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.

Highway widening projects don't cure congestion, just ask the more progressive transportation agencies in the country.

For some reason, few people ever question the “time savings” for drivers associated with freeway expansion projects by considering the amount of time lost during construction.  For this particular widening, we’ve already experienced “Carmageddon” and there are so many lane and ramp closures associated with the project that the project’s homepage at Metro.net has gone from a public relations greenwashing  to just a sad list of closures.  At least some of the more spectacular closures have fun graphics.  Go ahead, check it out.

Even with all of the public relations tools at their disposal, Metro doesn’t always get the news on these closures out.  Monday’s Which Way L.A. on KCRW focused on the lack of notice for the most recent round of closures that left many motorists unprepared for the traffic they’re going to face.

The project has caused an untold number of hours of delay already, and this isn’t even taking into account Carmageddon II (coming next summer) or the “Rampture” (planned 90 day closures of the Wilshire Blvd. 405 Freeway on- and off-ramps).  I honestly don’t know one person, and yes I do know people that drive on the I-405, that thinks this project will have any lasting impact.  But I know plenty that believe it has already impacted their commutes, but not in the way that Metro and Caltrans had hoped.

All this, for well over $1 billion.  It’s a shame that all this effort is being put in, when the number of L.A. County residents that choose to carpool has been dropping for the last two decades.

(I’ve noticed that ever since South Pasadena passed a resolution cooling some of their resistance to the 710 Big Dig that the War of Words over the project has picked back up.  While researching an article on that issue, I came across “Under the Paperweight: Gaps in 710 Tunnel Arguments” at The Sunroom Desk, a great local blog in Glendale.  Elise Kalfayan generously allowed us to republish her article. – DN)

A weak attack launched in an LA Times Op-Ed by James Moore calling for completion of the tunnel was no match for the conviction of Michael Dieden, whose“Blowback: I-710 Tunnel such a 1950s idea” a week later cited the Gold Line and its advantages for the revitalized neighborhoods that have steadfastly opposed the 710:

If it were not for ordinary citizens, led by South Pasadena residents, the historic neighborhoods in Pasadena, South Pasadena and Alhambra would be wiped out today. Instead, these cities are now served by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Gold Line light rail. Their neighborhoods are not only intact, but have matured into some of the most desirable in Southern California. In addition, around the Gold Line’s stations, new transit-oriented neighborhoods have sprouted. Such developments offer housing opportunities in walkable neighborhoods to families that can forgo an automobile and save $10,000 annually for the cost of owning a car, allowing for a more productive use of hard-earned income for college accounts, family vacations and emergency family needs.

The example was a clear rebuke both to Moore’s arguments and to his longstanding opposition to light rail transportation alternatives.

Moore’s “points for moving ahead” are all desperate measures: Keep the federal government out of the project. (And shift the entire $10+ billion burden to California taxpayers, already facing a worsening budget crisis?)Accelerate environmental review (A six-mile freeway tunnel under urban Los Angeles with rushed environmental review???) Include a limited list of cities in a joint powers authority but exclude everyone not immediately adjacent (Isn’t this a major regional transportation initiative?) Invite a public private partnership to create a toll scheme (Nobody knows if this could be profitable or not, and many completed projects haven’t shown a good return. Moore starts by retreating here: “Costs cannot be carefully estimated until the tunnel is designed, but even rough calculations show that tolls would give private-sector partners a competitive return on investment.”) With these as starting points, the better part of valor would be to surrender and stop trying to build the freeway.

Building the I-710 tunnel under South Pasadena, Letters to the LA Times, August 2, 2011, also responded to Moore’s editorial. Excerpts:

California’s transportation planners need to start looking forward and design rail to transport trucks and goods and to develop a variety of public transit opportunities for commuters. Only then will we find relief.

Looking ahead, what does a healthy Los Angeles in 20 years look like? More freeways, congestion, pollution and disruption? Or more social interaction, recreation, working at home, parks and a richer quality of life?

Moore also published With the Carmageddon Fresh in Our Minds, Why We Must Finish Another Vital L.A. Artery, Engineering News-Record, July 25, 2011. Excerpts:

A small but highly organized, vocal group delayed the project by learning exactly where to insert monkey wrenches into the gears of public process. They made the project appear controversial; but the freeway system cannot function as it should with this gap, hence the final link is going forward.

…since the federal government can no longer pay for new highways or fix the old highways, we must shift our focus from government funding to private capital. Private companies will build new roads in exchange for the trip tolls that will provide investors a profit.

The final link isn’t going forward. Advance is blocked by a Federal Injunction against the project. Complaining about a “highly organized, vocal group” sounds like battle fatigue and growing frustration with the rules of engagement. Further, where is there any justification for the belief that private industry will tailor a public project to serve long-term public interests? Our financial and market system doesn’t reward that kind of altruism.

Earlier rounds in this summer battle series seized on Carmageddon as a justification for completing the 710. These were also soundly defeated.

Freeways are not the answer, Letter to the Glendale News-Press, July 25, 2011, answered an earlier letter by 710 Freeway Coalition Chair Nat Read claiming that Carmageddon-like conditions exist every day on the 5, 2 and 134 freeways because of the 710 gap.

Opinion: the 405 closure as a case for multi-modal transportation in L.A., Metro: The Source, June 17, 2011, argues that:

In our multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-faceted city we’ve left the “multi” prefix off of one very important element: our transportation system.

We trapped ourselves in single mode city and suffer the consequences each and every day, whether it be from our daily car-tastrophes (traffic, accidents, road rage) to our occasional carmageddons.

…Hopefully any pain caused by July’s 405 closure will only serve as an incentive to continue to support the non-highway projects that will finally turn L.A. into a multi-modal city.

Print fronts in this series of summer battles include a Business Life Magazine editorial by Nat Read, which called the project “the last remaining gap in the basic core of Los Angeles County,” and a Pasadena Review rebuttal by Janet Dodson on behalf of the No 710 Action Committee, siting other freeway concepts abandoned since the 1958 Master Plan of Freeways. Dodson goes on:

Communities across the region from Glendale to Los Angeles to Commerce have declared their opposition to this tunnel. They all understand the economic and environmental dangers in the proposal. No one has been able to figure out what the advantage to the toll tunnels could possibly be, except to the individuals who see potential massive profit for themselves as the expense of the population and the tax base. The tunnels will increase pollution, they will be dangerous, and will also cost untold billions…

In this 21st Century, we have the special opportunity to offer greener, more forward-thinking concepts to modernize our crucial ports and transportation systems. Here in the land where freeways first flowered, we should advance to the next step, leaving the century-old concepts behind in the dust.

This banner appeared over the I-10 briefly on Saturday morning. L.A. without cars? It was kind of nice. Photo: Jonathan Weiss

There are two theories to transportation engineering and traffic.  One theory is that traffic is like a raging river.  If you block it in one place, it will flow someplace else.  If you add more space for it to flow, it will flow more smoothly.  This theory has dominated traffic and transportation plans for years.

This theory got kicked in the shins over the last weekend.

The other theory is that people make choices based on what they believe makes the most sense at the time.  Under that theory, if you spend a disproportionate amount of resources building and expanding highways, people will drive, even for short trips that could easily be completed on bike or foot.

If you believe the first theory, this weekend’s temporary closure of the I-405, “the most driven highway in the country,” should have been a disaster.  There should have been drivers everywhere stuck on surface streets and gridlock should have clogged up all the freeways as people used their high-tech Waze application to “Beat Carmageddon” by exercising their God-given right to drive wherever they want to.  If you believe the second, then everything should have been fine.

