Metro agreed to hire a group called InfraConsult LLC to help identify highway and transit projects that could benefit from public-private partnerships

Article here

The Staples Subway to the Sea?

Updated 1:42 PM PDT, Fri, May 1, 2009

 Post a CommentCould you soon be driving in a carpool lane or riding a subway built and operated by a private company? Maybe. At their most recent board meeting, Metro agreed to hire a group called InfraConsult LLC to help identify highway and transit projects that could benefit from public-private partnerships.

The partnerships can be done in a variety of ways: One example is that corporations help finance and operate infrastructure projects and then lease the projects back to the city/county/state to make back their investment. Additionally, governments typically offer tax breaks to make this venture more tasty to private companies. In their announcement,

Metro cites successful PPPs that helped build a toll road system in Indiana and an under-construction rail line to D.C.'s Dulles Airport. And there are naming possibilities, too, according to Kathleen Sanchez, project manager of public-private partnerships at Metro. Speaking generally about the whole PPPs process, she said: "We are going to look at all our projects and screen them and see what types of projects are suitable."

She also outlined how money could be transferred to other projects via the deal. "If we had planned to spend money on constructing a project like a toll lane, instead of putting that money into the toll lane, the private entity would pay for it, and we would figure out how to pay them back... It's like a mortgage. In the meantime, we could use the money [meant for the toll lane] to build something else." OK, the mortgage reference makes us a little jumpy. But we'll wait to hear more. In related news, City News Service (via NBC) reported that the City Council just OK'd a $500K study to privatize city parking meters and six city parking garages. [Metro]

Copyright © 2009 Curbed LA

The Transit Coalition, an advocacy group, has a very informative website

TTC Overview,The Transit Coalition

A Range of Coalition Objectives

The Coalition works to develop a safe, integrated, cost effective and environmentally sound public transportation system for the greater Los Angeles Region. The Transit Coalition realizes that government must not only look at the tangible cost of running and building a public transportation network, but also the intangible benefits that such a system provides, such as better health, less pollution, reasonable travel time, ease of use, coordinated schedules with a minimum amount of transferring between routes.

Dennis Lytton not only supports The Transit Coalition, he can also be found doing other volunteer work. The picture above shows Dennis as a docent volunteer for Metro's Art Docent Council as he gives one of his many tours. Dennis can normally be found giving his Art Tours at Los Angeles's Union Station, at the Red Line Subway stations and along the Gold Line Light Rail line at its stations.
Varieties of Transportation Modes

Los Angeles has many different modes of public transportation. Commuter Rail, Heavy Rail (Subway), Light Rail, Rapid and Express Bus, Local Bus and Shuttle Bus. Even with the opening of the Gold Line, Los Angeles still has much work ahead to make our Public Transportation System even better than we have today.

LA 'tap' cards are latest trend in transit systems

New direction for transit system

New direction for transit system
Compass cards replacing paper passes with plastic
By Steve Schmidt Union-Tribune Staff Writer

2:00 a.m. May 1, 2009
COMPASS CARD: BY THE NUMBERS


$40 million: Cost to develop the new pass program

80,000: Monthly transit pass holders in the San Diego region

1,200: Electronic devices placed in buses and at transit stations to read the high-tech card

511: Phone number for additional information on the card

SOURCE: San Diego Association of Governments

From the buses to the rails of San Diego County's sprawling mass transit system, paper is giving way to plastic.

A transit pass akin to a credit card debuts today on the Coaster train and on premium express bus routes. By late summer, it will replace all monthly paper passes in the region.

At least that's the plan.

The San Diego Association of Governments and local public transit agencies wanted to roll out the new Compass card in 2006, but equipment and installation problems, along with a protracted contract dispute, forced delays.

“We had every issue under the sun,” said James Dreisbach-Towle, who manages the program for SANDAG.

Beginning this morning, commuters who have purchased Compass cards in recent days must tap the monthly pass against an electronic reader as they board a Coaster train or an express bus route through North County.

The reader senses an electronic chip embedded in the card, giving riders the go-ahead to step onboard and providing transit operators with passenger data that could help them refine routes and schedules.

Similar “smart cards” have been introduced in recent years in Atlanta, Los Angeles and other cities. The San Diego card will be sold online, over the phone, in Vons stores and, unlike monthly paper passes, through fare machines at transit stations.

“A lot of people are going to readily see the convenience of it,” said Paul Jablonski, chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transit System in San Diego.

The monthly pass will be expanded to all transit systems in the county, including the MTS trolley, starting July 1.

The program cost $40 million, including the price of manufacturing and installing 1,200 card readers. SANDAG officials said nearly all the money came from state and federal grants.

About 80,000 county residents, or roughly two out of three mass transit riders, use a monthly pass. By eliminating monthly paper passes, transit agencies will save on printing costs. Coins and bills will still be accepted for single trips.

“It's a brand new habit, a brand new way of doing things,” Dreisbach-Towle said.

SANDAG, MTS and the North County Transit District have launched an aggressive campaign to educate locals about the reusable card.

The effort includes placing “ambassadors” at transit stops to explain how the card works. A Web page also has been created (compass.511sd.com).

Still, some commuter confusion is inevitable, Dreisbach-Towle said.

Officials with the Los Angeles County Metro system said there was initial confusion when they introduced a similar card last year. Jane Matsumoto, a Metro administrator, said some commuters didn't realize their card was reusable month after month – as the Compass card is.

“(Today) there are still some unhappy people, . . . but our bus drivers and customers are happy with (the card),” Matsumoto said.

Fare-enforcement officers aboard trains and trolleys will carry readers to check the validity of each Compass card.

Compass cards for the NCTD's Sprinter and Breeze transit systems will be sold starting May 20, for use beginning June 1. Cards for MTS buses and the trolley will be available starting June 20, and effective July 1.

The cost of an adult monthly regional pass, which is good for rides on the MTS system, Breeze routes and the Sprinter, is set to rise to $72 from $68 in July. The MTS and NCTD offer discounted passes to seniors, youth and the disabled.

Jablonski said the Compass program opens the door to the creation of new types of passes.

Officials plan to introduce a 30-day pass that can begin on any day of the month, unlike the current monthly pass. By year's end, the MTS also may allow riders to buy Compass cards based on the number of trips they expect to take.

The MTS and NCTD will continue to sell paper day passes.

Initial planning for the system began about a decade ago, but the project was held up by installation problems, software glitches and other issues.

An eight-month contract dispute between SANDAG and Cubic Corp., which developed the card technology, slowed development further and added $1.75 million to the project cost, Dreisbach-Towle said.

He said the slow roll-out over the next few months is by design.

“We're starting small so that if we encounter any problem we can fix it,” he said.

Steve Schmidt: (619) 293-1380; steve.schmidt@uniontrib.com

High-speed train project's potential negative impacts on the city of Barstow

City reps criticize high speed train project | reps, barstow, speed - News - Desert Dispatch

City reps criticize high speed train project

Train proponents hope to work together
April 30, 2009 - 4:15 PM
By ABBY SEWELL, staff writer

BARSTOW • During a public comment session in Barstow Wednesday night on a proposed high-speed rail line that would run from Victorville to Las Vegas, city officials and residents remained critical of the project’s lack of plans for a stop in Barstow and the potential for the route to encroach on development in the city’s industrial park.

Project proponents said they hope to come to a win-win solution with the city.

The DesertXpress train is a privately funded project proposed by DesertXpress Enterprises. It would run 125- to 150-mile-per-hour trains along the Interstate 15 corridor using either diesel or electric power. The Federal Railroad Administration released its draft environmental statement on the project in late March and is currently taking public comments on the draft before finalizing it.

Barstow’s City Council unanimously voted at a special meeting Tuesday to approve written comments that criticize the environmental document for failing to analyze placement of a station or maintenance facility in Barstow. The comments also highlighted the potential impacts on development from a proposed route that would cross diagonally through the Barstow Industrial Park.

Former Mayor Lawrence Dale said at the meeting Wednesday that the train would cut through eight potential buildings that could be developed in the industrial park, costing hundreds of jobs.

Other commenters questioned whether the train project would be viable and whether it would really relieve congestion on Interstate 15, when people would still need to drive up the Cajon Pass from the Los Angeles Basin in order to board the train in Victorville.
“(Californians) love their cars, and they’re not going to let them go to come to Victorville to go to Vegas,” said Barstow resident Carmen Hernandez, who also sits on the city’s Planning Commission.

