped $3 a gallon for the first time in more than a year. The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in California rose 5.7 cents to $2.961, which was 20.1 cents above the year-earlier price, according to the Energy Department's weekly survey of filling stations. Nationally, gasoline rose 2.5 cents to $2.812 a gallon. That was 43.4 cents above the price in the same period a year earlier. The average price for a gallon of diesel fuel rose 6.8 cents to $3.032, the Energy Department said. That was 43.7 cents above the year-earlier price and the highest since diesel hit $3.033 in August 2006. California diesel rose 7 cents to $3.093, the highest in seven weeks. The fuel price increase comes after oil surged above $80 a barrel nearly two weeks ago on supply concerns. In addition, inventories of refined products, including gasoline and diesel, have been unusually low.

House on the freeway: Day 10

Will today be the day Caltrans finally moves the house on the Hollywood Freeway? The Times' Bob Pool says so in a piece that looks at the cultural symbol the house has become. And the house is causing traffic headaches:

Firefighters at Cahuenga Pass' Fire Station 76 first encountered the house down at Western Avenue. They were astounded when it suddenly came to rest directly in front of their firehouse. "Every morning it has a new set of writing on it," said Engineer Fred Martinez, referring to taggers' vandalism. "We hear brakes locking up as people slow down to take pictures of it."

Is this L.A.'s most uncomfortable bus?

That's what LAist's Zach Behren's calls the Pico-Union/Echo Park DASH bus. And from the looks of his picture (above), he might be right. More:

My goal was to get from the Westlake/MacArthur Park Red Line Subway Station to deep within Echo Park. The route is obviously popular, in demand and extremely useful. The frequent and consistent service of 15-minute headways from 5 a.m. to ten at night is close to genius. The desire to ride in something ready to burst at the seems is none at all. DASH buses are old and clunky, making the scariest Metro bus look like NASA. On Metro, an automated voice tells you the next stop over the speakers (or the bus driver calls it out). On DASH, your lucky if you have any warning. On Metro, an arriving bus at a stop tells people on the sidewalk the end destination (e.g., Universal City or Union Station). On DASH, it says "northbound" or "southbound," confusing the hell out of the directionally impaired.

Hope and despair in the IE

There are a bunch of freeway closures this week in the Inland Empire.

Meanwhile, Sara Lin of The Times reports that the grandaddy of all IE bottlenecks is finally getting some relief:

Every region in Southern California has its nightmare freeway interchange. In the San Fernando Valley, it's the intersection of the 405 and 101. Orange County has "the Orange Crush" -- the convergence of the 5, 22 and 57. In the Inland Empire, the choke point is the junction of the 60, 91 and 215 near downtown Riverside. But relief is on the way for the 320,000 motorists who pass through the Riverside County interchange every day -- many on their way to Las Vegas, Palm Springs and San Diego or Lake Arrowhead. A three-year, $317-million reconstruction project to upgrade the interchange and widen five miles of freeway around it will wrap up in six months. Caltrans officials plan to open two new connector ramps by year's end, including one that soars 72 feet high and measures just over a mile long.

Do freeways and schools mix?

Studies have linked living near freeways to health problems in children. Nonetheless, The Times' Evelyn Larrubia found that the LAUSD is continuing the build schools right on freeways:

As the district undertakes a $20-billion school construction and modernization program, officials have considered a number of sites close to freeways. The district is now building five schools on lots that are within 500 feet of them. In the coming months, the Board of Education will decide whether to begin construction of two more: Central Region Middle School No. 9 at Euclid Avenue and 7th Street, near Interstate 10, and Central Region High School No. 15, at 2100 Marengo Street, adjacent to the 10 near the interchange with the 5 Freeway. Those campuses are in addition to the nine L.A. Unified charter and regular district schools that have opened near freeways since 1997.

So what do the experts say?

Scientists from both UCLA and USC have been studying the health effects of freeway contaminants in recent years and have found that they are significant. A report released in February said that children who live near freeways are more likely to suffer from decreased lung function than those who do not live near them.

A weekend of road woes

The first rains in nearly five months caused many road problems over the weekend, as The Times' Rong-Gong Lin II and Scott Gold reported. Though it looks like the roads are getting back to normal, on Monday it wasn't a pretty sight:

Forest Lawn Drive was open today after crews completed the cleanup of a 2,530-ton mudslide more quickly than had been anticipated, but motorists were warned that the roadway may be perilously slick. The mudslide occurred on three sections of the road between Barham Boulevard and Zoo Drive during a rainstorm about 1 p.m. Saturday. The mud and ash came from an 817-acre area of Griffith Park that was charred in a wildfire in May. About a dozen vehicles became trapped in the mud, which was six feet high in some areas, but no one was injured. All four lanes were reopened around 9 p.m. yesterday, said Los Angeles Department of Public Works spokeswoman Cora Jackson-Fossett. (CNS)

Another hit for new desert freeway

There is general agreement that the fast-growing High Desert region needs a west-east freeway connecting the Antelope Valley with Victorville. But funding remains illusive -- and hopes for the corridor took another hit, the AV Press reports:

The High Desert Corridor, a proposed freight and travel route connecting the Antelope Valley Freeway and Interstate 15, failed to get dedicated federal funding this year, a blow to leaders pushing for the new highway. "That is a disappointment in that the federal government should be taking an interest in massive projects like this," said Michael Cano, aide to 5th District County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. "This project connects the two largest north-south corridors in the Western United States." Speaking after a meeting of the High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Authority -- a group of leaders from Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties as well as from cities in the Antelope and Victor valleys -- Lance Larson, director of legislative affairs for San Bernardino County, said the federal transportation appropriations bill does not include funding for the project.

Nobody walks in L.A.?

Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne examines why that is -- and what people are doing to make L.A. more walkable:

But in many neighborhoods—in Eagle Rock, for one, where I live—even laypeople are coming to the conclusion that the old approach is outdated and needs to be turned on its ear. The only way major boulevards are going to work for the L.A. of the future is if the city makes them dramatically less efficient—at least as automotive arteries. Once the cars slow down, the walkers will come. It's one more way in which gridlock might actually strengthen a sense of neighborhood in this city. Colorado Boulevard, which is six lanes wide in some places near my house, is essentially a roaring highway lined with shops. Although the young families and the new businesses that have moved into the neighborhood during the last decade are clearly anticipating the boulevard's great potential as a pedestrian enclave, motorists still drive 60 or even 70 mph along certain stretches. Spectacular crashes happen almost weekly.

Also check out this "walkability checklist."