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We told it could be bad. Here's our last warning, with some resources:
-Map showing times of specific street closures. (very helpful)
-Timetable of street closures. (Useful, but a tad confusing and hard to read).
-Map of detours during Marathon (detailed but dense)
-Downtown L.A. detour map (very helpful, because downtown is hardest hit)
-Full LAT coverage, with maps, stories and message board (BB conflicted out)
Tell us about your Marathon driving tales. Gridlock? 1984 smooth? Hit the COMMENT button below!
Looks like work will begin soon on solving that notorious 101 bottleneck at the Ventura-Santa Barbara county line. But The Times' Catherine Saillant says there are doubts about whether the new carpool lanes alone will work. The widening will begin in 2008 -- but could last eight years. That means eight years of construction delays. Some are looking to rail: Many commuters say the problem won't be truly solved until a widened freeway is combined with commuter rail service between the two cities. Rail advocates have been pushing for the service for at least five years, as rising home prices forced many Santa Barbara workers to buy homes in Ventura County. The sticking point has been the $126-million cost of getting such a service up and running, said Dennis Story, an advocate with CoastalRailNow.org. An attempt in November to raise Santa Barbara County's transit tax failed. "It's inevitable that we will look to trains as the real solution to these problems," he said. "As soon as you widen the freeway, it fills up."
Catherine notes that carpool lanes would give a boost to the popular bus service between Ventura and Santa Barbara. More on the coastal rail idea here.
What do you think: Rail vs Roads? Hit comment button and have your say.
The Times' Jean Guccione has a warning: It's going to be bad. Very bad. The new L.A. Marathon route seems destined to make driving around L.A. even more difficult than most years: "For a person who needs to cross the route to go to work, to the hospital or just leaving the Renaissance Hotel [at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue] for the airport, that's a disaster for him," said Ali Mahdavi, senior transportation engineer for the city's special traffic operations unit. Vehicles parked along the marathon route will be towed beginning at 1 a.m. Sunday. Two hours later, street closures will begin. Some streets will be closed until about 5 p.m. Sunday.
-Street closure information is available online at trafficinfo.lacity.org. Transit schedules and maps are available at http://www.metro.net or by calling (800) COMMUTE. Marathon information can be found at http://www.lamarathon.com .
The city wants to help you do your civic duty. Didn't pols used to do this in Chicago? According to CNS: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa directed the city’s Transportation Department today to relax parking restrictions within one block of all city polling places during Tuesday’s elections. Motorists trying to find a parking spot near their polling places will not have to deposit money in meters, while street cleaning, time limits and preferential parking restrictions will not be enforced, according to Villaraigosa.
L.A. and Chicago are battling it out over the right to host the 2016 Olympics. Of course, L.A. wants people to remember the miracle of 1984 -- the TRAFFIC miracle in which all the fears of massive gridlock failed to materialize. But traffic seems to be emerging as a "con" for L.A.'s bid this time. The mayor is fighting back: Another concern with LA-- the locations are spread out and with traffic congestion, it could take 2 ½ hours to reach some venues in Long Beach. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke about the concern. "Those venues are more concentrated than they were in 1984. Those arguments are arguments that people make, but they don't hold water," said Mayor Villaraigosa.
The Times Lisa Dillman says L.A. officials are pulling out all the stops with Olympics officials in town this week. The mayor cited traffic success last time around. "In 1984, people talked about doomsday and Armageddon," he said. "And yet traffic flowed. It flowed because there were leadership decisions made…. We expect full cooperation."
What do you think? Hit the COMMENT button below and have your say.
Fed up with drivers speeding through your neigborhood? In San Dimas, residents on one block have taken matters into their own hands -- to the dismay of city officials. According to AP: Residents on a street have disobeyed city officials by putting up speed-limit signs along their block to combat speeding drivers. Neighbors have been planting makeshift 25 mph signs for more than a year to slow down cars that routinely drive at 40 mph, resident Bryan Harmon said Thursday. The speed limit on the street is 25 mph but it is against the law for residents to put up signs in public areas, city maintenance superintendent John Campbell said. City officials are preparing to install speed humps on the street, he said. "We’re hoping to make things better for them," he said. Danny Leivo, who said his 76-year-old father-in-law was nearly hit by a speeding car, said he will leave his signs as long as the high speeds continue.
