Today’s Headlines

Featured Headlines: If you just read the news yesterday morning, you might think there was a tidal wave brewing against the Downtown Stadium proposal and AEG’s lobbying effort to have the CEQA Law bended to prevent lengthy legal challenges to the environmental review. LA Weekly published a particularly powerful take down of the Stadium and the legislative proposal. The Daily News also takes issue with the legislation.

Regardless, by the end of the day the Assembly had passed legislation that did just that in exchange for the promise that the now-difficult-to-challenge environmental documents show that Farmer’s Field will have more people arrive to the stadium by transit than any other football stadium in the country. L.A. and the legislature is either getting bamboozled, or we’re going to see a heck of a transportation plan. I hope it’s the latter. I suspect it’s the former.

Gov. Vetoes Increased Fines for Distracted Drivers on Their Phones (LAist)
Mayor’s Race: Eric Jumps In (Daily News)
Subway Facts and History Q and A (The Source)
Why Isn’t There a Red Line Station at the Hollywood Bowl? (The Source)
Bulk of HSR Costs Could Fall to State (LAT)
If It Can Happen to Reese…(E! Online)
Seattle Gains Notoriety for Hazards to Cyclists (Seattle Times)
Tom Vanderbilt: Drivers Who Begrudge Sadik-Khan Don’t Know What’s Good for Them (Observer)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Anonymous

Looks like the Weekly has taken that article down. Probably for the best, since it seemed like a pretty shoddy piece of advocacy journalism, filled with unsubstantiated insinuations of nepotism and corruption.

The legislation doesn’t make challenges more difficult, it simply ensures that the resolution of any challenge will arrive quickly (i.e. it makes stalling more difficult). The League of Conservation Voters endorsed the bill, and though the NRDC initially objected (primarily to the idea that AEG was getting special treatment, not to the specific process changes), they eventually gave an endorsement as well.

The guarantee regarding non-vehicle trips is essentially unprecedented and can only benefit the city. There will be environmental enforcement mechanisms in place for years after completion of the project, which is fairly unusual. There are a number of specific guarantees in the legislation that go beyond what a traditional CEQA process would have required.

AEG appears desperate to get the stadium done on a predictable schedule, and they appear to have conceded a quite a lot to get that. The idea that this is a triumph of cronyism seems a little strange. Read the bill, it’s short and pretty unobjectionable. The Daily News’ objection is reasonable, but it has nothing to do with the substance of the bill. It’s an argument for applying the streamlined process to everyone, not an argument against the process itself.At what point do we stop assuming good faith on behalf of the Weekly when it comes to issues related to transit, cyclists, livability and urban renewal? In the past few years they appear to have become something like Heritage Foundation Lite on those topics.