This rendering was prepared by opponents of the 16 mile plan to extend the 241 to the beach in Orange County. Proponents of highway expansion argue that the road will have a lot more traffic than pictured.

There was a saying my mentor Janine Bauer used to tell me when I was back fighting wasteful highway projects in New Jersey.  ”The public process for highway expansion isn’t over until the road is built.”  What she meant was that the monied interests in building expensive highway projects won’t stop no matter how often they are rebuked by oversight agencies or judges and will always find a new way to push forward.

No where is this better illustrated than in the case if the proposed Foothill South (SR 241) project in Orange County.  The 16-mile project was rejected by the California Coastal Commission, a state agency that reviews projects that could impact environmentally sensitive areas around the coast and the Federal Commerce Department back in 2008.  We should note that both California and the federal government were under Republican administrations at the time.

But that didn’t stop the TCA from trying again.  Back in October, the agency proposed a new plan to build the road extension without running afoul of those pesky environmental laws that so hamper visionaries who look at a forest and see a great place for a new road.  Instead of building the entire road all at once, they’re going to build it, and get it environmentally cleared in phases.

First up is a four mile extension of the SR 241 that would terminate “somewhere in the vicinity of Ortega Highway, though further studies and engineering would have to determine what street north of the highway the segment would feed onto.”

Back in 2008, the Foothill South Toll Road debate was all the rage in transportation planning in Southern California.  Nearly 6,000 people attended a public hearing hosted by the Commerce Department with L.A. Times reporter Steve Hymon liveblogging the event in advance of his coverage.  Later, in a pretty shocking example of government abuse, the TCA sent out hundreds of thousands of mailers to residents attacking the opponents of the expansion project.

Not surprisingly, the same opponents to the project in 2008 are opposed to it now.  In the leadup to the TCA decision to move forward with a four mile segment, the NRDC blasted the project at Switchboard.

To make matters worse, the TCA intends to fund this latest scheme through tolls based on an astonishing prediction of 41,000 average daily trips along the four-mile segment in the year 2035.  What the factual basis may be for this estimate along this single section is uncertain – the TCA hasn’t said – but it may have more to do with the amount the TCA’s bankers estimate would be required to green light construction than the amount reasonably expected in actual ridership.

Whether the TCA’s newest proposal has a chance to meet legal muster will most likely depend on whether or not it can convince oversight agencies that the 41,000 average daily trips is a real number.  The federal government frowns on segmenting projects to pass environmental muster, but does allow for small versions of large projects to be permitted separately if the project has value on its own, according to “Environmental Law,” a guidebook for environmental lawyers.

This graphic is less effective argument against highway widenings when the agency admits it

The project has also drawn the scorn of the Los Angeles Times, which lampooned TCA in an editorial right before the end of the year.

The toll-road agency isn’t barred from trying again with a different route, but that’s not easy. If the southern end of the road were moved a little to the north of San Onofre State Beach, it would pass through the built-out areas of the city of San Clemente. Moved a little south, it would pass through Camp Pendleton, and though the agency is talking to the U.S. Marine Corps about possible options, camp officials have been consistently resistant to civilian developments in their midst.

The Times editorial also notes that the TCA makes no bones that the road is necesary to support a 14,000 unit development in Rancho Mission Viejo.  This was apparently news to the developers who were trying to build a community that didn’t cater to the car-reliant and did cater to retired residents, those least likely to need a toll road to meet their commuting needs.

This new debate has many sad aspects to it.  Perhaps the saddest is a quote from a Patch article from a Taxpayer’s Association supporting the project.

“Toll roads are a prodigious gift to taxpayers,” he said. “They are at the top in terms of utility to taxpayers; if we don’t use them, we don’t pay for them. They enable free-flowing traffic which keeps the air clean and creates wealth.”

I wonder who does pay for publicly owned toll roads that nobody uses?  But as is so often the case, when it comes to the rush to support a massive highway projects, it’s not the facts that rule the public debate, but empassioned pleas that don’t always make a lot of sense.