The sad thing is, most transportation planners, especially ones working in Greater Los Angeles, still seem to believe the first theory.  After all, while the city and surrounding area benefitted tremendously from the closure of the 405, the reason the project was closed was so that they could expand the freeway, creating another pipe to flush our car traffic through.

Sig alert.com at 3:47 P.M. on Saturday

Despite all the warnings, media induced panic, apocryphal visions and ABC 7′s constant messaging that we needed to “fight back” by downloading a phone application to help you drive somewhere else; Angelenos made the smart choices this weekend.  In fact, most people seemed to think this was a great weekend, even better and more relaxing than the usual two-day break.  Reporters interviewed more people extolling the virtues of the day and talk about how great the city was with less cars mucking up the system.

The flight path for the Jet Blue flight in #flightvbike flew 145 kms = 90 miles. Thanks, Diane in Toronto.

On Saturday morning, I took a bike ride to Culver City with my son and my Mom and we commented  how it was one of the more pleasant rides we had had on surface streets (without a police escort.)  One Fox L.A. anchor joked that after the re-opening of the 405 “we can all go back to being miserable.”

Of course, I was home in time to watch the now legendary flight v bike (v Metro v in-line skater) race that took place.  If you’re not one of the 20,000 people that visited L.A. Streetsblog this weekend, you can catchup on the story here, here and here.

People keep saying this picture, and one's like it, are "pretty." Yeah, except for the asphalt. Photo: Carter Rubin

While the warnings of the upcoming  Apocalypse were everywhere, the Wolfpack Hustle, Gary Kavanagh, Ezra Horne, Joe Anthony and Jet Blue Airlines gave Angelenos something fun to do on Saturday.  Never have so many watched a “race” on twitter and a webpage with a GPS map.  Thousands were entertained, a city’s spirits were raised, and cycling in Los Angeles was portrayed in a positive light. Did the Carmageddon sub-plot of this race have anything to do with Angelenos leaving their cars at home for the weekend?  We’ll never know; but more than anyone else this unlikely team were the heroes of the weekend.

The silver medal for the weekend has to go to the p.r. team at Metro for doing a masterful job of getting the word out about the closure.  They used every media trick in the book, both old and new, and there was pretty much nobody in the area that didn’t know what was happening.  Whether you thought the coverage was overblown or not, this p.r. team did a great job this weekend and the months leading up to Carmageddon.

The big losers have to be the local media.  From ABC 7′s bizarre campaign encouraging people to download a phone application to “beat” a highway closure and drive wherever they wanted, to their celebratory “We Beat Carmageddon!” coverage on Sunday; it was hard to tell if I was watching local news or the Colbert Report.  Check that, Colbert’s coverage was actually restrained comparatively.

It was particularly painful to watch the evening news on Saturday when every station had a team of reporters spread out throughout the city to tell the same story: that nothing was happening.  Some stations, including one that was specifically warned not to buy into the hype, didn’t have a “Plan B” and didn’t report on any news besides Carmageddon…and there was nothing happening.  The news about the early re-opening of the 405 didn’t come until much later.

While many of the people that appeared on the news were asking when we can do this again, the answer is easy.  People can have a Carmageddon every day that they don’t get in a car.  Ride a bike, clean the yard, walk to the park, everyday provides a new chance to forget the car and do something else.  When enough people do that, the crippling congestion which has grabbed the hearts and psyches of too many people vanishes.

So when’s the next Carmageddon?  There’s no time like the present.  And you don’t need politicians or the media to tell you it’s time, just the desire to be car-light and the beautiful Southern California weather.

Photo: Associated Press

We got your predictions in the thread below, but as the weekend progresses feel free to let us know how/if Carmageddon is impacting your weekend. My first report is that we’re relieved that the news is recharging at the moment so that we have a couple of hours without helicopters flying overhead.

Also, I got a phone call from our friend Sgt. David Krumer with the LAPD asking if I would pass on the word that the LAPD kindly requests that people not try to ride their bikes on the closed portion of the I-405. They know how to read Facebook and Midnight Ridazz guys…Enjoy the weekend, we’ll be back tomorrow with coverage of the “Flight v bikes” race tomorrow.

But does it explode at zero?

Sadly, all that hand-wringing did nothing to cause any questioning of whether the entire 405 project is one that makes sense.  The mammoth project is costing billions of dollars and is actually the largest infrastructure project to receive federal ARRA (aka stimulus) funds.  The main purpose of the project is to add a 10-mile HOV lane on the northbound I-405 between the I-10 and US-101 Freeways.  To do that, the project also needs to remove and replace the Skirball Center Dr, Sunset Bl and Mulholland Dr bridges, realign 27 on and off-ramps, widen 13 existing underpasses and structures and construct approximately 18 miles of retaining wall and sound walls.  All this construction has cost commuters hours of lost time to the created congestion.

Usually, when analyzing a capacity enhancement project, Streetsblog would examine whether or not the “induced demand” created by the project would render it moot.  In short, when a highway is widened, it actually creates greater demand to use the new roadway as explained in the graphic below.  If the congestion created by construction is greater than the savings created, than the project is a net negative before you even consider the costs in dollars, public health, and air pollution.

However, when it comes to carpool projects in the Southland, we’ve seen a different dynamic develop.  As Metro and the county “doubles down” and rapidly expands its carpool network, fewer people (both in percentage and actual riders) are carpooling.  If building carpool lanes is done to induce more people to carpool, than why are we seeing fewer people carpool.  Consider this graphic from Metro’s Long Range Plan.

In 1980, when the HOV system looked as it did on the left, 15% of commuters in Los Angeles County carpooled. The blue lines on the right are the current HOV system, but barely 11% carpool today. 209,685 people in L.A. County commuted via carpool in 2000. Despite population growth and a jump in the number of HOV lanes available, that number dropped to 194,228 in 2009. Image: Metro 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan

In short, there’s no reason to believe that there’s going to be a long-term benefit to commuters from this project.  Even if Metro is correct and more people choose to carpool, history teaches us that every car removed from the mixed-use lanes will be filled with a new car almost immediately.  Yet, there’s almost no media scrutiny of the value of this project.

Bucking the trend was a piece by Hector Tobar in today’s Times that downplays the impact of the coming Carmageddon in Mid-July and notes that the rosy promises made on behalf of the 405 never materialized.

“When it’s finished, driving the Valley and West Los Angeles will be a breeze,” The Times wrote in 1961, as construction crews rushed to complete the freeway. “Eight lanes of virtually straight, minimum-grade roadway will allow motorist to skim over the hills….”

The promise of congestion-free, smooth flowing commutes, has been punctured so many times, it’s impossible to count.  Yet, pols and planners continue to pour resources into widening projects that don’t live up to their promise or costs.  With the coming “Carmageddon” dominating the news, there’s no time like the present to ask whether all this construction and spending is worth it.  Yet too few writers, and no politicians, are leading the discussion.

(The above video was prepared by the L.A. City Bureau of Engineering to explain the project. There will be a public meeting on the North Spring Street Bridge Improvement project on Tuesday, May 10, at 6:00 P.M. at the Lincoln Heights Senior Citizen Center at 2323 Workman Avenue.  For more information, click on the advertisement on the right.  Many of the details that have led to this compromise can be found in our first article on this project.)

