Op/Ed: Gold Line Brings Gold to L.A. Region

Gold Line Construction Authority Chairman Doug Tessitor writes about the economic advantages of the coming Gold Line Foothill Extension.

Source: http://sierramadre.patch.com/articles/op-ed-the-gold-line-brings-gold-to-la-region#photo-6522671

December 14, 2011


From the Rose Bowl to the Fairplex, the San Gabriel Valley is home to public venues and projects that create jobs and generate much-needed economic activity for the entire L.A. region.

With the recent approval of a distinctive final design for a Gold Line bridge over the I-210 Freeway, another of these job-generating projects will soon be visible to the public and will provide a new "Gateway to the San Gabriel Valley."

The $18.6 million bridge, which is already under construction and providing jobs, will feature columns designed to resemble American Indian baskets in recognition of the region’s original inhabitants and the important role they played in the San Gabriel Valley’s development.

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority, the agency responsible for the Gold Line’s planning and construction, sponsored an international competition and chose award-winning public artist Andrew Leicester to envision this unique structure to welcome travelers to the Valley.

Caltrans’ and the Construction Authority’s approval of the final design is a significant milestone in one of the region’s largest and most important transit projects—the $735 million extension of the Metro Gold Line light rail line from Pasadena to Azusa. This is the first of two approximately 12-mile extensions that will ultimately connect Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire along the Foothills of the San Gabriel Valley.

The current construction project is expected to generate nearly 7,000 new jobs (2,600 in construction) and $1 billion in economic output for the region during its four-year construction period, according to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

Using a design-build approach, the Construction Authority is moving forward faster than would otherwise be possible. Under this approach, for instance, construction on the I-210 Gold Line bridge began months ahead of the of the final design’s approval.

By using design-build contracting, the Construction Authority is creating jobs when they are most needed and keeping the Measure R-funded rail project on schedule. Approved by two-thirds of Los Angeles County voters in November 2008, Measure R initiated a half-cent sales tax increase to upgrade the region’s transportation system including the Foothill Extension projects.

Long before the voters spoke, the Construction Authority had already completed the first segment of the Gold Line from Los Angeles to Pasadena on time and under budget. That 13.7-mile section opened to the public in 2003, and monthly boardings on the Gold Line have continually increased, now reaching nearly 40,000 average weekday boardings.

The Legislature created the Construction Authority in 1998 for one purpose—to extend rail transit along the Foothills. As leaders of the Construction Authority, we have been single-minded in our pursuit of that goal.

Working together with our elected leaders, state and federal officials, local communities and residents throughout the region, we have continued to move the project forward this year with the final I-210 bridge design approval and the launch of construction.

As we near the end of 2011, we are on track to complete the light rail extension to Azusa in 2015, and are focused on readying the next 12-mile segment for construction - easing traffic woes and helping to ensure a healthier and more prosperous future for all who live, work and visit Los Angeles County.

Doug Tessitor is the Construction Authority board chairman and Glendora mayor.

Metro VS Reason: Agency Calls Foundation's Light Rail Slam 'Factually Challenged'

Source: http://laist.com/2011/12/14/metro_fires_back_at_reason_foundation.php



Metro has fired back at the Reason Foundation for their recent pro-bus video "17 Miles in Just 78 Minutes! Light Rail vs. Reality in LA."

In the video, viewers follow comedian Watt Smith as he chats with light rail commuters about local public transportation. Informational pop-ups crowd the screen throughout the video, but Metro says these facts, as well as other claims in the video, are largely inaccurate.

Describing Reason.TV's video as "amusing and "a little factually challenged," Metro posted the following corrections and suggestions to its blog, The Source. Watch the video again after skimming through Metro's rebuttal and let us know what you think.

•It’s about 29 miles by road — not 17 — from LAX to downtown Burbank, according to most of the maps that I consulted.

•To the dude in the video: if you seriously got from the LAX terminals to Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank using only buses and rail in 78 minutes, then you’re some kind of Jedi Knight of mass transit. That’s more like a two-hour trip — owing in part to the bus between LAX and the Green Line’s Aviation station.

•It’s hardly a secret that LAX-to-Burbank isn’t terribly well served by transit. As part of the Measure R sales tax increase approved by voters, a transit connection between the airport and the future Crenshaw/LAX Line is under study.

•There might be faster alternatives between LAX and Burbank. One idea: shell out a few more bucks and take the Flyaway bus to Los Angeles Union Station, a trip that usually takes 30 to 50 minutes depending on traffic. From there, it’s possible to take the Red Line subway to Universal City and catch a bus to Warner Brothers. Or take Metrolink from Union Station to Burbank and then bus or taxi to the studio.

•To the bubble suggesting that light rail is less energy efficient than cars…that’s hardly an undisputed fact and there are other considerations such as pollution. The federal government has found that transit produces a significantly less greenhouse gases than single-occupancy vehicles. Here's a good report.

•Transit is heavily subsidized — in Los Angeles County and elsewhere. The correct figures: Metro currently subsidizes on average 72 percent of a bus fare and about 76 percent of a rail fare. See page 64 of this year’s adopted budget.

•We can confirm the video’s keen observation that trains are more crowded during rush hour. However, the trains don’t run all night, as the cute thought bubble alleges.

•A new 40-foot CNG-powered bus costs about $450,000 and a new 60-foot CNG bus about $750,000 — not the $300,000 figure shown in those clever bubbles!

•It’s totally fair to question how much bang taxpayers get for the bucks they invest in any type of transit, rail included. But chew on this: if we got rid of the rail system in L.A. and put everyone on buses and put more buses on local streets and freeways, is there anyone that really thinks traffic or transit would improve?


Contact the author of this article or email tips@laist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

Manhattan Beach trolley talks trail on

Source: http://www.easyreadernews.com/41984/trolley-talks-trail/

News|December 14, 2011 11:25 am


After years of debating the implementation of a fixed-route trolley system in Manhattan Beach, the City Council decided to pursue the project further by soliciting feedback from residents through a needs assessment.

The proposed trolley system would cost between $562,000 and $633,000 to implement during its first year, and up to $483,000 annually thereafter, depending on its hours of operation, according to Richard Gill, director of parks and recreation.

To fund the trolley, the city would exhaust the $350,000 in available Measure R funds. The city anticipates receiving $279,000 in revenue annually in Measure R funds – still, operating costs for the trolley could exceed these revenues by up to $250,000 per year, according to a city staff report.

Competing projects for these funds include street repairs and the Dial-A-Ride program, Gill said. The numbers do not include revenue from the trolley, which could be gained through a riding fee or by selling advertisements on the trolley.

Councilmember Amy Howorth thought a trolley could decrease traffic throughout the city and provide children transportation to school or summer camp on the beach. “I think we need to try it,” she said. “There’s a community benefit to having public transportation.”

The proposed trolley would offer riders transportation from east to west and back. “I think if we do it right, there will be a demand for it,” said Mayor Nick Tell.

Mayor Pro Tem Wayne Powell and Councilmember David Lesser were opposed to the project. “We all would welcome a free service, but it somehow needs to be paid for,” Lesser said, later adding that while he grew up riding a bus, he is concerned about the viability of the proposal.

Powell drew parallels between the proposed trolley and other transportation options like the Ocean Express, which the city is asked to subsidize each year due to low ridership, he said. “I can’t support something that’s not cost effective,” he said, adding that pedestrian improvements and pothole repairs are among the list of competing uses of the funds. “I believe we have an obligation to spend our taxpayers’ money wisely.”

Resident Patrick McBride spoke against bringing a trolley system to Manhattan Beach. “There’s better ways to spend this money,” he said. “People in Manhattan Beach don’t want to ride public transportation. That is the sad truth.”

Breaking News: High Speed Rail Designed To Achieve High Speeds

Source: http://www.cahsrblog.com/2011/12/breaking-news-high-speed-rail-designed-to-achieve-high-speeds/

Dec 14th, 2011 | Posted by Robert Cruickshank

I have no idea why the LA Times thought it would be a good idea to put Ralph Vartabedian on the high speed rail beat, but the results have been disastrous. The guy has no clue how the project actually works and almost certainly has never actually used a high speed train in his life. The result has been a series of nonsensical articles trashing the project for common-sense things that are not actually newsworthy issues.

Today’s article from Vartabedian is perhaps the worst yet. In it, he actually argues that the requirement that trains connect San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes was somehow a shocking thing sneaked into the Prop 1A legislation without anybody realizing its intent.

I’m serious. That’s actually the story he filed. Vartabedian basically thinks it’s somehow a major news story that a high speed train is intended to achieve high speeds:

California’s proposed bullet train will need to soar over small towns on towering viaducts, split rich farm fields diagonally and burrow for miles under mountains for a simple reason: It has no time to spare.

In the fine print of a 2008 voter-approved measure funding the project was a little-noticed requirement that trains be able to rocket from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to San Francisco in no more than two hours and 40 minutes.

It was an aggressive goal, requiring cutting-edge technology, and was originally intended to protect the sanctity of the bullet train concept from political compromise. Whether the California High Speed Rail Authority can meet such a schedule is far from certain. Even some backers of the project now say it was a mistake to lock in the strict requirement.

Huh? It wasn’t “fine print” – HSR supporters like me shouted from the rooftops that the trains would connect SF to LA in just over two and a half hours. It was compelling. It was sensible. It was one of the things that generated public support for the project. We put together postcards that fall with the following image on one side and handed them out at train stations across the state, such as Union Station, loudly trumpeting the travel time:



After all, people understood that they were voting for high speed rail. They were voting for short travel times. That’s the entire point of high speed rail – to be something other than Amtrak, to provide fast and reliable transportation between California’s metro areas.

