To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net
Cities
from LA to the San Gabriel Valley and West to through the foothills are
coming together to oppose the 710 tunnel and bracing for the release of
the EIR.
Helping any and every way I can to get the word out.
Oh no, we don't want this at the base of Huntington Hospital on one end and the great community of El Sereno on the other.
I
guarantee they won't have that image for Pasadena....but are.have
already planned it for El Sereno...current designs would place the
starter shaft on the north side of Valley Blvd between the Recycle Plant
and Grifols. The hole in the ground would be about 200ft wide, along
Valley and extend north about 800ft toward the UPRR tracks (about half
the vacant lot's length) and be about 200ft deep -total excavation of
1.5-2,000,000 cu yd. Also all vent exhaust during the 4-7 year
construction would be exhausted next to the Front Str. Neighborhood of
Alhambra (but remember BM says that they want it). So it is now getting
real and everyone want to do something.... If you are real and not
just digital...I can help your review and commenting on the DEIR BUT I
need 5-9 people for 3 hrs to really learn how to review and comment on
an EIR...not like what we got today....this is now REAL time not just
talk and chatting...Send me a mail and I will
help...ctwilliams2012@yahoo.com
MACHINERY FAILS – They call it “Bertha,” a massive tunnel-boring
machine that arrived Seattle in July 2013. Seattle city officials
expected a tunnel underneath the city to be completed this year. The
machinery has remained motionless since December 2013 after it was
damaged. Now no one in the City of Seattle is saying when work will
restart and be completed.
It might be fascinating, admits South Pasadena City Manager Sergio
Gonzalez, talking about a boring machine that could work its way under
the city someday, but the reality is they can fail miserably.
A case in point in what might happen close to home, explained Gonzalez,
can be found in the Northwest where an underground tunnel project has
been less than successful. The “Bertha” drilling machine, as it is known
to those living in Seattle, got stuck in the ground not long after
arriving in 2013. Only 11 percent of a two-mile tunnel route is complete
to date. City officials can’t confirm when the project will resume or
be completed, yet some are projecting sometime in 2017 – long past its
2015 timetable.
“The boring machine broke down more than a year ago,” stressed Gonzalez.
“It’s broken down, stalled. Not only is it causing cost overruns, but
it’s causing physical damage to the area.”
In Seattle, a 120-foot-deep pit has been dug to allow a giant crane to pull out the “Bertha” drilling machine and repair it.
Metro is expected to release a draft Environmental EIR/EIS report by the
end of the month. It will provide information about the best way to
close the State Route 710 between its terminus just outside the Alhambra
city limits to Pasadena after studying five proposed options. They
range from leaving the 4.5-mile gap alone to implementing traffic signal
upgrades and synchronization, increasing bus service, making better use
of light rail, and, finally building a tunnel freeway, much of which
would go under South Pasadena.
Gonzalez already suspects the latter.
“The reality is machine’s fail,” stressed the city manager, explaining
that the City Council is reaching out to the City of Seattle to learn
more about the failure of “Bertha” as Metro looks at the idea of a
tunnel under South Pasadena.
“We’re very concerned about it,” said Gonzalez. “We want to make it
clear to our residents that we are going to continue to fight as smart
and hard as we can to prevent a 60-foot in diameter hole from being
drilled under our city. There are much better ways to improve mobility
in the region, create jobs and improve air quality than having to spend
billions of taxpayer dollars on a dream of a project that will
most-likely fail.”
South Pasadena City Council members approved a letter going to the
Seattle Councilman Mike O’Brien, an opponent of the tunnel project in
that city. “We want to partner with the City of Seattle because the same
thing could happen here. Our letter states that we may be going down
the same path and we’re very concerned.”
Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian speaks at a San Fernando
Valley Transit Town Hall on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015 regarding Measure
R2.
Seven years ago, voters across Los Angeles County barely approved
Measure R, a half -cent sales tax that resulted in nearly no
transportation upgrades for the San Fernando Valley.
Now mass
transit boosters are appealing to snubbed Valley voters for their
crucial support in passing another proposed half-cent transportation
sales tax known as Measure R2 for the November 2016 ballot.
“This
is a really important moment in the transportation history of the San
Fernando Valley,” said Councilman Paul Krekorian, a Metro and Metrolink
board member, addressing a packed rally for a Measure R2 late Thursday
at the Van Nuys Civic Center. “We’re embarking on a discussion that will
affect transportation in the San Fernando Valley for generations to
come.
“The Valley now wants public transit that works.”
The
“Imagining Our Transportation Future” transit town hall meeting drew
elected leaders, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials, public
transit advocates and hundreds of Valley and Santa Clarita residents
for a three-hour conversation about local transit needs.
At its
heart was a draft for a so-called Measure R2, a second sales tax measure
that could raise $90 billion over 45 years for a raft of transportation
upgrades.
Supporters, including town hall hosts Move LA,
a Santa Monica-based public transit advocacy group, and the San
Fernando Valley Council of Governments, which Krekorian chairs, hope to
put it before voters in late 2016. It would add to the current half-cent
tax.
To win their support, they had to address a shortcoming of bond
Measure R, a 30-year half-cent sales tax that narrowly passed in 2008.
Of $40 billion in rail, bus and highway projects, few were destined for
the Valley — which makes up 30 percent of Los Angeles but got only 13
percent of the money, county Supervisor Michael Antonovich said, getting
just two of 80 Metro rail stops.
Another transportation sales tax
initiative in 2012 would have extended the countywide transportation
sales tax, but Measure J failed to achieve a required two-thirds vote.