The Council previously voted to oppose the DesertXpress and support a competing project, the federally funded California-Nevada Interstate Maglev Project, a 300-mile-per-hour train that would run from Anaheim to Las Vegas using magnetic levitation technology and would have both a stop and a central maintenance yard in Barstow. That project has stalled over a number of issues, but California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission Executive Director Richann Bender, who attended the public comment session Wednesday, said a draft environmental impact statement for that project should be completed in the next 12 to 18 months.

Maglev proponents estimate the cost of construction at $12 to $15 billion, while DesertXpress proponents peg their project’s costs at $3.5 to $4 billion.

DesertXpress representatives said after Wednesday’s hearing that they were concerned by the city’s official stance of opposing the DesertXpress project but remain willing to work with the city on siting a station in Barstow, as long as it proves feasible. Company President Tom Stone and Vice President Andrew Mack said DesertXpress representatives had met with Dale and City Manager Hector Rodriguez shortly after a July 2006 scoping meeting where Dale expressed concerns about the lack of a stop in Barstow.

Mack said the city officials had not expressed issues with the route through the industrial park at that time and had, in fact, agreed that the industrial park would be a suitable site for a station. Stone said DesertXpress had been willing to include a Barstow station in the draft enivironmental report but did not receive information they requested on the city’s preferred site until late in 2008.

Both Dale and Rodriguez said Thursday that the city had criticized the routing through the industrial park from the beginning and did not recall ever having discussed siting a station there.

“Why have a station five miles away from where we were going to build a casino?” Rodriguez said, referring to plans for an off-reservation casino in the Lenwood area.

The former mayor and city manager said they did not recall meeting with DesertXpress representatives in 2006.

For the Council to change its stance on the DesertXpress, the members would need to be convinced that the project will not have a negative effect on Barstow, city spokesman John Rader said.

Federal Railroad Administration project manager Wendy Messenger said the FRA is looking at a tentative timeline of nine to 12 months after the public comment period closes May 22 before the final environmental report is done.

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or asewell@desertdispatch.com

The DesertXpress draft environmental impact statement is available for viewing at http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/1703.
Mail comments by May 22, 2009 to:
Attn: DesertXpress DEIS
UDOT Federal Railroad Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue S.E. MS-20
Washington, D.C. 20590
or email to:
wendy.messenger@dot.gov, with subject line “DesertXpress DEIS”

Funding problem for high-speed rail has been a barrier for decades

Billions For High-Speed Rail: Anyone Aboard?

Billions For High-Speed Rail: Anyone Aboard?

NEW YORK (AP) - To Americans, high-speed trains evoke the gee-whiz factor of a trip to Tomorrowland: Ride futuristic cars that zoom you to a destination in a fraction of the drive time - without having to fight your way through an airport. Read a book, do paperwork, take a nap while you whoosh ahead in high-speed comfort.

To governments, they evoke benefits to the common good - reduced freeway traffic, lower carbon pollution and more jobs.

But this country has never built a high-speed “bullet” train rivaling the successful systems of Europe and Asia, where passenger railcars have blurred by at top speeds nearing 200 mph for decades.

Since the 1980s, every state effort to reproduce such service has failed. The reasons often boil down to poor planning and simple mathematics.

Yet President Barack Obama, intent on harnessing new technology to rebuild the devastated economy, made a last-minute allocation of $8 billion for high-speed rail in his mammoth stimulus plan.

It sounds good, but that amount isn’t enough to build a single system, or to dramatically increase existing train speeds, transportation experts say.

California is the only state with an active project, and its proposed cost is more than five times the stimulus amount. The $42 billion plan is far from shovel ready - it’s still seeking local approvals - but it’s farther down the track than any other state with an outstretched hand for a slice of Obama’s high-speed pie.

There are rail advocates who say anything is better than nothing when it comes to modernizing U.S. train transportation, which needs all the help it can get. Others say the stimulus injection is like adding a teaspoon of water to the ocean and calling it high tide.

Roughly six proposed routes with federal approval for high-speed rail stand a good chance of getting some of the $8 billion award, according to U.S. Transportation Department officials. The spurs include parts of Texas, Florida, the Chicago region, and southeast routes through North Carolina and Louisiana.

Officials in those areas have said they’d be happy to take part of the president’s offer, even though they don’t have high-speed systems to pump money into. Talking with reporters recently, Obama said he’d love to see such trains in his former state of Illinois linking Chicago to Wisconsin, Missouri and Michigan.

The economic benefit is enormous, the president said. “Railroads were always the pride of America, and stitched us together. Now Japan, China, all of Europe have high-speed rail systems that put ours to shame.”

New Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman also from Illinois, said developing high-speed rail is the country’s No. 1 transportation priority.

“ Anybody who has ever traveled in Europe or Japan knows that high-speed rail works and that it’s very effective,” LaHood said in an interview.

What exactly is “high-speed”? It depends on the location. The U.S. Federal Railroad Administration says the term applies to trains traveling more than 90 mph. The European Union standard is above 125 mph.

And many overseas bullet trains - most powered by overhead electricity lines - run faster than that. In France, for example, the TGV (“Train Ga Grande Vitesse”) covers the 250 miles between Paris and Lyon in one hour, 55 minutes at an average speed of about 133 mph. A 25,000-horsepower French train reached 357.2 mph in 2007, setting a world record for conventional train systems.

In Japan, which opened the first high-speed rail in the 1960s and carries more passengers than any other country, Shinkansen trains hurtle the countryside at an average of about 180 mph. Japan’s magnetically levitated train - different from conventional wheels-on-rails technology - holds the overall world speed record at 361 mph.

Super-fast trains also run in Germany, Spain and China, at speeds up to 140 mph, according to a 2007 survey in the trade publication Railway Gazette.

The only rail service that qualifies under America’s lower high-speed standard is Amtrak’s 9-year old Acela Express route connecting Boston to Washington, D.C.

The trains are built to reach speeds up to 150 mph, but only average about 80 mph because of curving tracks and slower-moving freight and passenger trains that share the route. On the densely traveled line from New York City to the nation’s capital, the Acela arrives just about 20 minutes earlier than standard service, at more than twice the cost during peak travel times.

For instance, a one-way Acela fare leaving New York at 11 a.m. is $155. The same departure on a regular train costs $72.

“ In virtually no way does the Acela Express perform near overseas standards,” says author Joseph Vranich, a former Amtrak public affairs spokesman and president of the High Speed Rail Association. In 2004 he wrote a highly critical book titled, “End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America’s Passenger Trains.”

He’s equally unimpressed with the federal stimulus money.

Trying to make American trains run faster will always go off the rails, Vranich says, as long as planners keep trying to recreate overseas systems. “We’re not Europe. We’re not Japan. We’re looking at shorter travel times, through population densities that are much higher.”

In other words, plans to put a screaming bullet train through American towns with concentrated populations will always face hard challenges.

Which is part of the reason previous efforts failed in Florida, Texas and Southern California - all of which have approved plans for high-speed train service, then later cancelled them.

In 1982, a hastily written $2 billion bullet train bill sailed through the closing days of the legislative season and was signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, a longtime cheerleader for fast rail. The measure specifically exempted the project from the state’s strict environmental review process and allowed California to underwrite tax-exempt revenue bonds to help fund the 125-mile route between San Diego and Los Angeles that bragged of nonstop, 59-minute train service.

The system was never built. The project was ultimately abandoned for several reasons, including a barrage of protests from residents near proposed stations and public outcry over exempting from environmental review.

Other rail activists think the stimulus money will not go into creating any super high-speed train lines.

“ It’s very likely that all of the money will go to significant improvements of existing tracks. It’s not going to build bullet trains,” said Ross Capon, head of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, and advocacy group for rail travel.

Thursday, May 7, 2009: Gold Line Foothill Extension Rally

Save the Date: Thursday, May 7, 2009: Gold Line Foothill Extension Rally at Citrus College « I Will Ride Blog

Save the Date: Thursday, May 7, 2009: Gold Line Foothill Extension Rally at Citrus College
Posted by Albert

On May 7, supporters from several college campuses along the Foothill Extension route will join together with college/university presidents, school administrators and community leaders to show their support for the Foothill Extension. Once completed, the Foothill Extension will connect the dozen colleges and universities in the San Gabriel Valley.

