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