For Vartabedian to treat this as something of a surprise just shows how disreputable a journalist he really is. That travel time is comparable to other successful HSR routes around the world. Spain’s AVE train connects Madrid and Barcelona in 2 hours, 38 minutes. France’s LGV Est operates trains at speeds of 200 mph. Given technological improvements, 220 mph by 2020 is a reasonable expectation.

Instead Vartabedian makes this sound like some hidden trick, and quotes high speed rail opponent Alan Lowenthal to supposedly make his case:

Some state legislative leaders and rail authority officials say the time requirement never should have been put into the law. “It was a mistake,” said Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), a key supporter of the project who has asked increasingly tough questions about the cost.

In fact, Lowenthal has always opposed high speed rail, wanting to steal the $10 billion in voter approved funding for slower-speed trains. So it is in his interest to argue that high speeds are not desirable and are some sort of trick.

I don’t understand why the LA Times continues to pay Ralph Vartabedian to mislead their readers about this project. He is a dishonest reporter who is writing hit pieces rather than objective journalism. A reputable newspaper would not continue to have him on their staff.

California voters knew what they were doing when they voted for Prop 1A. They knew it would provide fast train service between SF and LA. That’s the entire point. And it’s the right goal to pursue, even if HSR opponents like Vartabedian want to mislead the public about what they actually voted for in 2008.

Are streetcars the answer to our transit and environmental needs?

Souce: http://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2011/12/12/33753/are_streetcars_the_answer_to_our_transit_and_environmental_needs



By Steven Dornfeld | Published Mon, Dec 12 2011 9:06 am

Cities could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent or more by linking streetcars and higher-density land use.
SiemensCities could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent or more by linking streetcars and higher-density land use.


Patrick Condon wants to turn back the clock to the streetcar era.

Condon, an urban planner and professor at the University of British Columbia, says bringing back the streetcar is the best thing cities can do to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases and become more sustainable.

Speaking last week at the University of Minnesota, Condon said most North American cities developed out of the agricultural grid system, in which the land was divided into one-mile-square parcels. Streetcars could easily be added back into cities that developed on a grid pattern and many suburbs could be retrofitted to include them, he said.

Congdon said he came to be a "train nut" late in life, and does not readily identify the older guys "in bib overalls hovering over their train layouts in the basement."

But he argued that cities could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent or more by linking streetcars and higher-density land use. Making communities walkable and bikeable also could help.

One major challenge would be getting public buy-in, Condon said. Half of the public "doesn't believe climate change is a problem."

There is, however, a certain amount of nostalgia for streetcars. Many baby boomers and their parents recall the days when it was possible to hop on a trolley and get to just about anywhere in the Twin Cities area.

900 streetcars
Up until the early 1950s, the Twin Cities had 900 streetcars and more than 500 miles of track that extended from Lake Minnetonka to Stillwater. On University Avenue, there were more than 60 cars operating during peak periods.

Annual ridership hit a peak of 238 million in 1920. It began to drop as automobiles became affordable and plummeted after World War II, when GIs returned home, formed families and sought that prized home in the suburbs. (By comparison, transit ridership last year was 91 million.)

The streetcar system came to an unfortunate end in 1954, when the last trolleys were pulled from the streets and replaced with buses financed by General Motors. In the conversion process, the transit system was defrauded by company executives and mobsters, several of whom went to jail.

The last run of the streetcars in Minneapolis on June 19,1954.
Hennepin County LibraryThe last run of the streetcars in Minneapolis on June 19,1954.


The history of the system is recounted in a richly illustrated book, "Twin Cities by Trolley," by John W. Diers and Aaron Isaacs. The Minnesota Streetcar Museum also provides a brief history of the system.

Condon said there are solid environment and economic reasons for bringing back the trolley. A modern low-floor tram [PDF] manufactured by Siemens has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile of all transportation options.

Streetcars also are more affordable, with a capital cost of $20 million to $40 million per mile compared with $60 million to $100 million a mile for light rail transit.

Key density goal
The key, Condon said, is to achieve sufficient density — 10 to 40 residential units per acre — to support the investment. "You could marry transit to land use in a way where you don't have to subsidize it at all," he says. However, he acknowledged that achieving that density goal "is going to be very hard."

In the Twin Cities, the typical urban neighborhood might have a density of seven to 10 units per acre, while the density in developing suburbs is more in the range of two to four units per acre. The Metropolitan Council requires a minimum of three units per acre in areas where communities want regional sewer service.

Both Minneapolis and St. Paul have expressed interest in streetcars, and Minneapolis landed a $900,000 federal grant to explore the idea. The city has embarked on a study of a possible nine-mile line along Nicollet and Central Avenues from 46th Street in south Minneapolis to a transit station just outside of Columbia Heights.

St. Paul failed to win a $200,000 grant to conduct a study of its own, but Joe Campbell, a spokesman for Mayor Chris Coleman, says the city is "pursuing other options" to fund the effort.

Metro Transit, meanwhile, is studying another option — a form of bus rapid transit (BRT) — in 11 urban corridors in the two cities. It is would include such features as distinctive vehicles with traffic signal priority, heated bus shelters, off-vehicle fare collection, real-time travel information, more frequent service and faster trips.

The capital cost for urban BRT would be about $2 million to $5 million per mile, according to Metro Transit planners.

Gabbard: High Speed Rail Route, Business Plan, Deserve a Chance

Source: http://la.streetsblog.org/2011/12/14/gabbard-high-speed-rail-route-business-plan-deserve-a-chance/
by Dana Gabbard

As a long-time observer of the California high speed rail project who advocated in favor of the 2008 bond, to me one interesting recent trend is that the original hotbed of support (the Central Valley) of late has become much more skeptical and critical. Some of that is due to the dynamics of large projects — early on excitement holds sway whereas when construction begins to approach folks begin to confront the downside impacts of such ventures, causing a backlash. And frankly, until recently, I think it can be fairly said the Authority’s outreach and handling of politically sensitive aspects has been less than stellar.

Click on the report go visit the CAHSR website.

I am well aware a lot of folks are having serious sticker shock about this project. But the improved business plan seems to be attacked for merely doing what critics have long asked for — provide realistic estimates of costs, ridership and the likely timing of private investment. Plus many cities are reeling from the technology’s attributes resulting in many towns being impacted without the benefit of having a station.

All that said, I am not big on second guessing the authority unlike many other rail activists. Having the first segment in the Central Valley seems a reasonable approach, especially since it is a condition of the federal funding they have been awarded. And after many convulsions this latest news of a preferred route seems to auger the project getting back on track with support from those to be most effected.

I am not unaware this is just one step in a lengthy process. And that there are many more obstacles ahead. But I think those predicting loudly of late the bullet train is on life support are being premature.

Gold Line Basket Bridge Getting Its Weave On in Arcadia

Source: http://la.curbed.com/archives/2011/12/gold_line_basket_bridge_getting_its_weave_on_in_arcadia_1.php

Tuesday, December 13, 2011, by Neal Broverman




The first column for the iconic Gold Line "basket bridge" over the 210 was poured last week in Arcadia and the other three columns are following as we speak, reports the Gold Line Construction Authority. The above picture shows how the design is embedded in the column--"The remaining segments of the [column] form will be stripped in the next few days, and then crews will install the form on the second column by the end of the year," according to a GLCA press release. "Over the coming weeks and months you will start seeing activity out along the 11.5-mile corridor." The bridge, designed by artist Andrew Leicester and AECOM, will be the first part of the Gold Line extension to Azusa to be finished. According to a Pasadena Star-News op-ed from GLCA board chairman/Glendora mayor Doug Tessitor, the extension remains on track to open in 2015, even with that one resident filing lawsuits like it's going out of style.

Alameda Street Train Tracks Being Removed

Source: http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/alameda-street-train-tracks-being-removed/article_58c86cd8-25f0-11e1-98fe-001871e3ce6c.html

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Alameda Street is one of the most heavily used transit corridors in the region. It has also long been one of the bumpiest rides in Downtown, thanks to a surfeit of potholes and uneven pavement.

The culprit behind Alameda's ruddy surface is a section of old, long-defunct rail track embedded in the street. Safety regulations and concerns about potentially hazardous materials made the removal of the tracks cost-prohibitive in the past.

Now, the metal is coming out. Over the past two months, the Bureau of Street Services, in partnership with 14th District City Councilman José Huizar, performed a series of trials and concluded that their system for removing the tracks is safe.

Now the effort is on to remove all remaining track on Alameda between First and Seventh streets, said Huizar spokesman Rick Coca.

The project cost is estimated at $900,000. The track is expected to be removed entirely on that seven-block stretch by spring 2012, and Huizar representatives said they will push for the resurfacing work to be done as soon as possible.

The section of Alameda Street between Seventh Street and the California (10) Freeway is slated for full track removal in 2017.

Union Station Panel Says Area Could Be Downtown's Next South Park

Source: http://blogdowntown.com/2011/12/6522-union-station-panel-says-area-could-be-downtowns



A panel of land use experts spent the week studying potential uses for the 500 acres around Union Station, which Metro bought this year.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Union Station could be the center of Downtown's next big development boom, a panel of land use experts told the city and Metro on Friday morning.

The team of eight planners and development experts had spent the week studying the 500 acres around the historic train station, looking for ways in which the city can maximize the benefits it receives from Metro's ownership and development of the station site.

In presenting their results to an audience that included two city councilmembers, the head of the city's Planning department, Metro CEO Art Leahy and top planners from the transit agency, the panel said that the publicly-owned land that surrounds the station presents a tremendous opportunity because it creates a "land bank" for future development.