Photo of the Huntington Beach Bike Path, it's usually not this empty. Photo:Destination Southern California

(Last month, Huntington Beach announced a new program to offer scofflaw cyclists a chance to go to bicycle safety school in lieu of paying what can be a hefty fine for illegal cycling.  The program received some pretty harsh feedback on social media, but when I looked into it, I thought it was a pretty good program so I asked Huntington Beach Council Member Joe Shaw to write a piece for our best practices series explaining the program.  Incidently, this is Shaw’s third piece for Streetsblog having written for StreetHeat, our predecessor site, in 2007 and again for Streetsblog in May of 2008.  You can follow him on twitter at @joeshawforhb)

Tens of thousands of our residents recently rode bikes to our annual Fourth of July parade and fireworks. On the Fourth of July, Downtown Huntington Beach resembles Amsterdam times ten, with bicycles chained to every available surface.

Huntington Beach conitiues to be one of the most bicycle friendly cities in Orange County, recently recognized as a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists, only the second Orange County city to be so designated.

From 2008-2010, Huntington Beach had 450 bicycle/vehicle collisions, with around 300 citations issued to bicyclists.

Legally, bicycles are fined just like other vehicles but the citation is not attached to the driving record.  Citations are pricey with a “failure to stop at a stop sign” citation at $233!

As part of that effort to be a bike-friendly community, our police department is now offering an Adult Bicycle Safety program, modeled after our juvenile program in place since 1972.

Now if you’re issued a citation as a bicyclist — attending the Bicycle Safety Program will result in a dismissed citation.

• If the individual desires to contest the citation, or chooses not to attend the class, the citation will be forwarded to the court and treated as a normal traffic citation.

So far this new program has been a success with bicycle riders in Huntington Beach, according to the police officers on patrol. Most riders appreciate the program as offering an alternative to high fines and court.

I’m excited about all the possibilities we have for making Huntington Beach even more bike-friendly. The city and our police are working with the Huntington Beach Bicycle Advocates on other programs and initiatives that will result in improved public saftey and improved access to our streets for our thousands of cyclists.

]]> http://la.streetsblog.org/2011/07/14/bicycle-safety-program-comes-to-huntington-beach/feed/ 9 http://la.streetsblog.org/2010/12/15/freeway-expansion-coverage-focusing-on-construction-delays-still-missing-the-magic-question/ http://la.streetsblog.org/2010/12/15/freeway-expansion-coverage-focusing-on-construction-delays-still-missing-the-magic-question/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:32:07 +0000 Damien Newton http://la.streetsblog.org/?p=59158 [...]]]> Three years of construction.  Massive Delays. Circuitous detours. A $277 million price tag.

For a full list of the delays caused by this project, visit LA_Now

Unfortunately, arguments about sprawl and damage to the environment haven’t proven to be winners when convincing the larger public that massive highway widening projects are hurting, not helping congestion.  However, a shift in how these widening projects are covered, with a sharp focus on the impact the construction will have on traffic congestion in the short-term, provides the argument that opponents of highway widenings need.

“This project will make congestion worse over time.”

Just look at recent coverage in the Los Angeles Times of the $227 million project in Orange County known as the West County Connector. That project purports to “create a seamless link between carpool lanes and ease rush-hour bottlenecks on the 405, 22 and 605 freeways.”  But the cost of the project is a lot higher for the hapless commuters that presently use this stretch of interstate.  The Bottleneck Blog outlines the seven road closures, spread out over three years, that will be inflicted on drivers.  The headline for the story?  “Big disruptions ahead for key L.A.-Orange County freeway interchange.”

Once the disruptive construction phase is finished, how long with the benefits hold out? The theory of induced demand, that is demonstrated daily on L.A. County freeways, is that newly constructed traffic lanes will be filled by new traffic in a couple of years.  There are so many people that don’t drive because of congestion, that relieving that congestion induces more driving and leads to new lanes being filled more quickly than we can build them.  When construction will create delay for years, as it will for this project, one really has to question whether the project would be worth it if it were free.

Of course, the Bottleneck Blog is just the online outpost for the Times’ transportation coverage, and the regular article is both less critical in title, “Major construction ahead on 405, 22, and 605 highways,” and content than the Bottleneck Blog.  Nevertheless, transportation writer Dan Weikel finds time to point out that drivers who use this route are worried.

The overpass is scheduled to be closed for a year starting in late February, requiring motorists on the northbound 405 to take a time-consuming detour through Seal Beach or Los Alamitos in northwest Orange County.