The L.A. Conservancy, one of the leading voices opposing the North Spring Street Bridge Improvement Project, has broken its silence on its view of the new designs for the project proposed by the City’s Bureau of Engineering (BoE.)  Despite its long-standing opposition to changing the design of the historic structure, it seems the Conservancy is pleased with the efforts the BoE has made to maintain the original design and make needed repairs and upgrades to the bridge.

“We’re encouraged by the direction the Bureau of Engineering is headed,” notes Adrian Scott Fine, the director of advocacy for the L.A. Conservancy.

As we noted last week, the bridge has been a fixture in Downtown Los Angeles since 1927, but in recent years the City has been trying to change the structure by widening it, adding new sidewalks, bike lanes, and extending the mixed-use travel lanes from 9.5 to eleven feet.  The Conservancy has opposed the widening because earlier designs of the bridge would have greatly altered the character of the structure.

After losing a political battle last year, the BoE went back to the drawing board to create two new designs for expanding the bridge.  The first design proposed design widens the south side of the bridge, restripe the lanes to include a bike lane in each direction, widen the sidewalk on the north side of the bridge and add a sidewalk to the south side.  The second design spreads the widening out but has the same basic impact.  The bridge will still have four mixed travel lanes, two new bike lanes, and sidewalks on both sides of the bridge.

It’s the widening of the travel lanes that has created controversy for some transportation reform advocates.  The LACBC has written a letter that could serve as a template for those wishing to weigh in on the bridge.  In addition to bicycle connectivity, widened mixed-use lanes, and the cultural significance of the bridge, their letter can be read here.

Grace David, the Project Manager at the BoE and Tanya Durrell, Principal of Public Relations at BoE, objected to the argument that this project is about increasing car capacity noting that the 11 foot travel lane width is standard for a secondary highway (the street classification for North Spring Street) and they couldn’t use state or federal dollars for the project without widening these lanes.  Advocates the wider lanes will lead to faster traffic speeds and thus greater capacity even if there are no additional travel lanes added to the project.

As for the two designs, the Conservancy has a favorite.  As stated on their updated advocacy page for the website, “With the single-sided widening – the Conservancy’s preferred approach of the two options – the current 4-lane bridge would be widened by 21-feet on the south side only to accommodate 5-foot sidewalks, 5-foot bike lanes, and 11-feet wide travel lanes with a 4-foot wide center median.”

However, this doesn’t mean that the Conservancy has signed-off on the project.  Fine notes that there are still some concerns on how to make a wider bridge continue the historical tradition of the bridge.  “There are creative ideas churning on how to make that step at the Bureau,” Fine explains, “The devil is going to be in the details.”

Nobody's debating that conditions on the bridge are good for cyclists/pedestrians. The issue is how to improve them. Photo: NSSB/Flickr

(Yesterday, a new advertisement appeared in our sidebar advertising a public meeting on the North Spring Street Bridge Improvement project on Tuesday, May 10, at 6:00 P.M. at the Lincoln Heights Senior Citizen Center at 2323 Workman Avenue.  Below is a summary of the project, most of which was written before the advertisement was placed. – DN)

The North Spring Street Bridge Replacement/Improvement project has been a controversial one for the four years its been under debate.  The City and Caltrans claim the bridge is in poor structural health and has car travel lanes that are too narrow.  Historic preservationists claim that the bridge has local historical significance transportation reformers claim that plans to replace or improve the bridge will increase the amount of cars flowing in to the area.

Last year, the city attempted a rushed process to push through a plan to expand the traversable width of the bridge from 50 feet to 90 feet.   Only a surprise vote by the City Council Transportation Committee prevented the bridge from being widened to nearly double its current size “to make room for cyclists and pedestrians.”  This week, the city and Caltrans announced a new public hearing to vet two possible designs to expand the bridge.

The first design proposed design widens the south side of the bridge, restripe the lanes to include a bike lane in each direction, widen the sidewalk on the north side of the bridge and add a sidewalk to the south side.  The second design spreads the widening out but has the same basic impact.  The bridge will still have four mixed travel lanes, two new bike lanes, and sidewalks on both sides of the bridge.

Even though neither plan would add a mixed-use travel lane, the bridge will be able to accommodate more automobile traffic after the widening.  Currently travel lanes on the bridge are 9.5 feet wide.  After the widening, the lanes will swell to eleven feet, wide enough to accommodate much faster, and higher volumes of traffic.

The coalition of historic preservation groups that managed to stall the project last year has yet to weigh in on either of the designs, but during past rounds of public input they have pushed for construction of a second bridge for cyclists and pedestrians to preserve the current bridge without any widenings.  A second bridge wouldn’t just be more efficient and safer for cyclists and pedestrians, it wouldn’t “ruin” the current bridge’s design or character.  The L.A. Conservancy provides excellent background on the project in addition to explaining their position.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition weighed in on the plan at their blog.  While they were happy to see improved connections for active transportation, they also questioned the value of the connection without existing bicycle infrastructure on either side of the bridge.

It is crucial, however, that these facilities continue along Spring Street; a bike lane that only lasts the length of the bridge is only minimally beneficial. LACBC will continue to push for connectivity beyond the bridge at BPIT meetings.

The LACBC has written a letter that could serve as a template for those wishing to weigh in on the bridge.  In addition to bicycle connectivity, widened mixed-use lanes, and the cultural significance of the bridge, their letter can be read here.

According to the Conservancy, “Construction on the North Spring Street Viaduct began in 1927, seventeen years after the completion of the adjacent North Main Street Bridge (HCM #901) and North Broadway Bridge (HCM #907).

Designed by John C. Shaw, the crossing was built to relieve traffic along the North Broadway Bridge. Its design was intended to complement the classical motif of these two earlier works, linking the three spans as a thematic sub-group that connects Lincoln Heights to downtown Los Angeles.”

I have written about how amorphous the scoping process for Metro and Caltran’s 710 gap-closure/ big dig project has been.   I’ve now given shape to my own opinions in comments for the scoping phase of their environmental review (which ends on April 14^th). Please submit comments if you are interested in the future of freeways and transportaiton in the region.

Others interested in this project are submitting comments focused on the proper scope of environmental review of a mega tunnel. So I’m focusing on how the agencies should study and fund alternative mobility projects in the project area and remove, rather than expand, a portion of SR-710.

1. Remove the SR-710 freeway between the 10 freeway and Valley blvd by transforming it into a boulevard and/ or a linear park.

2. Expand transit to reduce car traffic and pollution and spur transit-oriented development

3. Create complete, living and green streets that promote safe walking and cycling and create vibrant public spaces.

4. Reduce freight truck traffic and pollution by expanding on dock rail at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

5. Conduct a health impact assessment of all alternatives.

I believe that investing in these alternatives would better meet the goals “to relieve congestion and improve mobility within the project area” than would a freeway tunnel.

Caltrans and Metro have defined the project area as the geography touched by the five fingers of the potential corridor zones chosen for the Tunnel Technical Study. (See Initial Study Area map). It includes the 5 and 2 freeways to the west, the 210 to the north, the 605 to the east, and the 10 to the south. The west San Gabriel Valley, Northeast Los Angeles, Pasadena, Glendale, and other cities and communities along the Arroyo Seco corridor are diverse, with a rich cultural history and important natural landscapes. The opening of the Metro Gold Line has provided a new sense of connection between some of these communities and opportunities for transit-oriented development and more sustainable land use in the region. The zone is also divided and surrounded by numerous freeways, that bring deadly particulate pollution. They promote car-centric land use and mobility, which have contributed to epidemics of obesity and diet-related illness. The construction of these freeways disrupted communities, especially low income communities of color.

