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The California Highway Patrol released more factoids today about vehicle thefts in California last year. As we reported yesterday, overall thefts were down in '07 by 8%, which followed a decrease of 5.5% in 2006. The most surprising news, perhaps, is that San Francisco County is where you are most likely to have someone make off with your ride.
The obvious question here is if the number of stolen vehicles keeps going down in the state, what factor does that play in determining auto insurance rates. Darrel Ng, a spokesman for the Department of Insurance, said that the agency looks at each auto insurance carrier's losses and profits when determining what rates to allow -- not the state's overall numbers on auto theft. The state numbers do, however, come into play indirectly. The fewer vehicles stolen, the fewer the losses of some insurance firms.
Now, some fun facts:
*227,412 vehicles were stolen in the state last year -- or about one every three minutes.
*60% of the stolen vehicles were cars, 29% personal trucks or vans, 3% motorcycles and 4% commercial trucks (think Sopranos!).
*The three most popular cars to steal are the Honda Accord, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry. The 1991 Accord was the most popular model to steal (4,265), followed by the 1990 Honda Accord (3,648) and then the 1992 Honda Accord (3,308). The CHP says they were popular cars in the first place and still have high resale value.
*The recovery rate for stolen cars dipped a little last year, from 95.6% in 2006 to 93.6% in '07.
*Los Angeles County, as usual, led the state in total number of stolen vehicles, with 62,109, although the county also has the most registered vehicles (7,586,782). That was nearly a 7% drop from 2006.
*The percentage of all registered vehicles that were stolen in the following counties was:
San Francisco, 1.3%
San Diego, 1.02%
San Bernardino, .82%
Kern, .85%
Los Angeles, .81%
Imperial, .78%
Riverside, .74%
Orange, .37%
Ventura, .25%
Santa Barbara, .23%
--Steve Hymon
The Reason Foundation, the group that promotes libertarian values, just released its annual highway report. California, predictably, had the worst urban freeway congestion --
along with Minnesota and North Carolina -- but the 9th fewest deficient
bridges. The state's urban freeways also ranked 48th in terms of their condition. Only New Jersey and Hawaii were worse in that category.
Here's an excerpt:
Despite welcome progress, the study highlights continuing problems. Just under one-quarter of all bridges remain deficient; 50 percent of urban interstates remain congested; accident rates are stubbornly high; and substantial urban interstate mileage remains in poor condition. The recent sharp increases in highway construction costs mean that fewer repairs can be made from the same dollars.
This is the key passage from the report, basically saying these are really hard problems to solve:
Another emerging issue in this long-term data is the question of appropriate goals. There is increasing evidence that some measures may have essentially irreducible ‘bottoms’ below which it may not be realistic to go. Since 2000, urban interstate congestion has hovered around 50 percent; the percent of rural primary roads in poor condition has remained near 0.75 percent; the percent of rural interstates in poor condition has remained near 2 percent; and the percent of rural primary roads with narrow lanes has remained close to 10 percent.
Although some states have achieved remarkably lower statistics, overall, the nation has found it difficult to reducer these statistics even though dollars have substantially increased. This suggests that combinations of system condition, unit costs, and background trends, such as traffic, make further progress problematic. On the other hand, substantial progress still seems possible for reducing accident rates, improving bridges, and improving urban interstate condition.
The whole report can be found by clicking here. The group also has a neat Google map with their findings.
Although the Reason Foundation certainly has a distinct political viewpoint, there really isn't much politics in their report. The group is also a big proponent of congestion pricing, as are many other organizations across the political spectrum.
--Steve Hymon
Santa Monica's traffic woes
I listened to "Which Way L.A.?"
on the drive home last night and it was a good show. Host Warren Olney
looked at the upcoming ballot measure in Santa Monica that would lower
the amount of commercial development allowed in order to prevent future
traffic.