Make sure your school is represented! Attend the rally and tell Metro to fund the Foothill Extension in 2010 so it can be operating in 2013.

Gold Line Foothill Extension Rally at Citrus College
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Meet and Greet: 10:30 a.m.
Rally: begins promptly at 11 a.m.
Campus Center Mall
1000 West Foothill Boulevard
Glendora, CA 91741
Map

Volunteer today to represent your school at this important rally.

RSVP Now to info@IWillRide.org.
Need a ride? Buses to the event are available, call (888) 977-2269, or e-mail us at info@iwillride.org for more information.

Advanced Search (News, Business, Sports, Entertainment and More) | The Japan Times Online

Results: 1-50 stories of 420
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


* 1. THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF - DONALD RICHIE
Finding the exotic, alien other
April 19, 2009
*
* 2. THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF - DONALD RICHIE
Deciphering 'A Page of Madness'
April 5, 2009
*
* 3. THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF - DONALD RICHIE
'Arabia Deserta's' fascinating substance and glorious, unconventional style renewed
March 22, 2009
*
* 4. THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF - DONALD RICHIE
Tokyo city: living in constant flux
March 8, 2009
*
* 5. THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF - DONALD RICHIE
Volatile and barren, yet beautiful and alluring
Feb. 22, 2009
*
* 6. THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF - DONALD RICHIE
Definitive 'Record of Linji' well worth a wait of 40 years
Feb. 8, 2009

Frequently Asked Questions for BRT on Wilshire Blvd

metro.net | Wilshire Project Study FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

* Background/Overview
* Street Improvements
* Parking
* BRT Operations
* Environmental Analysis
* Cost/Funding
* Timing
* Miscellaneous
* Questions, Comments & More Information

Background/Overview
1. There is already BRT service on Wilshire Boulevard with the Metro Rapid and Metro Rapid Express. How is this different from the existing service provided on Wilshire Boulevard today?

Currently, there are no dedicated bus lanes on Wilshire Boulevard which is one of the most important key elements of BRT. The study will evaluate whether to dedicate the curb lanes for buses during weekday a.m. and p.m. peak hours. Vehicles wishing to make a right turn would also be allowed into the bus lanes.

2. What are the benefits of BRT versus other buses in the corridor?

BRT consists of a number of key elements that when combined together, can help to significantly improve bus passenger travel times and service reliability. Bus lanes are a critical element of a BRT system since travel time savings for bus passengers can be sustained over time due to the bus lane's separation from mixed-flow traffic.

3. Didn't we already have bus lanes on Wilshire Boulevard? What happened to those?

From March 2004-August 2007, there was a peak period bus lane along Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles between Federal and Centinela Avenues. The City of Los Angeles removed the bus lane in August 2007 until there could be a larger BRT project.

Street Improvements
4. Will all of Wilshire Boulevard be repaired and repaved?

No, the largest segment of Wilshire Boulevard to be repaired and repaved is between Fairfax and Western Avenues. There are also other smaller segments along the project corridor that will be repaired and repaved as part of other infrastructure improvements.

5. Will there be traffic engineering improvements along Wilshire Boulevard?

Yes. Some of these improvements would include street repaving along damaged portions of Wilshire, improved traffic signal timing, improved bus signal priority, a left-turn pocket extension at Sepulveda, and some selected street widening.

[top]
6. Will Wilshire Boulevard be widened at any point?

Yes, Wilshire Boulevard would be widened between Barrington and Bonsall to allow for the installation of a new eastbound bus lane.

Parking
7. What kind of parking restrictions can I expect along Wilshire Boulevard?

Since most of the parking along Wilshire Boulevard is currently prohibited during the weekday peak hours of 7 to 9 a.m. & from 4 to 7 p.m., this project would have little effect on parking restrictions since the bus lanes would operate during these same hours.

8. Will there be a loss of on-street parking?

There may be some limited reduction in parking spaces in scattered locations. This will be evaluated as part of this study.

BRT Operations
9. Will the bus lanes operate 24 hours a day?

No, the curbside bus lanes are proposed to operate only during weekday peak periods between the hours of 7-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m.

10. How will this project improve the existing Wilshire Boulevard BRT service?

If implemented, passenger travel times and reliability are expected to improve for transit services on Wilshire Boulevard.

[top]
Environmental Analysis
11. What is an Initial Study/Environmental Analysis (IS/EA)?

An IS/EA is a preliminary analysis prepared to determine the relative environmental impacts associated with a proposed project. These studies are conducted in order to environmentally clear a project with respect to both the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements. The results of these studies also determine whether further environmental analysis is required.

12. Will this project cause further congestion on Wilshire Boulevard?

That is one of the questions the IS/EA will evaluate. However, some of the goals of the project are to improve the reliability of the transit service and encourage a shift from automobile use to public transit.

Cost/Funding
13. What is the cost of the project?

The project cost is approximately $31.5 million.

14. How is this project being funded?

The total Federal share of the project is $23.3 million. Metro and the City of Los Angeles are contributing $8.2 million in local dollars.

Timing
15. When will the project be operational?

Once the IS/EA is completed and if it is found that no further environmental analysis is required, the FTA and Metro would then need to approve the project (approximately summer 2009). Once this occurs, final design and construction of the project may begin which is estimated to take about two years.

[top]
16. How will construction impact the existing BRT service?

It is not known yet exactly how construction will impact the existing BRT service, however, Metro and the City of Los Angeles will try very hard to minimize any impacts to existing services.

Miscellaneous
17. Is this project a replacement for the possible extension of the Purple line?

No, this project is separate from the Purple line, which is currently undergoing its own environmental review process. However, it is a good near-term improvement for this heavily traveled transit corridor.

18. Why doesn't the project include the Cities of Beverly Hills or Santa Monica?

The Cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica have indicated interest in considering peak period bus lanes for their portions of Wilshire Boulevard after they are implemented elsewhere.

Questions, Coments & More Information
19. Can Metro present this information to my Homeowners Association or Business Group?

Yes, we'd be happy to make a presentation. Please go to Contact Us and fill out the on-line comment form or call the project information line at (213) 922-2500 to set up a meeting.

20. When is the deadline for submitting comments to be considered in the IS/EA?

Your comments are always welcome, however, if there are specific issues you would like us to evaluate in the IS/EA, please ensure you get your comments to us by December 12, 2008. Please go to Contact Us and fill out the on-line comment form and for other options on how you can send us your comments.

21. What if I have additional questions about the Wilshire BRT Project?

Please go to Contact Us and fill out the on-line comment form with your questions.

Overview of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project on Wilshire Boulevard

Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit Project

Overview

The City of Los Angeles, Metro, and the County of Los Angeles are considering the feasibility of implementing a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project on Wilshire Boulevard. This project is examining the potential for dedicated curbside bus lanes during the morning and evening rush hours. The project area includes Wilshire Boulevard from just west of the 110 freeway to the Santa Monica City line, excluding the City of Beverly Hills. A joint document, consisting of an Initial Study/Environmental Assessment (IS/EA), is being conducted for the Wilshire BRT project to meet State and Federal environmental requirements. The IS/EA will also determine whether any further environmental assessment is necessary.

In November 2008, four community meetings were held along the project corridor. The meetings were attended by well over 300 residents and stakeholders who asked questions and expressed their views about the study and the proposed project. It is anticipated that the draft report will be circulated for public comment and a second round of community meetings held in late spring.

If you would like to be notified when the draft IS/EA is available, or when the second round of community meetings are scheduled, please go to Contact Us to fill out our Online Question/Comment form.

Another excellent post by the blog: iwillride.org

I Will Ride Blog

Friend to the Gold Line Foothill Extension
Posted by Albert

Fresh off the heals of our report on the derailment (no pun intended) of Duarte Mayor John Fasana’s noble attempt to expedite funding for the Foothill Extension at the April Metro Planning & Programming Committee meeting, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News, and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (all owned by the Los Angeles Newspaper Group) carried an editorial welcoming Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky as a friend of the Gold Line Foothill Extension.

If you don’t remember, Mr. Yaroslavsky at that meeting said this about the Foothill Extension:

“The Foothill Gold Line is well positioned – better positioned than any other single line right now with the possible exception of the No. 1 priority project of the agency, which is the completion of Phase 2 of Expo – to move, and move quickly. It’s going to happen. I’m going to support it.”