While he didn’t support the first transportation tax, Antonovich said
it’s time voters step up to bankroll new rail lines, “grand boulevard”
street improvements, bicycle lanes and a potential tunnel beneath the
traffic-choked Sepulveda Pass.
He called for a “bottom up”
approach to transportation planning, with buy-in from 88 cities and half
a dozen councils of government.
“We’re all in agreement to see
that the San Fernando Valley and the north county receive the resources
that they need,” Antonovich told the town hall meeting. “Historically,
the (Valley) has not received its fair share in the Measure R
proposition.
“In the past, you had cotton candy — a lot of fluff, no substance. This time, we want broccoli, all substance.”
The improvements being championed by Metro and such groups as Move LA would be funded by $27 billion in new railroad money.
Some
proposals include: Convert the Metro Orange Line into a faster light
rail line. Extend a light rail line down Van Nuys Boulevard, also known
as the East Valley North-South Transit Corridor.
Punch a rail line from
the North Hollywood Red Line Station to Burbank Airport, then loop down
Interstate 5 to Union Station. Run a rail line from Glendale along the
134 Freeway to the Metro Gold Line in Pasadena, then out to the San
Gabriel Valley.
And the whopper: A proposed tunnel drilled under the Sepulveda
Pass with a potential toll road and rail line connecting Sylmar with Los
Angeles International Airport. Minimum cost: $6 billion.
“The San
Fernando Valley needs to be very happy,” said Denny Zane, executive
director of Move LA and a former mayor of Santa Monica. “Because we have
to win a two-thirds vote.”
Many residents at the town hall, however, were skeptical.
How
can Valley voters support a Measure R2 when the Valley stands to be
disrupted by a high-speed bullet train? they asked. And what about the
current Metro stations that lack parking, bathrooms, cafes and even
drinking fountains. And why should a majority of taxpayers ante up more
money to shore up a public transit system used by only 10 percent of
voters?
“The bulk of the people who are paying for this will not be
taking rapid transit,” one man said. “They own cars, they want something
in return -- like fixing the 101/405 (freeway) interchange.”
A
point of clarification. In response to Molina's supporters handing out
attack literature in previous forums in Boyle Hgts, Highland Park,
Calstate LA & El Sereno, I distributed a flyer critical of Molina at
this event. A staffer named Brandon, either in error or intentionally,
informed Molina that Huizar's campaign was responsible for handing it
out. I do not work for the campaign, I am an El Sereno resident that
decided to give Gloria Molina a taste of her own medicine. Her goon
squad was having free reign at previous events & various social
media sites. Payback.
Here's the scene that was scaring people: It was a driverless-car
test run in Germany on a perfectly straight road with a medieval gate up
ahead. The gate was a tight squeeze, and a regular driver would slow
down to a crawl to make sure the car fit. But the driverless car made
the calculations ahead of time and knew it had enough space, so it
cruised along at the speed limit, maybe 30 m.p.h. And as it got closer
to the gate, with no signs of slowing down, the passengers lost it.
"It's perfectly fine and safe, but the people inside the car, they
basically freak out in these situations," says Dietmar Rabel, head of
automated driving product management for HERE, an arm of Nokia
that's developing data tools to help car companies make driverless
cars. "This was the start of this idea that we really need to look at
how people really drive in the real world."
That idea has grown into what HERE calls the "humanized driving" project.
By analyzing a huge archive of data collected through its existing
traffic products, HERE has identified behavioral patterns and styles
that can be organized into various driver profiles. A "sports" profile
might represent a more aggressive driver, for instance, whereas an
"economy" profile might suit someone more defensive behind the wheel.
Take the different ways drivers use a highway exit ramp. Some slow
down dramatically as soon as they merge off the highway, others
decelerate more gradually through the ramp, and still others keep
driving 55 m.p.h. or so as long as they can. These varying off-ramp
styles might be included in economy, comfort, and sports profiles,
respectively, says Rabel.
Other common scenarios modeled by HERE is how people handle inclement
weather, how they change speeds at certain times of the day (turns out
there's a reliable dip in speeds when cars head into the sun), how they
approach a yellow light, and when they decide to prepare for an
exit. A driverless car could safely move into the exit lane at the last
moment, for instance, but some people would feel more comfortable doing
that earlier.
One can also imagine profiles that vary geographically, for both
legal and cultural reasons. In New York City, for instance, a driverless
car would need to know not to turn right on red. In Pittsburgh, of
course, cars notoriously turn left as soon as a light turns green. Such
practices could conceivably be built into the mind of the driverless car
and programmed to occur based on GPS location.
Ultimately behavioral profiles may become consumer options on
driverless cars, says Rabel. Maybe buttons let people toggle between
"sports," "economy," or "comfort" styles; or maybe a car adopts one
singular style. "If you're buying a Porshe you probably don't need the
'economy' profile," he says.
That's really up to manufacturers to decide. HERE provides back-end
data services to car companies developing driverless cars, but isn't
making one itself. (Rabel wouldn't say which specific companies partner
with HERE, but he acknowledged it's "fairly known" which auto makers are
pursuing driverless technology.) Along with the Humanized Driving
profiles, HERE's data services
include extremely precise mapping (with "10-20 cm accuracy") and
real-time road information (such as crash or weather or construction
notifications).
HERE's
driverless data services include extremely precise mapping (top) and
real-time road information (such as crash or weather or construction
notifications). (HERE)The
idea of a more aggressive driver profile diverges noticeably from the
approach being taken by Google's self-driving car team. For now, at
least, Google is programming its car to be as cautious as possible; when
I rode in it last spring, the car didn't turn right on red for just that reason. Team leader Chris Urmson told me it's "probably not the right thing to emulate all the human behavior"
in driverless cars. Theoretically they could be programmed for road
rage, of course, but Urmson hopes people will feel less anxious in
driverless cars because they can use their time more productively.