I'm not so sure that the proponent or opponent to the ballot measure
made much of a case that traffic is fixable in Santa Monica. Everyone
on the show agreed about the problem: The city's population swells to
more than twice its nighttime population because of the number of jobs
located there.
Later, I went to the Census Bureau's website and quickly found this fun statistic:
In 1990, Santa Monica's population was 86,905.
In 2000, Santa Monica's population was 84,084.
In 2006, Santa Monica's population was 88,050.
A couple more keystrokes and this statistic came up:
In 2000, Santa Monica had 47,863 housing units.
In 2006, Santa Monica had 49,045 housing units -- an increase of just 1,182.
Something else was immediately striking about the 2006 numbers. In
Santa Monica, 30.3% of the housing units are owned by the occupant and
69.7% are rentals. That's almost exactly opposite the national average
for 2006, with 67.3% of housing units owned by the occupant and 32.7%
rentals.
In other words, there's a lack of housing available for purchase --
presumably squeezing an already pricey market. And while adding a ton
of jobs in recent years, Santa Monica apparently hasn't added enough
housing to boost its population by any significant number. The result
is no surprise -- a lot of employees have to drive there to work. While
guests on "Which Way LA?" talked about limiting development or putting
in more mixed-use development, I didn't hear anyone say "maybe we
should add thousands more units of housing to go along with all those
jobs."
I'm not saying that's the solution. I honestly don't know. Maybe all
that housing would get built and then bought by people who don't work
in Santa Monica but want to live near the ocean. But it seems like it's
worth discussing. In fact, it would hardly surprise me if Bottleneckers
-- a breed known for its urban planning acumen -- begin a smart
conversation on this blog's comment board.
The sales tax proposal
I mentioned in yesterday morning's post that the next hurdle for the proposal to raise the sales tax to pay for more mass transit and road fixes in Los Angeles County comes Monday when the State Senate's Appropriations Committee takes up the issue. The next hurdle beyond that comes Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has to vote to put the sales tax on the ballot.
A simple majority of the five-member board is needed for approval. The word I'm hearing from the County Hall of Administration is that the board is likely to move the initiative to the ballot, following the lead of the larger Metro Board (on which all five supervisors serve).
That said, anything is possible when it's time to vote. Only two of the supes, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky, have voted for going to the ballot with the sales tax. Gloria Molina abstained at last week's Metro Board meeting, Mike Antonovich voted against it and Don Knabe was absent from the meeting, but voted against the proposal in June when it was in an earlier form.
If I learn anything new today, I'll let you know.
Questions for Councilwoman Perry anyone?
I'm lunching today with Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry, who represents much of downtown and parts of South L.A. If there is anything you'd like to know from the councilwoman on the transit front, e-mail me a question at steve.hymon@latimes.com and I'll ask.
Driver distraction
The most interesting traffic story to cross my desk in recent days comes from the Atlantic Monthly, where writer John Staddon argues that too many street signs make roads in the U.S. more dangerous.
Staddon, who grew up in the UK, argues that all those signs (particularly stop signs) and speed limits distract motorists from the matter at hand -- driving -- and that driving is actually safer in the UK, where roads are often not nearly as nice as in the U.S. He writes:
"A particularly vexing aspect of the U.S. policy is that speed limits seem to be enforced more when speeding is safe. As a colleague once pointed out, 'An empty highway on a sunny day? You’re dead meat!' A more systematic effort to train drivers to ignore road conditions can hardly be imagined. By training drivers to drive according to the signs rather than their judgment in great conditions, the American system also subtly encourages them to rely on the signs rather than judgment in poor conditions, when merely following the signs would be dangerous."
I'm not sure that I entirely buy his arguments. A lot of the dangerous driving that I see on a daily basis comes from motorists being reckless or timid and driving either too fast or too slow. That means other motorists must avoid them and the weaving and braking often means close calls.
Recent Bottleneck items that may interest you
Local bridges still waiting for seismic retrofit
Is it time to return to the 55 mph speed limit?
