Comments on: LaHood Talks TIGERS and Stimulus, While Boxer Pledges Support for “30 in 10″

By: Erik G.

Erik G. — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:47:03 +0000

Kudos to the chap with the doo-rag at 3 o’clock who is leaning on the red tool chest for not conforming with the order to “Stand behind Boxer with hands clasped and smile” which was prolly given to them by some security flunkie.

Contrast this crowd with the one behind Denny Zane in the thread below!

By: Eric B

Eric B — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:49:05 +0000

The advantage of HSR for customer convenience, economics, and environmental benefits is the way it connects into the central transportation system of destination cities. While stops in places like Palmdale maybe will not tap into a developed transit network, here in LA it must and should. I will choose HSR over flying because it’s easier and faster to get to Union Station than to park, shuttle, wait through security, etc. at LAX for the same destination. HSR is an inter-city technology in a way that air travel can’t be because it travels straight to the region’s core. For HSR to be successful, the stations must function well as part of the urban system. Union Station needs to fix it’s walking and biking (bikeshare?) connections to downtown to meet this demand.

By: jass

jass — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:56:00 +0000

I don’t understand the argument, like that above, which says “high speed rail will fail because there’s no way to get around at the destination”.

Then how do airports work exactly? What do the millions of people who fly into LAX every year do? They rent a car or they take a cab or, some of them, take the green line.

This isn’t a big deal in the short term. Especially when you look at the fact that high speed rail in san francisco will be much more accessible than LAX, and many times more accessible than oakland and the current amtrak terminus.

By: ramonchu

ramonchu — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:51:52 +0000

Sooo bummed I didn’t get the chance to make the point that all this transit spending is worthless if we’re not thinking about pedestrian and bike access, general livability through public transportation, and how we can begin increasing user friendliness of operations.

Even if we got beyond just capital projects to operational costs, we still have Union Station completely surrounded by murderous traffic, with the horrendous bus stops on the South and Northeast sides of the MTA HQ(!), absolutely horrible bike accessibility, and an insistence on automobile convenience. MTA refuses to stand up to DOT’s consistent pummeling that it hands out to any and all edgy Metro projects (The 2 Freeway offramp project) and so it prevents itself from ever being a successful organization.

The concept of High Speed Rail could very well fail at this point in time–the billions of dollars behind it mean nothing in the face of the culture and industries it must edge out to survive its first decade. The only way this whole paradigm shift we’re seeing is going to succeed is by breaking through the “park-and-ride” morass that has, to this day, retarded the growth of public transportation in this country. Anyone truly committed to seeing this thing through will be working towards building a coalition of interests that have the fundamental rethinking and reshaping of our everyday places and practices at its core. There’s a reason why the problems brought on by cars are global in scale–we rely on them in nearly every space and in nearly every thing we do, and we’ve gotten here because they can not allow for any other mode with which to coexist.

Anything short of this will merely be a bitter and expensive half-assed affront to the homogeneous system that chokes this country.