HERE is obviously not suggesting that driverless car profiles will or
should compromise safety to any extent. That's priority number one. But
the point of the Humanized Driving project is that people will expect
driverless cars to behave a certain way—at least in the early iterations
of the technology—and building driver profiles that meet these
expectations might help manufacturers make the ride more comfortable.
"There are many other things that could be envisioned," says Rabel. "The sky is the limit. Nobody knows right now what's needed."
GETTING THERE FROM HERE-After having witnessed a rather well-done (albeit low turnout) Metro presentation
for an Airport Metro Connector (LINK: ) that is the result of a
first-rate-and-no-idea-not-explored, years-long exhaustive review on how
to connect MetroRail and mass transit to LAX, I'm reminded at the
contrasting scenario of how LA City Planning is (again!) destroying our
efforts to enhance our Economy, Environmental Sustainability and Quality
of Life.
And
after spending so much time, energy and personal resources to enhance, I
am not going to mince words: Mayor Garcetti, I like you personally and
believe you want to do well by our City, and you deserve mega-kudos for
your regional efforts to promote transportation/mobility improvements,
but if you don't FIRE some of the wild-eyed, detached, and crazy
"thought leaders" at City Planning, all of your efforts will be for
naught:
--The Mayor and
the City of Los Angeles did the right thing, and the US Olympic
Committee did the wrong thing, when the sentiment over the Boston
Marathon tragedy led to a decision to favor Boston over LA for the 2024
Olympics. Only LA has the wherewithal and infrastructure to be ready
for that event, and this was a golden opportunity blown.
--Furthermore,
the Mayor and the City of Los Angeles (and let's not forget
CD11/Westside Councilmember Mike Bonin) have leaned hard on both LA
World Airports and Metro to work together to create the most
cost-effective and viable Metro/Airport Connector that is possible,
given the geography and operations needed to create both a countywide
MetroRail/bus system and a LAX that works well together.
--However,
the crazies and corrupting influences who continuously and repeatedly
suck up the oxygen from the Planning room in their intensity to replace
cars with bicycles, and who punish those who want mobility but not
overdevelopment (which decreases mobility), and who are dominated by
family/children-unfriendly/clueless advocates, are turning off those who
did (and still do) want to create a viable and livable 21st-Century Los
Angeles.
One thing I've
learned, and I pretty much everyone else involved with Neighborhood
Councils have learned, is that families with children--small, and
school-aged children--don't have the time, money or energy to go to
daytime or evening events that are dominated by those who will either
unintentionally and/or callously destroy what Angelenos need for
economic, environmental and quality of life improvements in our City.
This
issue has tie-ins with the reality of the City of LA having no ability
(or desire) to force or even work with the LAUSD to create more
cost-effective and cooperative park, library, open-space and related
needs with publicly-funded schools, but that's another topic
altogether--it hurts mobility and traffic and children's quality of life
in innumerable ways, but that's not the main focus of this article.
The
main focus is that the same transit advocates, and community advocates,
and environmental advocates, and neighborhood leaders, who fought for
the Expo Line, for a Metro/LAX connection and a workable
bus/bike/pedestrian/car cooperative system, are watching the Planning
leaders hellbent on converting the Expo Line-adjacent portion of Pico
Blvd. from a 1-story commercial thoroughfare to a 5-story corridor and
wondering: WHICH UNIVERSE ARE YOU LIVING IN?!
The
Expo Line is on its way to being completed in the Westside, and the
lack of DASH/local bus access for local residents, and the lack of
parking for long-distance commuters from the Valley and the South Bay,
is appalling. No money for sufficient parking, no money for a Westside
Regional Transit center adjacent to the 405 freeway and Expo Line, and
no money for DASH buses isn't going to sit well with the City taxpayers.
Neither,
of course, will overdeveloping Pico Blvd. (or any other City
rail-adjacent corridor) sit well with taxpayers and residents who not
that long ago watched with horror as former Mayor Villaraigosa chose to
treat the Westside the way he treated his family and throw them to the
wolves of the Casden Developers in an attempt to create as
transit-UNFRIENDLY a project as possible next to the key Expo/Sepulveda
station.
(Mayor
Garcetti...may I call you Eric? Eric, you really want Westsiders to
hate you as much as they hate Antonio Villaraigosa? Really?)
And
meaning no hurt feelings to some fighting for a proper bicycle network
throughout the City (as I have), but while bicycling is both good for
mobility and recreation, it is truly "jumping the shark" altogether by
suggesting that we can create a more economically-vibrant and mobile
City by slapping the bejeezus out of commuters who recognize that cars,
buses, rail and telecommuting will be far more successful when it comes
to numbers.
When the
transportation and environmental fighters (I won't mention names, but it
would probably surprise the Mayor as to their identities) are now
stunned and betrayed by City Planners who are more open to the input of
the agenda-driven and financially/politically-connected advocates and
developers then they are the citizenry who pay most of the taxes, it
doesn't bode well for more transportation planning...
Below are some of the highlights from this morning’s meeting of the Metro Board of Directors. The full agenda is here.
One of the New Flyer buses recently put into service in front of Metro HQ. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.