The nexus of all the transportation options coming into the station and the historic neighborhoods nearby could create a major destination, the panel said. Several talked of the potential for the Union Station area to be Downtown's next South Park, citing the mass of development that sprung up on Downtown's southern edge over the last ten years.

The current uses for that public land, however, is a challenge. Northeast of the 1939 station, roughly 75 acres are dedicated to two jails and a bus maintenance facility.

"The jail's got to go," said Bill Kistler, a senior client partner with Korn/Ferry International in London.

The county, though, will vote later this month on moving forward with a $1.4 billion project to rebuild the Men's Central Jail. While other locations are being studied, current plans call for the new facility to be built on the same site. The three ten-story towers would have 5,040 beds for male inmates.

Councilman Jose Huizar, whose 14th district includes Union Station and the jail site, said that after hearing the experts speak so highly of the area's potential, the city needs to get involved in that conversation.

"Now we have a number of experts telling us, after their review, that it makes sense to look at other options for that jail because of the tremendous opportunities that exist," said Huizar. "This is the beginning. It sounds like we as the city and Metro are on the same page, now we need to lobby the county supervisors to find another location for the jail."

"Right now we're at one of these pivotal points for this region where we're planning and looking ahead 50 years."

"What will this area look like in 50 years? With everything we're seeing and the demand for housing and jobs and transportation in this area—a key hub for that transportation—it makes sense to move that jail somewhere else."

In the short term, the panel advised that the city focus on finding ways to partner with the county to create development on the surface parking lots between Union Station and Hill Street, and that it focus on improving the connectivity between Union Station and the neighborhoods around it.

"We can't just streetscape and put in signs, we need development," said Mary Smith, a senior vice president with Walker Parking Consultants/Engineers in Indianapolis.

The panel also advised the city to push ahead with the development of above-ground retail at the L.A. Mall, a site that has long proved problematic.

Long-term, higher passenger volumes would likely create opportunities for higher-density residential, office space and hotels.

The group, which was put together by the Urban Land Institute, gave the local planners in attendance plenty to think about.

"The value of having outsiders come in and look at a problem is really important," said Martha Welborne, Metro's top planner. "We gave them a list of questions to address, but other than that they had to discover the problems and come up with solutions on their own."

Imagining a City Without Its Public Transportation

Emily Badger

Dec 12, 2011


Link: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/12/imagining-city-without-its-public-transportation/690/

LA County Metro delays bus schedule changes until spring

Los Angeles County Metro has delayed scheduled changes to some of its bus routes that were supposed to go into effect Sunday.

Metro had set the date months ago to ax a few of its bus lines and add new stops to some of its rapid buses. Agency officials say they’d hoped to create easier access to the nearly-completed Exposition Light Rail Line, an eight-and-a-half-mile route that will eventually connect downtown L.A. with Culver City.

But spokesman Marc Littman says Metro yanked planned changes to about 20 bus lines at the last minute. He says engineers need more time to analyze the way those changes will affect riders.

Littman says he expects Metro to settle on bus route schedules before the Expo Line opens in the spring.

Santa Monica Tries to Figure Out What to Do When Bergamot Station Becomes a Train Station Again

Photo by polaroid-girl via the LAist Featured Photos pool
Way back in 1875, the Bergamot Station in Santa Monica was actually a train stop for the Red Line that ran through Los Angeles to the Santa Monica Pier. Now the city of Santa Monica is trying to decide what to do in 2015 when the gallery space again becomes a train stop — this time for the new Expo Line.

The Expo Line will bring big changes: it will require the destruction of one gallery, and it will bring in tons of new riders. Now the Santa Monica Daily Press reports that planning department staff is wondering if the city should try to bring in some new, profitable businesses — like hotels and restaurants — to an area full of galleries that may be culturally rich but require subsidized rent to stay afloat. This talk of revenue around the arts of course makes some on the planning commission a little nervous.

Here are the three main options the planning department is considering, according to the Daily Press:

Option A would be adding a few new two or three-story buildings to the area but mostly preserving the footprint of Bergamot Station

Option B would be divvying up the parcels between a variety of owner-developers to allow the spaces to change organically as new owners come and go

Option C would preserve the eastern portion of the site and open up the western side for development, which could include buildings up to four stories tall, a proposed hotel and underground parking


The majority of speakers at the meeting said they prefer changing nothing at all about Bergamot Station or voting for option A, which would change the site as little as possible.

Ruthann Lehrer, who is on the commission, pointed out that there's already a large-scale development being planned right across the street from Bergamot at the transit village. She suggested that maybe that development will be enough to subsidize the arts across the street.

"I'm looking at the balance between this wonderful complex and the galleries, which we value a lot and all of the development that's taking place across the street," Lehrer said. "They're supposed to provide community benefits. That would provide some of the subsidy and support."
Contact the author of this article or email tips@laist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

Fewer still on board with bullet train Fewer still on board with bullet train

December 11, 2011 9:30 AM

The Orange County Register

Last week was a bad week for California's touted high-speed rail project. That made it a good week for Californians, particularly for taxpayers.

The best news was a new Field Poll that showed the public has wised up to the boondoggle foisted upon them by a slick public-relations campaign and self-interested types, who want to profit no matter the cost to taxpayers.

Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said they want an opportunity to vote again on the $9.9 billion in bonds voters approved for the project three years ago. Even more gratifying was the fact that 59 percent said they would vote "no" the next time; 31 percent said they would vote "yes."

We have called for undoing the damage set in motion with the 2008 vote ever since it passed with a 52 percent favorable vote. As the proposed 800-mile route to tie together Southern and Northern California ballooned in cost, and its completion date was extended 14 years, public opposition has grown.

Voters and taxpayers have seen the project once estimated to cost $35 billion and to be completed by 2020 inflate to almost three times the original price and to take more than twice as long as promised. And that's if we believe the High-Speed Rail Authority's latest estimates. It's anyone's guess how much will be added to the current estimate of $98.5 billion or how many more years will be tacked on to the present 2034 estimated completion date.

There's no reason to saddle Californians with $1 billion a year burden, which is about the cost to pay off those bonds alone, if they all are sold. The Legislature should refuse to authorize bond sales. There's less reason to beg Washington for more money to backfill what now approaches a $90 billion shortfall.

Also last week there was good news out of Washington, D.C., where Republican lawmakers bashed the Obama administration's handling of $10.5 billion in grants doled out around the country, rather than concentrating the money in the congested northeastern corridor, where rail improvements make more sense.

House Railroads Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said the administration should have funneled a majority of federal funds into one major project "to do it right," and serve as a showcase for other projects to come. Clearly, that one place wouldn't be California, where only $9.9 billion in state funding is assured, only $3 billion in federal funding has been allocated conditionally, and zero private financing has emerged.

The Legislature should put this matter back on the ballot, where voters assuredly would kill it.

Transportation Got ‘US’ Into A Greenhouse Gas Fix, Public Transportation Can Get ‘US’ Out

Source http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/transportation-got-%E2%80%98us%E2%80%99-greenhouse-gas-fix-public-transportation-can-get-%E2%80%98us%E2%80%99-out

By Alan Kandel

California ranks as high as the world’s 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gases (one source says we’re the 15th largest emitter - the most conservative ranking of the bunch). Think about it: Of 194 nations represented at the U.N. climate summit being held in Durban, South Africa, California’s GHG emissions surpass up to 182 of those represented countries. That is neither flattering nor a title to be proud of.

Looking at California more closely, transportation alone contributes a full 38 percent of our GHG emissions. (In some regions this figure is surpassed even). Transportation is followed (in descending order by contributed amount of GHG) by industrial (20%), imported electricity (13%), in-state electricity (12%), residential (6%), agriculture and forestry (5%), commercial (3%) and other sources (3%).

Meanwhile, within the transportation sector, the largest single GHG producer is, you guessed it, on-road light duty trucks and cars, contributing a whopping 74 percent, followed by on-road heavy-duty trucks which contributes 19 percent, according to Environment California Research and Policy Center’s Spring 2008 report: “Getting California on Track: Seven Strategies to Reduce Global Warming Pollution from Transportation”. The above was based on 2004 data and numbers may be similar today. (See page 7).

Broadly speaking, “According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 28 percent of the Unites States’ total GHG emissions come from transportation.” And a July 28, 2009 press release from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) stated “Emissions have had the fastest growth in the transportation sector.”

An eye-opener and thought-provoker is the notion that “Expanded public transit strategies coordinated with combining travel activity, land use development, operational efficiencies can reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) by 24 percent, according to the study entitled Moving Cooler,” APTA noted. It estimates that the annual savings in vehicle costs to consumers exceed the cost of enacting these strategies by as much as $112 billion.

“The study shows that from 1996 to 2006, growth in U.S. transportation GHG emissions represented almost one-half (47 percent) of the increase in total U.S. GHG emissions. The research points out that the U.S. cannot reach its emission reduction goals without successful strategies to reduce GHG emissions from transportation.”

Is this likewise true for California?

The California challenge is thus: In order to meet greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets specified in the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, California must reduce such emissions by 25 percent by 2020 and by an additional 80 percent below that by 2050. Can it be done? Rest assured it can, but will it? That, of course, depends.

I’m thinking that the installation of the California high-speed rail network would be the single-biggest saver GHG-wise. Implementation of high-speed train service here in the Golden State, even though deemed expensive, its immediate, short- and long-term environmental benefits would be far superior to adhering to “business-as-usual” practices. Reducing GHG from both heavy-duty and light-duty trucks as well as from other motor vehicles would definitely help.

