Fancy parking meters

Those fancy new parking meters that are already used in West Hollywood are now coming to parts of L.A.:

City officials today unveiled the parking meter of the future, which takes the swipe of a credit card as well as small change. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was among the VIPs touting the Easy Park-Easy Pay machine, which was installed in a city parking lot at 11229 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation is replacing 6,000 of the city’s 40,000 meters with the multi-unit machines that allow motorists to use cash, credit card, debit card or their cellphones to pay for parking. LADOT officials unveiled the first unit in a city lot in North Hollywood. "Anyone in Los Angeles who has parked on the street or in public lots knows the frustration of broken meters, unwarranted parking tickets, and the stress of scraping for spare change to cover your trip to the local store," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. City engineers plan to replace 1,000 meters in city parking lots and another 5,000 along Los Angeles streets by next spring. If the new meters are deemed a success, LADOT will replace all of the city parking meters within two years. (CNS)

Buy me a traffic signal

Isn't the city supposed to pay for traffic signals? In Pacific Palisades, The Palisadian-Post reports that a private school attempted to raise $100,000 for a signal on Sunset -- but fell short:

The Westside Waldorf School's fundraiser on Sunday fell far short of raising the nearly $100,000 needed to fund the construction of a traffic signal on Sunset Boulevard at Los Liones Drive. The total amount raised from school-sponsored raffles, auctions and donations was "somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 -- but probably closer to $10,000 -- said the K-8's Development Director Jeffrey Graham on Tuesday. That leaves the school roughly $85,000 short of what it must raise. "We're still waiting for the final estimate," Graham said. "We had a lower turnout than we had wished for, but we had a broad range of people participating. The real value [of the event] was raising awareness." L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl was one of approximately 50 people who attended the event.

A long wait in Upland

Residents in Upland aren't happy about long delays for Metrolink trains going through, according to the Daily Bulletin:

Patience is a virtue for drivers traveling north and south on Euclid Avenue at A Street in Upland. Commuters are left waiting when crossing arms go down when a westbound Metrolink train approaches and again when the train leaves the station, at Second Avenue and A. Automatic sensors on the tracks trigger crossing signals to come down when a train approaches. This doesn't change when a train makes a stop. Upland resident Douglas Neely travels on the street frequently and said he has a possible solution. "Since the train is going to stop at the station, Metrolink should provide their engineers with a remote device to keep the gates open, this way the crossing arms come down once when it's ready to leave the station," Neely said.

It's finally opening...

Here's another milestone in the effort to improve flow at the big Inland Empire freeway junction:

A marching band and low-flying airplanes will be part of tomorrow’s scheduled ceremony to celebrate the opening of connector bridges that are expected to ease congestion at the busy 60/91/215 freeway interchange in Riverside. Two freeway “flyover” ramps -- one connecting northbound Interstate 215 to the westbound Riverside (91) Freeway, and the other connecting the southbound 215 to the eastbound Moreno Valley (60) Freeway -- will be dedicated during a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by local and state officials, according to Caltrans. The ramps, one a mile long, have been under construction since February 2004 and replace the cloverleaf connector lanes that concentrated traffic flow in one area, Caltrans spokeswoman Terese Lagana said. (CNS)

Big change for DASH riders

Not sure how many people this will affect, but the LADOT (which runs the popular DASH bus lines in downtown L.A. and elsewhere) will no longer take METRO passes:

Los Angeles (Dec 6) - Transit Services operated by the city of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) will no longer accept Metro passes for the payment of Commuter Express or DASH bus fares as of Jan. 1, 2008. LADOT was informed by Metro earlier this year that it will no longer reimburse the department for riders who use Metro passes to pay their fares on LADOT buses. LADOT General Manager Rita L. Robinson said that the department regretted having to take this action because, “there are many Metro pass holders riding on Commuter Express and DASH buses. We share the same service area, so pass acceptance had enabled riders to shift freely between the two systems.”