“I’m concerned. It’s the best way into Long Beach on the east side,” said Michael Tinajero, a construction estimator who regularly drives on the 7th Street bridge to return home from work in Costa Mesa.

So here’s the question that needs to be asked and answered for every road widening project that comes up for debate and the answer, or non-answer, needs to become a part of the public discourse.

“Will this project reduce congestion more than its construction creates?”  Or, in the case of the West County Connector, “are we spending $277 million to make traffic worse?”

]]> http://la.streetsblog.org/2010/12/15/freeway-expansion-coverage-focusing-on-construction-delays-still-missing-the-magic-question/feed/ 4 http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/11/23/life-without-measure-r-massive-transit-cuts-in-orange-county/ http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/11/23/life-without-measure-r-massive-transit-cuts-in-orange-county/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:02:20 +0000 Damien Newton http://la.streetsblog.org/?p=21901 [...]]]> Image: Transit Rider OC

Earlier today the Orange County Transit Authority's Board of Directors voted, by a 14-1 margin, to cut 150,000 hours of transit service by early next year.  Believe it or not, the plan was actually an improvement from an earlier draft of the cuts had 300,000 hours of service.  The Register describes the cuts:

Eliminated routes include service from Seal Beach to Westminster and Brea to Santa Ana on weekdays. Service from Huntington Beach to Costa Mesa will be eliminated on weekends.

Midday service from Fullerton to Huntington Beach will be eliminated on weekdays. The plan eliminates about 8 percent of the county's bus service by early next year. Eight routes will be restructured and the frequency of service would be reduced on 11 routes on the weekdays.

While transit advocates, such as the outstanding writers at Transit Rider O.C., have focused their advocacy efforts at the Board of Directors; the fiscal mess at the state level and the Governor's illegal desire to raid transit funds to alleviate said mess made today's vote a decision on where to make cuts not if to make cuts.  That's not to say the OCTA, a group that has never met a road-widening project that it didn't love is blameless; it's just that decisions made to basically liquidate the voter-approved state operating assistance fund have left transit agencies in the lurch statewide.  Locally, Measure R may forestall local cuts, but that's not to say that they won't be coming sooner, rather than later.

As is normally the case, the biggest victims of the cuts are students, people of lesser means, the transit dependent and late night workers.  With today's cuts totaling 8% of OCTA's total service hours.  To their credit, advocates and just regular riders packed the Board Room today to speak their piece about the cuts.  While their pleas didn't change the outcome, hopefully these same people will remember today when it comes time to vote on their state leadership next year.

Photo of the I-405 as it pases the John Wayne Airport: Treotography/Flickr

The four alternatives are basically a one-lane widening in each direction, a two lane widening in each direction, a two-lane widening that would be one HOT Lane and one general purpose lane, and just widening parts of the 405 in Orange County as funding allows.  No mention of trains, buses, bus-only lanes, or anything of the sort appear anywhere inside the Register's article or on the OCTA's project page.

To make matters even worse, the OCTA has already stated its preference for the two traditional widening alternatives. It should be noted that the I-405 in Orange County is already five travel lanes in each direction, so it is more than feasible that the final design for this project could be creating a mammoth 14-lane highway designed to connect Orange and San Diego counties. 

I can't think of a better sprawl acceleration project than that.  For a quick reminder of what a fourteen lane highway looks like, visit this article on the proposed I-710 widening in Long Beach.  Is that really what we want our roads to look like?

In case you're wondering, there is no place on the survey to ask how the project conforms with state mandates limiting sprawl or to improve air quality.  For a complete list of public outreach opportunities on this project, please visit the I-405 Improvement page at OCTA.net.

"That ain’t Change, it’s more of the same!" was an applause line used frequently during last fall’s presidential campaign by Senator Joe Biden to critique many of the proposed policies of Senator McCain and Governor Palin.  Watching how stimulus funds are spent in California, transportation reformers and Livable Streets advocates could use the same battle cry when critiquing how federal transportation dollars are being spent under President Obama’s watch.

The most recent example is the I-91 widening in Orange County.  The OC Register explains the project before it mindlessly recites Caltrans talking points about the benefits of highway expansion:

The 91 eastbound will be widened by one lane from the 241 toll road to
the 71 in Riverside County, reducing congestion and improving travel
time by 15 minutes, California Department of Transportation officials
say.