So don’t get me wrong. High-speed rail is extremely attractive because legions of commuters and travelers who would typically occupy the roadways and airways and thus adding to the global warming pollution problem might turn to and stay with trains because that would become an available option. The same could be said for urban rail options.

At the same time it is important to keep in mind, in an economy on the rebound, the presumption is the growth in vehicle miles traveled will resume. But, it need not be this way. The recessionary economy forced us to be more frugal with our finances, and as a result driving, and thus vehicle miles traveled were scaled back. When the economy does rebound and the presumption is that it will, it would behoove us to not be so quick to return to our former ways, i.e. getting back on the road in ever-increasing numbers. Having viable transportation alternatives to choose from is paramount. And this can be the best fix among them all to help get us out of our current greenhouse gas fix.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alan Kandel is a concerned California resident advocating for new, improved and expanded freight (and passenger) rail service. He is a retired railroad signalman previously employed by the Union Pacific Railroad in Fremont, California.

Expo Line Neighbors Worried About Peeping Riders

You have to love the creativity of complainers. " a new issue is bubbling to the surface, says Streetsblog. Some people who live along Expo Phase I's route are calling for tall--likely ungainly--privacy screens to be built on top of the soundwalls that surround the train. "



Wednesday, December 7, 2011, by Neal Broverman






We still can't give you any opening date for the Expo Line, but there's lots going on concerning the light rail line that will eventually travel from Downtown to Santa Monica (and from Downtown to Culver City, probably very soon). First, Phase II bike amenities that once appeared uncertain are now coming together, reports Streetsblog. A group of Westside homeowners had sued over the bike path that's planned to run parallel to Expo Phase II, complaining that no environmental studies had been done on the path. Expo spokeswoman Gabriela Collins now tells Streetsblog that environmental clearances have been obtained for the bikeway in both LA and Santa Monica, clearing the way for the path's design stage.

There was also a kerfuffle over bike amenities at Phase I's under-construction Culver City station, which is set to open early next year. The station will initially feature 10 bike racks and eight bike lockers, but a "Clean Mobility Center" (likely a facility featuring more bike space and possibly valet and showers) is in the works. It was delayed because "its location conflicted with the construction staging area for the Venice Boulevard Bridge, which is being built as part of Phase 2," Collins said. "However, the necessary provisions were made at the station site for the addition of the CMC in the future." After some work is done on the light rail bridge over Venice and Robertson Boulevards, work on the CMC can begin.

All the bike news sure sounds positive, but a new issue is bubbling to the surface, says Streetsblog. Some people who live along Expo Phase I's route are calling for tall--likely ungainly--privacy screens to be built on top of the soundwalls that surround the train. Expo Construction Authority board member and new City Council prez Herb Wesson is a big advocate for the screens, saying at the last Expo board meeting, "I want to get it done."

There's no money for these privacy screens, and, some would argue, no point. That is unless of course you're a modest nudist who likes to sit on the edge of soundwalls.

As the High-Speed Rail Debate Rages On, Stanford Historian Becomes Big Critic

Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford: "The problem with this one is California is a state that is failing to fund its university system and failing to fund K-12 education. I was in LA last weekend, with infrastructure breaking down right and left. So to propose spending $100 billion on this is frankly ridiculous."

Source: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2011/12/07/as-the-high-speed-rail-debate-rages-on-stanford-historian-becomes-a-critic/

December 7, 2011, 3:25 pm • Posted by Jon Brooks

Will this ship sink, please?

Source: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2011/12/07/as-the-high-speed-rail-debate-rages-on-stanford-historian-becomes-a-critic/




From AP yesterday:
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood strongly defended the federal government's nearly $4 billion investment in high-speed rail in California, even as growing expenses and a longer timeline for completion have raised doubts in Congress.

During a congressional hearing Tuesday, LaHood acknowledged that the project will be expensive, with current estimates putting the cost at nearly $100 billion over 20 years. Still, LaHood called the project essential.

``We won't be dissuaded by the naysayers and the critics,'' LaHood said.

Speaking of naysayers and critics, you may have to include the 59 percent of California voters who just told the Field Poll they'd now reject the nearly $10 billion high-speed rail bond package approved in 2008.

"If we're going to run our government by Field Poll, then maybe we ought to just dismantle the legislature and run everything up the ballot any time we do anything," Jim Earp, the chair of the bond measure's campaign in 2008, told KQED's John Myers. "We can either throw [all the money away] and do nothing, or do what we did back in the depression, and build something like the Golden Gate Bridge or the San Francisco Bay Bridge or Shasta Dam."

Still, there are a lot of people who think the high-speed rail project is not only figuratively, but literally something that's going nowhere fast. Adding fuel to their fire are a pair of reports critical of the project from the Legislative Analyst's Office, most recently on November 29.

Another perhaps less-likely HSR pessimist is Richard White, the Pulitzer-Prize-nominated Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford, whose specialty is the American West and whose current book is Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America.

White has become a thorn in the side of high-speed rail proponents for his vocal criticisms of the project, two of which you can read here and here.

KQED's Amy Standen interviewed White in November to find out just why he's so down on high-speed rail. Here's an edited transcript of the interview:

What's your take on high-speed rail?

It will not die, it's impossible to kill it. The state is going to lose money but construction firms are going to make a great deal of money, land developers around these stations if they ever complete them are going to make money. The governor stands to gain real political capital if they can spend 2 billion in federal dollars to improve employment -- the state needs jobs.

But it would be better to dig a very big hole and fill it up again because that won't cost you anything in the future.

The long-term danger is that you're going to create a white elephant in the San Joaquin Valley, which is essentially a line we have no need for and in fact there's no funding currently to put trains on it. It's never going to be able to sustain itself and the state is going to have to pour good money after bad. The plan now is to make it an Amtrak line, not high-speed rail. To spend $2 billion to do that is frankly ridiculous.

Do you think it's just the wrong time to build a high-speed rail system or is it the wrong thing period?

I have no objection to high-speed rail routes. You can make a good case for them between Boston and DC. The problem with this one is California is a state that is failing to fund its university system and failing to fund K-12 education. I was in LA last weekend, with infrastructure breaking down right and left. So to propose spending $100 billion on this is frankly ridiculous. Sometime in the future, if you can afford to fund it and make a good public case for doing so, I wouldn’t necessarily oppose it.

Proponents say people like you are ignoring the cost of not building the system, because we have to accommodate projected population growth.

What will high-speed rail do? It's not going to take pressure off the roads that are most congested. This is a proposal to shuttle people up and down the San Joaquin Valley, between SF and LA, with some stops in between. They've left out Sacramento and San Diego already.

And I don't think it's going to be able to compete with airline routes. We have fairly efficient airline transportation between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. I don't see really what good this is going to do.

But we can't expand Bay Area airports, and flights are often delayed. Those problems aren't going to go away.

You don’t think there will be delays on train routes?

They're talking 30 years from now to complete it. So this will not do us any good in the short or medium term. Then you have to maintain it. The proponents act like if you build something incrementally you will not have to continue to pour money into it. But you have to make sure the rails don't deteriorate, and that the beds don't deteriorate, that storms don’t damage it.

You can't afford to build major infrastructure projects and just have them sit there and deteriorate until you're ready to use them. It's much cheaper to build them when you use them.

So what would the right time look like?

When Californians are ready to get onto trains. Which they're not.

It should be built after you take care of the low-hanging fruit. Why not regional transports around SF and LA, projects that will get people off the freeways where they're the most crowded? I-5 is not pleasant, but I wouldn't say that it is our major problem in California transportation and that's all this is going to fix.

Also, this does nothing about trucks. What railways have been good for is freight. That's what we should be getting off the road. I don’t see passengers as the real problem.

But how can you expect people to want to ride trains if there aren't any trains to ride? Shouldn't California provide an environmentally responsible infrastructure, then encourage people to use it?

Anything you paint green in California is going to get you to support it. Many of my colleagues are shocked I'm against high-speed rail.

But the University of Berkeley looked at what happens to the Obama proposal to build high-speed rail across the U.S., and their analysis indicates a one-percent carbon savings. We couldn’t spend that money more effectively to reduce carbon? What you're falling for is something that looks flashy and people in France and Japan like it. But that's not the best bang for the buck to get serious about fighting global warming.

What do you think is the difference between America as opposed to Japan and France, where high-speed rail has been successful?

When you take a high-speed rail train in France, from Paris to Lyon, you've got an infrastructure of public transportation that gets you to the rail station on time, and when you get off you can simply get on public transportation after. The same goes for Kyoto and Tokyo.
That's not true of SF and LA.

We are building a high-speed rail network without the public transportation at either end of it. You need that because after the high-speed rail ride, people will have to get back in the car and drive a great deal.

The French and Japanese governments subsidize the fares. We have under Prop 1A agreed not to subsidize fares. Those governments also regulate their rail very heavily. We do not have such a great record of giving subsidies and getting public benefits back.

How did you go from history professor to high-speed rail critic?

I reacted to the parallel that's strong between high-speed rail and the transcontinental railroads. Those railroads were about 30 years premature; they did not make money and the US government had to sue the Central Pacific and Union Pacific in the 1890s to get the money loaned to them back.

In this case there's seemingly a bar to that happening – California high-speed rail has written into it that there will be no subsidies.

But let's imagine we have this thing built and no private capital is coming in. What prevents the state from going back to the legislature to say "we need a subsidy to attract private capital?" It will do what all these subsidies do –- guarantee private investors that there will be no risk for their investment. The public will get the risk; the private investors will get the benefit. And I can't imagine how this will attract private capital without going back to the legislature and guaranteeing the subsidy we promised we wouldn't.