Does this video make you jealous? Frightened? Angry? It shows a motorcyclist cutting through the gridlock of Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills -- like butter -- by "lane splitting." Essentially, the biker squeezes between lanes of traffic -- with a few very close calls. And he does make good time.
On YouTube, reaction was mixed. One viewer posted: "dude you are crazy..isnt this illegal? If i was driving one of the cars you cam across i would have boxed you in to a crashing halt." Many others reacted like this guy: "wow intense for sure what kind of bike are you on?"
Lane splitting is legal, according to the CHP, "but must be done in a safe and prudent manner." But some fellow drivers don't like it.
What do you think of lane splitting? Hit COMMENT below and speak out
There's a new crop of cars out on the roads that according to the experts make major strides in car safety. Edmunds.com has a "Top Ten" list of safety features including smart cruise control that use radar to automatically slows a car when it is about to collide with something, "blind spot" detection systems that use tiny cameras and lane-change warning systems. Of course, these feature seems to come mostly on luxury cars. In that vein, the WSJ looks at the new (and expensive) Volvo S80: [It has] a collision-warning system that's similar in approach, working in concert with the car's optional radar-based adaptive cruise control. The typical job of adaptive cruise control is to "see" the traffic up ahead and keep you traveling safely behind it, by operating both the brake and the throttle. But by also calculating the time gap between your car and that traffic, the S80 can alert the driver to an impending crash by sounding a warning and flashing a red light onto the windshield. When this happens, the brakes are primed to deploy full stopping power, regardless of how hard the driver presses on the brake pedal.
"Please don't tip the robot." That's the advice the NYT gives today in a fasinating story about automated parking lots. Ari Milstein describes his garage in New York City: A driver pulls off the street into a room roughly the size of a one-car garage attached to a house. The car rests on a large pallet, a traylike area with shallow troughs for the wheels. “Lasers check that the car is aligned,” Mr. Milstein said, and determines that it is not one of the trucks or S.U.V.’s too big for the garage. The driver locks the car, takes the keys and picks up an electronic card from a nearby machine. A large door closes behind the car; motion detectors ensure that no children or pets are left behind. Then the pallet holding the car slides below ground level, into two subterranean floors of storage.
This is a photo of the famous VW automated garage for new cars in Wolfsburg, Germany.
 
The Expo Line hasn't even arrived in Culver City. But Santa Monica is already beginning to plan the rail line's second phase into Santa Monica. The public is invited to share ideas on where the route should go and where stations should be placed. Of course, Expo Line, Part II still needs $800 million and would not start until at least 2010. Santa Monica officials are talking boldly to the Lookout News: Noting that the project would usher in the biggest social and physical change in Santa Monica since the 10 Freeway ripped through the Pico Neighborhood in the 1950s, some council members said they want to avoid displacing communities and, ironically, compounding traffic. "I've been looking back at what the impacts of the 10 freeway have been," said Council member Kevin McKeown. "There is with good reason lively debate in Santa Monica on where the stations and how many stations there should be." Council member Ken Genser worried that such stations -- which could supply hundreds of parking spaces for area commuters -- may in fact prove to be magnets for traffic and congestion.
Here's more details on the public meetings on phase two of the Expo Line.
Big changes are coming to Sepulveda Boulevard through the pass. According to the city, officials want to remake the stretch between Wilshire and Mulholland (long a 405 shortcut) with bike lanes, more turning lanes and even a reversible traffic lane. Here are some details: -Add right-turn pockets at Wilshire Boulevard
-Add turning pockets between Moraga Drive and Church Lane/Ovada Place
-Add a southbound right-turn lane at the 405 Freeway southbound onramp (405 Freeway overpass north of Getty Center Drive)
-Install bike lanes between Skirball Center Drive and Bel Air Crest Road.
-Add a northbound right-turn lane at Skirball Center Drive.