While the editorial, posted on April 28th in the Daily Bulletin and over the weekend in the other papers, offers a bit of reciprocation to the supervisor by reiterating support for Los Angeles city light-rail projects – including the Expo Line and Subway to the Sea – the paper is quick to give a reminder of the “economies of scale” for each rail project:

Expo Line Phase I, Downtown LA to Culver City:
$120 million per mile

Expo Line Phase II, Culver City to Santa Monica:
$120 million per mile

Subway to the Sea:
$700 million per mile

Foothill Extension, Pasadena to Claremont:
$30 million per mile

All of this money (except for the already under-construction Expo Phase I) will come from Measure R, the countywide, half-cent sales tax increase Metro will begin collecting July 1st.

In the current and un-finalized state of Metro’s Long Range Transportation Plan, the Foothill Extension is slated to receive $735 million in 2014-15 and finish construction by 2017. That timeframe is too long for those who have to suffer through the 210 freeway every morning and every evening.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News, and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin offer a remedy to that problem: Metro ought to “include the Gold Line in its long range plans at its May meeting and guarantee funding starting in 2010.” Such a feasible and sensible idea would enable the Foothill Extension’s first phase, Pasadena to Azusa, to open in 2013.

With all the talk of rail and other mass-transit projects, where's the money going to come from?

Streetsblog » We Need an Ambitious Transpo Bill. So How Are We Going to Pay for It?

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 No Comments
We Need an Ambitious Transpo Bill. So How Are We Going to Pay for It?

by Yonah Freemark on April 29, 2009
Unknown.pngDOT Secretary Ray LaHood testifying in the Senate yesterday.

Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held a hearing about the future of national surface transportation. This much isn't in doubt: Current policies need a major overhaul. What to change and, especially, how to pay for it are very much in question.

Several panelists spoke about the need to reform the nation's transportation priorities and set firm goals, like reducing car dependence and traffic deaths. Shifting away from policies that emphasize highway capacity and reward gas consumption didn't sit that well with senators from states like South Dakota and Texas, but there was a broad sense that the next surface transportation bill must reverse years of underinvestment in the nation's infrastructure. Nevertheless, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood reiterated the Obama administration's opposition to a promising funding solution -- raising the gas tax -- and obeyed the directive from up top to never again mention a tax on vehicle miles (VMT).

At around the same time, a very different story was unfolding in the House, where James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, pushed for his preferred funding solution, a VMT tax. Asserting that the technology to implement this solution is already available, he asked his committee to rapidly advance the timetable: "Why do we need a pilot program? Why don't we just phase it in?" Since Oberstar has taken a leading role in shaping the next transportation bill, this may mean that a VMT tax will be included in the first draft.

Back at the Senate hearing, several panelists called attention to the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund, which uses money raised by the gas tax to pay for transit and roads projects. Steve Heminger, director of the San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, estimated that the U.S. needs to invest at least $225 billion annually in its transportation infrastructure. We're only spending about 40 percent of that today, and the downward trend in driving means the fund is drying up. Few options will suffice to raise the needed revenue, he said, other than increasing the gas tax or imposing a VMT fee.

LaHood skirted the funding issue and focused on rethinking existing transportation priorities. "Our initial focus will be on expanding the transportation choices available to American families," he said. LaHood repeatedly described his intention to help communities become more transit-friendly, walkable and bikeable. He cited the administration's desire to get Americans out of their cars, but never made the link that higher gas prices create powerful incentives to reduce car dependence. His prepared testimony instead asked for "innovative" ideas from Congress to address the transportation funding dilemma, leaving aside any specifics.

THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF Finding the exotic, alien other

Finding the exotic, alien other | The Japan Times Online

THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Finding the exotic, alien other

By DONALD RICHIE
THE ALIEN WITHIN: Representations of the Exotic in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature, by Leith Morton. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009, 260 pp., $56 (cloth)

The subject of the exotic and alien other is a perennial. In Japanese literature the foreign influence is usually traced to its reappearance in a native product and the results are appraised.

In this interesting new accounting, however, Leith Morton gives us ample indication of what happens to the outside influence once it gets inside. "I am concerned with how modern Japanese writers discovered the foreign, the exotic, or even the alien within themselves."

As the final example in this examination the author centers on "the most celebrated Japanese writer of his generation," Haruki Murakami — in especial his 2001 "Shidonii!" a chronicle of the Sydney Olympics. This includes his meticulously kept "Sydney Diary" which Morton mines for information.

(Though most of Murakami's work has been translated into English, "Sydney!" has not been. Here, the interested reader will be able to find whole swaths of it translated for the first time by Morton.)

The conclusion is that "the ostensible subject of the diary — Australians and their society — is less mysterious, perhaps even less alien, than its author . . . . The identity between the alien and [the] self is usually recognized as a codependent construction. [In Murakami] this is made self-evident."

Other examples make up the body of Morton's book. There are two chapters on Akiko Yosano, whose poetry — on childbirth and on unborn children — broke taboos and enriched the concept of the alien. There is the Okinawan novelist Tatsuhiro Oshiro, and Takeo Arishima, as well as Kyoka Izumi and Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, here subsumed under the exotic and alien "Gothic."

And there is a full chapter on the translator Shoyo Tsubouchi and his renderings of Shakespeare. He appears as the first subject of the first chapter of Morton's book and well illustrates the author's methodology since, as translator, Tsubouchi is actively engaged in the transformation of the "other" to the "self."

His first translation (1884) was "Julius Caesar," which became titled "The Sharp Edge of Freedom's Sword (Jiyutachi Nagori no Kireaji)." The results, says Morton, were like the title "almost unrecognizable as translations . . . Shoyo adapted them [so] successfully into a Japanese frame of reference [during which] the sense of the exotic, the alien, almost completely disappeared." However, as Shoyo himself wondered, "can we offer a new interpretation based on the unique perspective of the Japanese?"

Apparently, yes. Morton notes that by 1978 there were some 36 translations of "Hamlet" into Japanese "and since then the number may well have doubled."

Through those several by Shoyo we are able to gauge his own evolving attitude toward not only the prince of Denmark but also toward himself.

Though he approved of colloquial language, he was against slang and cliche — Hamlet's mother or Macbeth's wife, he said, "would sound like brothel madams." And copying the classics would not help. "Shakespeare's vocabulary is much larger than Chikamatsu's and his tone is much loftier."

Here Morton, most entertainingly, takes us through all of Shoyo's various translations of Hamlet's most famous (Act III, Scene 1) soliloquy — from the 1909 "Nagaraeuruka? Nagaraenu?" ("to live long or not live long") to that of 1933, "Yo ni aru, yo ni aranu?" ("to be or not to be in this world") and then contrasts these with the 2001 Hidekatsu Nojima translation: "Ikiru ka, shinu ka, sore wa mondai da" ("To be or not to be, that is the question").

In accommodating the exotic by domesticating the alien, Shoyo's success, however, was short lived. Morton notes that his texts "are now almost unreadable for Japanese students, who need modern colloquial translations of Japanese texts that were written a mere century ago." In the process it is Shoyo who has become alien.

"In a sense the alien that was once domesticated . . . becomes alien once again to an audience from a different age and needs refiguring and retranslating."

Improvements on the 405 under threat of budget shortfalls.

405 'Over the Hill' Car Pool Lane Runs into Funding Problems - LAist: Los Angeles News, Food, Arts & Events

405wideningfujds.jpg
Photo by thelastminute via Flickr

If only car pools lanes would be as easy as taking a bucket of paint and making some new lines. But adding 10 miles of car pool lane to the northbound 405 Freeway between the 10 and 101 freeways means widening it and $1 billion in funding. Homeowners in Sherman Oaks have already received notices that the state is taking their land, but the state is running into the economy.

So now the locals are stepping in, as the LA Times explains: "The state was planning to sell $662 million in bonds to help pay for its share of the project, but has not yet been able to. It's unclear when officials will be able to sell the bonds. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is stepping in, allocating local and federal funds it had earmarked for the widening to get work started on the first phase... The money will allow the project to run for 15 months, while officials seek further funding..."