Now the battle begins over the sales tax
-- Steve Hymon
Photo credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times
Since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the Northridge quake in 1994, the state of California has been trying to seismically retrofit bridges across the state. Given the significant earthquake yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to provide an update.
Also, to be frank, as a transportation reporter I've been meaning to get up to speed on the issue of bridge safety. So that's how I spent this afternoon -- reading and talking and trying to understand the basic issues.
The state of California owns more than 12,000 bridges. Of those, Caltrans says that it in the past 20 years it has retrofit 2,189 of the 2,194 bridges that needed updates -- with many of those bridges on the freeways and other major routes that serve as major corridors.
 The remaining five bridges are the eastern span of the Oakland-Bay Bridge, the Ten Mile River Bridge on Highway 1 in Mendocino County, the High Street bridge on I-880 in Oakland, the 5th Street bridge on the 880 in Oakland and the Schuyler Heim Bridge that connects Long Beach to Terminal Island.
The Schuyler Heim will eventually be replaced, said David Anderson, a Caltrans spokesman. Like the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, it's less expensive to replace it than to rebuild it.
In addition, there are 479 bridges that are owned by cities and counties in California that need seismic upgrades and are eligible for funding from Prop 1B -- the $19.9-billion transportation bond approved by California voters in 2006.
Among these bridges that still need seismic updates are some noteworthy structures in the Southland. Eight cross the Los Angeles River in the city of Los Angeles, including the Sixth Street Bridge and  bridges on streets such as Main Street, Glendale Avenue, Vanowen Street and Tampa Avenue. The Los Angeles Conservancy has expressed concerns over the river bridges, in particular, saying that while the need for public safety must be met, any fixes should also consider the bridges' historical architecture.
There are 40-plus bridges that Los Angeles County must fix, including the Foothill Boulevard bridge over the San Gabriel River in the San Gabriel Valley and an Imperial Highway bridge over the San Gabriel River. In Riverside County, the Van Buren Boulevard bridge over the Santa Ana River needs an upgrade. So does the MacArthur Boulevard bridge at John Wayne Airport in Orange County.
Why am I listing these bridges? Because they are some of the same ones mentioned by my colleague Sharon Bernstein when she wrote about bridges in need of seismic upgrades in March 2006.
The California Transportation Commission, or CTC, doled out about $21 million of the seismic funds last week, on top of $13 million previously allocated. Both the Vanowen and Sixth Street bridges got money in that round of funding.
That allows cities and counties to seek Caltrans' approval of their project, which then allows the cities and counties to apply to the Federal Highway Administration for 88.5% of the cost of the project. That's how the bureaucracy works.
 The obvious question is what does the term "seismic upgrade" really mean? To put it simply, seismic upgrades are supposed to allow a bridge to withstand the maximum credible earthquake that could happen in any given area, said Anderson.
Of course, there are no guarantees. Intensive monitoring of earthquakes has revealed a lot of basic patterns about earthquake size, frequency and location (as the map at right shows) and scientists have mapped many of the region's faults. But there are a lot of variables when it comes to how earthquakes release energy. The bottom line is no one can say with certainty what kind of damage the next big quake may or may not cause.
"If you look at this whole planet of ours, the time window for which we have the [earthquake data is so short in geological terms," said Saiid Saiidi, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. "The science of seismology has progressed quite a bit in the last 30 years -- I may not know what the next big earthquake is going to be, but I can work on the structural side of it."
--Steve Hymon
Top photo: Steve Dykes / LAT
Bay Bridge photo: Ben Margot / AP
6th Street Bridge photo: Francine Orr / LAT
Earthquake map: U.S. Geological Survey
The California Highway Patrol just issued a news release saying that the state's vehicle theft rate dropped 8% in 2007. Statewide there were 227,412 vehicles stolen last year. The CHP says they'll provide a county-by-county list of auto theft rates in California on Thursday.