-Add a third southbound through lane on the approach to Skirball Center Drive.
-Create a reversible lane in the Sepulveda Boulevard tunnel at Mulholland Drive.
Is the much-debated toll road extension in Orange County (through San Onofre State Beach) in trouble? The Times' David Reyes reports a significant delay in the road project: Planners now say it will take at least two years longer than expected to get funding and permits for the controversial turnpike, which will complete Orange County’s network of toll roads and link Orange and San Diego counties. The Irvine-based Transportation Corridor Agencies had hoped to secure funding for the Foothill South by 2008, but underestimated complexity of the permit process progress. "There are realities that include getting the necessary state and federal permits and agreements, and that takes time," said Lisa Telles, a toll road spokeswoman.
Environmentalists have long opposed the road because it cuts through a popular park and campgrounds area. David notes the state attorney is suing, saying the proposed alignment is too close to an ancient Native American burial ground. Supporters of so-called "Foothill South" argue the road is needed because of booming population in South O.C. and northern San Diego county.
Poor Fontana. It was set to finally get much-needed freeway upgrades through the state bond measure. Then L.A. step in and Fontana became a loser. The Times' Jonathan Abrams reports: Just a week ago, Fontana was a big winner in the fight for a new bankroll of state highway dollars when the California transportation officials set aside $85.7 million to widen a leg of Interstate 10 that slices through the mushrooming city. But that was before Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, upset that L.A. freeway projects were shortchanged, walked down Wilshire Boulevard urging motorists to complain to state leaders in Sacramento — and before other big-city politicians across California added to the chorus of complaints. In response, the California Transportation Commission recommended an extra $1.7 billion for freeway upgrades — for a total of $4.5 billion in projects funded by state bonds — but stripped away money for highway projects in Fontana and many other small towns and rural areas.
Said S.B. supervisor Josie Gonzales: "I think it's definitely a sign of big government versus small government. As the Inland Empire is becoming a force, we are competing one on one with Los Angeles for the same funds. We are a metropolis in the making, and we are trying not to experience the same problems as Los Angeles."
What is it about exotic cars on the Westside? Remember the Swedish businessman and his crashed Enzo Ferrari in Malibu last year? Now, in Santa Monica, CNS reports a crash involving a pricey Lamborghini:
A Lamborghini crashed into five parked cars in Santa Monica today, and the driver was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, police said. The accident at Ocean Avenue and San Vicente Boulevard occurred about 2:30 a.m., Santa Monica police Sgt. Shane Talbot said....A woman who lives near the intersection told a camera crew at the scene that she heard a high-powered car going up and down the street shortly before the wreck.
The Times' David Pierson last year chronicled the teenagers who try to videotape all the exotic cars on the Westside. Dave found: [The teens have] become leading chroniclers of the Westside's exotic car world. Here, the finest European sports cars — Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches — can be found in abundance, thanks to a critical mass of celebrity, glitz and free-spending men in the throes of midlife crises. Some of them cost over $1 million and require down payments of around $400,000, and that's only if you're lucky enough to make it to the top of a waiting list.
More Times Ferrari coverage here.
Sunday's L.A. Marathon route is shaping up to be particularly hard on non-racers. Numerous bus routes are being detoured. About 320 intersections will be closed, compared to 212 last year. Here is the route map. According to CNS: The 26.2-mile race will start at Universal Studios and head south through Hollywood, mid-Wilshire, USC, West Adams and East Los Angeles. Runners will finish at Fifth and Flower streets in downtown Los Angeles. This year’s route was reconfigured after local ministers complained street closings might keep church-goers away.... The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will add more cars to the Red Line subway, which has stops located near the marathon’s start and finish lines. Metro typically runs nine four-car trains on the Red Line. On the day of the marathon, 14 six-car trains will run every five minutes and carry a maximum of 7,500 people an hour.
The LADOT has a breakdown of closure times during the race. And the MTA has details, too.