Metro and Caltrans have a choice to make in investing billions of dollars to address mobility and congestion in this area. They can look to the past, to early-mid 20^th century freeway plans,  by extending SR-710 to the 210 (or to Del Mar Blvd in Pasadena) via a surface or tunnel route. This backwards-looking approach (see 1958 map of the massive and thankfully never fully implemented freeway and expressway system), would further pollute and divide communities. These plans are from an era when the car was supposed to solve all mobility challenges. They are outdated relics from a period before scientists understood the health risks of particulate pollution and the threat of climate change; and before planners and health officials fully understood that a freeway and car-based transportation system would lead to sprawl, sedentary lifestyles, and inefficient land use patterns.

Or the agencies can adopt 21^st century transportation solutions to move people and products in a way that improves the environment and surrounding communities.

Photo:Elzed/Flickr

1. Remove the SR-710 freeway between the 10 freeway and Valley blvd by transforming it into a boulevard street and/ or a linear park.

Smart metropolitan regions are beginning to undue some of the damage done by the urban freeway frenzy of the 1950s-1970s. Cities such as San Francisco, Soeul, Korea, and Portland have achieved gains in quality of life, economic development, and mobility by transforming sections of freeways into boulevards, open space, and parks:

• Removing Freeways Restoring Communities
• Congress for the New Urbanism: Highways;
• GRIST: Seoul Tears Down Urban Highway, Life Goes On;
• Infrastructuris: 7 Freeways We Should Tear Down Right Now
• Streetfilms: Lessons from San Francisco;
• Streetfilms: Moving Beyond the Automobile, Freeway Removal

The approximately mile-long stub of SR-710 that extends north of the 10 freeway to Valley blvd is a promising candidate for removal and transformation.

Þ     Caltrans and Metro should decommission this section of SR-710 and transform it into a non-grade-separated, complete, living and green street as discussed above and/or into a park and open space.

Þ     The agencies should conduct a community planning exercise involving residents, municipalities, and adjacent California State University Los Angeles to determine how to best transform the removed section freeway. To limit exposure to freeway pollution, the lower 1500-2000 feet of the new boulevard/ park could be a buffer zone/ ecological remediation zone with more active uses in the northern two-thirds of the site.

Þ     The agencies should ensure that this closure does not worsen pollution in adjacent communities. This can be accomplished by increasing transit, reducing truck freight trips, and conducting a health impact assessment.

2.  Expand transit to reduce car traffic and pollution and spur transit-oriented development

Rapidly expanding the transit network in the area under review is the best way to ultimately reduce passenger car traffic and improve denser, walkable land uses. There are significant gaps in transit in the area under review, especially north-south between the northern and southern sections of the San Gabriel Valley and between Northeast Los Angeles and Glendale and the San Fernando Valley. Glendale is in fact the most populous city in Los Angeles County without a light rail connection.

Þ     Accelerate extending the Gold Line eastwards as planned in the Foothill extension and Eastside extension.

Þ     Extend metrorail northwest from one of the Pasadena Gold Line stations through Eagle Rock, Glendale and Burbank to the Burbank airport then south to connect to the terminus of the Red Line in North Hollywood.

Þ     Create metrorail, metroliner or dedicated busway north-south corridors between the two arms of the Goldline. One could follow Atlantic and Huntington to connect the East L.A. civic center station to the planned Gold Line foothill extension station in Arcadia. As the foothill extension and eastside extensions of the Gold Line continues, Metro should consider further North-South Spurs every 3-5 miles similar to the East Valley north south corridors being studied in the San Fernando Valley.

Vision63/Flickr

3. Create complete, living, and green streets that promote safe walking and cycling and create vibrant public spaces.

Streets let people move between places. Streets are also important public space in themselves. Throughout much of the 20th century, traffic engineers designed wide streets with wide lanes and high speed limits in an effort to maximize the flow of cars per hour at peak traffic times. These design standards created streets that are dangerous to walk or bike on. Streets designed as ‘sewers for cars’ also harm the places they are supposed to connect by making it unpleasant to be outside due to the speed and noise and sterile visual environment of streets. Fortunately, some cities are reinventing streets for the 21^st century. These streets are complete in that they dedicate space for all modes of transportation with wide sidewalks, bike lanes (including protected or separated bike lanes), bus only lanes, flex lanes, modern streetcars, etc. They are living and vibrant because they calm traffic, create more and safer pedestrian crossings,  more public plazas and seating, and welcome walkers and bikers who bring life to sidewalks and streets and customers to local business. They are green because they are designed with more shade trees, less blacktop, and with landscaping and permeable surfaces to capture and filter rainwater.

The My Figueroa project examining street improvements for South Figueroa St. in Los Angeles is demonstrating possibilities for 21^st century streets.  The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is similarly funding development of a model streets manual that incorporates similar goals of living, safe, and complete streets. The project area for the SR-710 ‘gap closure’ project has a number of major streets that are too wide, unpleasant, and unsafe. These could greatly benefit from being made more complete, living, and green.

Þ     As part of an alternative to freeway extension, Metro and Caltrans should launch planning efforts like the My Figueroa project for twelve streets and implement cutting edge improvements on these streets of the type that will be contained in the Los Angeles County funded street manual. I’d suggest the following candidates:

• Huntington dr
• Valley blvd
• Mission blvd
• Main st/ Las Tunas dr
• Fremont ave
• Atlantic blvd
• Rosemead blvd
• San Gabriel blvd
• San Fernando Rd
• Eagle Rock blvd
• Colorado Blvd
• N. Figueroa St

Þ     Metro should work with municipalities and the County to ensure that a network of bike lanes, protected bike lanes, bike paths and bike infrastructure is rapidly implemented in the project area, with a goal of rapidly increasing cycling’s mode share of trips. Bike lane projects promote clean, healthy transportation and also create more jobs per dollar invested than road projects.

4. Reduce freight truck traffic and pollution by expanding on dock rail at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

One of the perceived needs for extension of SR-710 is high levels of truck traffic on the existing route and expectations of continuing increases in freight imports and truck traffic. The solution to this challenge isn’t expanding or extending freeways. It is reducing truck traffic by shifting freight movement to less polluting modes of goods movement and reassessing the desirability of endless growth in the logistics industry. A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that externalities from truck freight transport were approximately six times more per unit carried than for freight rail. “According to our synthesis of EPA’s latest national emissions inventory data (2002), freight trucks produced over six times more fine particulate  matter and over four times more nitrogen oxide on a ton-mile basis than freight locomotives, and over 10 and six times more of each type of emission, respectively, on a ton-mile basis than inland waterway vessels. And, according to our analysis of EPA data on greenhouse gases, trucks emitted the highest levels of greenhouse gas (CO2 equivalents) among the freight modes—about eight times more per unit of freight than freight rail, and thirteen times more than waterways freight.” (GAO. SURFACE FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION: A Comparison of the Costs of Road, Rail, and Waterways Freight Shipments That Are Not Passed on to Consumers. January, 2011.)

Þ     Caltrans and Metro should work with the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to expand capacity for on-dock rail so that imports can be loaded directly onto freight trains, reducing the need for trucks to transport containers to warehouses, inland rail yards, and transloading facilities.

Þ     Caltrans and Metro should work with the ports to set a target and plan for reduced truck traffic on SR-710.