•Item 23. The Board approved exercising an option with New Flyer to
purchase an additional 350 new buses for $195 million on top of the 55o
previously ordered. These buses will replace 40-foot buses due to reach
the end of their useful lives with expiring compressed natural gas fuel
tanks; it’s illegal to continue to operate such buses and most will be
14- or 15-years-old by the time they’re retired. This option is part of
an ongoing Metro bus replacement project with some of the New Flyer
buses being put into service in recent months.
•Item 21. The Board approved a motion by four Board members (Eric
Garcetti, Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker, Don Knabe and James Butts) asking
Metro to study possibly extending the Silver Line south to the Palos
Verdes Peninsula. The Silver Line’s current last stop in the South Bay
is the Harbor Gateway Transit Center. The motion also asks Metro staff
to study ways to improve transfers to the Silver Line from Metro Bus
Lines 246 and 344.
•Item 50. The Metro Board heard an oral presentation on the agency’s
latest customer survey, which included a question about sexual
harassment experienced by bus and train riders. Twenty-two percent of
riders reported experiencing some unwanted form of sexual behavior.
Metro officials said that the agency has a zero-tolerance policy
toward sexual harassment and is a preparing a public awareness campaign
with the group Peace Over Violence and working with the Los Angeles
Sheriff’s Department to better police the system and crack down on
harassment.
Several Board Members voiced their concern over the issue while
recognizing it’s hardly limited to transit. Board Member Sheila Kuehl
said that a staff member had recently been harassed on an escalator in a
Metro station. Staff report and recent Source post with reader comments.
•Item 52. The Board approved a motion
by Board Members Michael D. Antonovich and Hilda Solis asking Metro
staff to develop a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to Red Light
violations by Metro trains (i.e. trains not stopping at train signals
telling them to stop). The motion also asks Metro to hire an independent
consultant to study the issue and determine its root cause. There have
been 38 Red Light violations in the past 24 months, according to Metro
data.
•Item 12. The Board approved seeking funds from the California
cap-and-trade program for two projects: 1) Improvements to the
Willowbrook/Rosa Parks Station on the Blue Line, along with Blue Line
signal and track upgrades to improve rail service, and; 2) Track
improvements to the Red/Purple Line adjacent to Union Station that would
allow trains to enter and exit the station more quickly. Staff report
•The Board approved a motion
by three Board Members (Eric Garcetti, Diane DuBois and Don Knabe) to
rename the Division 3 bus yard in Cypress Park to “Leahy Division 3″ as a
tribute to the family of outgoing Metro CEO Art Leahy. Art’s parents
both worked in transit and drove streetcars and met at Division 3 in the
years after World War II. Art was born in 1949 and later became a bus
operator with the RTD before jobs as CEO of OCTA, General Manager of
Metro Transit in the Twin Cities and then CEO of Metro for the past six
years. Art’s wife and brother are also transit veterans with many years
of service. Here’s a good Steve Lopez column that ran recently in the LAT about Art.
From Steve Madison, Pasadena City Councilperson, February 26, 2015
The publication Westways
(March/April 2015, page 12) has a short article of interest
that requests our opinion on the 710 Freeway Gap.
“…The Los
Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and
Caltrans conducted a study of a 100-square mile area to explore
options that would address the problem and reduce traffic
congestion. Ideas include an underground freeway tunnel, a
light-rail-line, express bus service, upgrading surface streets,
or leaving things as they are.”
Metro
is seeking our input on ways to address safety, traffic and
transportation in the area that affects District 6, Pasadena
and neighboring communities. It’s important that you express
your opinions now at metro.net/projects/sr-710-conversations.
Please wear your
NO 710 t-shirts or a red shirt. We will have NO710 buttons to
pass out.
Here's the flyer:
When
Monday
March
9,
2015
from
6:00
PM
to
8:30
PM
PDT Add
to
Calendar
Where
Cal
State
LA,
Golden
Eagle
Ballroom,
3rd floor
5151
State
University
Dr.
Los
Angeles,
CA
90032 Driving
Directions
SR-710
North
-
Extend
or
Not?
#SR710NForum
We
invite
you
to
join
with
the
many
residents
commuters,
and
other
stakeholders
in
the
region
who
are
seeking
an
opportunity
to
learn
more
about
all
aspects
of
this
complicated
and
far-reaching
issue.
The
Pat
Brown
Institute
at
Cal
State
L.A.
and
the
League
of
Women
Voters
of
Pasadena
are
committed
to
providing
high
quality
civic
education
experiences
to
the
people
of
Los
Angeles
County.
Please
plan
to
attend
Monday,
March
9th
for
#SR710NForum.
Motorists make their way out of downtown Los Angeles headed east on the Interstate 10 freeway on August 30, 2013.
FasTrak express lanes on the 10
Freeway turned two years old on Monday. They span 14 miles between
downtown L.A. and the 605 Freeway. They were supposed to improve traffic
flow. But so far: no such luck.
MTA officials say it's all about the economy.
There are more drivers on the 10 Freeway now than there were a year
ago. And express lane drivers can't complain. Their speeds have stayed
consistently above average of 45 miles per hour during peak travel
times.
But solo drivers in the general purpose lanes might feel differently.
Between September 2013 and September 2014, their speeds during the
morning commute dropped from 40 miles per hour to 31 on the stretch
between the 605 and Fremont Avenue.
Metro is a big fan of the express lane and wants more of them.
This summer, its board members will consider extending lanes on the
110 south to the 405 and converting lanes on a portion of the 105.
It would help Metro's bottom line — it's collected more than $21 million on express lanes on the 10 Freeway.
DOWNTOWN LOS
ANGELES - Downtown is quickly becoming a hub of technology, new business
and innovation. Yet when you’re mired in gridlock on Spring Street,
staring at a sea of red taillights, it can feel like the neighborhood is
stuck in the transportation dark ages.
