Regarding car-related taxes, I heard on the radio this morning that Arnold Schwarzenegger is still trying to get a gas tax increase for CA. Larry Mantle was talking about it on Airtalk this morning with someone from the Sacramento Bee. Sounds like good news to me, hope it can become a reality.

That is not entirely true. The freeways are decaying, and through ignorance many people are not doing anything about that. But in regards to tearing them down there are various grassroots efforts to tear down urban freeways and replace them with high speed parkways and boulevards. I agree with your overall point about cars and freeways being here to stay, and that the problem is mainly one of the effects of cars and not the cars themselves. But it is encouraging to read about the Central Freeway and the bay freeways in San Francisco getting torn down. There is also a group in New York, and the urban freeway in Seattle that may not be replaced.

Anyway, just a thought that popped in my head.

Again, I’m happy to support raising car-related taxes so that drivers come closer to paying for the costs of car transport. But I still doubt that’s going to become a reality any time soon. Look how, after all the fighting the state legislature went through, they still managed to eliminate the potential gas tax increase. You want that to change? Heck. . . run for office. Or support someone who “gets it”.

I think you’re missing the point of the jihad – orienting our roadways and planning efforts around cars has resulted in massive mis-allocations of resources. We cannot continue to run our economy how we are running it without cheap fossil fuel, but beyond that building for a car-only transportation network had insidious effects on local economies and the quality of life

A great example is what happened to Highland Park in North East L.A. The 110 freeway cuts through this area – providing a rapid means for people to leave the neighborhood and to work or spend dollars elsewhere. Every street in the area is oriented towards car use – and it prevents the money people earn from being spent around where they live. Instead, everyone in Highland Park gets in their car and drives outside of L.A. to places that are designed for people to hang out and be people, or work.

All the neighborhood turns into after that is an edifice of its former commercial district and a cheap place for people to live.

Orienting a community like Highland Park away from aggresively pro-car right-of-way design can radically alter the retail foot traffic and the value of renting the smaller warehouses in the area for business (instead of quirky artists lofts for later conversion into yuppie dwellings).

Orienting away from automobiles, in a shrinking economy, makes a lot of sense in another way: when there is less wealth, propping up consumerism is tough when 20% – 30% of wages go to transportation. Bicycling and heavy subsidy for mass transit puts more cash in the lower classes hands – and they will spend it if provided a place to do so (i.e. pedestrian- and street-life-friendly areas) stocked with goods they can afford.

But now I have revealed the inner secrets of my faith, and yet I have not converted you! Surely the sword can be the only answer for this! Onward with the jihad!

As for the traffic problem, if you want to be serious, that is not limited to being associated with cars. Convert everyone to bicycle riders and ride your bikes with thousands of other people down the street, and tell me THAT isn’t traffic. Or wedge yourself onto a packed-in-like-sardines subway car and tell me THAT isn’t a form of traffic. Shoot, turn everyone into a pedestrian have them walk around in Time’s Square and tell me THAT isn’t traffic. Congestion is due to high population density, and we’d have some form of it even if no one had cars.

I think more subways, more buses, and more light-rail are one majore part of the solution FOR LOS ANGELES because these modes can help to keep people moving without them having to drive their big cars everywhere and find a place to park. It’s because this city is so dense and so spread out, that we need a better mass transit system to make it tolerable.

Agreed. New freeway construction should be tempered and any funds going to highways should be for repairs only. I want to see more equality in the shares of funding that go to highways and mass transit in the long term, and in the short-term a higher share of funding going to mass transit than highways just to bridge a gap that has been forming for decades.

“and it’s ruined vast swaths of our economy.”

I don’t agree here. Car infrastructure been vital in helping our economy work. Try starting a business with no street access and only bus and rail access. You’ll find that you won’t be in business very long unless you are Downtown or something. People get to work and be productive with the help of automobiles. I think they’ve helped the economy more than they hurt it and continue to do so. But I also think our economy can be more prosperous with easier access to bus and rail.

The end of the era of cheap oil is looming over us, and there is a good reason to start looking at greater mass transit funding. Not only is oil running out, but as Asia becomes more developed their demand for energy goes up and the rate at which we exhaust our oil supplies grows. But let’s keep in mind there is still no alternative energy source that can we can substitute for oil. The sun is the most promising, and if we could harness the energy this star dumps on us on a daily basis cheaply and efficiently, a lot of problems in the world would be solved. Watch the documentary A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash for more info.

But if we can’t find a good alternative to oil we might find ourselves in a position where we are screwed whether or not we build mass transit or change our way of life.

“Bicycling projects are near and dear to me because they are dirt cheap and easy to do. They can move people pretty far, pretty quickly, with almost no capital investment. Bikes spur all sorts of indirect benefits where they are helped.”

Agreed here. I remember watching a commercial that shows no cars on the freeway, only bikes. But that’s blue sky idealism that will never, ever come to fruition unless we all get hit with DUI’s.

Bike lanes are great but they would have to be very extensive. If there’s any part of a trip that you’d have to hit the street to complete, there goes a fraction of the population that is going to consider the bike. I will not ride a bike in the street. I never, ever will, and I’m sure there are many like me.