Þ     The agencies should work with the ports, railroad companies and regulators to accelerate adoption of electrified and cleaner locomotive technologies and to ensure that increased train facilities and trips do not increase negative health impacts.

5. Conduct a health impact assessment of all alternatives.

Freeways are sources of dangerous air pollution, especially from diesel exhaust. Children living near freeways face higher risks of asthma, worse asthma, and reduced lung growth. (McConnell, R et al. 2010. Childhood incident asthma and traffic-related air pollution at home and school. Environmental Health Perspectives http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901232; McConnell, R., et al. (2006). “Traffic, Susceptibility, and Childhood Asthma.” Environ Health Perspect 114(5): 766–772; Gauderman, W. J., E. Avol, et al. (2005). “Childhood asthma and exposure to traffic and nitrogen dioxide.” Epidemiology 16(6): 737-43; Gauderman, W.J. et al. (2007) “Effect of exposure to traffic on lung development from 10 to 18 years of age: a cohort study.” Lancet 369(9561):571-7.)

Exposure to traffic-related air pollution is also associated with higher rates of heart disease and cancer in adults. (Kramer et al. 2010. Traffic-related air pollution and incident type 2 diabetes: Results from the SALIA cohort study. Environmental Health Perspectives http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901689; Beelen, et al. “Long-Term Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Lung Cancer Risk.” Epidemiology 19 (5): 702-710 (2008); Kan et al, “Traffic exposure and lung function in adults: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study.” Thorax 2007 62: 873-879 (2007).

Þ     In addition to EIR/EIS, Caltrans and Metro should conduct a health impact assessment of all project alternatives, including the surface freeway, tunnel and other alternatives.

Þ     The agencies should learn from the ongoing Health Impact Assessment of the SR-710 expansion project being performed by Human Impact Partners and ICF International with input from Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. 

Now that the advertisement for the 710 Conversations Virtual Meeting and Open House is down off the sidebar, it seems a good time to review the concept and execution of the Virtual Meeting and Open House.

A view from the lobby...

First off, let’s put aside our feelings on the SR-710 Big Dig project and focus instead on the meeting itself.  I famously missed the virtual meeting, apparently being in San Francisco ruined my ability to read a calendar two weeks ago, but I have spent some time bouncing around the virtual tour that will be available online until April 14th. The virtual meeting had staff from Caltrans and Metro online to take comment and was the first meeting of its kind to be held in Southern California.

Personally, I found the online open house to be pretty easy to navigate and used the system to mail in my own public comment.  My complaints with the system were that the Metro and Caltrans staff seemed a little stiff in their presentations.  I actually laughed at one Caltrans employee who told me how excited he was to be taking part in this program in the same tone of voice that a voice actor trying out for “droopy dog” might use.

Now for the statistics.  According to Consensus Inc, 153 people have registered to use the website and 101 unique visitors have entered the site from March 21 until today.   One hundred forty three resources (uploaded informational materials) have been accessed by community members.

As for the March 21 meeting, 54 people attended and were able to chat with members of the team from Caltrans and Metro.  Consensus estimates that Metro and Caltrans were able to save “around half a ton of CO2 emissions” from entering LA County’s atmosphere by hosting the SR-710 scoping meeting online.

The negative in holding meetings in a virtual format is that it eliminates human interaction and a chance to meet like-minded allies and opposite minded people that may or may not have good points of their own.  The reality is that public meetings aren’t just about the give and take between government and citizens, but also between citizens and other citizens.  And of course, for the experienced advocate, public meetings are a great time to work the press and create some leverage.

I’m sad to report that a generic timeline has replaced the board game of transportation history I admired during the first series of 710 conversations outreach meetings. With the stakes raised by CalTran’s release of a notice of scoping/initiation of studies for the SR-710 Gap Closure Project (which we’ll be calling the SR-710 California’s Big Dig from now on,) perhaps it is appropriate that the game is over.

I attended a March 3^rd meeting in Alhambra to hear about the environmental impact review process. The mood there seemed more serious as well. After the briefing, which provided basic information about scoping for the CEQA/NEPA process for ‘the project,’ a series of attendees asked a variation on the same question: What is the project?

CalTrans and Metro presumably want to and (plan to) drill tunnels between the northern end of the 710 freeway and the 210 freeway. But they haven’t told participants in their 710 conversation process that they want to and (plan to) do this, and would we please provide input on what environmental impacts to study and what alternatives to consider?

Click on the image to read the full scoping announcement.

What they have now officially announced, halfway through the Conversation meeting series, is that:

“The proposed project, depending on the results of a thorough environmental analysis of all possible transportation improvements, may include, but not be limited to: surface and subsurface highway/freeway construction, heavy rail and bus/ light rail systems, local street upgrades, traffic management systems and a no build alternative. There currently is a gap in the I-710 corridor, for a distance of approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km) which extends between Valley Boulevard to the south and Del Mar to the north. As originally identified in the April 13, 1998 Record of Decision for the Meridian Variation alignment, this gap contributes to congestion on local streets and regional freeway system. The objective of this project is to relieve congestion and improve mobility within the project area.”

It still doesn’t define the project. The recent notice of intent for environmental review of another Measure R project, the Gold Line Foothill Extension, wasn’t coy in stating that “[t]he proposed project is an extension of the existing Metro Gold Line light rail transit line, from Azusa to Montclair.”

There’s an almost postmodern feel to the SR-710 process. The name “710 Gap Closure Project” features the lacuna rather than a mega-project to fill it. (Streestblog has even countered with alternative names http://la.streetsblog.org/2011/02/25/name-the-sr-710-extension-moves-to-the-final-page-but-how-much-will-it-cost) Over decades, the proposed freeway has retreated into trenches and now into deeply bored tunnels.  Public outreach around these tunnels doesn’t mention tunnels. It seems more like something from Deleuze and Guattari than CalTrans. What happened to the confident modernism of the freeway-paving 20^th century?

The undefined nature of the project left skeptics and supporters at last Thursday’s meeting unsatisfied. A Northeast LA resident wondered why no outreach meetings were being held in Mt. Washington or Glassell Park, site of two of the five possible tunnel orientations. An elderly Alhambra resident described her frustration over writing letters for 35 years in support of a freeway extension: “Why can’t we start digging yet.”

You can’t dig a project that doesn’t exist yet.

You can,  however, comment on possible transportation improvements and mobility in the area. http://www.metro.net/projects/sr-710-conversations/

Last week’s poll asking you to vote on what name L.A. Streetsblog will use to describe the 710 Extension Project was easily Streetsblog’s most popular poll to date, with 252 total votes.  Two project names got sixty votes each to move on to this final poll.  One week from today, either Art Dean’s “Golden Freight Freeway” or Joanne Nuckols’ “SR-710, L.A.’s Big Dig” will become the official name that Streetsblog uses to describe the project from here on out.

The 710 Extension has been a hot topic this week.  Yesterday at the Metro Board Meeting, staff presented an estimate on how much the project would cost if the agency decides to move forward with a tunnel alternative.  The cost?  $2.81 billion.

That number is less than 20% of the cost of the infamous “Big Dig,” despite the Dig actually being a smaller project by length.  Not surprisingly, Glendale Mayor and Metro Board Member Ara Najarian took exception.  In a spirited back and forth with Board Chair Don Knabe, Najarian questioned the ethics of senior Metro Staff Art Leahy and Richard Moliere for signing the document.

The methodology for coming up with the $2.81 billion number was somewhat convoluted. 