Who lost out in the freeway bond money derby? Starts with the San Bernardino County, then go to the San Gabriel Valley and rural areas of Northern and Central California. The Times Jeff Rabin and Dan Weikel offer this assessment of the losers: Commissioners approved funding for 55 projects out of 149 considered during the evaluation process. In Southern California, improvements to the obsolete 10-605 interchange were rejected as well as three interchange widenings on Interstate 10 through the Fontana area in San Bernardino County. The widenings are needed to accommodate carpool lanes.
Commissioners also sacrificed several key projects in rural areas to provide more funding for projects in major cities. Over the vehement objections of officials from the state’s north coast, the commission voted to divert $177 million from Mendocino County to other projects in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. It was a raw display of the political clout of the state’s highly populated urban areas.
As the day unfolded, other less populated counties would suffer a similar fate: San Luis Obispo County watched in vain as $58 million to widen a bridge on Highway 101 across the Santa Maria River evaporated. A recommendation that Imperial County get $29 million to build a freeway bypass in Brawley was rejected.
 (Image from Variety.com)
Is this bus poster too racy? The folks at the Santa Monica bus line apparently think so and have ordered them removed. According to Variety: That's the lesson the folks in the CW marketing department have learned the hard way. After spending a big chunk of change to plaster "Top Model" posters all over the sides of Santa Monica's Big Blue Buses, the company that runs the city-owned busline has decided to rip out all of the posters. Turns out that a number of people complained about the ads, and because the Big Blue Bus is a public entity, the company felt it had no choice but to pull them down.
The Frankin Avenue website comments: "When did the prudes take over Santa Monica?."
What do you think? Voice your opinion below by hitting the COMMENT button
The Times' Jeff Rabin reports that the California Transportation Commission has finally signed off on road projects it will fund with bond money:
The California Transportation Commission today approved $4.5 billion in bond funds for highway projects after stripping rural areas of long-sought road improvements in favor of the state’s highly congested urban areas. After weeks of extraordinarily intense lobbying, the commission voted unanimously to approve the first round of spending for congestion relief projects. The infusion of funds - the largest in decades - came from a massive $19.9 billion transportation bond approved by the state’s voters last November. Before a standing-room only crowd at the Irvine City Hall, the commission quickly voted to divert $177 million from a project in Mendocino County to Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area and $29 million from Imperial County to other Southern California projects. It was a raw display of the political clout of the state’s highly populated urban areas. The final package includes $1.2 billion for Los Angeles County, including construction of a carpool lane on the northbound San Diego Freeway from the Westside to the San Fernando Valley. The $730 million carpool lane alone devoured almost one-sixth of all the money allocated statewide.
The globalized economy is being felt acutely in the Inland Empire suburb of Colton, which is a rail crossroads for goods coming from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. "Colton Crossing" was established in 1882 but now is an unweildy junction for freight, Amtrak and Metrolink trains. Planners are now in the early stages of an expensive plan to reduce the rail bottleneck with a huge grade sepration. According to the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority: "Virtually all trains leaving or entering Southern California use this crossing."
But now there is news that the rail traffic is getting worse. The number of freight trains coming through the city is expected to skyrocket in the next decade, but officials think they have a plan to deal with the cargo explosion. Railroad and government officials are in the early stages of a $150 million to $200 million plan to eliminate the train bottleneck by putting one set of tracks above another. Currently, the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and the BNSF Railway lines cross each other at a grade south of Interstate 10 about a quarter-mile east of Rancho Avenue.
The traffic-related woes of a certain celebrity keep piling up. According to CNS: Paris Hilton will have to get around today without the $190,000 Bentley she bought herself for Christmas. The socialite was caught speeding on Sunset Boulevard with no headlights on about 11 last night and, when sheriff’s deputies found out her license was suspended, they impounded the blue 2007 Bentley Continental GTC, said Sgt. Duane Allen of the Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau. The 12-cylinder, 550-horsepower car, which retails for nearly $190,000, could be held for up to 30 days, he said.
When Hilton was arrested last year on suspicion of DUI, she was driving a $450,000 Mercedes McLaren.
Interstate 5 through the Grapevine was closed at around 5:45 a.m. because of icy road conditions.