What drew me out of history is listening to President Obama and other figures justifying this project as a parallel to the transcontinental railroads. I realized they were right -– this was a parallel, and why would we want to make that mistake again? That's what made me write the first op-ed.

In California we seem to have this idea that we can take on huge projects, that we're almost our own country. Is that changing?

Well, look at the big infrastructure projects that have worked in California. The interstate highway system: They had a dedicated revenue source to pay for that, plus a gas tax. The dams have subsidized major agricultural interests -- in a very unfair way, I think -- but at the same time, they built in a revenue source to pay for it, because dams produce power.

High-speed rail says it will have a revenue source with the passengers paying the fare, but that's laughable. I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks fares are going to pay for this.

Once you exhaust the federal money and the rest of this has to be paid for by bonds, you will pay huge interest. We only have a small part of the cost funded so far. They're making up a world in which the federal government will give us more money and the counties and cities will contribute money and then private investment will come in at low interest and absorb the risk. But we'll absorb the risk; they'll take the profit, leaving us with the debt. This is a recipe for catastrophe.

Proponents would say you're making the perfect the enemy of the good.

I'm making the good be the enemy of the impossible. If they could demonstrate that we need these lines where we're going to build them and there was any hope of paying for them I'd cut them some slack. But they've oversold this line so many times I think any California in their right mind would be extremely skeptical of anything the high-speed rail commission says.

You say there's no good public transportation in California, even in a city like San Francisco. Explain.

The secret to a good public transportation system is you don't have a schedule, like in NY and Chicago. You just show up and you know that within 10 or 15 minutes something will come along. When you need a schedule and you miss it and you have to wait 45 minutes or so that's not a real transportation system. In the Peninsula, bus service is for poor people, because they're the only ones who are desperate enough to wait an hour for the buses to come along. It would be a joke to try to use public transportation on the Peninsula. We should be creating a structure where these things work.

If you want to read a refutation of some of these arguments, take a look at this California High Speed Rail blog post, by Robert Cruickshank. Cruickshank says that an independent peer review found that contrary to White's assertion, HSR ridership projections are actually sound.

On some of the other issues Professor White raises, Cruickshank writes:

[White] says that the willingness of private investors to step up was overestimated, but that misreads what is going on. The private sector has shown a great deal of interest in the system. They have been consistent in saying that they will not yet step up until there is a significant state and federal contribution.

White argues that the federal government won’t step up, even though Barack Obama has shown consistent support for federal funding, as have Democrats in Congress, and despite polls showing Democrats are likely to retake the House.

White claims that the system will never cover its costs, even though virtually every other HSR system in the world does so, including the Acela.

Amy Standen also talked to Mike Rossi, chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority. Rossi said a lot of the criticism being levied by op-ed writers is based on a shallow reading of the issues and incorrect numbers. Edited transcript of Rossi addressing some other issues below:

The state is practically crippled under its financial strain right now. We've tripled tuition across the UC system. We're laying off teachers and cops. Is this the wrong time to take on something like this?

The legislature and the governor and in some cases the body politic will have to make their decision as to what they're going to do. I'm not suggesting that high-speed rail is more important than tuition at the University of California. That's not my role.

I'm putting forth, with my other board members, a realistic business plan so that people now can make whatever judgement they make.

We have every assumption, every piece of data that drives this plan on record open to analysis to anyone, and I'm open to standing and having those conversations because if we're wrong better to find it out now rather than later. But we want to have that conversation with people who are as transparent as we are in what we're saying and doing.

What are the consequences of not building high-speed rail?

My view is that if we don’t build high-speed rail, and instead build roads -- aside from the 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide that we'll discharge in the air, besides the 148 million hours of standing in traffic and driving more pollution -- trains last for a hundred years and they cover their operating maintenance and capital refreshment. I don't know any road that does that.

The current business plan relies pretty heavily on private investment, which some critics say is unrealistic. What's your response?

I will tell you right now, if people can sell future revenues of Elton john concerts, we can sell future revenues of high-speed rail, and at a better discount.

We built the transcontinental railroad in four years.This project is likely to take decades, in part because of lawsuits from communities along the proposed route. Do you ever start to wonder whether we are past the age where we can build big projects?

Ever watch The Maltese Falcon? At the very end of his life, Humphrey Bogart said the last line in the movie was an ad-lib. He said, in referring to the jewel-encrusted statue, "it's the stuff that dreams are made of." Well let me tell you something, California is the stuff that dreams are made of. This state is still the most innovative economy in the world and the state that still gets the most foreign investment. We Californians can do big things, period.

40 Years Ago: $420 Million Transit Plan Proposed to Link Downtown and LAX

Many plans have been shelved. Has any of them been completed, they would have cost a lot less than the costs that we must bear today. All the more reason, that the 30/10 plan should be funded.

Source: http://blogdowntown.com/2011/12/6520-40-years-ago-420-million-transit-plan-proposed



By Eric Richardson
Published: Wednesday, December 07, 2011, at 04:22PM


RTD / L.A. Times

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — 40 years ago today, officials from the Rapid Transit District unveiled plans for a $420 million plan to link Downtown to LAX via a line that would include both subway and elevated segments.

Four decades later, many of the pieces of that proposed line have been implemented, but the only ride going from Union Station to the airport is a bus.

To get the effort moving, RTD pledged that it would contribute $70 million of the needed funds, half of what it expected that local agencies would need to contribute in order to get the rest in matching funds.

The proposed line started out as a subway at Union Station, traveling through Downtown and then south to USC before emerging as an elevated near Exposition Park. It would then zig-zag east toward the routing of the modern Blue Line before connecting up with the Century Freeway, at that point still years away from completion.

That east-west corridor would eventually become Metro's Green Line, though its planned airport connection was instead curved south into El Segundo.

In 1971, RTD proposed that construction could start by 1973 and the line could be completed by 1978. The eventual Blue and Green lines took a little bit longer to come to fruition, opening in 1990 and 1995, respectively. Costs also climbed just a bit, with the two costing a combined $1.6 billion.

Urban Retailers Call For More Transit, Less Parking

Source: http://www.globest.com/news/12_238/newyork/retail/-316347.html

By Jacqueline Hlavenka

NEW YORK CITY-As retailers continue to weave suburban concepts into the urban fabric, more brands—and big-boxes—are going vertical. But as the pendulum swings in favor of transit-oriented development, the nation’s top retailers agreed that the need for mass transportation is beginning to outweigh the need for traditional parking design, according to speakers during day two of the International Council of Shopping Centers’ 2011 New York National Conference & Deal Making event. The convention closed out at the Sheraton New York and Hilton New York Hotels on Tuesday afternoon, where total attendance exceeded 6,000 each day.
During the general session, much of the discussion revolved around the challenges retailers face, running the gamut from site selection, obtaining local approvals, expansion concerns and store formats. The panelists also addressed the paradigm shift of retailers like wholesale clubs and supermarkets—two concepts borne out of the suburbs—that are finding equal strength in cities, especially near subway and bus lines.
“If we could be close to mass transit, it could be absolutely critical,” said Patrick Smith, vice president of real estate at BJ’s Wholesale Club, an operator of 192 clubs and 107 gas stations across 15 states. Smith explained that despite the bulk-quality of BJs merchandise, more city customers are taking the train to its stores. “More people are using mass transit and some people walk,” he said, noting that its parking garage at Bronx Terminal Market is vastly underutilized. “For a BJ’s customer, you may think that is absolutely ridiculous. We never expected people to use mass transit to shop at a wholesale club.”
The same goes for Michael J. Shanahan, vice president of real estate at Burlington Coat Factory, who said mass transit is “absolutely a requirement” when selecting an urban location. “When we opened at Rego Park I this last September, we are right off the subway stop,” he said, explaining that while the store opening started off slow, momentum began to build as foot traffic increased by the E, M and R trains. “We got the word on the street to get people up to the third floor.”
And while mass transit is reducing the need for the amount of parking, Daniel Shallit, director of real estate for the Northeast Region at the Sports Authority, said parking cannot be totally eliminated from the retail model. “Looking at the Philadelphias of the world or the Bostons or other large urban markets, we still need it,” he said, noting that parking changes would affect store sizes. “The logic is, if you buy a treadmill at a Sports Authority, you can’t take that on a bus or a train. You need a car or you need some way to access a car to get that product home.”
Using New York City as an example, Shallit said its Manhattan locations sell less hard goods (like weights and fitness equipment) and more soft goods (like clothing and shoes) due its ease of transport on a bus or train. “But we still want to be close to mass transit because it builds awareness,” he said. “The more people that see us by commuting know that we are there and that’s really, really important to us.”
Supermarkets are also facing similar issues. Dennis P. Bachman, senior real estate representative for Wakefern Food Corp., said a large food shop could be difficult to do on a typical train or bus. “Cabs have certainly become a much more important factor,” he said. “Typically in a city store, especially if you have a lot of customers who would use mass transit, you would tend to have higher customer counts, greater shopping frequency and a lower average order size, so the per trip spend would be less, which adds some additional complications to the business. Learning to handle those additional customers, staffing levels and things like that, parking is still an important criteria.”
But some food retailers are paring back on parking altogether. G. Lamont Blackstone, principal of Mount Vernon, NY-based GL Blackstone & Associates, LLC, worked on the development and leasing of Harlem’s largest Pathmark store. After battling over the normal requirement of parking spaces versus the constraints of the development plot, Blackstone put in 2.3 cars per 1,000 people, lower than the industry standard of five per 1,000. “We are blessed that we live in a democracy, but sometimes there are inherent tensions between the vetting and the public input requirements, particularly as it relates to land use decisions of urban democracies versus the execution of requirements for urban developers and urban retailers,” he said. “That’s why it is critically important for developers from day one right out the gate that they put the best face forward on their projects in order to minimize the potential issues that will come down the pike.”
And due the large expense parking garages can bring, Larry Rose, principal, RK Realty Advisors, explained that urban retailers must understand their demographics before making an investment. Where parking at Bronx Terminal Market averages at 20% utilization, more shoppers are filling up spaces at Sky View Center in Flushing, Queens, where more residents own a vehicle. “Even though the site is at the end of the 7 line, half the people are driving and are beyond where mass transit is,” he said.
Peter Ripka, partner at Ripco Real Estate, a retail firm serving New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester County and Lower Connecticut, explained that all forms of transportation play into what makes a site successful or not. Using its Target-anchored Sayville-Patchogue shopping center as an example Ripka said the property is centrally located on a major Long Island thoroughfare, Sunrise Highway. “People can easily come from long distances to those shopping centers, and mass transportation does the same thing in the urban environment,” he said. “People are able to come from a large area, and therefore, parking is not as necessary.”
While public transportation has become the “lifeline” for projects to happen, urban consumers should have choices, said panel moderator Ken Narva, co-founder and managing partner of White Plains, NY-based Street Works. “If you provide 30 teaser parking spaces at grade, that can make a store successful,” he said. "It is the same thing that on-street parking plays, which is the quality of the space, the sense of convenience and the sense of activity.”
But overall, Narva said the future of CRE investment is urban. “We live in an experience culture, and downtown is an experience where people interact with each other, and that experience is very important and is not going away,” he said. “As electronic retailing continues to grow, consumers still need to get out and interface with each other.”

