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.