The Consultant has been monitoring the procurement and bid award for the Alaskan Way Tunnel (AWT) in Seattle, a project that compares technically to the SR-710 North gap concept and elements of the Westside extension project. Washington State DOT awarded the contract for the project in January 201 1, providing us with a unique opportunity to undertake comparative costing of our estimates with current market data.

We have extrapolated the data from the Alaskan Way Tunnel project and conducted two independent estimates of cost for our tunnels, with particular emphasis at this point on the SR-710 North gap project, in response to the Director’s motion. Our preliminary findings, utilizing the actual bid cost for the A W deep bore tunnel, validates the updated cost estimates for the SR-710 North gap tunnel project that we have developed at this early stage.

At the L.A. Subway Blog, Juan Matute also goes through those numbers and comes up with his own estimate: between $6.52 billion and $7.22 billion.

Why such a large difference?  For starters, both Najarian and Matute noted that the Metro estimate assumes that the proposed tunnel would be the shortest of several proposed lengths, 21,000 feet.  Some of the tunnel designs are as large as 28,000 feet.

“We have to stop the community process right now,” Najarian thundered about the numbers being used at the 710 Conversations, “We’re deceiving people!”

Najarian’s stand earned more people than just praise from gadfly John Walsh that he was “acting like John Walsh,” the Board agreed for further study of a cost estimate that assumed a 28,000 foot long tunnel and a review of how much the “Big Dig” cost per square foot.

On the last request, Knabe let out an exasperated, “You could google that, but ok…”

A new cost estimate is expected at the May Metro Board Meeting.

Photo: Mark Vallianatos

Metro is holding three sets of pubic meetings. The first, scheduled for the rest of February, is advertised as opportunity to converse on transportation concerns and suggestions. A second set of meetings during early March will provide information on CEQA and NEPA. The third set of meetings in late March will be the opportunity to provide input on scoping for environmental review of the project. (A schedule is available at http://www.metro.net/projects/sr-710-conversations/ – click the upcoming meetings tab.)

I attended the first meeting Tuesday night in San Gabriel. Present were a mix of agency staff and consultants, veterans of the no on 710 campaign, and interested members of the public. I appreciate that Spanish and Chinese translators were present to lead break out groups, but the absence of attendees needing translation implies that outreach in immigrant communities should be stepped up.

Metro officials and public outreach consultants pitched the process as a ‘fresh start’ on a proposed freeway extension project that, according to the handy timeline included in the info packet, has been planned to link Long Beach and Pasadena since 1933.  Attendees were divided into three breakout groups to discuss and report back on commons (what we like about our communities), concerns (about transportation in neighborhoods and the region), and considerations (ideas to improve transportation).

People in my breakout group were concerned about heavy traffic on surface streets (on Fremont Ave in particular). No one jumped to the conclusion that we need to increase capacity via an extension of SR-710.  Our considerations list was heavy of ways to encourage people to use transit, improve and expand transit, and make streets safe to walk and bike. Meeting organizers have helpfully posted word clouds from breakout group notes on facebook, showing that across all breakout groups, the most discussed solutions were ‘better planning and development,’ ‘better and more accessible public transportation’ and ‘consider alternative modes of transportation.’

This word cloud was entitled "concerns."

I’m skeptical that this consensus in favor of expanded transit and living streets, if it is maintained as public meeting and online engagement continues, will sway the responsible agencies to divert Measure R funds to better projects. But Metro’s description of the ongoing conversation claims that they are open to multi-modal alternatives:

To address this longstanding issue, we are beginning with a fresh perspective to initiate an environmental review process that will focus on a range of solutions to specifically evaluate the effects of the SR 710 gap… These solutions from you can come in any possible form – from maintaining the status quo to considering new infrastructure, from single-modal to multi-modal approaches.

It can’t hurt to tell them what they may not really want to hear: that the era of urban freeways is (or should be) over and that their nearly 70 year old plan for a completed highway should give way to demand for complete streets.

A “gap” is something that needs to be filled.  It’s a nuisance.  A problem.  By referring to the project as a “gap” project, you’re already pointing the debate towards, “what is the best way to fill it.”

Well, if proponents of the project can have their own language for the program, so can Streetsblog.  On Friday I sent out an email to opponents of extending the 710 freeway so it connects to the 210 through either above ground highway expansion or a tunnel, asking them to name the project.  If you have a better name than any of the people I reached out to, leave it in the comments section.  On Friday, we’ll have a poll asking readers to choose their favorite name for the I 710 project, and Streetsblog will use that name in our coverage for the rest of the debate.

Glendale Mayor, and former Metro Board Chair Ara Najaraian was the first person to respond, simply emailing “The 710 (money)PIT.”  In a similar vein, La Crescenta resident Susan Bolen noted that if the final project is indeed a tunnel project it would be between .9 miles and 1.9 miles longer than Boston’s disastrous Big Dig when she proposed the Even Bigger Dig.  She later noted the dangerous conditions that can be created if there’s ever a fire in a tunnel and went for the much less subtle, Tunnel from Hell.

Following up on the “Big Dig” theme was Joanne Nuckols from NO710, who added SR 710 LA’s Big Dig, 710-The Toll Tunnel to Nowhere, 710 Gap-Don’t fall into it, The SR 710-The Ultimate Boondoggle, and of course, SR 710-Big Dig West

She also added a collaborative naming effort with Janet Ervin, the 710 Gasp Closure.

If “Tunnel from Hell” was too subtle a potential title for the project, then Judy Bergstresser, with the 710 Coalition, may have the best name for you.  Her three proposed names are: 710 Crap Project,  710 Freight Truck Corridor, and 710-Year Old Bad Idea.  Meanwhile, long time Streetsblog reader Carlton Glub apparently is taking Metro at its word that everything is on the table and proposes The Alhambra Corridor Freight Toll Tunnel Project (or maybe a freeway or transit).

But the MVP for the “suggest a name” portion of the program has to go to Occidental College Professor (and Streetsblog Contributor) Mark Vallianatos who found a couple of moments to suggest seventeen quick ideas: Zombie Freeway, Post Freeway Zone, Freeway Free Zone, The 1951 (or whatever year it was first planned), Road to the Past, 7-20th century, the 710 Trap, 710 crap. Tarnish the Gold Line, The Tarnish Line, Blast from the Past,  Shaft from the Past, Soot Alley in the Valley, The Middle Finger (middle option of 5 is preferred), Billions per Mile, Platinum Gap, Ivory Plated Freeway, and The Cole Hole.

Remember, you have until Thursday to suggest your own name.  Then, be sure to come back on Friday and vote for your favorite.

In 1980, when the HOV system looked as it did on the left, 15% of commuters in Los Angeles County carpooled. The blue lines on the right are the current HOV system, but barely 11% carpool today. Image: Metro 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan

Los Angeles County has one of the most extensive and far-reaching carpool lane networks in the country.  And it’s still growing.  Between 1997 and 2010, the County added 244 lane miles of HOV lanes bringing the total system to 513 lane miles.  Pretty much every highway expansion project in the county is an HOV project as the greenwashing the claim that these projects take cars off the road tends to blunt criticism.

Today, that construction trend continues.  The largest stimulus project, both in scope of project and cost to taxpayers, in the country is the I-405 widening project, which is heralded by Metro as a chance to connect several of its other carpool projects.  It’s going to be worth it, they assure the public, especially those that have to deal with the construction impacts in their daily lives.

