Ramping up, July 16

It's hail-a-cab today at the L.A. City Council

The council is scheduled today to vote on a pilot program to allow cabs to pick up fares at more places in downtown and Hollywood. The big question is whether they'll stop traffic; I tend to think that anything that helps get more people drinking at night into cabs is a good thing. I also wonder if cabbies can afford to troll for fares, given the gas price situation.

L.A. County sales tax negotiations continue

Haggling behind closed doors continues today as Metro tries to get a half-penny sales tax on the November ballot when turnout will likely be high and the chance of success, agency officials say, better. If the state Legislature doesn't pass a bill, AB 2321, allowing a sales tax hike, there won't be a vote. But state officials have concerns: They want to see "control language" from Metro explaining exactly who decides when and how money will be spent. More later.

Day 3 begins on NoHo bike rack effort

Councilman Tom LaBonge agrees with the Bottleneck Blog that putting more bike racks at the subway station is the right thing to do. His office yesterday sent me a copy of an e-mail that a LaBonge deputy sent to Metro inquiring about who gets to make the decision about installing bike racks.

Mandeville Canyon bike-motorist tensions

A task force met Monday night to discuss ways to better share the road; Streetsblog Los Angeles has the details. Also, radio host Warren Olney devoted a good chunk of Which Way L.A.? to the Mandeville Canyon bike-car issue and I thought Olney did a nice job of showing that there were conflicts there long before the July 4 accident.

Batpod coming to L.A.

The Batpod -- I'm still not sure what it is, but it sounds cool -- will be on display at the ArcLight Hollywood on Saturday for those going to see "The Dark Knight." One word of warning: parking will likely be very tight at ArcLight's garage on Friday and Saturday night. I recommend taking the Red Line subway to the Hollywood and Vine stop and walking a block south to the movie house. Just to clarify: I'm three degrees beyond stoked for this film, particularly after that Indiana Jones debacle.

World correspondents needed

I put the word out yesterday that the Bottleneck is looking for guest bloggers to tell the story of transportation across the planet. As of Tuesday evening, looks like I've got Seattle, Santa Clara and Austin, Texas, covered. Europe, Asia, Africa and Greenland are among those up for grabs. If interested, email me at steve.hymon@latimes.com.

Links to recent Bottleneck Blog posts

Snoble releases letter on sales tax proposal

Pathetic attempt at streetscaping in Eagle Rock

Will turnstiles stop terrorists on the subway?

-- Steve Hymon

Comments

[calwatch]

If you look at the traffic data, traffic has appreciably been reduced in Orange County as a result of Measure M. Not only was a lot of money spent on freeway expansion, but they did many cost effective thins like signal synchronization and reconstruction of bottleneck interchanges to modern standards that are worth a lot more in their dollar amount. The current sales tax proposal does nothing to move up the laughably late 10/605 interchange reconstruction, for example, or re-do the 101/405 mess.

[calwatch]

If you look at the traffic data, traffic has appreciably been reduced in Orange County as a result of Measure M. Not only was a lot of money spent on freeway expansion, but they did many cost effective thins like signal synchronization and reconstruction of bottleneck interchanges to modern standards that are worth a lot more in their dollar amount. The current sales tax proposal does nothing to move up the laughably late 10/605 interchange reconstruction, for example, or re-do the 101/405 mess.

[Jose]

Hi, Dana. reasonable comments. My thinking behind what i wrote.

The state raids of transportation funds are an example of what might happen in a tightening budget situation if there are no real guarentees. If there are overruns on the purple line, is there anyone out there who believes that the MTA won't raid other projects to make up for the shortfall if there are no guarantees? I would hate to sacrifice a bunch of projects distributed across the county so a project that will only affect one of the more affluent parts of the city is given a golden ticket.