I, personally, think building more car infrastructure is a black hole of resources – a collective pissing away of the wealth we have amassed stripping the earth for resources. We won’t get back our money with car infrastructure, and it’s ruined vast swaths of our economy. When oil becomes scarce again, all of this will come crashing down on our heads. I’d prefer that we were protected from that with a better investment in transportation options. Bicycling projects are near and dear to me because they are dirt cheap and easy to do. They can move people pretty far, pretty quickly, with almost no capital investment. Bikes spur all sorts of indirect benefits where they are helped. I feel the same about buses and pedestrian amenities. The costs come down from billions borrowed from the future to hundreds of millions we can pay with current budgets (if we strip out auto-subsidies and entitlements).

Bicycle u akbar!

Everybody will continue to support or oppose whatever they see fit as long as it benefits or does not benefit them. You’re seeing this in the struggle over the Expo Line, and even in the drama surrounding high speed rail on the Bay Area Peninsula. As much as people like to talk about finding common ground, all sides will keep on screaming and won’t stop until we simply have a result, not a solution.

For example, I think the California High Speed Rail project will be severely neutered. I believe the terminus will be San Jose, the project will not be profitable and service to Sacramento and San Diego will not happen in our lifetimes. I think Expo will see massive speed restrictions similar to the Gold Line. I think outrage over spending on rail transit will only intensify in the coming decades as it comes to affect more and more people and creating more and more NIMBY’s.

Do I want it to be that way? No. But that’s what I think is going to happen. And it’s a story that is going to repeat itself many, many times over.

Your fallacy is believing I’m not angry because of the AIG nonsense. And if I recall correctly I never said anyone was stealing my money.

“What’s the deal with everyone alligning themselves with the privileged, like they give shit about you.”

And the poor don’t give a shit about me either. I’m aligning myself with nobody.

Even the rich that got taken by Madoff are getting their hands held and hankies for their losses.

“Investors allegedly defrauded by Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford will be allowed to claim theft losses as deductions on their tax returns, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman said.” By Ryan J. Donmoyer, Bloomberg

If those were poor or working class people that got taken for a ride with their money and the IRS had done that it would been everyone screaming, “They are so stupid. why we should help stupid people…”

What’s the deal with everyone alligning themselves with the privileged, like they give shit about you.

Browne

You don’t think so? Can you point to an example of getting MTA money from cars in L.A. county successfully any time in history? (I won’t hold my breath.) I can point to three successful sales tax initiatives (prop A, prop C, and Measure R) that have (or will) lead to real transit expansions just in the past 25 years. You can bash your head against that brick wall all you like. Most of us have realized it’s a dead end, and have moved on to supporting what works.

I didn’t see an option to go after car money for transit last November. I did see a sales tax measure. If the BRU had had its way, we’d be left with no extra MTA money, plus the loss of the state money that would have happened anyway, and their poor bus riders would have been in dire straits. So the policy they were advocating would have hurt the people they claim to be representing. You can’t get around that, as much as you claim they are “working in the right direction”.

Raging against freeways is just as retarded as people who rage against taking lanes away for buses or building railroads because they are “too expensive.”

It’s all about choice. I want to see mass transit become a viable alternative to the automobile but not because traffic is awful or pollution is too high. Mass transit should stand on its own merits. Some people will exclusively drive. Some people will exclusively take mass transit, and others will drive sometimes and take mass transit other times. It’s all about choice.

The Bus Riders Union, on the other hand, wants everybody to be poor bus riders. They claim to be working in the interests of the poor but in reality they are keeping them down. They will never stand on their own two feet. They will always be looking for handouts like artificially low bus fares and high levels of service where high levels of service aren’t warranted.

Cars don’t pay their way and neither do buses. Neither does rail. Those who complain that drivers don’t pay their own way then turn around and want the buses to stay as subsidized as they’ve ever been. It’s hypocrisy at its finest.

1. Go to Sacramento and lobby the Legislature to restore the State Transit Assistance fund which was cut indefinitely during this year’s state budget negotiations. The STA is the only source of state funds that can legally be used to operate service. None of the other funds from Sacramento can be used to actually have a bus on the street, despite the BRU constantly insisting that cancelling capital projects would free up operating dollars.

I’m going to be in Sacramento next week precisely for that reason. I have been there many times over the years, and I have NEVER seen anyone from the BRU in the halls of the State Capitol. Now would be a good time for them to start, because the loss of the STA means Metro is going to have to run $200 million less service next year … and the year after that, and the year after that …

2. Lobby Congress to start providing public transportation operating subsidies again. Stimulus packages are all well and good, but a lot of the jobs that Congress hopes to create will be meaningless if workers depending on transit to get to those jobs can’t get there. If I could afford to, I’d happily spend a few days in D.C. promoting that message.

This rally is just another disingenuous move by an organization which has lower and lower credibility as each day moves on. I do not doubt that the BRU’s grassroots members (as opposed to its hierarchy) really care about bus service, but they need to take some concrete action instead of constantly yelling at Metro to do things that aren’t fiscally possible.

A last point, if I may:

The Metro service changes for this coming December and for June of next year are going to be the most difficult and contentious, because about 20% of the bus service (and even some part of the rail service) is going to have to end to keep transit service running in the region. This is a hard reality: 85% of Metro’s budget is transit operations, and if they can’t balance the $200 million operating deficit the state created for them, they will go bankrupt. And that means little to no service whatsoever.

Southern California Transit Advocates will be monitoring and providing realistic comments and suggestions as that process evolves. Those who are truly concerned should consider joining and adding their voices and perspectives to the discussion. Posting on a blog isn’t going to change the world (and is, indeed, a very small part of what I do in advocacy), but being an active part of the solution-seeking process does make a difference.

Click on my name above this post to get to the website. You can even join online using PayPal.