A 405 poem, speed limits and oil hedge funds; Ramping up, August 5

Sales tax drama continues

The state bill, AB 2321, which would allow a half-cent sales tax to be placed on the November ballot, was put in the suspense file in the State Senate's Appropriations Committee last night. I'm not sure whether it was a purely bureaucratic move or had something to do with elected officials still unhappy with the bill. The only clue was a statement that there were some issues that needed to be worked out.

Either way, it now gets a full hearing in Appropriations on Thursday, and my guess is that Senators Gil Cedillo and Jenny Oropeza will have something to say about funding for the Green Line and an extension of the Eastside Gold Line, respectively.

Damien Newton -- a masochist like me who actually watched the hearing on his computer all day -- has a bitingly nice post at Streetsblog Los Angeles. Mr. Newton notes that it only took 10 hours for the State Senate committee to do nothing. I kind of suspect the State Leg has taken much, much, much longer to do nothing.

The bigger news, of course, was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposing a temporary one-cent sales tax increase to close the state's $15.2-billion deficit. It's hard to imagine the Legislature going for it and then voters in L.A. County approving another half-penny hike.

In the meantime, the County Board of Supervisors gets its turn today to kick around the sales tax proposal when it votes on whether to put the proposal on the November ballot. The supes are all on the larger Metro Board, and the question is what happens if the supes refuse to put it on the ballot? Does Metro sue them?

If I were an election law attorney, I could be getting rich right now. Instead, I'm losing brain cells.

405, the poem

On Saturday at 5:30 p.m., Linda Derman Kelemer motored onto the 405 in Marina del Rey. A full 45 minutes later she made it to her destination: Westwood. Attentive readers will note that it should not take 45 minutes to go from the Marina to Westwood.

Inspired, Kelemer wrote a poem:

The 405
Is not alive
It died
About five
Years ago

A freeway it’s not
It’s a parking lot
I park there
That’s how I know

You can eat your lunch
Or dinner or brunch
Or tome this poem
Or wait

Don’t despair
Tho’ you’re going nowhere
If the 405’s
On your plate

A blanket of cars
Covers the tar
As far as the
Eye can see

My soul is on hold
My fate’s to be late
“405” means
Eternity

Scramble crosswalks

I posted yesterday that Los Angeles' first scramble crosswalk -- it allows pedestrians to cross diagonally -- is coming to the intersection of Le Conte and Westwood just outside UCLA. It will make its official debut Thursday with a press conference featuring Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In a quote that I'm pretty sure is pure genius, mayoral press secretary Darryl Ryan told me yesterday, "the shortest distance between two points is about to get shorter."

Nine other scramble crosswalks are in the works. Their locations:

Broxton and Weyburn (Westwood)
11th and Maple (downtown)
12th and Maple (downtown)
11th and Santee (downtown)
12th and Santee (downtown)
Pacific and Windward (Venice)
Hoover and Jefferson (Exposition Park)
Jefferson and McClintock (Exposition Park)
Erwin and Owensmouth (Woodland Hills)

High-speed rail stays on ballot

The California Assembly's transportation committee voted down a bill that would have removed the $9.9-billion bond for the rail system from the November ballot. The bond, if approved, would be used to start the system, but it remains unclear exactly what would get built.

Speed limits to increase on some streets

The Los Angeles City Council's transportation committee takes up a delicate issue today: whether to increase on the speed limit on several streets. State law holds that cities must study the speed limits every few years to determine if they're still appropriate; the studies, as I understand it, are also a condition of using radar to enforce speed limits.

Several cities have grappled with the issue this year. Now it's L.A.'s turn. Some of the increases are pretty steep. For example, Reseda Boulevard between Sesnon and Rinaldi in the San Fernando Valley would have a new limit of 50 mph, from a limit now of 40 and 45 mph in that area. This is a street with private homes along both sides.

The city's reasoning: A lot of people aren't following the law anyway. "If the current 45 mph speed limit were to be retained then 48 percent of the motorists would be considered as speed violators," said a city report. "In the absence of other factors, this high rate of violators would be unreasonable and would not distinguish occasional violators from the majority of reasonable drivers."

One potential glitch: there are bike lanes along Reseda in that stretch. The report doesn't say anything about the difference between vehicle speeds and bike speeds. It will be interesting to see if any T-committee members raise this point.

Other streets in line for an increases are Corbin, Zelzah, Haskell, Canoga and Lassen.

Pay for gas by investing in oil stocks

That's the advice of Rob Carrick in the Globe and Mail, the newspaper from the Great White North:

"Don't get mad about high gas prices, get even. Buy some energy funds or stocks and hold them as a hedge against increases in the cost of fueling up your vehicle. If energy prices rise, your investments will grow in value and offset your added costs at the pump. On the flip side, falling energy prices would reduce the value of your investments, offsetting your cost savings when filling your vehicle. Net result: You end up even."

I think he's sugarcoating the downside a bit. But I like the optimism.

Tuesday morning time-waster

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Go ahead and put down the work. You really think the boss is going to know if you spend two minutes watching this video of a chase between a toy helicopter and toy remote-controlled cars? Like they're working hard in France or Italy right now? The video is on the funnyordie video site.

Recent items on the Bottleneck Blog you may find utterly fascinating

Congestion pricing and American driving habits

The Dodger shuttle bus: slow to first base

Stray dogs along the blue line

--Steve Hymon

Comments

[Jon]

Scramble crosswalks at Jefferson-McClintock and Jefferson-Hoover? Jefferson-Hoover is a T-intersection; what would a scramble crosswalk add? And the southern crosswalk at Jefferson-McClintock abuts USC's campus. Is there really a big difference whether you arrive at the northern or southern corner of that crosswalk?

A scramble crosswalk at Exposition and Vermont during gamedays at the coliseum, now that would be handy.

[Steve Lantz]

I believe that Beverly Hills tried scramble crossings two decades ago on Wilshire Blvd... and returned them to traditional crossings within a year or so of their introduction.

[Dan W.]

Support the sales tax!

It contains a Sepulveda project, giving some desperately needed relief to the 405.

Conservatives have been proven wrong under three Presidents. "Supply-side" economics just doesn't work.

Tax cuts and infrastructure do not pay for themselves. If we want a higher quality of life and and an economically and environmentally sustainable Los Angeles, and the infrastructure that makes that possible, then we will need to make this financial investment today in our future.

[Eric G]

These sales tax increases are horrible ideas. If both of them go through, the LA County sales tax rate would be 9.75%. Although it looks like a 1.5% increase, it is actually a tax increase of over 18%! (calculate 1.5 / 8.25) This means you will be paying 18% MORE sales tax on gasoline, restaurant food, clothes, household products, vehicles, and everything else taxable. I thought tax increases like these needed to be approved by voters. Just say NO!

[BOB2]

Raising the speed limits on these arterials will result in more accidents, more injuries and fatalities to pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists. Raising the speed limits goes against the evidence and science. Raising speed limits then raises the base speed and people then exceed that, resulting in our having to raise the speed again. Sound stupid, blame the legislature.

Raising the speed limiit is an artifact of our antiquated "basic speed law" which sought to prevent local " speed traps' prevalent when it was written back in the 1920's. It says that if more than 15% of motorists choose to speed we will raise the limiit and not give them tickets. If 15% of us committed more homocides, would we lower the Murder statutues to Manslaughter? It's just that stupid.