This comes on the heels of the annual report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which says that 2007 is likely to be on track to be the fourth straight year of declining auto theft in the United States.
Their list of the top 10 metro areas for auto theft are:
1. Modesto, Calif.
2. Las Vegas/Paradise, Nev.
3. San Diego/Carlsbad/San Marcos, Calif.
4. Stockton, Calif.
5. San Francisco/Oakland/Fremont, Calif.
6. Laredo, Texas
7. Albuquerque, N.M.
8. Phoenix/Mesa/Scottsdale, Ariz.
9. Yakima, Wash.
10. Tucson, Ariz.
-- Steve Hymon
 Good morning, Bottleneckers. I'm back from a couple days off and will resume posting regularly today. That's Portland's relatively new gondola shown at right. More on that below.
Bridges hold up
Although Tuesday's quake was smaller than some recent big ones in California, the region's road infrastructure held up well. Caltrans has completed seismic upgrades to many state bridges, but fixes are still needed for many bridges owned by cities and counties in the state. Perhaps the best-known here is the 6th Street Bridge that crosses the Los Angeles River east of downtown.
Sales tax initiative
While the Metro board last week approved an ordinance to go to the November ballot with a half-cent sales tax increase, a companion bill, AB 2321, must still be approved by the Legislature that allows the initiative to go forward. The next stop for the bill is in the State Senate's Appropriations Committee on Monday. Four of the 15 senators on the committee are from the Southland, including Gil Cedillo, Sheila Kuehl, Jenny Oropeza and Mark Ridley-Thomas. Metro specifically changed the spending plan to placate Cedillo and Oropeza. Much more on this throughout the week.
Today in gas prices
Prices continue to drop or hold steady. The Chevron station in Pasadena that I'm obsessed with has been sitting at $4.43 for a gallon of regular gasoline since last Friday, but the average price in other parts of the state has dropped, according to AAA, and the price of a gallon of regular is below $4.20 in parts of the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys.
The big question is at what price of gasoline do Americans begin shifting back to driving more? If you peruse these statistics from May 2008 at the U.S. Department of Transportation website, it's easy to see that the number of miles driven by Americans really began dropping in November -- when the price of gasoline in the state was averaging about $3.23 to $3.39 a gallon. Gas had actually been more expensive earlier in 2007 and the price dropped in January of this year, but the fact is people started driving less in November.
The best guess here is that a confluence of economic circumstances caused the drop. Ideas anyone?
Portland transit
I was in Portland, Ore., the last few days, and it's intriguing to see all that the city is doing on the transportation and planning front. They even have a gondola as part of their transit package and the number of people cycling around town is impressive. In recent years, several Los Angeles officials have visited there to see if there are any lessons they can bring home to L.A. I'll post some photos, statistics and impressions from my trip soon.
--Steve Hymon
Photo: Steve Hymon / Los Angeles Times
Beginning today, using the carpool lane will change forever on the Costa Mesa Freeway as part of a program began last year on the 22 Freeway. According to the OC Register:
Beginning Tuesday, drivers of vehicles carrying two or more people on the 55 freeway will be able to enter or leave the carpool lanes where they choose -– part of a plan to overhaul the carpool system in the county. A 5.5-mile stretch on the 55, between the 17th Street overcrossing and the 91 Freeway interchange, will become "continuous-access." ... Starting Tuesday, crews will replace the double, solid-yellow lines that separate the car-pool lanes from the regular ones with temporary dotted striping. Permanent striping is scheduled to begin the week of Aug. 10 and is expected to be complete at the end of August.