 
They are calling it the "Sand-to-Disneyland," an idea for a transit line -- perhaps using rail -- that would connect the Happiest Place of Earth with Surf City. These are two huge Orange County tourist draws, and officials tell the Register that visitors are spending increasing amounts of time in traffic getting around: Officials from five cities in north and west Orange County are hoping to score up to $250,000 in grant money from the Orange County Transportation Authority to study the possibility of a transit service connecting the tourist destinations, possibly along an existing railroad corridor. "It's a difficult, long commute going from Huntington Beach to Anaheim, weaving through the cities," said David Webb, Surf City's deputy public works director. "The need for this is really strong. There's obviously a strong commuter connection, and the route connects two major tourism destinations."
Been on Harbor or Beach boulevards during rush hour lately? Some residents, however, worry that using existing rail lines would reduce their property values.
More proof (well, that might be stretching it) that there is such a thing as Awards Season gridlock. Jessica Coen, writing at vanityfair.com, blogs about the high and lows of being in L.A. for the Oscars. Here are two of the lows: • Hours of my life lost to stagnant traffic.
• Seeing valets' shoulders visibly sag when they saw that it was two nobodies in the Benz.
Another take on Oscar traffic comes from a Times opinion piece by Dani Klein Modisett.
When talking to reporters and editors at the Times, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters had a noncommittal response to the question of building the subway to the Westside. But according to Times reporter Duke Helfand: Peters struck a more optimistic tone about the extension in an appearance with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa outside a subway stop in Mid-Wilshire area. She told reporters that "this project is highly likely to be eligible for funding in the future." When reporters pressed Peters for details, Villaraigosa jumped in and declared: "That’s good enough for me."
How much support is there in Washington for the Subway to the Sea? With the $5 billion price tag, that's a key question. And despite a high-profile visit to L.A. today by the Secretary of Transportation, we still don't know the answer. Times Transportation Writer Jean Guccione reports: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters rode the Los Angeles subway Tuesday morning to promote public transit but later would not commit federal funding to extend the line to the Westside.
"We don't know yet," she told editors and reporters at the Los Angeles Times. "What we want to look at is: What are the costs? What are the ridership projections? What is the cost-benefit of this project: How? When? Where? We have a lot of questions."
She said, "It would be wrong for me to prejudice a decision on this based on what we know today."
But she offered subway riders a glimmer of hope, noting the region's commitment to public transit: "If things line up appropriately, we probably would - but we don't know yet."
As for freeway commuters, Peters said local officials must decide what's best for their region. But she suggested that some day truckers might pay for new lanes dedicated to hauling goods from ports to warehouses throughout the U.S.
Peters, who talked about various ways to reduce traffic congestion, arrived for lunch at the Times in an Escalade SUV surrounded by marked CHP vehicles. She was on her way to Long Beach for a speech.
What do you think? Share your opinions by clicking the COMMENT button below
Amtrak's signature California runs can't exactly boast of perfect on-time service. In fact, according to the AP, the Coast Starlight and California Zephyr are almost never on time: Coast Starlight, which runs between Seattle and Los Angeles, had an on-time performance of 4 percent in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. For the California Zephyr, connecting Chicago and San Francisco, the figure was 7 percent. In the current fiscal year, the California Zephyr has not once arrived on time. "The resulting damage to Amtrak's brand, reputation and repeat business is potentially devastating," Amtrak's former acting president, David Hughes, wrote in a letter last summer to the federal Surface Transportation Board.
Amtrak blames the booming freight business (they share the rails) for the delays. Freight train traffic has also be an issue in expanding Metrolink commuter rail service in Southern California.
A few years ago, Kurt Streeter and Mitchell Landsberg of The Times wrote a fascinating piece on how rail works in L.A. They noted: "Altogether, more than 35,000 trains, many of them longer than a mile, course through the region every year, carrying considerably more than $100 billion worth of goods and 60 million passengers."
What do you think? Post your opinion below (hit COMMENT button).