Leaders in transportation, mass transit and
technology came together on Thursday, Feb. 19, to discuss and predict
the future of traveling in and around Downtown. The “L.A. Fast Track”
conference was hosted by the Central City Association at the L.A. Hotel.
Seleta Reynolds, general manager of the city Department of Transportation, was bullish on the community’s potential.
“Downtown is where I think L.A. is going to
establish itself as a national leader in transportation,” said Reynolds,
who took over the department in August after being hired by Mayor Eric
Garcetti.
“People here are open and ready for the kinds of investment
and 21st century infrastructure that we can make.”
Participants in a panel discussion
addressed the need to move away from car-centric planning and refocus on
ways to diversify travel in a dense urban center. Reynolds, who
moderated the panel, pointed to Broadway, where driving lanes have been trimmed and the sidewalks widened.
It is currently in a “dress rehearsal”
phase, but Reynolds is optimistic about the results and what they could
mean for both residents and businesses. She said studies show that
streetscape improvements can boost revenues by 5%-12%.
“Downtown is a fantastic place for us to start,” she said.
“We’ve spent 100 years figuring out how to
get more cars through Downtown at the expense of our communities and the
built environment and accessibility,” Ortmann said.
He also expressed optimism that the
streetcar would get a dedicated lane, rather than sharing it with other
vehicles, which some studies have shown boosts traffic efficiency.
Garcetti, who delivered the conference’s
keynote speech, addressed the importance of innovation and risk-taking.
He also pointed to a telling statistic: The city averages 1.1 persons in
a car at any given moment. If that was bumped to 1.6, Los Angeles
wouldn’t have a congestion problem, he said.
“Traffic is perhaps the most vexing issue
and the one we lose the most productivity and dollars and sleep over,”
he said. “The potential for [Downtown] to be the center of solving
transportation problems and being a model for L.A. is more robust, more
fertile than ever before.”
What could such innovation look like? Alan
Clelland, a senior vice president at transportation consulting and
engineering firm Iteris, championed the idea of shared driverless cars
that roam the streets. It makes no sense, he said, for “your second-most
expensive purchase” to sit idle for 22 hours of the day.
Meanwhile, Kathleen Penney, vice president
of the Washington, D.C., consulting firm CH2M Hill, discussed the
construction of a 27-mile bike path along the city’s Anacostia River,
saying it has become a valued transportation resource as well as a
recreational feature.
Such changes will come with pushback, Garcetti said, but he urged attendees to believe in the city’s transportation potential.
“There will always be counterarguments. ‘Why are we spending all this money? You’re trying to force me out of my car. Can’t you just have more parking spaces?’ We’ve had that philosophy for many years,” Garcetti said. “Can we all just say it’s a failed philosophy?”
A man rides his bike in a bicycle shed near Central Station Amsterdam.
Amsterdam is currently tackling a problem most cities can only dream of having: It has way too many bikes.
So massively popular is cycling in the Netherlands' largest city that
the city center has run out of places to put them all. Amsterdam’s
daily two-wheeled commuter flood fills downtown with more bikes than it
has space to park, forcing the city come up with a drastic, visionary
solution. It’s going to park those bikes underwater. Oh, and on water,
too.
A women parks her bike in a bicycle shed near Central Station Amsterdam.
The city has just announced a plan to excavate a 7,000-space bicycle garage under the Ij, the former bay (now a lake thanks to the construction of the Afsluitdijk
barrier) that forms Amsterdam’s waterfront. The lake forms a sort of
moat around the city’s Central Station, its main transit hub and a place
where it could be possible to connect a subaquatic bike catacomb
directly via tunnel to the city’s metro system. Stacking a total of
21,500 new bike spaces around the station by 2030, Amsterdam also plans
to create two new floating islands with space for 2000 bikes each. Add
this to the 2,500 spaces already in place and you have what will
comfortably be the largest bike parking accomodations in the world.
This might seem like a pretty grand infrastructure overhaul just to
stow a few bikes, but Amsterdam’s cycling statistics are phenomenal. A
massive 57 percent of Amsterdammers use their bikes daily,
with 43 percent of them commuting to and from work using pedal power.
It helps that this is a city in which cycling is particularly easy to
do—the terrain is flat, the city compact and segregated bike paths make
it pretty safe, while central canals often make road widening to
accommodate cars impossible anyway.
The
problem is what to do with bikes when they arrive downtown. Inner
Amsterdam is densely built with often narrow streets, and bicycles
chained up randomly here and there can become a major headache. So
infested is Amsterdam with wrongly parked bicycles that in 2013 the city
had to remove a phenomenal 73,000
of them from the streets. This is expensive—it costs from €50 to €70
per bike, while owners pay €10-12 to retrieve them from the pound. The
city could increase the release fee, of course, but Amsterdam is also a
great place in which to buy a cheap used bike—there’s a sense that many
local scofflaws would simply buy another before paying a large fine.
All round, offering a lot more real parking places is a better and
ultimately cheaper option. But where to put them? Not only is central
Amsterdam full, but thanks to its marshy soil, it’s not an easy place to
create basements either. Plans a while back to give canal houses
parking places went as far as planning to temporarily drain the canals
to build vaults in the clay beneath them. In a tight, soggy space like
this, constructing under and on water is often the best solution, which
makes the plan for Amsterdam’s Central Station less surprising. It
should be impressive when it's finished. Within 15 years, the building
will bristle both above and below ground with so many stacks of bikes
that it may end up resembling some sort of vast brick pincushion.