Metro is pretty proud of it’s carpool expansion.  They have an entire webpage dedicated to explaining the history of the Southern California’s carpools, and proudly boast

Today, the Los Angeles County HOV system is carrying more people than any other HOV system in the United States, and is one of the few HOV systems in the country that has been able to sustain a growth in carpools.

There’s just one rub.  After the billions of dollars spent building and converting carpool lanes, including those funds being sunk into projects such as the 405 widening right now, that statement is false. 

Los Angeles County has seen a decrease in total carpools, even as construction and conversion have reached a fever pitch.  Based on census data, 209,685 people in L.A. County commuted via carpool in 2000.  Despite population growth and a jump in the number of HOV lanes available, that number dropped to 194,228 in the 2009 update.

Granted the change is close to being within the margin of error, but for Metro this should create some serious policy questions.  While Metro is looking for ways to objectively evaluate the value of the HOV projects, when the percentage of people using expanded facilities is falling, 14.7% of commuters carpooled in 2000 versus 11.1% in 2009, the questions should be more pointed.  In other words, the question shouldn’t be, “how much bang are we getting for our buck” but closer to “Is building HOV lanes a good use of public funds?”  and “Do these lanes reduce the number of cars on the road or just move multi-passenger vehicles out of the regular lanes opening space for more single-passenger vehicles?”

Another question should be, “If adding all those HOV lanes isn’t enough to get more people into carpools, how can Metro encourage more people to carpool instead of driving solo?”

There’s no easy answers.  One hint as to the best path for Metro would be to look at what was happening when carpooling was at its zenith, both nationwide and locally.  In the 1970′s, more Americans chose carpooling than at any other point.  Of course, oil prices and gasoline prices were high, but carpooling also got a major boost viathe active cooperation of large employers such as Chevron and Xerox.  In the modern world, carpool minded companies could also offer a “cash-out” benefit to employees who save them the cost of a car parking space while choosing to carpool.

Streetsblog would also like to note that 2ooo was selected as the base year for our comparison because it was the most recent year with a full census available.  Going back to previous census actually paints a worse picture.  In 1990, before federal funds were made available for HOV projects and their were only two HOV lanes in the county, 15.5% of commuters chose to carpool which is the highest number on record.

The Orange Line is the proposed light rail line to be built instead of the 710 Connector Project. The other lines are the same color as their name. Image by Carlos Vazquez

The never-ending debate over whether or not to “complete” SR-710 so that it connects with the 210 provides a  great opportunity to create a sustainable option for the 710 Tunnel.  Instead of a tunnel designed to move trucks and cars, we need to create a light rail alternative that connects the region’s biggest job centers with the poorest, transit dependent communities.  Yes, let’s build a light rail alternative between Long Beach and Pasadena!

This public transportation line will connect Pasadena, Alhambra, Monterey Park, East Los Angeles, City of Commerce, Maywood, Bell, South Gate, and Long Beach. This is a much needed North-South connector that can rival the Long Beach Blue line, one on the heaviest used light rail lines in the nation. This rail line will connect the Blue Line, Green Line, and East Los Angeles and Pasadena Gold Lines.  Moving around the region via transit would be much easier and more people would be attracted to our transit system.

This Long Beach/Pasadena North-South light rail line can connect to the San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange County Metro Link Lines.  In addition the rail line can also connect to the Anaheim and San Diego future high-speed stops, alleviating some of the pressure from Union Station.

A closer look at the Northeast part of the line. Image by Carlos Velasquez

Los Angeles is not a centralized city.  It is a spread out city and our public transportation system should reflect the way it’s residents move around the region. It’s silly to tell people to come downtown for public transportation connections when most of LA County residents have never been there!  This is one of the failures in LA is that all the public transportation rail connections are at Union Station.

Instead of building a four-mile tunnel for cars at the cost of billions, we should build a light rail line regional light rail line to service more people at half the cost.

This will bring much need investment through public transportation through the poorest part of the Los Angeles County. It can position Alhambra, Monterey Park and City of Commerce in becoming regional jobs centers by providing regional public transportation because of their central location in Los Angeles County.

This rail line will service LA’s County’s Asian, Latino, and African=American communities and create a multi cultural transit line.

With the price of gas reaching four to five dollars, driving a car will no longer be a sustainable option fiscally or environmentally.  Let’s create a sustainable, pedestrian, bike friendly system that is also good for the environment.   Let’s scrap the car tunnel and create light rail for everyone instead.

Photo from Duncan Hunter's Congressional website

Streetsblog: You’ve recently joined the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. What are your priorities for the committee in this session?

Hunter: Southern California is pretty easy. In the past there was only one Republican Californian on Transportation – Gary Miller – and he’s Orange County. There’s now three: Jeff Denham from north California and myself in south California. We all have different needs; water’s one of them. I asked to be on the Water Subcommittee and I am. We have a lot of military bases too, we have desalinization issues we’re working with, all of us having water shortages.

And I kind of like the fact, frankly – it sounds kind of corny – but the constitution talks about having a military and being able to pay for your postal roads. It’s one thing Congress does and it’s nice to be able to do something constitutional here. It’s actually backed up and actually it’s in the constitution. I like that.

SB: Are you interested in looking for ways of getting people out of their cars and into other modes of transportation?

DH: Sure – where it’s feasible. In San Diego, it’s not feasible. San Diego’s one of those places where a lot of people live who work in the more expensive places in Southern California and they can’t afford to live there. They have to drive in – and in my district, everybody works everywhere. So no, it’s not one of my priorities at all to get people out of their cars. I like my car.

SB: There was recently a proposal by some groups in San Diego trying to model after what LA’s doing with their 30/10 program; it’s a 50-10 program, trying to accelerate 50 years of transit —

DH: I don’t even know what that is. Today was the first organizational meeting. I’ve got a lot to learn. But they’re accelerating getting out of their cars?

SB: Well, they’re accelerating building transit.

DH: We just built the whole trolley system that goes from El Cajon to San Diego State; it’s one of our main transit systems now that goes by our main stadium for football and goes all the way downtown to where the Padres play. So if transit makes sense and it can be done on its own and pay for itself, then absolutely.

SB: I was just in an EPW Committee hearing and there was some talk about the fact that some small amount of money in the reauthorization historically gets used for things like bike trails. Some people think that’s waste; some people think biking is a mode of transportation. What do you think?

DH: I don’t think biking should fall under the federal purview of what the Transportation Committee is there for. If a state wants to do it, or local municipality, they can do whatever they want to. But no, because then you have us mandating bike paths, which you don’t want either.

SB: But you’re OK with mandating highways?

DH: Absolutely, yeah. Because that’s in the constitution. I don’t see riding a bike the same as driving a car or flying an airplane.

SB: How is it different?

DH: I think it’s more of a recreational thing. That’s my opinion.

Since 1947, American highways have run up a deficit bigger than $600 billion, in 2005 dollars. Source: U.S. PIRG

You’ve heard it a thousand times from the highway lobby: Roads pay for themselves through “user fees” — a.k.a. gas taxes and tolls — whereas transit is a drain on the taxpayer. They use this argument to push for new roads, instead of transit, as fiscally prudent investments.

The myth of the self-financed road meets its match today in the form of a new report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group: “Do Roads Pay For Themselves?” The answer is a resounding “no.” All told, the authors calculate that road construction has sucked $600 billion out of America’s public purse since the dawn of the interstate system.