A cynic would say this sort of thing should happen in L.A. But it happened in San Diego. According to AP: A human head and a hand found Tuesday along the shoulders of two busy San Diego freeways may belong to an unidentified body discovered floating in a river, police said. A tow truck driver spotted a black plastic bag containing the head on southbound Interstate 5 around 6:30 a.m., San Diego police Lt. Kevin Rooney said. The left hand was found by a freeway maintenance worker less than two hours later about 10 miles north on southbound Route 163. Investigators believe the hand may have been thrown from a car before the head was dumped, Rooney said.
There's been a lot of talk about a Bay Area assemblyman's proposal to tax gas guzzling SUVs and use the money to subsidize the cleaner-burning cars. While his bill's prospects are, well, uncertain, it's sparked a Bottleneck Blog debate.
Dana writes: "SUV's not only use more gas and cause more pollution, they take up more space on the road and parking spaces. So they should pay big time for making it hard to park and drive, I know I have to go out of my way because of all the space they take up."
But Kelly disagrees: "Let people choose what kind of car they want to drive. I wish big brother would stop trying to dictate to people what cars they should drive or how many miles per gallon they should get. That's not what I elected these people to do."
By the way, the Palo Alto Weekly notes: The bill's authors estimate that 40 to 45 percent of new vehicles could be eligible for a rebate, and 20 to 25 percent would be unaffected, leaving 30 to 40 percent that would be assessed a surcharge, which they claim would ensure that consumers still retain the ability to choose while moving the industry as a whole toward greener pastures.
Keep those thoughts coming. Hit COMMENT key below
Expect some angry San Gabriel Valley lawmakers at Wednesday's California Transportation Commission meeting, where freeway funding from the bond measure will be finalized. The Westside's gain (405 widening) turned out to be the SGV's loss: "The bottom line is, the San Gabriel Valley got totally screwed," said state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles. "What did we do to lose every single dollar?" The updated list again leaves out $70.5 million in upgrades to the long-congested San Gabriel River (605) and San Bernardino (10) freeway junction. Commission staffers also cut $97.3 million for a first-phase car-pool lane extension on the 10 between Puente and Citrus avenues.
The Times Nancy Wride last week wrote about situation on the 10-605 interchange, noting that the accident rate there was "27% higher than the statewide average for the last three years." The Whittier Daily News says there might be a last-minute push. Photo from here.
L.A. County officials are crowing about their lobbying to get funding recommendations for a widening of the 405 north through the Sepulveda Pass.
Here's the Bottleneck Blog's scorecard:
Winner: The Westside, which has some of the worst traffic anywhere, fought and got the 405 widening. How much good it will do remains a questions -- but a moral victory.
Loser: San Gabriel Valley. Not only did the region lose funding for a carpool lane project on the 10, its bid for costly improvements to the aging 10-605 interchange in Baldwin Park were rejected.
Winner: Orange County. It made out well during the first round of recommendations, notably a major reworking of the 22-405-605 interchange in Seal Beach to add carpool flyovers. But it didn't lose anything this time.
Loser: The Bay Area. Officials there are not happy because several major projects on the 101, 580, 880 and 280 were not funded.
Winner: Riverside County. It gets carpool lanes on the 91 Freeway through a portion of Riverside.
Mixed: San Bernardino County. It gets money to widen the 215, but loses money for bridge work.
Here's a bill that if nothing else should keep the auto industry lobby busy (and billing). Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, has proposed a surcharge of between $100 and $2,500 on gas guzzlers: He wants to use that money to cut the prices of new hybrids and other cars that go farther on a gallon of fuel and pump fewer carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The proposed "clean-car discount" — which would be the first law of its kind in the nation — would enlist car buyers in the fight against global warming by offering them a one-time bonus on cars the state identifies as environmentally friendly.
The Times Marc Lifsher notes there are many skeptics: In Sacramento, Renee Cochran, a Ford Mustang-owning state worker, said she was not eager "to give my money to someone else if I want to buy a big car to go camping or to drag a boat."
What do you think? Post your thoughts below by hitting the COMMENT button.
