Week in transportation, Nov. 28 edition

Shell was prohibited by a federal appeals court from drilling new wells off Alaska's North Slope. Why? The U.S. Department of Interior failed to conduct an environmental review of how the drilling would affect whales and indigenous communities. That's the pipeline that carries oil south from the North Slope in the above pic. New York Times

Curious who is reviewing transit agencies for the incoming Obama administration? Streetsblog has the rundown. One of the team has some expertise in public-private partnerships, which is interesting given that private money is likely going to be needed for some big projects in California, most notably the proposed high-speed rail line.

The Utah Transit Authority wants to expand its "contactless" fare payment system, allowing users to use credit cards and other types of smart cards to pay fares. Finextra

Chicago could get the 2016 Summer Olympics, but is its transit system ready? The Tribune's John Hilkevitch doesn't seem to think so and points to the fact that while Californians were approving transportation-related sales tax hikes and bonds on election day, there was nothing similar on the ballot in Illinois.

A federal judge ruled that automakers -- including General Motors and Chrysler -- can't sue the state of Rhode Island for trying to adopt tighter emission standards for cars. But some auto dealers can go ahead with the suit. Associated Press

The ocean in the Pacific Northwest is getting more acidic, and scientists blame rising carbon dioxide levels. CO2 is a greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels. BBC

The federal government has been building a big fleet of flex-fuel cars that can use ethanol and other alt-fuels. Problem is, the vast majority of those 112,000 vehicles are still running on regular gas. Washington Post

An interactive map by the NYT allows you to see where the city of New York issued nearly 10 million parking tickets over the last year. The hot spots look to be be side streets between 5th and 8th avenues south of Central Park.

The majority of the United States is paying less than $2 a gallon for regular gasoline, and California could see those kind of average prices within the next few days. Los Angeles Times

--Steve Hymon

photo credit: Al Grillo / Associated Press

Measure R's lead expands yet again

The Los Angeles County Registrar updated the vote totals for Measure R late Wednesday. The half-cent sales tax increase for transportation in L.A. County now has 67.89% of the vote, its largest total yet.

Measure R needs two-thirds of the vote to secure passage. I'll post the number of votes left to be counted on Monday when the Registrar's office reopens. As of now, Measure R has a raw vote lead of about 35,550 votes -- so, if there are fewer outstanding ballots than that number, it's over. Measure R will have won.

-- Steve Hymon

Google helps with Santa Monica parking

Black Friday is a good day to highlight this neat little piece of technology: Google maps and the city of Santa Monica have teamed up to produce a real-time Google map that helps you find parking in downtown Santa Monica.

The map debuted a while back, but I just learned about it recently from Google. Icons are used to show the different parking structures and how many open spaces are in each of them. The city of Santa Monica's parking space website doesn't seem to work as well -- when I click on different parking structures, I'm getting information from about 12:30 a.m. Friday, not 12:30 p.m.

I'm having trouble getting the Google map to load on my iPhone. If you know how to do this, please leave a comment.

-- Steve Hymon

Red light, green light, go?

The photo was taken this morning at the corner of Melrose Avenue and Crescent Heights Boulevard in Los Angeles. The contributor said that fellow motorists were a bit bewildered, but most of them stopped to see what everyone else would do -- as it's not everyday that you get a red light and green light at the same time.

The problem? The light shorted out and went into default mode -- flashing red -- while also continuing to cycle through green lights, said city transportation officials, adding that it's very rare to get a red and green simultaneously.

"The problem we determined was the older control box housing, which allowed some water to get inside. We've fixed it, but will replace the whole controller box with a new one," wrote Bruce Gillman, spokesman for the city's Transportation Department, in an e-mail.

--Steve Hymon

New text message service updates for MTA! New York MTA, that is

Here's the news release out of the Big Apple. They've rigged up a system that uses text messages and e-mails to tell riders about service changes. Metrolink here has such a system using Twitter, the text-messaging service, but the Los Angeles County MTA offers only updates for rail service, and not  its buses, which carry many more people.

Caltrans District 7, which includes Los Angeles and Ventura counties, has said it's studying Metrolink's approach, but it hasn't done anything yet on providing live freeway condition updates. Caltrans does have a system that allows people to get the same travel time information displayed on overhead freeway signs.