TONIGHT: Manhattan Beach examines trolley plan

Pedestrian View Of LA: As we saw just recently in Pasadena, cities are considering trolley again. In this article, Manhattan Beach is now the latest city to do this. After WW2, many cities moved away from trolleys since they were getting in the way of cars, especially in crowded downtown area. Are we forgetting lessons of the past or is there some new consideration that makes it worthwhile to revisit this transit option? It's also interesting to note that this area had trolleys when the red car was in use.

Source: http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_19479921


Fixed-route trolley plan
Manhattan Beach. The City Council tonight will revisit a proposal to bring a fixed-route trolley system to town. The idea has been analyzed in a feasibility study that was presented to the council in 2010, but staff members have raised several issues that would need to be considered - including a funding source - before moving forward. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at 1400 Highland Ave.

Imagine: Rapid Transit From Sherman Oaks to Lakeview Terrace Metro is considering a Rapidway project running between Ventura Boulevard and Lakeview Terrace, via light rail, streetcar or bus.

Source:  http://shermanoaks.patch.com/articles/imagine-rapid-transit-from-sherman-oaks-to-lakeview-terrace

 The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which received public feedback on a half-dozen ideas to ease traffic along Van Nuys Boulevard, will present a proposed solution in early 2012. The 10.2-mile project, dubbed the Van Nuys Boulevard Rapidway, is part of a plan to improve transit service through the Valley.

Metro held a series of three public meetings in early November to gather public input.The Rapidway project would stretch along Van Nuys Boulevard in Lakeview Terrace south to Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, one of four corridors in the Valley for which improvements are slated. The others are Reseda, Sepulveda and the Lankershim/San Fernando corridors.
Metro is considering five possible transit solutions:

• A light rail similar to the Metro Red Line but with overhead electrical power and sets of two cars carrying up to 335 passengers;
• A bus rapid transit line carrying 100 passengers per bus similar to the Metro Orange line;
• A streetcar with overhead electrical power similar to Portland, Ore.'s, with cars of 140 passengers each;
• Improvements such as intersection widening, signal timing and increased bus service;
• A “No Build” solution that continues existing transit services and projects funded through 2035.

The meetings were the first step to assess what residents and commuters feel will best ease traffic problems. At the Van Nuys meeting, held in the Van Nuys Government Center in early November, many favored light rail, a sentiment echoed by Tony Wilkinson, vice chairman of the Panorama City Neighborhood Council
“Light rail is more favorable for transit-oriented development than a busway,” Wilkinson said. “With light rail, places along the line will have significant economic development.”
Mikie Maloney, who serves on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council’s Land Use Committee, was concerned that light rail, streetcars or a busway would reduce parking space, especially in Sherman Oaks, where businesses already struggle with insufficient parking.
“Whatever they build, it will take away lanes from drivers or from parking,” Maloney said. “The street is only so wide.”
Ron Ziff, who chairs the Neighborhood Council's Land Use Committee, expressed similar concerns over reduced parking and added that the real traffic problem is the Sepulveda Pass through which 337,000 cars pour daily on the 405 Freeway or Sepulveda Boulevard.
“There’s a 3 1/2-hour traffic jam every weekday morning,” Ziff said. “We need to fix that first.”
Ziff’s observation is one shared by the Transit Coalition, a Valley-based nonprofit that wants Metro to address Van Nuys and Sepulveda boulevards together.
Bart Reed, the coalition’s executive director, said Wednesday that a more comprehensive solution would involve rail service along Van Nuys Boulevard through a rail tunnel in the Sepulveda Pass, to UCLA.
“My educated guess is they are going to decide on some sort of bus solution [for Van Nuys Boulevard],” Reed said. “Or if they create light rail and heavy rail [along Sepulveda] then you don’t have a one-seat ride.”
Funds for the Van Nuys Boulevard Rapidway project come from Measure R, a half-cent increase on the county sales tax, expected to generate $40 billion for transit projects over its 30-year span. But the $68 million targeted for the Van Nuys Boulevard project will likely cover just the planning and environmental assessment stages. Other funds will have to be identified to complete the project by the 2018 target date.
For more information on the Van Nuys Boulevard Rapidway, go to metro.net/vannuys, email vannuys@metro.net or call 818-276-3233.  

New Metro Motion TV show explores attractions along Expo Line

Source: http://thesource.metro.net/2011/12/06/metro-motion-tv-show-explores-attractions-along-expo-line/



With finishing touches being applied to the Exposition light-rail line, the just released winter edition of Metro Motion takes a trip to Exposition Park — one of the first stops on Expo south of downtown L.A. There it discovers a variety of world class museums and attractions. And just in time for Metro Motion, Space Shuttle Endeavour Commander Mark Kelly dropped by to celebrate the arrival next year of Endeavour to the California Science Center, where the shuttle will make its home.

Winter 2011-12 Metro Motion also explores the changing habits of 20 somethings who may be the first generation in recent years to turn away from cars and toward mass transit to help the world’s atmosphere heal itself while they invest in pursuits they see as more interesting than driving.

There’s an interview with artist Sonia Romero, whose beautiful porcelain mosaic mural installation at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station has been named one of the best public art projects in the United States. Romero talks about her work and explains what inspired her.

Also in the show, Caltrans District 7 Director Mike Miles has plenty to say on the essential unified focus of highway and transit planners and the importance of coordinating the two for the good of regional mobility.

Metro Motion runs quarterly on cable stations throughout Los Angeles County. Check local listings for dates and times in your area.

90 Years Ago Today: Los Angeles Railway Rolls Out “Information Men” Public Service

Source: http://metroprimaryresources.info/90-years-ago-today-los-angeles-railway-rolls-out-information-men-public-service/2062/

Metro Digital Resources Librarian | December 5, 2011

The December 5, 1921 issue of the Los Angeles Railway employee newsmagazine posed the question: “How would you like to be an information man?”

An article titled “Information Men Help L.A., They’ll Tell The World!” appeared in Two Bells.

Ninety years ago, Los Angeles Railway launched the “Information Men” who served as early Los Angeles’ public information officers.

The article reads as follows:

How would you like to be an information man?

Looks like a pretty interesting job judging by the attitude of George Feller in the picture above.

George is one of the five uniformed information bureaus of the Los Angeles Railway.

This additional service for the public came into being a few weeks ago and has been greatly appreciated.

At the depots and at busy corners downtown the information men are asked all sorts of questions about politics, street cars and Ford spark plugs.

An acquaintance stepped up to C.W. Jordan, the answer man at the Santa Fe depot, and casually asked Charlie, “What do you know today?”

If he had waited for Charlie to tell him everything he knew he would be there yet.

The other men who work with the slogan “I’ll tell the world” are F.A. Christy, formerly conductor of Div. Three; W.R. Boyd, former motorman of Division Four and C.D. Blakeman, formerly conductor of Division Four were motormen at Division One.

All are veterans of street car life and their long service makes them thoroughly acquainted with the city and ideal men for the information jobs.

New timelines for Wilshire bus lane project

Source: http://thesource.metro.net/2011/12/05/timelines-for-wilshire-bus-lane-project/

When we last checked in with the Wilshire rush hour bus lane project, the completion date that we posted was 2013. But Danna Gabbard at L.A. Streetsblog had a post Friday saying that the completion date for the project is now 2015.

The project will put 7.7 miles of rush hour bus lanes on portions of Wilshire Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles, from Brentwood to just west of downtown Los Angeles. The idea — and I think it’s a good one — is to speed up bus service on Wilshire, which is Metro’s busiest bus corridor.

Metro helped plan the project with the city and Los Angeles County. The city of Los Angeles is taking the lead on constructing the project, which involves pavement reconstruction, some street widenings along Wilshire and updating the traffic signal system, among other upgrades. From an Oct. 9 city report:

Extensive roadway improvements on Wilshire Boulevard, including curb lane reconstruction and selective street widening, will be done before the bus lanes are installed. Design and engineering is scheduled to be completed by June 2013, followed by construction of roadway
improvements, traffic mitigation measures, Transit Priority System upgrades, and bus lane striping and signage. The project is expected to be completed and operational by June 2015.