A poll we discussed last week by the Public Policy Institute of
California, illustrates that most Orange County residents prefer their transportation agencies to focus on improving transit over widening highways.  In the Orange and San Diego County region, spending on transit projects out-polled spending on highway projects by a 75% to 22% margin.  This is an especially relevant point since the Orange County Transit Agency is picking up the "rest of the bill," i.e. the millions of dollars for the project that aren’t coming from Washington, D.C.

It’s hardly a surprise to see a newspaper not bother to critique massive highway spending plans.  When given the chance to press Governor Schwarzenegger and Mayor Villaraigosa about highway widenings in our own backyard, the Times brushed off the chance so they could reprint our elected leaders talking points.  Maybe if we print the question that should have been asked of Caltrans and OCTA officials enough, reporters will start to add it to their notebooks.  Here’s the question I’m dieing to hear an answer for:

Since other major road widening projects
in Southern California are causing congestion during their construction, and
because transportation agencies are reporting that additional highway
capacity actually brings more cars to the road, are commuters going to
see any net reduction in commuting time?  Or will the delays caused during construction actually outweigh the short amount of time that there will be congestion relief?

When we start seeing "mainstream" reporters asking questions like that one, we’ll be well on our way to holding politicians accountable for wasteful highway spending.

Trumpeting the dubious claim that the answer to regional car congestion is funding highway expansion, Orange County politicians and press are celebrating the federal government’s decision to allocate $68 million in stimulus funds for the expansion of the I-91 between Riverside County and the 241 Toll Road.  As we’ve seen in the past, the governments claims that road widenings are good public policy go completely unchallenged in the press even as the state tries to devise no ways to battle sprawl development.

This short story from Inland Today follows the typical template for a piece on road widening, a couple of facts about the issue are surrounded by claims that the widening will make everyone’s life better.  In this case, the facts are some information about how stimulus funding is allocated sandwiched between two paragraphs about how great the 91 widening is for everyone.

The great irony is, that even as the OC Register declares in its headline, "Feds approve $68 million to help drivers unclog the 91;" the Sacramento Bee reports that drivers really are helping to unclog California freeways.  Of course, we’re doing it by driving less, not by…ok, I’m not really sure how "drivers" are helping unclog the 91 in the Register’s world.

Around the country, many of our largest transit agencies are dealing with massive deficits by cutting back service and laying off employees.  New York City Streetsblog has pretty much been devoted to round-the-clock coverage of NYCMTA's proposed cuts, the politics behind them and the effort to stop them.

Closer to home, our neighbors in Orange County are facing a 25% cut in OCTA bus trips and laying off over 400 drivers.  The plan doesn't have specific roots designated for cuts, just a mandate from the board to make these cuts and for the staff to get creative.  These cuts would be in addition to the 133,000 hours in cuts that have already been ordered in the last nine months, some of which haven't gone into effect.

So far the only organized opposition to the cuts comes from a local Teamsters branch representing the bus drivers.  Naturally, this has led to OCTA staff noting that if the drivers were willing to give up their 4% mandated raise in July, the total cut would drop by 10%.

Meanwhile, the progressive online outpost in Orange County, the OC Progressive, came up with it's own plan to reduce the service cuts by streamlining other parts of the OCTA budget:

OCTA could take less money for the local transit fund for administration,which sucks $8 million a year from the bus fund for administrative overhead - including  its wasteful $11 million a year external affairs budget. This year's external affairs budget shows $4.8 million in costs for 45 employees as well as 3.4 million for professional service, like the $5,000 a month they pay Republcan party chair Scott Baugh every month. Putting 8 million a year back into paying for bus services would go a long way to staving off cutbacks.

This would let the other major source of revenue - Measure M funding, carry the administrative burden.

Listening to yesterday's meeting, where the board voted to continue to study a $3.9 billion tunnel under the Santa Ana River, it's obvious that there's plenty of room for eliminating waste by cutting back on consultants contracts.

OCTA could cut back the rates it pays to consultants and defer some of the planning that it's doing. Why spend a lot of money building an Anaheim Regional Transit Center if you've cut the bus services that are at the core of regional transit?