The beginning (left) and end (right) of the southern section of the 210
Freeway as seen from Del Mar Blvd. towards California Blvd. in Pasadena
on Tuesday, October 2, 2012.
The City of La Cañada Flintridge will host a workshop on how to
submit effective comments for the draft Environmental Impact Report for
the 710 Freeway extension project, due to be released this month.
Topics will include a brief history of the California Environmental
Quality Act, the contents of an Environmental Impact Report, the
environmental review process and how to target your comments on the
draft.
Metro also announced that once the release occurred, community stakeholders would have 90 days to respond to findings. By law, Caltrans is required to allow a response window of only 45 days.
The workshop will be led by Delaine Shane, who has more than 34 years
of experience preparing environmental documents in both the public and
private sectors, according to a city notice.
The event will be held Saturday, Feb. 28 from 10 a.m. to noon at the
City Hall Council Chambers, located at 1327 Foothill Boulevard.
Space is limited and reservations for the event will be taken on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Attendees are asked to RSVP to Jan SooHoo at jan@soohoos.org
Take a look at the image above. This rendering represents modern bus
rapid transit service. The BRT vehicle travels in its own separate lane,
free from the constraints of traffic congestion or traffic lights. The
bus is sleek and the shelter is pleasant. If you could see the boarding
procedure, too, you'd find that passengers buy their fares ahead of
time, enabling them to enter quickly through any door, just as they do
on a train.
Now take a look at the image below, which shows a modern light rail
service. The scenes are remarkably similar. This train travels in the
same dedicated lane and even has the same style. The only real
difference you'll find, if you look very close, is the faint sign of
tracks on the ground. Given
what we know from these two pictures alone, there's no reason to
suspect these two rides—modern BRT or modern light rail—would be
noticeably different experiences. And yet when transport scholars David
Hensher and Corinne Mulley of the University of Sydney Business School
showed these images to about 1,370 people in six Australian capital
cities, the difference in preference was enormous.
For the study,
Hensher and Mulley gave survey respondents the two images above, plus
two others whose only difference was older-looking vehicle styles (one
bus and one train), and asked them to rank the four images in terms of
"which one you would like to travel in most." They found that 55 percent
chose the modern light rail image, and another 18 percent chose the
older light rail. Only about 17 percent chose the modern BRT. Just 10
percent chose the classic old bus.
The responses varied slightly among individual cities—Sydney,
Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Perth—but only slightly. A
majority of respondents ranked the modern light rail image first in
every city except Sydney, where 49 percent gave it the top rating. The
modern BRT got more first-place votes than the old bus across the board,
but it never eclipsed 20 percent in any city.
What makes those findings more vexing is that every city involved in
the survey is familiar with both modes. In other words, lack of
awareness of BRT couldn't explain the preference gap. Even in Brisbane
and Adelaide, where BRT is more prevalent than light rail, the train
earned top marks: 53 and 56 percent chose it first, respectively, to
about 18 percent in each place for modern BRT. The
results suggest, at a very superficial level, "that 'bus' has a
relatively bad image, and that BRT suffers from its indirect association
with bus, with a very high preference for non-bus images," as Hensher
and Mulley put it. So we might be tempted to conclude that people simply
like trains more than buses. But as the rest of this study (and others)
show, that simplified conclusion would be wrong.
Buses Are Boring — Unless They Run Well
Paraphrasing a former mayor of Los Angeles, Hensher tells CityLab
there's an overwhelming perception "that buses are boring and trains are
sexy." That mindset complicates the discussion of mass transit plans in
growing metros: though advanced bus systems can perform as well or
better than streetcar or light rail systems for less money, people would
rather have trains. In previous work, Hensher has called this emotional
preference a "blind commitment":
The main point is that the enthusiasm (almost blind commitment) for
LRT [light rail] has caused many to overlook the potential for more
cost-effective bus-based systems and even simpler improvements to bus
services that do not require dedicated right of way.
For sure, some people have an almost ideological preference to
certain modes of public transportation. But as with so much else we take
on faith, that blind commitment breaks down in the face of exposure.
As
Hensher and Mulley dug deeper into the data, they found that images
alone didn't tell the whole story. On the contrary, certain ridership
factors influenced bus perceptions in a positive way. Respondents who
had taken more trips by bus in the past month, for instance, had a
higher probability of preferring a bus image to a train image. Ditto for
those who'd gotten a seat for the entirety of a recent bus trip. Ditto
again for those who'd taken any mode of transit in the past month, compared to those who had not.
The results, conclude the authors, underscore "the importance of
exposure and experience in using public transport as conditioning
preferences for bus and light rail options." One reason they suspect
Sydney residents gave buses the highest bus rankings, relative to other
cities, is that service there has recently improved. In other words,
people might indeed have an initial tendency to dislike the bus, but
once they get on board and find it's not so bad, those feelings start to
change.
The findings echo a study from 2013
that also showed how transit service can matter more to riders than
transit type. Analyzing 44 BRT systems and 57 light rail (and streetcar)
systems, Graham Currie and Alexa Delbosc of Monash University in
Australia found that the rail systems did, on average, carry more
passengers. But once they adjusted for capacity, they found that routes
with better service—features like higher frequency and integrated
ticketing—"attract more ridership than low-service routes."
In another recent study,
Hensher and Mulley (along with colleague Chinh Ho) showed a
head-to-head transit proposal to 1,018 people in eight Australian
cities. One proposal was labeled BRT, the other light rail. The
construction costs were the same for each system, but many of the 20
service and design features included in the proposals varied, including
construction timeline, frequency, travel time, fare, and expected
mode-switch from cars. A
University of Sydney Business School survey found a bias against
BRT—but that disappeared when researchers adjusted for the service
features they deemed irrelevant (above, a sample survey).
(Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice)With
all 20 features in play—including, critically, the name of the
system—people seemed to prefer light rail to BRT. But the researchers
also asked respondents to mark which service attributes they deemed
irrelevant. When the preferences were tallied again through the lens of
what "really mattered" to riders, lo and behold, the bias against buses
disappeared. Or, as Hensher and Mulley put it, "the modal image
expressed through the name is, on average, of no consequence":
Hence we might suggest from this evidence that once what really
matters (differentially) to each individual is narrowed down, the
LRT-BRT distinction blurs into a domain of non-relevance.
Marketing Alone Isn't Enough
The point is not to pretend that everyone secretly hearts buses. That is not the case. A lot of people really un-heart buses.
Their reasons range from defensible to disturbing. Some rightly
equate trains with unfettered movement while seeing bus travel as
captive to the same congestion that cars endure, but without the
benefits of privacy or trip flexibility. Others suffer from what Hensher
calls an "obsession with technology." Still others—namely, public
officials—simply go where the free federal money is. We've seen that
before with the people mover, and may be seeing it again in places with
the modern streetcar.
And, fair or foul, buses carry a social stigma for some people in some places. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported results
from focus groups held to gauge the public perception of bus travel in
Los Angeles. The comments they received about local bus service, in
particular, had a pretty consistent (and appalling) theme of "shame":
"I'm ashamed to tell that I am taking buses…In Europe, I wouldn’t. But here, they would think, 'Did he lose his job?' "
"The shame factor is majorly big."
"I'm just saying that when I was in L.A. and I was in the car and just looking in at the bus…the people getting on….it just seems scary..."
If a shameful image of buses were the whole of the problem, we
could probably throw some ad money at it and change the conversation.
Indeed, citing this 2009 DOT report, Josh Barro of the Upshot
recently argued that cities can save money on rail projects by spending
more on bus marketing. But while the right ad campaign could help at
the margins, what the research in the preceding section really shows us
is that transit service influences transit perceptions—not the other way
around. The Orange Line BRT in Los Angeles has shown that good service will attract new bus riders. Barro
points to the success of L.A.'s Orange Line, for instance, as evidence
that "it is possible to overcome anti-bus bias with the right amenities
and marketing." But in doing so, he mistakes the Orange Line's integral
service improvements, such as high frequencies and dedicated lanes, for
amenities at best or marketing ploys at worst, when in fact they
represent a fundamentally stronger system. To suggest that reliable
service and exclusive lanes are a product of savvy marketing is to
suggest that Michael Jordan jumped high because Nike said so.
You can sense the magnitude of the change from buses to BRT in the
way L.A. riders speak about the Orange Line, at least as captured in the
2009 DOT report. Riders can't seem to reconcile that it's a bus at all;
instead, they describe it the same way they'd describe a train. Some
actually called it a "train-bus":
"I was informed that what I take is the bus but I don’t consider the Orange Line a bus. I think of it as a train."
"…my main issue is efficiency, speed...what I associate with that is the Orange Line, the subway system, the railways, any dedicated streets or maybe a dedicated lane."
"At least the Orange Line has its own busway. Nothing but buses.
That’s why I like it. And you have the clock thing when the next one's
coming and you feel like it's a New York subway."
So it's possible that some people just love trains more than
buses. But it's equally likely, in many cases, that people have just
used "trains" to mean "good transit" and "buses" to mean "bad transit."
If that's the case, then marketing better buses as something like trains
(or, at least, something other than buses) should weaken this automatic
association. But such efforts will fall flat without meaningful
investments in well-designed service: dedicated lanes, reliable peak and off-peak service, off-board fare payments, comfortable stations or enhanced shelters, or reconfigured routes, to start the list. A pretty picture alone isn't enough.
To develop a vision and policies for moving a greater share of state
transportation dollars to projects and outcomes that are more
cost-effective and better aligned with environmental goals a group of
transportation advocates, experts and public officials, gathered at the
University of California, Los Angeles in October 2014 for a discussion
sponsored by the University of California Berkeley and Los Angeles
Schools of Law and recently published this findings in a new report – Moving Dollars: Aligning Transportation Spending with California’s Environmental Goals.
The report finds: California’s state, regional and local
governments spend roughly $28 billion a year on transportation
infrastructure projects, with almost half of that amount derived from
local funding sources. Local decision-makers control almost
three-quarters of these funds, while state agencies control the
remaining quarter. Year after year, the majority of these dollars goes
to automobile infrastructure, including new road and highway expansion
projects. The continued predominant financial support for automobile
infrastructure particularly new road and highway expansion projects,
undermines California’s environmental goals. With relatively little
funding remaining for alternative transportation modes, it also
increases transportation costs for residents. And it exacerbates
inequality related to housing, transportation affordability, and access
to jobs.
Contributor Jeff Tumlin from Nelson/Nygaard states, “We still don’t
have an objective, state-wide basis for determining good projects from
bad projects. The only thing that we look at is whether the funding
pieces are in place.” One of the key recommendations of the report is
the need for performance measures to evaluate and select projects at the
state and regional level.
The report states, “A performance standards-based model
would encourage transportation decision-making that results in better
outcomes in terms of traffic reduction, mobility, public health,
affordability, and emissions. The standards would need to be accompanied
by accountability measures and possibly land use incentives to
encourage growth around sustainable infrastructure. Ultimately, these
performance standards would help state leaders better communicate state
goals among state agencies and to regional and local officials on
transportation spending priorities.”