InfraConsult L.L.C. will help the authority identify projects from its long-range plan that would be good candidates for public-private partnerships

Los Angeles MTA contracts consulting firm to identify PPP opportunities

Los Angeles MTA contracts consulting firm to identify PPP opportunities

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) board recently contracted InfraConsult L.L.C. to help the authority identify projects from its long-range plan that would be good candidates for public-private partnerships (PPP).

InfraConsult will provide strategy development, technical and financial services. The firm also will identify transit and highway projects for board consideration and potential implementation, and help develop LACMTA's PPP organizational structure and business plan.
Comments

The result of 6 weeks

I've noted all the proposed, new work on existing lines and totally new lines. I'm caught up on all th e news stories as of today. I'm now looking for blogs on each of the lines and other transit issues here in LA. If you have any, please send them. I'm happy to post them and put them on my blog roll. Thanks.

With Obama's announcement on trains, some speculate we're going to see a return to the railroad, possibly on the scale of what Eisenhower did with freeways in the 50s.

Money: The Return of the Railroad - WSB News on wsbradio.com

WSB News
Money: The Return of the Railroad
By
Jon Lewis
@ April 29, 2009 8:22 AM Permalink | Comments (2)

(WSB Radio) They were the staple of 19th Century transportation and now, thanks to federal money, they may be the key to travel in the 21st Century.

Trains are coming back.

The Obama Administration, as part of the federal stimulus package, has devoted $8 billion for the development of high speed rail. And the southeast United States, including Georgia, should see a large sum of money going towards the development of rail.

The government has identified 10 corridors, each from 100 to 600 miles long, with greatest promise for high-speed development.

They are: a northern New England line; an Empire line running east to west in New York State; a Keystone corridor running laterally through Pennsylvania; a major Chicago hub network; a southeast network connecting the District of Columbia to Florida and the Gulf Coast; a Gulf Coast line extending from eastern Texas to western Alabama; a corridor in central and southern Florida; a Texas-to-Oklahoma line; a California corridor where voters have already approved a line that will allow travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two and a half hours; and a corridor in the Pacific Northwest.

"We've seen, basically, a monumental shift in transportation policy from this administration," says Eric Stevens, who oversees rail projects for the Georgia Department of Transportation. "You can almost kind of equate it to when Eisenhower came in and said, 'I'm going to build the interstate system.'"

The Georgia DOT is looking at three distinct rail lines, lines that would link Atlanta to major cities in and out of the state, while also making the morning drive to work a lot easier.

The main line for the southeast would link Washington, D.C. to the region. That means a high speed rail line running from the nation's capital, to Richmond, then Charlotte and beyond.

"What we propose to do, based on the pending funding, is look at Charlotte, Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Jacksonville," Stevens says, "and complete out all the corridor through the state."

The idea is to offer residents in Atlanta another option besides flying.

"It's about choices and options," says Stevens. "Right now, you don't have an option that can get you from Atlanta to Washington in a day's time, other than a plane."

High speed rail, Stevens says, would be ideal for travel within about 450 miles of Atlanta.

"You extend into Washington. You extend to New Orleans. You extend almost into Indiana," he says. "So you can quite a few places in a 450 mile arc, which is about the optimal distance for a high speed train."

Another route under consideration would link Atlanta to Chattanooga, running over an existing line that the state already owns.

These would not be the bullet trains that run in Europe and Asia. But, Steven says, "it wouldn't exclude that. You have to have a glide path to get to that. You don't go from zero to 300 miles per hour overnight."

These trains would be the Acela trains that operated in the northeast, running at speeds approaching 150 miles per hour. That would mean a trip from Atlanta to Charlotte would take about two hours. Stevens says, if you were to fly to Charlotte, with having to get to the airport early, the security check and the flying time, the train is faster. Plus, trains are not as likely to be delayed due to weather.

In his announcement of the stimulus money, President Obama cited how rail would make driving a lot easier while also helping the environment.

"What we need, then, is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century," he said, "a system that reduces travel times and increases mobility, a system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity, a system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs."

Stevens says high speed rail linking Atlanta to Washington, or Chattanooga, or New Orleans, would mean fewer cars on the road and less congestion at the airport.

Another proposal from the DOT is a freight rail line, directly linking the Port of Savannah to Atlanta.

The port is the fourth busiest in the nation, and the second busiest on the east coast. Thousands of containers enter the port each day, most bound for Atlanta by tractor trailer. A freight line would take many of those trucks off the state's highways.

"A couple of hundred thousand," Stevens says.

A possible peek into the future is available now in the city of Cordele, in south Georgia.

Cordele already has a rail line that cuts across the state to Savannah. The city is working to develop that route, which was built to bring agricultural products, like cotton, to the port.

Cordele is building a distribution facility to containerize all the cotton for shipment to the port. In addition, city officials in Cordele envision the rail working the other way, bringing goods from Savannah to their city for shipment to the southern U.S. and points west.

The new facility is expected to employ about 3500 people, with support businesses bringing in another 5000 jobs.

If a line was built directly linking Savannah to Atlanta, it would mean jobs and a lot more.

"They can put four times the amount of material on one rail car than they can on a truck," Stevens says. "They're going to save all that truck traffic coming into and through Atlanta," meaning fewer trucks during the morning commute.

There have been reports that Georgia is trailing its neighboring states in rail development and, therefore, the idea of high speed rail is doomed. Stevens says that's not the case.

He says, yes, North Carolina and Virginia are ahead of the curve, thanks to railroad consolidation two decades ago. When rail companies were bought up by larger ones, the duplicate rail lines were sold to the states. North Carolina and Virginia now own more rail lines that most other states. But, Stevens says, all that means is that Georgia is one of 46 states trailing North Carolina and Virginia. And while those two might have their systems up and running in 5 years, Georgia could be running in 9.

And while we've heard about high speed rail in Georgia in the past (Lovejoy anyone?), the stimulus money makes the difference now.

"We don't have the funding mechanisms in place to allow us to do a lot with rail and with transit," Steven says. "Our state constitution says that motor fuel money is only used for roads and bridges."

The DOT must complete environmental impact studies on the proposed rail lines, then they can begin work. Within the next decade Atlantans might find themselves traveling from home to Washington in three hours, or going to New Orleans in four, all the time watching the countryside drift by outside the window of their train.

Stevens and his counterparts in other states, say they've been waiting for this opportunity, waiting for an administration that looked to the past to see the future.

"Obama could, in essence , be the Eisenhower of the rail," Stevens says, "and bring about a national, coordinated high speed rail program, much like the interstate under Eisenhower."

Map of Mag Lev route

Click here to see map

The official website for the maglev line from California to Vegas

DesertXpress - The Pressing Need

The DesertXpress is a unique project that is based on using proven, steel wheel on rail high speed train technology to connect Southern California and Las Vegas.
The Pressing Need
I-15 from Las Vegas to Victorville

Today, over one-third of the 38 million annual Las Vegas visitors come from Southern California, and most of them drive to Las Vegas on Interstate 15. Further, as Las Vegas has grown into a very large metropolitan area, the demand for travel to Southern California from Las Vegas has continued to increase as well. As the only roadway directly linking Southern California to Las Vegas, I-15 has rapidly evolved into a time-consuming, stressful, and often congested and dangerous travel experience. With no public funds programmed, nor plans developed to widen this aging highway over the majority of its length, which in most places has only two through lanes in each direction, and with traffic forecasted to grow 60% in the corridor, the situation will only worsen.

A new transportation alternative will alleviate the congestion on I-15 facilitating both Las Vegas-bound and Southern California-bound travelers. Las Vegas has consistently been the fastest-growing large city in the country over the past decade. This growth has only strengthened the demand for travel from Nevada to Southern California. And in the wake of the current economic downturn, hotel occupancy in Las Vegas has remained strong at nearly 90%; and, traffic counts on the I-15 freeway at the CA-NV State Border have shown increases in 2009.
The Experience

We understand that for the train to be successful, it has to be easy and convenient for travelers both to and from Las Vegas and Southern California. The Victorville station will be located adjacent to the I-15 freeway and provide easy parking with optional valet service. The plan is for the "Las Vegas Experience" to start in Victorville with valet service, hotel check-in and through-checking of baggage straight to the resorts, and with convenient car rental facilities for the Southern California–bound travelers. Once in Las Vegas, there will be convenient access to the Las Vegas resorts with shuttle service, rental cars, taxis and potentially a direct connection to the Las Vegas Monorail.