As I've posted before, this is kind of frustrating. The MTA here could be doing the same thing. The MTA here also refuses to hand over bus and train schedules to Google for their inclusion in the Google Transit service -- something that might encourage new riders and help current ones. Caltrans desperately needs a way to tell motorists in real time about freeway closures instead of making users go to their road conditions web page and type in the road number to find out its status. This is a need vividly demonstrated during the recent wildfires, when freeways across the region were shut down.

 

High-speed rail to San Francisco by 2018?

Today's eyebrow-raiser of a story comes courtesy of the Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley student newspaper: The paper says that "state officials" -- it's not really specified who that is -- say high-speed trains could be running between Los Angeles and San Francisco as early as 2018. KCBS in the Bay Area has also quoted rail officials saying the system could be carrying 68 million passengers by 2020.

Not to be a grumpy bear on this -- I know there's a lot of people that want to see the trains up and running -- but I think the odds of the system running in a decade are long. First, there's the little issue of coming up with the $33 billion that the California High-Speed Rail Authority says the project will cost (and some people say that's a low-ball estimate). The bond passed by California voters earlier this month was only for $9.95 billion.

And then there's this: Look at how long it takes just to build a few miles of light rail. Take, for example, the Expo Line, which is planned to run from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, a distance of some 15 miles. Construction began in 2006 and the first 8.6 miles may be done by 2010, with the remainder by 2015. That's nine years to build 15 miles of light rail, versus a decade to build 400-plus miles of 220 mph rail.

Do you really think high-speed rail can happen that quickly? Making big promises is a good way to get the public excited. It's also a good way to make them cynical when those promises fail to materialize.

UPDATE, 5:30 p.m.: Robert Cruickshank, at his California High Speed Rail blog, says the 2018 date comes from the California High Speed Rail Authority's business plan. He also has several criticisms of this post.

-- Steve Hymon

Another map of Measure R results

Here's a map of Measure R results in Los Angeles County that was assembled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, using only the results from polling places. That will likely turn out to be about 75% of the votes cast for Measure R, so it's a good sample but not complete one.

The map certainly provides a broader view of results by percentage than the Google map I posted a few weeks ago. That map looks strictly at whether Measure R passed or failed in cities around the county.

Click on the link below to see a version of the MTA map that allows you to zoom in and out to see how Measure R fared in different parts of the county.

-- Steve Hymon

Measure R Yes Votes in Los Angeles County

 

Will the L.A. City Council endorse the cyclists bill of rights?

I want to call your attention to a good item at CityWatch, which keeps an eye on things at Los Angeles City Hall. Stephen Box, the cycling advocate, has an item there about a push to get the City Council to endorse the cyclists bill of rights. Excerpt:

[Wendy] Greuel spoke of the need to support cyclists and [Bill] Rosendahl referred to it as "a no-brainer!" Public Works Commissioner joined the Committee and spoke in favor of the need to work to create a safe environment for cyclists. Speakers from the community recounted their experiences on the streets of L.A. and of their hope that our City leadership would support cycling as a transportation and environmental solution by endorsing the Cyclists' Bill of Rights "as written -- as ridden!"

It's hard to disagree with anything in the bill of rights, but I am curious what readers think about this one. I covered the City Council for three years, and I find the resolutions that they do in support or against anything to be political cover. Ultimately, it's easy for pols to say they like cycling, but it's much harder to actually build something to improve cycling in L.A. -- that would require diligent, hard work instead of glad-handing, yammering at endless meetings, fundraising and running for higher office in midterm of their current job.

I'm not trying to be unfair. If you're a member of the L.A. City Council and you've actually done something to help cyclists, I'm glad to go on a field trip with you and see the evidence myself. Please bring the paperwork to show the improvement actually required your involvement and wasn't done by a predecessor or community group who had to beg you for your blessed help.

-- Steve Hymon

Blizzard? What blizzard?

This photo was taken in Stockholm on Monday during the city's first major snowstorm of the year. The storm blew in from the Baltic Sea with hurricane-force winds, but this one cyclist wasn't to be deterred. Gotta love the spunk.

--Steve Hymon

Measure R now ahead by full percentage point

The end is near on the counting of ballots: The Los Angeles County Registrar updated the numbers again on Measure R today. The half-cent sales tax increase in L.A. County for transportation projects now has 67.79% of the vote -- the first time it has led by a full percentage point. The lead in raw votes is about 32,164. The results are still unofficial.

The registrar's office said about 75,000 votes still need to be counted -- about 65,000 provisional ballots and 10,000 absentee.

Though it's mathematically possible for Measure R to lose, it's extremely unlikely from a statistical point of view.

--Steve Hymon