More details here

Claremont to get a trolley

Claremont's downtown has been booming in recent years with the addition of new developments (including movie theaters). Now the city is talking about a trolley line to get visitors around:

A 1.5-mile trolley-like route that would connect the Village Expansion, Village and Metrolink parking lot was approved Monday night by the city Traffic and Transportation Commission. The system includes a 25-foot, 23-seat trolley-shaped bus that would complete its four-stop circular route in less than 15 minutes, said Scott Carroll, director of community services. The system is planned to run for a three-year trial period, with the trolley-like bus being leased by the city. (From the Daily Bulletin)

A little gold for Gold Line extension

The plan to build a Gold Line rail extension from Pasadena to San Bernardino County remains a long shot at this point. But local officials keep pushing, and got some good news in the form of some seed money:

Officials have secured millions of dollars in local funding for the proposed Gold Line extension to Montclair. The five cities along the first phase of the planned 24-mile light-rail extension - Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale and Azusa - have pledged $1 million each in writing, said Habib Balian, CEO of the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority. Six more cities along the remainder of the proposed route agreed in principle to contribute $1 million each. The $11 million could be used to help fulfill a matching fund requirement that would release hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money, Balian said. Local congressional representatives inserted language in a federal transportation bill that gives the project an 80 percent matching grant - as long as state and local sources can make up the remaining 20 percent. For the first phase of the project to the Azusa/Glendora border, officials would need to come up with $80 million to get $320 million from the federal government.

Irvine-to-Corona tunnel vision

Remember the much-discussed plan to build a freeway in a tunnel under the Santa Ana Mountains? The PE reports that despite some very preliminary testing, money problems are already cropping up for the Corona-to-Irvine route:

Just weeks before drilling into the Santa Ana Mountains to begin determining if a tunnel is the answer to worsening traffic on Highway 91, a new and more strict interpretation of federal funding rules threatens to scuttle the process. At issue is whether Riverside and Orange counties will be able to use $15.8 million in previously approved federal funds to complete soil and groundwater tests to determine the feasibility of the proposed Irvine-Corona Expressway. Transportation officials expect a permit from the U.S. Forest Service in early 2008 that will allow them to start tests.

Cool graphic on what the tunnel would look like here.

MTA: No gates, please

The MTA proposal to put up gates and turnstiles at some rail stations doesn't sit well with The Times' Christopher Hawthorne, who likes the open feel:

The subway station is one of the newest building types in Greater Los Angeles. It is also one of the most thoroughly under-examined. When was the last time you thought, even fleetingly, about the design of L.A.'s subway and light-rail stops? One reason the stations have remained relatively anonymous, architecturally speaking, is that most have settled comfortably into the city's landscape. Particularly on the Gold Line -- where above-ground stops in Chinatown, Highland Park, South Pasadena and elsewhere have an open, airy feel and real urban charisma -- these designs successfully reflect the energy and spirit of Southern California. That's no small accomplishment when you consider that for many Americans the very idea of a rail line is synonymous with older, vertical cities, dank, underground spaces and creaking infrastructure.

New effort at unjamming roads

The Times' Greg Griggs reports that two Ventura County cities are considering a new -- and radical -- attempt to reduce gridlock. The rules would limit new commercial and residential development near busy intersections until existing traffic problems could be resolved:

Concerned that their suburban lifestyle is being threatened, residents in Ventura County's two largest cities are hoping to put the brakes on traffic generated by future development with two separate ballot initiatives. Oxnard activists turned in petitions last week for a proposed measure that would limit new commercial and residential development near busy intersections until existing traffic problems could be resolved. "Our roadways simply can't handle the number of people on them," said Councilman Tim Flynn, one of the architects of the Oxnard Traffic Initiative. "The public is totally frustrated." In Thousand Oaks, professional petition gatherers are collecting signatures for an initiative that would subject a second Home Depot store and any new retail project of 75,000 square feet or more to a public vote if the project would increase traffic -- despite road improvements. The campaign is largely driven by a competitor of the retail giant but is garnering support from some residents and city officials.