Federal Railroad Administration recently signed off on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the DesertXpress, a proposed high-speed rail line linking southern California and Las Vegas.

FRA approves draft environmental work for southern California-to-Vegas high-speed line

FRA approves draft environmental work for southern California-to-Vegas high-speed line

The Federal Railroad Administration recently signed off on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the DesertXpress, a proposed high-speed rail line linking southern California and Las Vegas.

Developed by DesertXpress Enterprises L.L.C. — a group of private California and Nevada companies — the 180-mile line would run on exclusive tracks along Interstate 15 between Victorville, Calif., and Las Vegas. Trains would operate at speeds up to 150 mph and make the trip in one hour, 20 minutes.

The project is expected to cost between $3.5 billion and $4 billion to build. So far, DesertXpress Enterprises has invested more than $25 million in private funding to complete environmental work.

The project could break ground by early next year. DesertXpress Enterprises plans to design the project to connect to the proposed California high-speed rail system.
Comments

Harbor Subdivision Transit Corridor-the wikipedia article

Harbor Subdivision (BNSF) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Harbor Subdivision (BNSF)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The Alameda Corridor (purple) was built mostly on the former Southern Pacific Railroad line to the ports, which became part of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1996. The Harbor Subdivision loops to the west.

The BNSF Harbor Subdivision is a historic single-track main line of the BNSF Railway which stretches 26 miles/42km between the rail yards of downtown Los Angeles and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach across southwestern Los Angeles County. It was the primary link between two of the world's busiest harbors and the transcontinental rail network. Mostly displaced with the April 15, 2002 opening of the more direct Alameda Corridor, the "Harbor Sub" takes a far more circuitous route from origin to destination, owing to its growth in segments over the decades. The subdivision was built in this fashion beginning in the early 1880s to serve the ports and the various businesses that developed along it.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 History
o 1.1 Construction
o 1.2 Spur lines
o 1.3 Spur abandonments
* 2 Potential future uses
* 3 References

[edit] History

[edit] Construction

First built to serve Port Ballona, located at what is now Playa del Rey, the construction of a larger, better port at Redondo Beach brought an extension to that city in 1888. The early 1900s would see that project eclipsed with the coming of the San Pedro Outer Breakwater and the Port of Los Angeles. By the early 1920s, owing to the development of the area's oil fields, the Harbor Sub was extended through Torrance, Wilmington and on to Long Beach. Development of Watson Yard in Wilmington completed the line. Other than sidings at "Lairport" (along the eastern edge of Los Angeles International Airport next to Aviation Boulevard), "Ironsides" in Torrance and the line's longest siding at the Alcoa plant, also in Torrance, the Harbor Sub is completely single-track without signals, compensated with track warrant control via a local dispatcher.

Early operations on the line meant one or more daily freight trains and, prior to the Second World War, an occasional passenger train. From the 1950s to the early 1990s, this line saw one or two through trains each way daily. A number of locals worked the line including the Wilmington Turn out of Hobart Yard in Vernon and the Hobart Turn out of the aforementioned Watson Yard. Other locals were assigned to Watson Yard and Vernon's Malabar Yard. Though operations on the Hobart Turn ceased in the early 1980s, the Watson (near Wilmington) and Malabar switch jobs remained to serve industries along the route. The Malabar Yard area is the site of one of the few Magnetic Flagman grade crossing signals remaining in active use. The lone signal guards a crossing with nine separate tracks on 49th Street.

[edit] Spur lines

One of the line's major spurs was the so-called Torrance Oil Spur. This north/south spur line connected a Union Oil tank farm on the Torrance/Lomita border to the Harbor Subdivision. A secondary east/west spur served a United States Navy storage annex a short distance east of the main spur, today the site of a municipal park named Wilson Park.

It originally began a short distance from Zamperini Field (then known as Torrance Municipal Airport), crossed Lomita Boulevard into the tank farm and continued northward through a residential area, emerging at last onto the intersection of Sepulveda Boulevard and Madrona Avenue. The line crossed Sepulveda and paralleled Madrona along its southbound lanes, branching across Madrona south of Jefferson Street, through the Madrona Marsh nature preserve and across both Maple Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard to serve the naval annex and to connect yet again with the Harbor Sub. The main spur crossed Madrona at a diagonal a short distance north of Torrance Boulevard and continued again along Madrona's northbound lanes. The line left Madrona at what was then its endpoint at Del Amo Boulevard where it met with the Harbor Sub near the southwestern corner of the Mobil refinery. Grade crossing signals on the line were standard highway flashers except for the Lomita Boulevard crossing and where the naval annex subspur crossed Madrona Avenue and Maple Avenue, which were protected only by crossbucks.

[edit] Spur abandonments

The Torrance Oil Spur had been largely abandoned by the mid-1960s; the 1964 edition of the Thomas Brothers Los Angeles County Popular Street Atlas shows the southern terminus of the line at the tank farm off 225th Street while the naval annex sub-spur is not shown at all. The tracks and signals were removed by 1974, although most of the right-of-way remained intact until the widening of Madrona Avenue and its extension up and over the Harbor Sub to connect with Prairie Avenue in the early 1980s. The length of right-of-way directly adjacent to Del Amo Fashion Center served as holiday employee parking after the tracks were removed.

It was during this time that the annex sub-spur got a new, albeit temporary, lease on life. A new spur was built from the Harbor Sub to the American Racing manufacturing plant along the old naval annex ROW and part of the Madrona Marsh ROW. The spur was removed by the middle of the decade. Except for a short stretch of the residential ROW south of Sepulveda (and one lone rail in the weeds), the now-overgrown ROW south of present-day Wilson Park on the site of the naval annex and some track and a switch stand from the 1980s extension in the Monterey Business Park near American Racing, no other readily discernible evidence of the line remains.

Another rarely used but presently intact subspur in Torrance connects to the main just west of the end of Del Amo Boulevard, parallels Del Amo on its way across Crenshaw and continues east to serve heavy industries with ExxonMobil products on Del Amo Boulevard and Western Avenue. Only short locals run this line and is so little used that the crossing is exempted from requirements that school buses and hazardous material trucks stop before crossing. Still another Torrance subspur, since removed, serviced light industries along Maple Avenue.

[edit] Potential future uses

Rumors of the abandonment of the Harbor Subdivision abounded during the construction of the Alameda Corridor. BNSF has stated that, although the entire line is now within so-called yard limits and a segment between mileposts 8 in Inglewood and 14 in El Segundo "mothballed," the line will remain open to service businesses on the route and as an alternate route should the Alameda Corridor suffer an accident or derailment. Local freights continue to work the line on either side of the closed area. Major customers include a ChevronTexaco refinery in El Segundo, an Interstate Bakeries Corporation bakery in Inglewood, an ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance and the aforementioned Alcoa processing plant. Since the line is somewhat unusual insofar as it passes through residential as well as commercial districts, especially through Torrance and Redondo Beach, it is a popular destination for railfans and photographers despite reduced traffic. Radio dispatch via track warrant control makes it easy for railfans with portable scanners to follow train movement.

The line is currently under control of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and is used by both the BNSF and the Union Pacific. Despite the closure of the Inglewood/El Segundo segment and the reduction in the number of trains from roughly 20 one-way trains per day to about six two-way trains, growth in local freight traffic is projected to be roughly two percent per year. A study conducted by the MTA examined the feasibilities of extending the Green Line to Torrance via the Harbor Sub, the creation of a new light rail transit line and even the possibility of a maglev high-speed rail system. The study also examines the possibilities abandonment would create, although the scenarios remain highly unlikely.

[edit] References

* History and photo gallery dedicated to the Harbor Subdivision
* MTA Harbor Subdivision home page with a link to the .pdf format future use study

Get to the Getty for $2.50 round trip with MTA route 761 unless you'd like to part with $15 to park there

Getty Raises Parking Fee to $15 - LAist: Los Angeles News, Food, Arts & Events

Los Angeles, meet the 761 Metro Rapid. The CNG-fueled bus takes you right to the front gates of the Getty from either Westwood or Sherman Oaks. Round trip? $2.50 or $5 if you're transferring from another bus. Why start taking the bus? Well, the Getty is raising the parking rate once again, this time to $15. "The Getty likes to call itself a museum accessible to the whole city, but it's starting to sound more like a Bel-Air hilltop institution," sniped Kevin Roderick at LA Observed. Nevertheless, the economy has got everyone in a crunch and this is the second time in a year that the fee has gone up. Museum admission will remain free and the parking fee increase also affects the Getty Villa location.