People in Westwood are suddenly optimistic that Councilmember Paul
Koretz is close to turning around on bicycle lanes on major streets.
Momentum is building for bike lanes on Westwood Boulevard just north of
National Boulevard. We’ll see.
Today – A host of community and national advocacy
groups are hosting a conference on shared-use mobility even as you read
this calendar. Unless you’re reading it on tomorrow. Then it’s over.
Read my preview from last week, right here.
Today - Come out to express to the WVIA the need
for bicycle infrastructure on Westwood Blvd. — a key direct route to and
from campus for many cyclists — to enhance safe travel options,
community health, and support thriving businesses. Ryan Snyder,
President, Ryan Snyder Associates, LLC, will give a special presentation
on the proposed Westwood Boulevard Bikeways “Remove Nothing Plan” to
local merchants, neighbors, and stakeholders. Get the details, here.
Wednesday – The City Council Transportation Committee will not be meeting this week. See the notice, here.
Wednesday – Bike lanes are bad! Tunnels for
freeways are good! This is some of the insanity that has been thrown
around in the CD 14 race between Councilmember Jose Huizar, Supervisor
Gloria Molina, and Nadine Diaz. The last forum in the race is this
Wednesday in Eagle Rock. Get the details on Facebook.
Thursday – The Metro Board of Directors holds its monthly meeting. You can read the agenda, here. You can read the highlights from last week’s committee meetings, here.
Thursday - South L.A. community leaders will share
their diverse and dynamic visions for food justice, urban agriculture,
community arts, and recreation from 6 – 7:30 p.m. at a USC Visions and
Voices panel. Panelists include South L.A. notables Ben Caldwell (Kaos
Network); Karen Mack (LA Commons); Javier “JP” Partida (Los Ryderz); and
Neelam Sharma (Community Services Unlimited). Details, here.
Sunday – C.I.C.L.E. will lead a community bicycle
ride, “Tweed, Moxie, and Mustaches,” through Cypress Park and Glassell
Park to pedal back in time. This expedition, open to all bicyclists,
will make several stops, including the Heritage Square Museum, a living
history museum, as well as the former Van de Kamp Holland Dutch Bakery,
built in the early 1900s. Participants will get a taste of history at
each stop. Get the details, here.
March 11 - Santa Monica Next will host a happy hour with the team from Gehl Architects visiting for the West Coast Urban District Forum. RSVP on Facebook.
As you read this, shipping bound for the US is anchored and rotting off our coast.
LEANING RIGHT-Mexico's government
is preparing the largest infrastructure project in the nation's history,
a $4-billion seaport at Punta Colonet that could transform this farming
village into a cargo hub to rival the ports of Los Angeles and Long
Beach.
If
completed as planned the port will be the linchpin of a new shipping
route linking the Pacific Ocean to America's heartland. Vessels bearing
shipping containers from Asia would offload them on Mexico's Baja
peninsula, about 150 miles south of Tijuana, where they would be whisked
over newly constructed rail lines to the United States.
The trucking and shipping will be done by Mexican contractors.
"All the major players … they'll be here," said a confident Rodriguez Arregui, who is overseeing the selection process.
The
prospect of billionaires duking it out over this remote stretch of Baja
underscores just how lucrative the movement of goods between Asia and
North America has become. About 30 million containers crossed the
Pacific last year, a flow that had been increasing by about 10% annually
for more than a decade until recently. And, though transpacific trade
has slowed because of weakness in the U.S. economy, experts said those
figures would continue to grow over time.
With
the West Coast's largest port complex, LA-Long Beach, constrained by
urban development and environmental regulations and endless labor
issues, shippers are searching for alternatives.
Punta
Colonet has emerged as an attractive option. It's close to the United
States. It possesses a wide, natural harbor. And it's located in a
rural, lightly populated area offering almost unlimited room for
expansion.
"In the long
run … it could get to the size of Long Beach-LA," which last year
handled 15.7 million containers combined. "Without a doubt, this is one
of the biggest green-field projects ever to be done" in the industry.
The
plan is nothing if not ambitious. Punta Colonet would be the first
major seaport built in North America in nearly a century. When
completed, the port will be the linchpin of a new shipping route linking
the Pacific Ocean to America's heartland. Vessels bearing shipping
containers from Asia would offload them here on Mexico's Baja peninsula,
about 150 miles south of Tijuana, where they would be whisked over
newly constructed rail lines to the United States.
Panama
is also in the midst of a $5.3-billion expansion of its landmark canal.
Canada, whose coast is the shortest sailing distance from Asia, is
looking to capitalize on that advantage with $3 billion in port and rail
improvements to speed cargo to the United States.
Panama
is in the midst of a $5.3-billion expansion of its landmark canal.
Canada, whose coast is the shortest sailing distance from Asia, is
looking to capitalize on that advantage with $3 billion in port and rail
improvements to speed cargo to the United States.
The enlarging of the Panama Canal will allow any ship in the world to use it.
Ports
along the West, East and Gulf coasts of the U.S. have begun their own
upgrades. So has Mexico's own Puerto Lazaro Cardenas on the Pacific
Coast of the state of Michoacan.
Right
now Southern California is in a ‘chicken little’ mode and nothing
getting done other than report generation will result in nothing
accomplished. This in turn will result in the loss of millions of
dollars worth of business and of thousands of jobs.
The west coast of the United States has finally done something to counter these threats from Mexico and Panama.
Wait just a minute. We have finally done something. We have shut down all US west coast ports.