The Times' My-Thuan Tran reports the advantages:
Allowing drivers to go in and out of carpool lanes freely results in fewer and less severe accidents, according to a 2007 study by UC Berkeley transportation researchers. The report found that using yellow lines to restrict access resulted in 3.6 collisions per mile compared with 3.2 collisions per mile for free access freeways. [The Orange County Transportation Authority] and the California Department of Transportation decided to convert the lanes after a successful experiment in December 2006 with unrestricted carpool lanes on the 22 Freeway. An OCTA-commissioned survey in 2007 also found that 71% of drivers on the 22 Freeway preferred unrestricted carpool lanes.
How many of our bridges need help? Try 152,000, according to the Associated Press: At least $140 billion is needed to make major repairs or upgrades to one of every four U.S. bridges, transportation officials from states across the country said in a report released Monday. State officials said bridge repairs are just one element of a pressing need for more federal funding to improve the country's deteriorating transportation infrastructure. "We need federal intervention, and federal intervention at a big level," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said after details were released of the report by the American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The report cited Federal Highway Administration statistics that 152,000 out of the nation's 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The $140 billion price tag was derived by multiplying the total number of square meters of the problem bridges by the average cost per square meter — in 2006 dollars — to do the work.
Photo: Sixth Street bridge in Los Angeles, which needs repairs. Credit: Los Angeles Times
-- Shelby Grad
There is a growing (but small) movement in Washington to bring back the 55 mph speed limit as a way of boosting fuel efficiency. According to Time, Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia) is leading the way:
The National Maximum Speed Limit of 55 m.p.h. was created in 1974 when Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Energy Highway Conservation Act. Before that, states had been free to set their own speed limits, but the new law threatened to strip federal highway funding from any state straying above the national standard. The ostensible purpose of this limit was to keep down gas prices, which had been driven through the roof by an OPEC embargo touched off by the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. And with gas prices once again sky-high, Warner isn't alone in talking up a cap on speeding. Jackie Speier, a first-term Democratic Congresswoman from California, is already on the case. Earlier this month, she introduced a bill that would cap highway speed limits at 60 m.p.h. — 65 in rural areas. It's awaiting a hearing before the House Committee on Transportation. Warner says he hasn't contacted Speier but adds that he'd be willing to "stroll out on the floor" in favor of a speed-limit bill. He has yet to propose a similar bill in the Senate.
According to the Department of Energy: "Each 5 m.p.h. you drive over 60 m.p.h. is like paying an additional $0.30 per gallon for gas."
CAN YOU DRIVE 55? SHARE YOUR VIEW
-- Shelby Grad
Two government reports out this week show how high gasoline prices have begun to ripple across the nation's transportation system. Think cause and effect. Or maybe supply and demand.
As Times business writer Ronald D. White reports today, the Federal Highway Administration found that Americans drove less for the seventh month in a row last May. And we're likely headed for the first annual drop in road travel in 28 years.
Lo and behold, White also says, gasoline prices have suddenly begun to decline, according to Energy Department figures. Not enough to keep all those Detroit automakers from melting down their SUV molds but enough to push gas station prices in some parts of the country back below $4 a gallon. The average for California fell 14.3 cents to $4.317 a gallon.
Meanwhile, in it's own story about the decline in driving, CNNMoney.com reports that transit riders -- just like in Southern California -- are setting ridership records: Usage jumped in the first three months of the year by 88 million trips from a year ago, for a total of 2.6 billion, according to the most recent figures available from the APTA [American Public Transit Assn., a private trade group.]
Some of the most dramatic increases occurred in the light rail systems in Baltimore, Minneapolis and St. Louis, the commuter rails of Seattle and Harrisburg, Penn., the buses of San Antonio and Denver, and the subways and elevated rails of ... Boston.
The Boston Globe reported Monday that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority broke a ridership record of 375 million passengers in fiscal year 2008, which is 21 million more than the prior year.
There is one big downside, as both reports explain: as people drive less and buy less gasoline, the feds predict a significant decline in the gas tax revenue that pays for road and bridge maintenance.
-- Bill Nottingham
Photos: San Bernardino Associated Governments (top); Associated Press / Brian Bohannon (bottom)
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