The Myth of the User Fee

First, let’s dispense with the idea that the gas tax – the primary source of financing for federal transportation projects – is a user fee.

“If you go to a state park and pay the fee to get in there, that’s a user fee,” report author Dan Smith, U.S. PIRG’s transportation associate, told Streetsblog. “If you’re driving down the road and you have to pay the toll for driving on that specific road, that’s a user fee.”

But people also pay gas taxes to fill up their lawnmowers. And those lawnmowers don’t usually end up on the highway. Just because you fill your tank doesn’t mean you ever drive on the roads funded by the gas tax you pay.

The Catch-22

Then there’s the huge contradiction underpinning the core arguments for highway expansion. Do new roads cut congestion, or do they “pay for themselves”? Highway lobbyists try to have it both ways, but the truth is that neither of these propositions hold water.

Highway expansions are often justified as projects that relieve traffic and, believe it or not, reduce pollution. So if a highway widening achieved its stated aims, it would cut congestion and fuel consumption, which would mean fewer gas tax dollars and roads that don’t pay for even a fraction of their construction costs. However, we know that new highway capacity doesn’t actually reduce driving – it induces more driving.

The additional traffic created by expanding highways does generate more gas tax revenue, but still not enough to come close to covering the costs of new roads.

U.S. PIRG cites the Pew Charitable Trusts’ SubsidyScope project, which found that “user fees paid for only 51 percent of highway costs, down 10 percent over the course of a single decade.”

Even if gas taxes were the direct user payment they’re made out to be, no one seems to have much appetite for making sure they actually pay for the infrastructure needs in this country. Gas taxes haven’t risen to accommodate more fuel efficient cars or even for plain old inflation. Nor have they compensated for the fact that driving is declining, meaning less gas consumption (but, puzzlingly, not less road-building).

The federal gas tax hasn’t gone up since 1993.

The Highway Funding System as a Subsidy for Driving

The argument that drivers pay for roads might be somewhat more credible if they weren’t taking money away from other public funding streams. Gasoline is exempt from sales taxes in 37 states and the District of Columbia. So rather than paying into the general revenues for the state, motorists are paying into an already narrowly prescribed pot of funding, which highway advocates want to see prescribed even more narrowly to exclude transit and bike/pedestrian projects.

In New Jersey, the savings on the sales tax exceeds the gas tax drivers have to pay. In that way, the government actually provides a financial incentive to purchase gas and drive. And since gas taxes are fixed and sales taxes are percentages of the purchase price, more and more states could end up with this perverse subsidy as gas prices rise.

Photo: Sound Eco Adventures

What About Tolls?

Tolls are, indeed, an honest-to-goodness user fee, charging drivers directly for the road they’re driving on. But the overwhelming majority of roads are not funded by tolls. Local streets don’t have tolls. Rural highways don’t often have them. And tolls don’t come close to covering the costs of roads. According to U.S. PIRG, “In the 1950s, experts estimated that no more than 9,000 miles of highway (compared with the more than 3 million miles of highway in existence at that time) could support themselves with tolls.”

Founding Fathers

The report goes into ancient history (the Hoover administration), investigating the original intent of the gas tax at both the state and federal levels, and debunking the myth that they were always intended to pay only for highways. Indeed, federal gas taxes originated in the 1930s and were dedicated exclusively for highways only for a 17-year period, starting in 1956, covering the construction of the interstate highway system. Since 1973, the gas tax has been used for a variety of transportation programs and has even been used, on occasion, to pay down the deficit.

External Costs

And now the obvious: You can’t measure all the costs of driving with the price of asphalt. The U.S. PIRG report gives a laundry list of external costs associated with driving, including:

Photo:ret0dd/Flickr

• Changes in the risk of accidents, including injuries to non-drivers and damages to property.
• Environmental and public health impacts, including smog, greenhouse gases, water pollution from highway runoff, and the impacts on wildlife and outdoor enthusiasts.
• National security and economic implications of protecting access to foreign oil.
• Increased pressure on those without cars.
• Quality of life and the impact of roads on active transportation, such as walking and biking.
• Car-centric development patterns, sprawl, and the resulting infrastructure costs for the expansion of water, sewer, and other services.

The report cites one study that finds that, just to pay for roads, user fees need to be 20 to 70 cents higher, and another study that finds that, to pay for external costs like these, we’d have to add another $2.10 a gallon.

The Cost of the Myths

“Road advocates use these myths about the gas tax being this user fee and that highways pay for themselves to get preferential treatment, and to get a larger chunk of the dedicated fund,” says Smith of U.S. PIRG. “Advocates of any type of policy would like a dedicated fund, because it is a stable source of funding.”

The myths associated with road financing put all other forms of transportation at a disadvantage, said Smith. “Conservatives say all other transit is social policy and should come from the general fund.”

With a Republican majority in the House, the myth that roads pay for themselves will again be enlisted to prioritize highways over transit, as the GOP begins shaping a transportation agenda around “getting back to basics” and cutting spending, especially for transit.

“We want to make sure that those falsehoods are not a part of this debate,” said Smith. “People will think twice before saying roads pay for themselves when the numbers say they don’t.”

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?”

This isn't the first time Board Member Najarian has tried to hold up the 710 Tunnel Project. This photo is from a LA_Now article on an attempt from last May.

For a full sized copy of the route map, click here

Now that the full agenda for this week’s meeting of the Metro Board Meeting is finally online, we can focus on issues beyond the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes.

Another highlight of the meeting is an attempt by Glendale Mayor and Metro Board Member Ara Najarian to slow down the momentum that the I-710 Tunnel Project has had since the passage of Measure R. The proposed “gap closure” of the 710 and the 210 freeways would cost somewhere between $1 billion and $11.4 billion depending what estimate you believe.

Najarian’s ask, that the Board require a cost estimate for the tunnel before tens of millions of dollars are spent on environmental studies, is reasonable; but may not get a sympathetic hearing from the Board.  Even the “No on 710″ coalition understands that so far, only L.A. City Councilman Jose Huizar has supported the resolution in public.  That means they need at least five more votes to have a majority on the thirteen person Board.

Giving more momentum to the opponents of the tunnel was a new ranking of infrastructure projects that listed the I-710 expansion project as one of the most wasteful in the country.  “Green Scissors” ranking pulled no punches while calling for the road to be removed from the national network so no federal dollars are wasted on the tunnel.

Federal taxpayers should not be asked to pay for a project with a flawed EIS, nationwide opposition and a $10 billion shortfall in the local transportation funding agency. At $311 million per mile, this project is more expensive per mile than most urban freeways and the Los Angeles subway system.

The “No on 710″ coalition is also sending letters to Board Members asking for support for Najarian’s motion, and they have different letters for different Board Members.  For example, Mayor Villaraigosa will be reminded that:

In December 2009 your own City Council unanimously passed a resolution against allowing any form of the 710 North Extension to be built within city limits. That resolution CLEARLY stated No 710 in any form, be it  tunnels below ground, on ground, or in the air.

While County Supervisor Gloria Molina will be challenged on her claims that she is a champion of the poor:

Supervisor Molina, your actions on this controversial 710 North Extension tunnels, may well be seen by your constituents as a litmus test on whether you mean what you say about helping the underprivileged rather than the privileged. Because that’s what the 710 North Extension  is all about: serving the interests of a few and sacrificing those of Northeast LA.

For copies of all the “No on 710″ letters to the Metro Board, click here.  We’ll be live tweeting the meeting and will have a story up as soon as it’s over.