OCTA could rely on its reserves more and work aggressively to restore state revenue.

Yesterday, the media reacted with horror to the news that Mixed Martial Arts and reality television star Charles "Mask" Lewis died after a particularly gruesome and spectacular crash between his Ferrari and a Porsche in Newport Beach. After reading the Times' coverage of the story, it's clear that this crash was completely avoidable if we had a justice system that prioritized taking unsafe drivers off the road. The driver of the Porsche that allegedly caused the crash has a long history of violating traffic laws, but was still free to cruise Orange County roads:

According to Orange County Superior Court records, Kirby has been cited for at least eight traffic violations since 2001, including a conviction for driving under the influence in which he was sentenced to three years' probation.

In the 2001 drunk driving arrest, Kirby allegedly told the arresting officer that his father was a retired CHP patrolman who always advised him to never submit to a sobriety test. He also told the officer that "he shouldn't be picking on people with money," according to the police report.

I'm beginning to wonder if the California Highway Patrol has any moral authority left.  Last week we saw them going out of their way to "correct" information about cyclists rights by disseminating incorrect information and now we have them advising drunk family members on how to avoid DUI's.

Kirby is being held on suspicion of felony drunk driving and driving under the influence.  I'm guessing that drunkenly causing a fatal crash is a violation of his probation.

Rendering of Project Produced by the Save San Onofre Coalition

Yesterday, the United States Commerce Department surprised both detractors and supporters of the plan to build a $1.3 billion, six to eight lane extension of California 241 in Orange County, when it decided to uphold a decision of the California Coastal Comission to halt the project.  The appeal to the Bush Administration drew more than 35,000 written comments following a hearing that attracted more than 6,000 attendees.

The Commerce Department’s decision, while great news for highway construction opponents isn’t a condemnation of giant highway construction projects in general.  Rather, because there were other options to build other highway projects the Department could find no reason to overturn the state’s environmental board.

Nobody was more surprised than Jerry Amante, the Chair of the partially-publicly funded Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency which had pulled out all of the tricks to try and get the project passed including smearing opponents in pieces produced with agency funds.  He tells the Times:

"I’m stunned that any right-thinking secretary of Commerce could make
this disastrous a decision," Amante said. Anti-road activists have
"been able to throw a roadblock in the path of progress . . . and to
mire our residents in a poor quality of life for the sake of their
interests."

While the decision was cheered in many quarters, including the Times’ editorial page,  this matter is by no means settled.  While playing coy with his options, Amante has vowed to keep fighting to build his highway project of choice.  When other giant road projects, such as a 8.7-mile extension of the Foothill South through San Clemente that would join with arterial roads to connect with the I-5, isn’t a big enough highway project for your needs, Jerry Amante is your man.

Yesterday, Orange County Planners and Toll Road advocates had "their day in court" at a public hearing in front of federal officials who they hope will overturn a state decision stopping construction of $1.3-billion extension of California 241 in Orange County.  After the California Coastal Commission sided with opponents of the road stopped the project, which would cut through San Onofre State Beach, the state created Transportation Corridors Association appealed to the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to overturn the state decision.

Over 6,000 people attended yesterday's hearing, and the Times reports that the federal officials had difficulty controlling the crowd as the day was dominated by chees and boos.

The Save San Onofre Coalition charged in a press release that the 241 extension would cause irreprable damage to the local environment, especially some of the nations most beautiful beaches, and that any proposed traffic benefits will be more than outweighed the catastrophic damage to the environment.  Opponents also scoffed at the claim that the road would improve national security pointing out that the Marine Corps. is against the proposal because it would cut through Camp Pendleton.

In addition to the "usual suspects" of environmentalists and surfers, politicians and community leaders also arrived to testify against the project.  California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer; State Senator Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego); Santa Monica Councilman Bobby Shriver; Irvine Councilman Larry Agran, who as a TCA board member cast a vote against the proposed toll road alignment; and San Diego Councilwoman Donna Frye all spoke against the road extension.

Proponents of the road argue that the Save San Onofre Coalition are lieing liars and represent a minorty of the residents of Orange County and San Diego.  Citing "overwhelming evidence," a press release attacked the "7 myths" that road opponents are using to attack the project.  These myths are:

-- Myth One -- TCA is running a six-lane road through the park and beach.