Critics long ago warned that building a bike path with a fence on one side, a wall on the other and surrounding it with bushes and trees that grow up and out would result in an environment that is unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists but hospitable to those who favor seclusion and a place to hide.

CityWatch - An insider look at City Hall - Bike Path to Blight Path … and No One to Blame

Bike Path to Blight Path … and No One to Blame
Orange Line Critique
By Stephen Box

Active ImageThe Orange Line Bike Path is 14 miles of bureaucratic "no-man's land" and a jurisdictional "hot-potato" that has departments and agencies scrambling for cover as the City's Transportation Committee asks "Hey! How did the Bike Path turn into a homeless encampment?"

Critics long ago warned that building a bike path with a fence on one side, a wall on the other and surrounding it with bushes and trees that grow up and out would result in an environment that is unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists but hospitable to those who favor seclusion and a place to hide.

Those warnings were ignored and the predictions came true. The Orange Line Bike Path is now so overgrown that in some areas such as Van Nuys, it is populated with homeless encampments. Making things worse is the close proximity of a recycling center and two liquor stores. All very convenient for the campers but at the expense of the pedestrians, the cyclists and the local residents.

Two months ago, the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council convened a meeting to address the situation, a meeting so well attended by agency and department reps that it seemed certain that the Bike Path was to be cleaned up and reclaimed. Such was not the case.

This past week, the Transportation Committee jumped into the fray and convened a meeting to determine what went wrong and who is going to fix it. The LADOT took the hot seat and explained the difficulty in supervising maintenance contracts and of working with the Metro and Rec & Parks and how the abundant overgrown landscaping wasn't their fault.

The LAPD was represented, Councilman Cardenas was represented and the Neighborhood Prosecutor, Tamar Galatzan also appeared but nobody could explain who was in charge, who had authority and who had a plan.

Councilman Alarcon cut to the chase at one point in the "Who's responsible?" debate and said simply "If it's LA's Bike Path then we should take care of it!"

That should have been the point at which everybody stepped up but instead we were treated to another round of "Yes, We Can't!"

Unfortunately, the Groupthink that prevents agencies and departments from being "negative" and just calling it as they see it is still in play and the LADOT, the Metro, the LAPD, the LASD, the Neighborhood Prosecutor, the BOSS, LAHSA, the Councilmembers and anyone else with a piece of the Bike Path are still having polite meetings where they dance about and explain why they're not responsible.

The Orange Line Bike Path has been around for a little over three years. It was designed and built by the Metro and the LADOT Bikeways Department was there through the entire process. In fact the LADOT is so proud of the Orange Line that they have a presentation they take to conferences taking credit for its success. Somewhere along the way, the responsibility for the Orange Line was formally transferred to the LADOT which, based on results, dropped the ball.

Perhaps it's time to call in the DWP and have them cut down the forest, relandscape with drought tolerant plants and create a 14 mile long demonstration garden on water conservation. Maybe we could plow it all under and plant a 14 mile long Victory
Garden and use the wide stretches for a Farmer's Market.

Whatever we do, it is imperative that the LADOT stop paying its
contractors until they execute their contracts.

It is also imperative that the LAPD clarify with dispatch and the patrol officers that the Orange Line Bike Path is not the responsibility of the Sheriff but is the responsibility of the LAPD.

If the Van Nuys area is to be cleaned up, it would also be wise to have the Neighborhood Prosecutor work with the ABC to address the two liquor stores that cater to the "campers" and who are a blight on the community.

As long as blight is on the radar, the recycling center has had a
negative impact on the area and yet it continues to operate. It's
time for us to work together to make our abatement programs work for the neighborhood.

Most of all, we've got to get over our fear of raising the standards
and offending other departments. We've got to evaluate performance based on results, not on bureaucratic endurance. We've got to stop settling for mediocrity and we've got to reach for greatness.

The Orange Line Bike Path is either a monument to our mediocrity or it’s an opportunity to demonstrate our greatness. Either way, it's our call. (Stephen Box is a transportation and cyclist advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at Stephen@ThirdEyeCreative.netThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) ◘

No Fare increases on metolink

Streetsblog » Metrolink Board Holds Fare Increases

Metrolink Board Holds Fare Increases

by Damien Newton on April 27, 2009
4_27_09_metrolink.jpgPhoto:SP8254/Flickr

Trying to follow the lead given last year when Mayor Villaraigosa devised a way to hold off proposed and "needed" service cuts at Metro, the Metrolink Board of Directors voted last week to hold off on increasing fares for at least a month while it looks for other options.

The Board was widely expected to increase fares from between 3.5% and 5.5% depending on the origin and destination of the trip. Metrolink riders have been seeing higher and higher fares over recent years. The Metrolink Board actually passsed a fare increase on top of a fare increase for July of 2008.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune interviews a Metrolink Rider who breaks it down.

Riding the Metrolink since 2004, Highland resident Raul Barrientos said he has seen his fare increase about $50 since 2005. Barrientos now pays $250 a month to ride from Baldwin Park to San Bernardino.

What's worse, Barrientos said, is that parking fees at the Baldwin Park station Friday from $30 a month $60 a month."The parking increases on top of the fare increases are an extra added weight," he said.

The Metrolink Board says they're going to spend the next month combing the budget to try and find ways to hold off the fare increase. If you got any ideas, leave them in the comments section and we'll pass them along.

An excellent blog and source of information on the Gold Line Foothill Extention

I Will Ride Blog

I Will Ride.org



Tomorrow’s Metro Board Meeting
Posted by Albert

Metro’s regularly scheduled board meeting takes place tomorrow at the MTA Building at 9:30 AM. Our good friend Damien Newton of LA Streetsblog has taken the sometimes-cryptic Metro Board agenda and has churned out his always-excellent preview of the issues to be addressed. Heavy on highway issues and light on the Gold Line Foothill Extension itself, the agenda does contain an item that concerns the Foothill Extension corridor.

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority has recently received approval from Metro staff to start the process to environmentally clear and possibly acquire land for a rail maintenance facility to be located in the city of Irwindale. The facility is a high priority for Metro because the agency doesn’t have enough space to store and maintain cars from several planned lines (including the Foothill Extension). Duarte Mayor and Metro Board member John Fasana is set to introduce a motion seeking confirmation from the Metro Board on its support for the Authority to start this process as well as confirmation that they will reimburse the Construction Authority for the cost of conducting the necessary activities. Of the $735 million in Measure R allocated to the Foothill Extension project, more than $200 million is earmarked for the maintenance yard.

Once again, for those not able to attend we will be covering the Metro Board meeting on Twitter @iwillride.

New approach to Infrastructure planning.

Citiwire.net » New Century Infrastructure: Where’s the Plan???

New Century Infrastructure: Where’s the Plan???

Jonathan D. Miller / Apr 23 2009

For Release Sunday, April 26, 2009
Citiwire.net

Jonathan D. MillerThe good news is that and states cities have begun fixing bridges, paving roads, repairing subway tracks, and upgrading sewage treatment plants.

And it’s clear–throwing stimulus money at ad hoc projects, generating jobs in a serious recession, can add value, especially when the funds are targeted at refurbishing aging systems which otherwise might break down or even collapse.

But let’s not pretend this short-term, ad hoc spending remotely addresses America’s infrastructure needs. The United States desperately requires a forward-looking plan for 21st century infrastructure that can support and sustain renewed economic growth and accommodate 100 million more Americans over the next 40 years.

Our last game-changing national infrastructure initiative dates back more than five decades ago to President Eisenhower’s interstate highway system–nearly 50,000 miles of sleek freeways, which spurred dramatic suburban growth and enabled long distance car and truck travel.

The problem is that once most interstates were completed in the late 1970s, we essentially stopped paying attention to infrastructure planning. Today the road-based model is an anachronism–unsustainable in a new century.

Since 1980 vehicle miles traveled has doubled and more than half of Americans, about 155 million people, live in car-dependent suburbs. That’s as many people as lived in the entire country in 1950. Many of those highways we built a generation ago reach the end of their effective lifecycles and just can’t accommodate the 200 million plus cars on our roads.