While everything in OC hasn't been fixed and some of it has clogged up after being clear for a number of years, I can tell you that if the road building hadn't been undertaken, there would be the kind of dysfunctional mess across broad swaths of OC like there is in most of LA today. OC has limited the backups where they have rebuilt, and in most cases they have managed to keep the traffic moving in the worst areas at a much higher speed than before. Anybody want to go back and try to get from northern OC to Anaheim for an Angels game before the I5 was rebuilt? That freeway was just as cramped and decrepit as the I5 through LA county is today.

But in addition to the road building binge (a fair way to assess it) one of the things that the Measure M money in OC did when it was approved was that it was also used to address the small things. Off ramp upgrades, connectors, overpasses expanded to meet local road needs, etc, etc, etc. As an example, let's compare the offramp from the southbound 405 onto Fairview Avenue in Costa Mesa with the offramp from the northbound 405 to Western Avenue in Torrance and see where the traffic backs up onto the freeway - and backs up every day. No contest - OC wins. There is no way that this should have been allowed to happen in LA county, but the fact is that it has.

If there is not some ironclad guarantees in the package that a number of these kinds of small projects are going to be included, then there is no way I'll vote for it. I've watched the politicians in LA County and especially the supervisors long enough to know that there is no way to trust them with transportation money on their own without real checks and balances. (Actually, the supes are not trustworthy, period.) Any group that would approve something like Playa Vista without mitigation either in place or close to completion is not to be trusted. You just aren't going to wean LA off of cars unless you are willing to rebuild something as comprehensive as the old Pacific Electric Red Car network, and there is no way that anyone in LA county is willing to go that far. With that reality, allowing political manipulation that would result in spending everything on a single rail line is a recipe for a city in eventual decline.

And a lot of the small problems in LA that I see included in the list of items could have been fixed without this grand infusion of taxpayer cash a long time ago if anybody with an attention span had paid attention. This tax won't appreciatively hurt me, but it will fall disproportionately on the lower end of the income spectrum, people for whom most of these projects will not help in the least.

[yours truly, Johnny Dollar]

The Mandeville Canyon bicyclists vs. Infiniti Doctor
"get together" was no accident as you portrayed it.
Dig out your dictionary. You can call it a crash,
wreck, collision, attempted murder.....
Or, are you taking a position in this matter?
or, is it just lazy English on your behalf?
I hope the latter (but, then again, it is the LA Times).

[Dana Gabbard]

Jose, with all due respect you are mixing various quantities of apples and oranges.

The measure has a project list, so it is clear what is being funded.

The fine folks in Orange County went on a road building binge. We in L.A. County didn't. I know a few of the road junkies think road expansion is a fabulous idea, but does anyone else really think traffic congestition is appreciably reduced in Orange County after spending all that money?

What does state raids of state funds have to do with a local sales tax? Nada.

Frankly my suggestion has been have the measure audited by Zev's fabulous Committee. That should provide reasonable safeguards.

http://www.metro.net/board/Agendas/2008/04_april/20080414OtherAICAOC_PH.pdf

[Jose]

There comes a saturation point with tax increases, and at some point you have to be able to commit how money will be spend before a tax can be approved.

I used to live behind the Orange Curtain for about 25 years, and I can assure Dana that Measure M would not have been passed and then renewed without specific controls on how and where the money would be spent. It has been a boon to transportation in the county. Even thought here are still problems the system gets worked on and improvements are planned and made. Unlike LA county where the only tangible evidence of improvements to the freeways is carpool lanes and not much else.

I also think that these days there is an element of trust that must be embedded in any tax increase. Anybody like how the state raids dedicated funds to make up for their inability to forecast and budget? Think what kinds of transportation projects could be funded with the money raided from transportation funds by the state over the past decade.

[Dana Gabbard]

"control language"? What is with all the paranoia surrounding this tax? Propositions A & C have been in place for years and the funds have been allocated per the various categories outlined in the Ordinances. Zev's fabulous audit Committee has confirmed that consistently. AB 2321 specifies besides the projectes listed all additional funds will be allocated to projects in the Long Range Plan the Metro Board adopts at regular intervals via a public process. That should assuage any reasonable concerns.