-- Myth Two -- The road will ruin 60 percent of the park.

-- Myth Three -- The road will ruin the camping experience at one of the most popular parks in the state and one dedicated to perpetuity by the late President Ronald Reagan.

-- Myth Four -- The 241 will ruin the surf at Trestles beach.

-- Myth Five -- The 241 is permanent one of the most environmentally destructive projects in California history and will decimate endangered habitats.

-- Myth Six -- The toll road will do little to alleviate traffic congestion.

-- Myth Seven -- Widening I-5 is the best option.

Photo: Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times

The Transportation Corridors Agency, an organization founded in the 1980's to help build more highways through privatization,  has thus far been stymied by local opposition from building a sixteen mile freeway extension for the I-241 through San Onorfre State Park by a coalition of environmentalists, surfers, concerned citizens and civil rights advocates.  From packing a 14 hour hearing on the project with over 3,500 opponents of the widening to lobbying government officials, the groundswell against the extension project in conservative Orange County has been impressive and effective.

However, toll road agencies traditionally don't roll after a major setback when there's a road to build, so the TCA is fighting back.  In addition to appealing the CCC's decision, they're also working to turn public opinion against their opponents by attacking them in mailers sent to Orange County households.  The best part?  The mailers are being paid for by tax payer dollars.

A TCA mailer sent to O.C. homes in July includes a photo depicting freeway gridlock. The caption reads, “Driving home just got harder,” and in bolder red text, “They don’t want you at ‘their beach’ even if it means double the time you spend driving home.”

Like other TCA opponents, Sierra Club attorney Mark Massara is outraged by the tactic. “The saddest part of their entire multi-million dollar ‘blame it on the surfers and environmentalists’ PR campaign is that it is entirely financed by public taxpayers’ dollars in the form of federal loans and gifts to TCA. What a sick scam: the public is financing a project the public is dead set against,” he complains.

The United States Secretary of Commerce will hear the TCA's appeal later this year.  A public hearing on the complaint was postponed after it was estimated that 10,000 people would show up for a hearing at a UC Irvine Auditorium that only holds 5,000 people. 

Image: OC Voice

 Anyone interested in reading more of Joe's work should head over to his website Greetings from Huntington Beach.

Greetings from Huntington Beach! Most of Orange County and Huntington Beach as well, was built on the back of the mighty interstates, which led to the massive development that is Southern California. I want to tell you a little about my town and our challenges as a pedestrian and transit friendly town.

But these are the parts of my city that I love, there's nothing better to me than walking around our downtown with my dog, which I do several times a day. Usually along my walk, I greet people that I see everyday, stop to catch up with people I haven't seen, you know, like it used to be when people were connected to the place they lived.

People ride their bikes in droves downtown, downtown has events in the summer, a street fair on Tuesday nights, a farmer's market on Friday afternoons, a famous pier and a sunset to-die-for nearly everyday of the year. We can get almost everything we need here by foot. We'll soon have a drugstore. A grocery we can walk or bike to is on downtown residents' wish list.

A big challenge for us in the future, as fossil fuels become more expensive and less available, will be to find away to retrofit our subdivisions, create more walkable streetscapes and promote sustainable mixed-use development that provides more services that people can access by foot or bicycle. The days of the stand-alone mall that you can only access by your SUV are numbered.

Our city has started to move in that direction, slowly but surely. We have a number of mixed-use projects in the planning pipeline. We're in the final stages of creating areas along two of our major corridors for mixed-use zoning.

Unfortunately, many of the people here, as everywhere, are still living in a world that doesn't recognize that the suburbs' best days are probably behind us. Even the environmentalists who have worked hard to save and restore our numerous wetlands, have yet to fully embrace the need for more density and mixed-use development in our city.

That's why it's important for us all to continue to talk about making cities more walkable, and finding mass transit solutions. The conversation we're having with each other on blogs like this needs to filter out to the masses and create a demand for change in the way we develop cities.

Joe Shaw is a member of the City of Huntington Beach Planning Council. Joe also wrote a great piece called New Suburbanism. You can read all about Joe (and read some of his writings) at his website http://www.greetingsfromhb.com

Back in July of last year, Metro and the Orange County Transit Authority (OCTA) joined forces to draft a joint study on how to improve mobility between the counties. The final report isn't due until this summer, but the draft report has a list of interesting projects but there's a glaring hole in the overall plan. The plan calls for dozens of new projects to improve bus flow between the counties, nine projects to increase highway capacity but only one bike project.