And while many of our fastest growing metros neglected mass transit over the past 30 years, we built only one new international airport (in Denver).

Is it any wonder why most of our major metropolitan areas face mounting traffic and even gridlock? The resulting congestion causes more than frustration and angst. Lost time constrains productivity and saps our economic competitiveness by increasing costs for moving people and goods. Driving-related expenses now equal or eclipse housing costs for residents in some markets.

At the same time, the nation’s gateway ports and airports will be stretched to accommodate forecast shipping requirements and airline passenger growth.

So where’s the strategy? Funding myriad local transportation projects can’t pass competitive muster when Europe builds transcontinental transportation networks to link commercial centers and China spends trillions of dollars on integrated road, rail, transit and airport systems. Even Canada has initiated a concerted, joint national-provincial program to rebuild transport infrastructure around key national hubs and gateways.

In Infrastructure 2009: Pivot Point, a report I just authored for the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young, we recommend a new approach for getting America out of its deep ditch, the federal government taking the lead. Key elements:

Identify National Networks: The President and Congress must identify new interconnecting national transport networks—rail, road, and air. Corridors for high speed passenger and freight rail must link to surrounding regional markets and merge into cross national networks. Innovative transit schemes, connected to airports and train stations, must help reduce car dependency, prevent bottlenecks in commercial centers, and decrease pollution.

Plan Holistically: Transportation policy and funding must integrate closely with land use planning and housing policy. Planners need to encourage development of more compact, pedestrian friendly neighborhoods tied into transit networks, connecting to commercial hubs. Separate schemes for roads, subways, and subdivisions won’t work anymore.

Consolidate Government Management: Federal, state and local governments must restructure agencies responsible for transportation, housing, water, and energy so that they manage and execute infrastructure policy in concert. The White House should develop national infrastructure strategy, working with a high level commission of policy experts, to identify national networks and select merit-based projects which fit objectives. States must break down silos between various transport agencies and local land use authorities to formulate long-range regional plans, which tie into national networks and coordinate with federal programs.

Change Funding Approaches: New infrastructure networks and necessary repairs will cost trillions of dollars over the next two decades. Funding burdens must shift from taxpayers to users, because depleted government coffers will not sustain initiatives. There’s no choice: we need higher gas taxes and more toll roads. Innovative user fee approaches like vehicle miles charges should be implemented, using new transponder technologies. Not only will these fees raise revenues to pay for new systems, they also will help people adjust behaviors to realize more economically efficient travel.

Federal funding to states and local governments must link directly to carrying out national objectives. The much talked about Infrastructure Bank is a no brainer to help finance national networks and attract more private capital, including advancing public private partnerships.

The ongoing economic dislocation has been a rude shock to Americans, who suddenly question whether we can maintain our living standards and lifestyles. But neglect of sound infrastructure planning will threaten the nation’s ability to recover and hobble our economy for generations. The Eisenhower model has seen its day. We need a new national plan–now!
Jonathan Miller’s column covers his third annual infrastructure forecast for the Urban Land Institute and the Urban Land Institute. He is also author of the authorative annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate report for ULI. His email is jonathan.david.miller@verizon.net.

Citiwire.net columns are not copyrighted and may be reproduced in print or electronically; please show authorship, credit Citiwire.net and send an electronic copy of usage to webmaster@citiwire.net.

Where to get Battle Royale

VHS Lives On Through Mail-Order Arthouse Rentals | Technologizer

VHS Lives On Through Mail-Order Arthouse Rentals

By Jared Newman | Posted at 4:09 pm on Thursday, April 23, 2009

See all: News

johnnyguitarNetflix it’s not, but a new mail-order rental service from Chicago-based Facets Multimedia has something for the super-dedicated indie niche.

The Facets service rents DVDs and, more interestingly, VHS tapes of independent, experimental and world films, and launched last month with little fanfare, Video Business reports. While Netflix and Facets overlap a bit on the DVD side, some of Facets’ offerings are so obscure that they only exist on VHS.

Among these films are Johnny Guitar (1954), a campy cult film about two women trying to control a frontier boom town; The Devils (1971), a film based on Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun; and The Emigrants (1971), about a young Swedish family setting out to America. Not all the picks are that obscure: The Cable Guy and Caddyshack are among the lighter fare offered on VHS. For DVDs, you’ll find import rarities such as Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale (2000) along with mainstream titles like 2006’s Oscar-nominated Babel.

Facets hosts over 30,000 titles in all, 500 of which come from the 26-year-old company’s exclusive release and distribution catalog. The volume and wide appeal of the films is important, because it’s conceivable that someone with enough offbeat tastes could rely on this service instead of Netflix and still satisfy an occasional mainstream urge. Pricing is competitive at $8.99 per month for a one-movie plan and $14.99 for two movies at a time, with a variety of other packages and prepaid options available.

I’m wondering if a service like this will catapult VHS to the status of music’s vinyl records. Sure, you can’t make any arguments for video quality, but maybe there’s a tactile satisfaction to sliding one of those bulky tapes into the player and fiddling with the tracking button.

Nothing new to report as of 4-27-09 at 7:36 am.

Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority Board of Directors announced that Azusa Councilman Keith Hanks is the new chairman.

New chairman named to Gold Line board - SGVTribune.com

New chairman named to Gold Line board
Posted: 04/24/2009 04:50:05 PM PDT

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority Board of Directors announced that Azusa Councilman Keith Hanks is the new chairman.

In addition, Glendora Councilman Doug Tessitor was named first vice chairman, and Los Angeles Councilman Ed Reyes was named second vice chairman.

Hanks has been a member of the Azusa City Council since 2005 and has served as the South Pasadena appointee to the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority Board since July 2005. Hanks serves on Southern California Association of Governments Regional Council, and is the chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee for the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (SGVCOG).

Foothill extension of the Gold Line just received some unexpected support from Yaroslavsky.

Our View: Welcome ally for Gold Line - SGVTribune.com

Our View: Welcome ally for Gold Line
Posted: 04/24/2009 05:48:34 PM PDT

THE foothill extension of the Gold Line just received some unexpected support from westside L.A. County Supervisor and Metro board member Zev Yaroslavsky.

"The Foothill Gold Line is well positioned - better positioned than any other single line right now with the possible exception of the No. 1 priority project of this agency, which is the completion of Phase 2 of Expo (in westside of L.A.) - to move, and move quickly. It's going to happen. I'm going to support it," he said at a recent Metro (formerly MTA) meeting.

The declaration that the Gold Line is ready to go, even more ready than most regional projects (and we would include the Expo Phase II which has not yet completed environmental studies, while Gold Line Foothill has) is a first, especially coming from Yaroslavsky. The westside supervisor, who is part of the powerful L.A. majority on the Metro board that controls all transportation funding for the region, is a welcome ally.

We would add - as we've said many times in this space - that we also support the westside light-rail projects, as well as the extensions of the Gold Line through East Los Angeles and beyond.

But it's worth noting that the economies of scale are different. It costs $120 million a mile to build the Expo Line and will cost $210 million a mile for the Expo Line II. And the westside subway (read: underground) will cost an astronomical $700 million per mile. The Gold Line Foothill Extension's price tag is only $30
Advertisement
million per mile.

These are economies of scale that the Metro board should remember, as should the federal Department of Transportation, when considering how to spend limited federal dollars and spend them relatively quickly.

Right now, the Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority should fund the first leg - up to Azusa and including a new maintenance yard for all Metro rail projects in the vicinity in Irwindale - with the tax money that will be collected starting in July from Measure R, the half-cent sales tax approved by voters last November.

The Gold Line is promised $735 million by Metro, but not until 2017. That is too long for the Valley and Inland Valley commuters cued up on the Foothill (210) Freeway every morning to wait in their cars.

Instead, Metro should include the Gold Line in its long range plans at its May meeting and guarantee funding starting in 2010. This would enable construction to begin in June of that year and at least extend the existing line to Azusa by 2013. The feds could provide the missing match that will take it to Montclair, and we hope, Ontario Airport.

Because it's clear to everyone, even those on the west side, that the Gold Line Foothill extension is ready to go. In fact, as Yaroslavsky said, "it's going to happen." There's more than 2.1 million people here who say that should be sooner, rather than later.