The Bottleneck Blog has told you about efforts to ban text message while driving. Or listening to your i-Pod when crossing the street. But do we really need to ban the use of laptop computers while driving? Here's what happened today in Yuba City, according to AP: A man who authorities say appeared to be driving while using his laptop computer died Monday when his vehicle crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with a Hummer. After the crash, California Highway Patrol officers found the victim’s computer still running and plugged into the cigarette lighter of his 1991 Honda Accord. The 28-year-old victim was a computer tutor in Chico.... "The screen itself shattered from the impact, so we can’t be sure if he was working on it or not, but we think from the way it was found that he might have been working," CHP spokesman Sgt. John Pettigrew said.
Lincoln Boulevard in Marina del Rey is a painful commute under normal conditions. But it will get worse over the next few months as Caltrans make a series of improvements to the road (including temporarily taking away one lane in some places). According to the Argonaut: The work includes creating an additional lane in various locations, widening at the intersection of Lincoln Boulevard and Mindanao Way as well as the Sepulveda Boulevard intersection, and signal and lighting improvements.
LAist notes a public meeting is set for Wednesday on the project.
Photo from sevensixfive
Score one for the Westside. The Times' Dan Weikel and Jeff Rabin have confirmed that the widening of the 405 north through the Sepulveda Pass is now on the recommendation list from the California Transportation Commission staff. The panel will vote Wednesday. Dan and Jeff will have a full story up soon...
UPDATE: Here's their first swipe at a breaking news story.
Word is that the California Transportation Commission staff has taken a second look at the proposed widening for the northbound 405 through the Sepulveda Pass. Apparently, some press conferences are planned for later in the day to announce additional funding for L.A. County as well as several others including San Bernardino and San Diego.
This came after much lobbying from L.A. elected officials, who called it an outrage given the Westside traffic situation.
Stay tuned: The Times Jeff Rabin and Dan Weikel will have updates soon...
Some blind people say hyrbid cars are hazardous to their health because the vehicles are so quiet they have trouble hearing them. According to the WSJ, one group representing blind pedestrians wants is lobbying for improvements: For blind people, crossing the street is becoming even more of a challenge. Michael Osborn, a blind marketing consultant from Laguna Beach, Calif., and his guide dog, Hastings, were in the middle of an intersection one morning last April when the yellow Lab stopped short. Mr. Osborn took the cue and halted -- just in time to feel the breeze from a car passing right in front of them. "Half an inch and it would have hit us ... it wasn't making any noise," says Mr. Osborn, 50, who has been blind for 12 years. Witnesses say the car was a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle.
The National Federation for the Blind would like hybrids to emit a "sound cue" that would help alert blind pedestrians.
Here's a potentially bold attack on Westside congestion. Or just more mass transit dreaming? Councilman Bill Rosendahl is seeking a study that would examine a "rail network" for the area -- including some north-south lines that would (hopefully) connect the Expo Line and Purple (Wilshire) Line extension. He tells Lookout News: The study -- funded with $200,000 in traffic fees paid by Westside development projects -- would look at where and how to connect the eventual Purple Line subway to the sea, the Exposition Light Rail line and the eventual Green Line extension into LAX. Among the possibilities that will be studied would be adding a north-south rail line or merging the routes of two of the east-west lines, Rosendahl said.
So maybe a Brown Line down La Cienega? Or a Yellow Line up Lincoln? Or a Silver Line on La Brea? We can dream. Last year, someone created their dream map for an L.A. rail system.
And by the way, don't expect average workers to live in all these new Marina del Rey hi-rise condos and apartments. No, they will be driving in from the east. The Times' Jack Leonard reports: Unlike most waterfront developments, the marina is owned by Los Angeles County, which leases it to developers, so county supervisors are in a position to demand more affordable apartments. Advocates for affordable housing contend the county is allowing developers to build too many market-rate apartments on publicly owned land. The city of Los Angeles, they note, requires coastal developers to build at least twice as many units for the poorest renters.
Movie producer T. Alex Blum went to Superior Court in Santa Monica to fight a traffic ticket. He left with "the temptation to sneak back into the court in the dead of night and spray-paint a big kangaroo on the doors:" That entire morning, the judge never questioned or challenged a word uttered by a police officer. Several times during the proceedings, I observed officers looking over at their brothers in blue and smirking as they gave evidence. It was plain to me that the judge would accept the police officers' words without question or challenge.