A spokesman for the city’s transportation agency told Streetsblog that the city will try to finish the work earlier than 2015. One obvious question this raises: will the bus lanes project be under construction at the same time that construction for the first leg of the Westside Subway Extension is getting underway?

Answer: It remains to be seen. The subway project is on track to have its environmental impact studies approved in early 2012. At that point, we should have a better idea of funding and the construction timeline for the first segment, which is supposed to go to Fairfax.

On an unrelated note, Streetsblog also reported that the new Silver Line station at Union Station – here’s a good rendering — will be completed in 2015. That is incorrect. The ExpressLanes project on the San Bernardino Freeway and El Monte Busway is still scheduled to open in 2013, with the Silver Line station scheduled for a 2014 opening, according to Metro staff.

Metro Expo Line begins testing trains ahead of expected 2012 opening

Source:

Los Angeles County Metro has begun to ramp up testing along the future Exposition Line, a light rail route that will eventually connect downtown L.A. with Culver City.

Most Angelenos know the drill by now. Warning bells sound, red lights flash, safety gates drop and a few seconds later a Metro train passes by. But, starting Sunday, expect to see the occasional train with no passengers, empty except for a couple engineers.

Metro is testing the timing and safety of every train crossing and signal system of the Expo Line. Tests began Sunday but will continue until its eventual opening. Metro has yet to release the opening date, but many expect it to be in early 2012.



Phase one of the Metro Expo Line is 8.6 miles of light rail stretching from downtown to Culver City, with 12 stops in between. The project cost a cool $932 million, but will also serve USC, Exposition Park, the Mid-City communities and the Crenshaw District. Phase two is a further extension from Culver City to Santa Monica.

As tests begin to be a presence on the line, so does Metro's safety campaign. Retired bus and rail operators turned "safety ambassadors" will be placed at various intersections to teach pedestrians about the system. Metro also says that 63,000 safety flyers have been distributed door-to-door within a two block radius of the line.

An additional 60,000 safety flyers will be distributed during the coming months.

Dan Walters: California's high-speed train losing public support

Source: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/06/4102223/dan-walters-californias-high-speed.html


Published: Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 3A

Has California's bullet train project – or pipe dream – finally run off the track? Voters think so.

When the California High-Speed Rail Authority released a much-revised "business plan" for the project that doubled its cost, it won praise in many quarters, including this one, for moving from abject fantasy into at least semi-reality.

The revisions were largely the work of two new rail authority members, Dan Richard and Michael Rossi, whom Gov. Jerry Brown appointed to pull the project back from the verge of political death because of ridership and financing assumptions that were ludicrously unrealistic.

However, the new plan didn't silence opposition among those living along its route. It also continued to draw sharp criticism from the Legislature's budget analyst, and – most importantly – its eye-popping cost eroded an already thin veneer of public support.

That erosion is starkly evident in a new statewide Field Poll that found overwhelming support for resubmitting the project to voters and overwhelming opposition to building it.

More than three-fourths of registered voters said they should be given another chance to vote on the project and, by a 2-1 margin, they want it to be killed.

Or to put it another way, should Brown and the Legislature continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the bullet train, they would be defying the very clear wishes of those who elected them to office.

Coincidentally, the Field Poll results were distributed to its news media clients Monday just minutes before two state Senate committees began a review of the revised business plan, in which legislators expressed both support for the concept and skepticism that it is financially viable.

The projected cost has now ballooned to nearly $100 billion, but the state has only a $9.95 billion bond issue and a few billion in federal funds to build a test track in the San Joaquin Valley.

The rail authority is hoping that more federal money will allow it to build an initial operational segment and that private investors then will be impressed with its potential and put up the rest of the money.

The Legislative Analyst's Office, however, suggests that even with revision, the plan does not comply with conditions of the bond issue on financing and completion of environmental clearances, and that building the San Joaquin Valley segment is probably not worth its $6 billion cost.

Richard, Rossi and other rail authority officials continued to defend the project as lawmakers peppered them with skeptical questions about the bullet train's prospects and mentioned revelations in The Bee and the San Francisco Chronicle about the authority's lavish spending on contracts to political insiders to positively influence public opinion.

The Field Poll's results would indicate that it was money down a rat hole.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/06/4102223/dan-walters-californias-high-speed.html#ixzz1fm7wZNLl

California high-speed rail authority spends millions to polish image Share

Source: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/04/4098202/california-high-speed-rail-authority.html

By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011 - 11:55 am
On his way off the California High-Speed Rail Authority board this year, former state Sen. Quentin Kopp ripped into the authority's controversial $9 million public relations contract with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, urging its cancellation.

Everywhere, it seemed – from community meetings in the Central Valley to legislative hearings at the Capitol – the project was clobbered for its management and cost, and its worsening image, Kopp said in a March letter to Roelof van Ark, the rail authority's chief executive officer, was evidence of Ogilvy's "inadequate performance."

But the rail authority's public relations campaign has in recent years included not only its contract with Ogilvy – which is now being unwound – but also millions of dollars more in lucrative, publicly funded outreach contracts embedded in agency engineering contracts.

One of those agreements was with a company owned by a former aide to Kopp, and Kopp himself sought to bill the authority more than $1,100 for one outreach-related breakfast in San Francisco last year. Another contract went to a former assemblyman.

Last fiscal year alone, the authority spent $7.2 million on regional outreach, ranging from organizing public meetings to distributing newsletters and meeting with local officials, according to agency records obtained by The Bee.

The authority said it budgeted about $2.6 million for regional outreach this year, with 20 subcontractors statewide.

The magnitude of the effort and its many layers come to light at a critical point for the project. Officials plan to start construction in the Central Valley next year, but they must win the approval of a skeptical Legislature first. The regional subcontractors, overseen by engineering firms throughout the state, in some cases retained and billed the agency on behalf of subcontractors of their own.

"I guess the interesting question to me is, 'Why do they have to spend so much effort selling this to people if it has such strong support?' " said Sen. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, a critic of the rail effort. "They've got to put up a wall of, you know, peaches and cream, to make it look palatable to the voters."

Public outreach is required by state environmental rules for public review, and it is necessary to communicate the significance of the project, agency officials said.

"I think we're making a pretty decent effort to do the best public outreach that we can," said Lance Simmens, the authority's deputy director for communications and public policy.

In the Merced-to-Fresno corridor, that outreach has included "efforts geared toward the agricultural community," periodic public information meetings, monitoring local media and updating the project mailing list and "email blast program," according to invoices.

In the Palmdale-to-Los Angeles area, it included meetings with elected officials and "key stakeholders." And in the Fresno-to-Bakersfield area, the rail authority relied on the work of former Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines, whose invoices listed his company's professional services contract at $80,000.

Last fiscal year, regional outreach expenses accounted for about 4 percent of total spending under agency engineering contracts, according to the authority. This year, the budgeted amount accounts for about 2 percent of total expenses.

In the Bay Area, an early battleground for the project because of intense local opposition, Denise LaPointe, an aide to Kopp when he was a senator, billed the authority more than $350,000 for outreach work done from September 2009 to June 2011, when her contract ended.

LaPointe created newsletters, worked on a public participation plan and conducted outreach and "stakeholder meetings & briefings." Her total billings included invoices for work done by a sub-subcontractor.

"There's a lot of work that was done," LaPointe said. "Any big project, I actually think there's pretty important public outreach that has to be done."

LaPointe was working for the rail authority and had done work on other transportation projects in California before Kopp joined the board, LaPointe and Kopp said. Kopp said he was not involved in LaPointe's ongoing engagement.

Kopp said LaPointe was influential in promoting the project in the Bay Area, in part because she "knows City Hall in San Francisco inside and out."

Kopp, a longtime proponent of high-speed rail, involved himself in outreach, too, according to invoices, including organizing a breakfast meeting last year in San Francisco to introduce van Ark to 25 elected officials in the area.

"I wanted everybody to meet van Ark, and I wanted him to just get the lay of the land and get the feel." Kopp said.

He sought reimbursement from the rail authority for the cost, more than $1,100. The authority reimbursed him the state maximum for a breakfast, $6.

"I remember asking somebody in the office if I could get reimbursed, and being told, 'No,' " Kopp said, "That, frankly, annoyed me a little. But what the heck, it's called public service."

The authority was more accommodating of paying for Kopp's transportation to and from his home in San Francisco for meetings at the Capitol on two successive days in November 2009. Neumann Limousine, which dispatched a sedan, charged the authority $240 each way.

The rail authority's bid to build a system connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco has enjoyed a resurgence this fall, after Gov. Jerry Brown put his support behind it. Even as officials revised the project's cost estimate to almost $100 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars over 20 years – more than twice the previous estimate – the projection was seen by many observers as a sign of greater credibility within the rail authority.

But LaMalfa and other critics want the Legislature to ask Californians to reconsider the $9 billion bond measure that voters approved in 2008 to finance the project's construction, and its future remains uncertain.

In the agency's outreach effort, Ogilvy announced this summer that it was quitting its contract, saying it was "unable to develop a solid working relationship" with the authority. The authority since then has been seeking a replacement. Simmens said he expects that contract to be awarded soon.



Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/04/4098202/california-high-speed-rail-authority.html#ixzz1fiRTHxZr

The Big Fix The Transportation Planning Rule Every City Should Reform

Source: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/12/transportation-planning-law-every-city-should-repeal/636/

Completing a major transit project is never a quick and easy process, but if any place should be able to move one swiftly through to completion, it's San Francisco. In 1973 the city adopted a "transit first" policy that gave planning priority to modes of transportation other than the automobile. As the policy expressly states, decisions related to streets and sidewalks "shall encourage the use of public rights-of-way by pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit."