It seems like I'm forgetting something. Oh wait, it wasn't me. There are no pedestrian improvement projects listed in the report.

Now there is a lot of positive language, but the challenge bike and pedestrian advocates now face is how to get agencies such as Metro and OCTA to move from the "flowery language" phase of looking at bike projects to actually funding the bike trail and sidewalk projects that we need.

For example, on page eight of Attachment B the report authors recognize the problem but can only come up with that one project as a potential solution.

The existing network of bikeways serving the study area is in need of better connections across the county line and more continuous corridors that link major activity centers. The presence of bikeway facilities varies on a city by city basis, creating gaps and reducing the ability of bicycle commuters to make longer regional trips. The Coyote Creek Bikeway is a good candidate for improvement to connect bikeways in the study area.

To be honest, I've never personally ridden along the Coyote Creek Trail but it looks more like a recreational one than one for commuters or for transportation in general.  The fifteen mile multi-use trail is popular with cyclists, hikers and rollerbladers and runs parallel to the river connecting the two counties. 

The nine highway capacity expansion projects are also a concern. The rest of the country is catching on that you can't build more highway lanes to get out of congestion, but darnit Southern California seems determined to try. The real kicker here is that in a long range document like this one, the sunset year is 2030, any capacity that we add to highways in the next couple of years will be filled with cars by the time we reach the sunset year.

That doesn't mean there aren't some good projects in the report. It's encouraging to see Orange and LA Counties working together to increase bus access between the counties, but if there's an unwritten rule that all good transit projects need to be accompanied by billions in spending on highway projects, as is suggested by this document and Metro's Long Range Plan; then we're farther back in the struggle to free ourselves from the clutches of car culture than politicians' rhetoric would lead us to believe.

Image: Vicki and Chuck Rogers/Flickr

Last Friday, Metrolink announced plans to raise fares and cut service effective on July 1. Wait a second, you might be thinking, Metrolink announced these hikes over a year ago. True, but these fare hikes are in addition to the ones passed in 2007. From Metrolink's press release:

Because of the escalating cost of diesel fuel, scheduled increases in costs for operating services contracts and new start-up costs related to the arrival of additional passenger cars in 2009, the Board is considering a fare increase of up to 7.5%, instead of the previously approved 3.5% and potential reductions in service to take effect on July 1, 2008.

The Metrolink Board is also considering changes to the Group Travel Program. The proposed changes to the program are as follows:

Increase the discounted Group Travel fare for a round trip ticket from $7.00 to $10.00 beginning July 1, 2008

Increase the minimum number in a group to qualify for the discounted fare from 10 to 15 beginning July 1, 2008

Index future increases in the Group Travel fare to system-wide fare change proposals but only increase the fare when the cumulative total of increases is equal to or greater than $1.00.

Much like Foothill Transit during its recent fare increases and Metro during its public process for service cuts; Metrolink is avoiding laying blame at the feet of the governor and other elected leaders in Sacramento who consistently under fund transit operations and sometimes rob dedicated transportation funding to balance the general fund.

Unfortunately, our local media is doing nothing to help pick up the slack. Metrolink used the oldest media suppression trick in the book, releasing major news on Friday afternoon, and so far it's paid off. No stories on the fare increase appeared in the Daily News, LA Times, or Orange County Register. The only story I found was a reprint of the press release in California Newswire.

You can comment about these proposals in several ways:

Attend the public hearing

E-mail : MetrolinkFares@scrra.net

Fax: (213) 452-0421

Mail :Metrolink Fares, 700 S. Flower Street, 26th Floor, Los Angeles, California 90017

The Metrolink Board of Directors will receive a compilation of all comments received and a public hearing will be held by the Board at its meeting on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 10:00 A.M. to be held at the Southern California Associated Governments (SCAG) San Bernardino Conference Room located at 818 W. 7th Street, 12th Floor, Los Angeles, California.

Comments can also be submitted by using our online comment form by clicking HERE.

Photo: Casualclicks/Flickr