What do you think about traffic court? Post your comments below
A deal that allowing Mexican trucks freer access on American highways has some auto safety advocates -- not to mention labor unions -- unhappy. Teamsters President Jim Hoffa tells AP: "They are playing a game of Russian roulette on America's highways." More: The news that Mexican trucks will be allowed to haul freight deeper into the United States drew an angry reaction Friday from labor leaders, safety advocates and members of Congress. They said Mexico has substandard trucks and low-paid drivers that will threaten national security, cost thousands of jobs and endanger motorists on the northern side of the Mexican border. The Bush administration on Thursday announced its plan to have U.S. inspectors oversee Mexican trucking companies that carry cargo across the border.
In Southern California, some lawmakers are concerns about more traffic congestions and pollution: But one study predicted Mexican trucks could add 50 tons per day of smog-forming emissions - more than pollution generated by the region's 350 biggest industrial sources combined. "This could have a major impact in terms of traffic, air quality and the border. We're going to have to take a close look at it," said Scott Gerber, spokesman for California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
The fact that the MTA's Green Line light rail comes close but doesn't actually make it to LAX is something people have been shaking their heads about for years. Now, a South Bay lawmaker wants to establish a special committee to finally make the link reality. If money can be found (it would compete with the Subway to the Sea). According to the Breeze: The agency would compete for grants and other funding to extend the Metro Green Line into LAX, giving travelers a shortcut through the traffic that often jams airport approaches. As it stands now, the light-rail line comes about a mile short of making the connection. The idea of laying tracks to the terminals is nothing new, but local, state and federal politicians have taken it up again with some urgency in recent months. They have cast the Green Line as a key part of the answer to the region's congestion and air pollution.
Two years ago, The Times' Jia-Rui Chong assessed the Green Line, dubbed the "the train that goes from nowhere to nowhere." She found that the Norwalk-to-Redondo Beach run, while not ideal, was seeing a steady rise in ridership.
 No, not this Hummer! As Bottleneck Blog readers know, Steve Lopez set off a pretty passionate debate last month when he wrote about how Jaime de la Vega, L.A.'s deputy mayor for transportation, drives this massive Hummer. You posters went crazy with comments about whether de la Vega's car choice was sound. Today, Steve decides to roam around town in a massive SUV to see how it feels. Steve writes:
One advantage to a Hummer, I must admit, is the elevation. It's a rolling bunker with slits for windows and a step to get you up into the cab, so I got a good look at miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic heading east on the 101 Freeway. It was a good perch from which to scope out traffic patterns and contemplate a congestion-relief theory I've been investigating. The only problem was that I couldn't focus. I was behind the wheel of a Hummer, after all. Even though the H3 isn't the biggest beast in the Hummer family, Jeep Grand Cherokees looked like rodents and Mini Coopers like mosquitoes. I felt manlier than usual and had a craving for some hot wings at Hooters. I was tempted to drop by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's house to see if he wanted to roll one of his Hummers out of the garage and go off-roading.
--Read the entire column here (it's inspired).
--Then click COMMENT below and tell us what you think!
Major portions of downtown Long Beach closed for parts of Sunday because of the big bike race (including Pine Avenue). Details here.
The Times' David Colker recently wrote about Hollywood's love of environmental friendly red-carpet rides. Expect more "green limos" along with all the gas guzzlers at this Sunday's Oscars in Hollywood. According to Reuters: From a plug-in hybrid car to the sexy electric Tesla Roadster, celebrities wanting to make a green statement on the way to the red carpet of the Oscars will have plenty of environment-friendly rides this Sunday. Global Green USA has lined up 30 cars to shuttle the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Davis Guggenheim, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary on global warming "An Inconvenient Truth", to the star-studded ceremony in Hollywood. The environmental group began the green limousine campaign five years ago at the Oscars to raise awareness among the tens of millions of viewers worldwide about alternative fuel cars, energy independence and solutions to global warming.
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