That's strong support for livability on paper, but in recent years the policy has felt much more like "transit worst" in practice. A 2005 lawsuit postponed implementation of the city's master bike plan for years on the grounds that it failed to consider potential harm to the flow of automobile traffic — an injunction that wasn't lifted until August 2010. The city has considered a bus-rapid transit line along Van Ness Avenue since 2004, but an environmental review on the project wasn't completed until early last month — delayed, in part, by an intense study of the same traffic consideration — and now service isn't expected to begin until at least 2016 [PDF].

The source of the disconnect between San Francisco's transit-first heart and its car-centric hand is an arcane engineering measure called "level of service," or LOS. In brief, LOS suggests that whenever the city wants to change some element of a street — say by adding a bike lane or even just painting a crosswalk — it should calculate the effect that change will have on car traffic. If the change produces too much congestion, then a great deal of time, money, and additional analysis must go toward the project's consideration.

The weight of this hidden hand doesn't fall on San Francisco alone. "Intersection LOS is one of the most widely-used traffic analysis tools in the U.S. and has a profound impact on how street space is allocated in U.S. cities," writes Jason Henderson, geography professor at San Francisco State University, in the November issue of the Journal of Transport Geography. As Henderson argues, it's about time cities addressed the problem, and San Francisco is doing just that. It's currently in the process of drafting a new sustainable transportation metric that will replace LOS and promote livability. Still, the fight is far from over.

"Every city I've ever come across has some use of [LOS]," says Henderson, who has conducted an extensive review of LOS and is writing a book on the politics of mobility in San Francisco. "LOS and the privilege of the car is the incumbent. The way the political process is set up is you have to disprove the incumbent."

• • • • •

LOS may be a rather obscure transportation tool, but it's not a terribly complicated one. The chief function of LOS is to measure the delay each car experiences at a particular intersection. A delay of less than 10 seconds means a street has a "good" traffic flow and earns an LOS grade of "A." As the delay increases the grade moves down the alphabet, report-card style, through an "F" grade, given when the average delay exceeds 80 seconds.

In San Francisco and other California cities, LOS influences transportation or development projects through the state's environmental code, the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA requires public agencies to determine the possible impact of development projects on the environment. It essentially serves as a screening process for a project's influence on things like air pollution, water quality, and of course transportation. One of the points on the CEQA checklist under the transportation section is "level of service."

Let's say someone wants to build a bike lane in the downtown Bay Area. Under CEQA, the sponsor of this project must consider whether the change to the street will result in a downgrade of LOS. In San Francisco, generally speaking, the threshold for LOS acceptability is a grade of "E" — or a delay between 55 and 80 seconds. If our hypothetical bike lane eliminates a car lane, that could create enough congestion for each car's delay to exceed the 80-second mark. That would bump the street's LOS from an "E" to an "F," and the project would fall outside the acceptable CEQA threshold.

Now that doesn't mean the lane can't get built, but it does make the project more difficult. If LOS falls to "F," for instance, the sponsor of the bike lane project must then perform a costly and time-consuming environmental impact report. If that report confirms the LOS failure, the sponsor may have to mitigate or offset the congestion through some other means. The alternative to all this time and money is to abandon the project entirely — and often that's what happens.

"That takes that $20,000 or $40,000 bike lane and suddenly makes it a $200,000 project, and it takes a project that might have taken a month or two to go from design to implementation and it could make it into a 2- or 3-year project," says Andy Thornley, policy director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "In many cases it's not so much that we take the bike lane or the crosswalk all the way through the research and reject it, it's that we don't even go into the environmental review because public agencies don't have the resources to spend the time and the money on these pretty cheap projects. So there is a hugely chilling effect to having to go through all of these hoops."


• • • • •

The influence of LOS comes largely from its inclusion in the Highway Capacity Manual produced by the federal Transportation Research Board. When it was first introduced, several decades ago, the metric harmonized with a broader cultural desire for car travel. Although cities aren't required to abide LOS measures by law, over the years the measure hardened into convention. By the time cities recognized the need for balanced transportation systems, LOS was entrenched in the street engineering canon.

"There was an assumption that there's always going to be driving everywhere, and it's always going to increase, and there needs to be a rational decision-making process to decide where limited transportation dollars should go," says Henderson. "It made sense if you're just assuming there always is going to be driving and in the future there's going to be more cars, and another fuel source, and it's superior to everything else."

There are several quirks about LOS that give it what Henderson calls a "veneer of objectivity." For starters, LOS delay is measured at the peak traffic rush. That reflects the belief that a street's design should be based on its most congested hour or so, rather than configured to handle a wide range of travel modes throughout the day. In addition, the letter grade carries more importance than the numerical delay itself; if a two-second delay nudges a project past an "E" grade, for example, it could be punished more than another project that delays traffic much longer but doesn't drop a letter. And in San Francisco, LOS impact must be determined not just in the present but also decades into the future. A failure 20 years ahead means a failure right now.

There's also a great irony underlying the use of LOS as part of CEQA's environmental impact checklist. It seems self-evident that bike projects are favorable to the environment, but the use of LOS to evaluate them can sometimes imply quite the opposite. The person who filed the 2005 lawsuit against the San Francisco master bike plan, for instance, suggested that because bike lanes raise LOS they also raise congestion and car idling, and thereby cause pollution.

That's not the only contradictory aspect of LOS. Case in point: a developer whose building fails an LOS threshold can mitigate the environmental impact by widening the street, which of course would attract more cars and pollution. So instead of encouraging dense development and lower vehicle mileage — the hallmarks of a transit-first city — San Francisco's use of LOS as part of CEQA actually discourages livable design. In a three-part series on LOS at Streetsblog, one transportation consultant called LOS the "single greatest promoter of sprawl and the single greatest obstacle to transit oriented development" in California.

"In the end compliance with CEQA often causes the transportation system to become even more adverse, more dangerous," says Thornley. "It adds more car trips."

• • • • •

The beacon of hope for livability advocates in San Francisco rests in the flexibility of CEQA review. While CEQA recommends that transportation-related projects consider LOS as an environmental measure, it doesn't mandate a particular metric. Any reasonable measurement of transportation sustainability will do.

That realization has led to a counter-movement against the use of LOS under CEQA by some of the city's transit agencies. In 2003 the San Francisco County Transportation Authority performed a review [PDF] of LOS and concluded that it failed to support the "development of a balanced, multimodal transportation system" — arguing instead that LOS preserved the flow of motor cars at the expense of transit, bicycle, and pedestrian movements. In other words, by upholding LOS, the city was violating its own transit-first policy.

Based on that report, the authority began to investigate alternative transportation impact measures. A 2008 follow-up report recommended replacing LOS with an entirely new measure known as "auto-trips generated," or ATG. Instead of asking how much congestion a project creates, ATG looks at how many new automobile trips it produces. Since bike lanes or bus-rapid transit or the like don't generate any automobile trips, those projects would no longer be subject to a full environmental review. (To be more precise: these projects would be covered by a system-wide environmental review the authority plans to conduct as part of the new metric's implementation.)

In tandem with the ATG measure, the authority also suggested the creation of a new mitigation fee for all projects that generated automobile trips. The fee would go toward a general sustainable transportation fund that would finance transit projects across the city. The upshot would be a faster project approval process, more certainty on the part of project sponsors, and more money for livability efforts. All told, the new idea offers a "higher-level view" of transportation impact, according to the report:

Each new automobile trip added onto San Francisco's transportation system contributes to environmental impacts, especially in terms of pedestrian safety and greenhouse gas emissions. Under the proposed approach, CEQA transportation impact analysis would measure the net new trips generated or induced by proposed projects, rather than changes in automobile delay at intersections. ...

Instead of seeking to preserve system efficiency by expanding capacity for driving, the ATG measure recognizes that constraining the growth in automobile trips on San Francisco streets is critical for maintaining system efficiency on our network of finite automobile capacity.

The proposal has changed in many respects since 2008, says Tilly Chang, the authority's deputy director for planning. For starters, it has shifted from ATG to MTG — or motorized-trips generated. That way a housing development project would be subject to the mitigation fee whether it created auto trips or just caused additional transit delay. Whatever the acronym ends up being, says Chang, the approach remains the same.

"Our way of looking at it is we have a longstanding citywide transit-first policy," she says. "Rather than planning for and identifying minimization of motorist delays, we would be shifting our focus toward transit impact, and making sure that transit performance is maintained."

Currently the authority is performing what's called a "nexus" study that will determine the precise ATG/MTG mitigation fee. That effort will conclude around the start of the new year, says Chang. Then the city's planning commission will hold a hearing about the new metric. Then a complete environmental review will be conducted. Then the planning commission must prepare an official ordinance for adoption. And then, if all goes well, the new metric will be phased in as LOS is phased out.

That's a lot of "thens" between now and then, and probably a couple years. Henderson fears that the established legal precedent of LOS use could lead some livability opponents to file lawsuits once a new metric is adopted. Still, he believes San Francisco can ultimately make the change and serve as an example for other cities — and finally, at long last, fulfill its transit-first stance. Thornley agrees.

"To the extent that a city moves forward and is the precedent setter, I think San Francisco is going to be doing that," he says. "It's very exciting to be at the threshold of finally coming out from under the distortions that auto LOS has presented."
Keywords: San Francisco, Transit, LOS, CEQA, Environment, level of service

Eric Jaffe is a contributing writer to The Atlantic Cities and the author of The King's Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route That Made America. He lives in New York. All posts »