Streetsblog Los Angeles

The Daily News Editorial Board has been on a role recently.  The paper, which is the second largest daily newspaper in Los Angeles behind the Los Angeles Times but well ahead of the Daily Breeze or The Wave papers, is undergoing a livable streets renaissance in its editorial page.

Today’s editorial, not the one on a certain baseball team and a certain point guard, focuses on the need to plan transportation networks differently for areas that are densely packed with residents.  Especially when residents are growing older, and are less likely to drive, and the younger generation is turning away from having driver’s licenses.

An excerpt:

But most of the region’s cities – including downtown Los Angeles, where 70,000 people now live – are poorly set up for what planners call “the first and last mile” of getting to public transit. The sidewalks are narrow. The streetscapes are entirely designed for automobiles and trucks, not for walkers or bicyclists. They are not at all ready in our infrastructure for the way the future generation says it wants to live.

Southern California has some planning to do.

I don’t know what’s going on in the Daily News newsroom, maybe Dakota Smith is spiking the water, but a paper known for its conservative views may actually be the most progressive when it comes to planning for livable communities.

The Daily News, which still appears to be the conservative alternative to the Los Angeles Times in many respects, published an editorial earlier today calling on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to bicycle planning.  The message: it’s not enough just to pass a bike plan, how about spending some of your own transportation dollars to make it a reality.

Click on the image to see the plan.

For too long, those doling out transportation dollars have given preference to projects that benefit motorists, ignoring projects that would encourage use of alternative and environmentally friendly alternatives such as human-powered bikes and scooters…

County officials absolutely should tap Measure R for the bike plan. Voters endorsed the half-cent sales tax in order to build projects that can ease traffic and offer community alternatives. This is one of the few that comes with a small price tag.

Measure R is expected to raise $40 billion over 30 years. Surely there’s a few hundred million for building the region’s first system of bike-riding routes.

Earlier this week, the Supes passed the county’s own surprising-progressive bike plan which includes over 237 miles of bike lanes, 23 miles of bike boulevards (not “bike friendly streets”) and 832 miles of total bikeway improvements in the unincorporated portions of Los Angeles County.

While it’s unlikely that the Metro Board of Directors will make a change to the Measure R funding scheme, the Daily News’ editorial could be an important tool for bike advocates making a case for a portion of the funding pie in any “Measure R+” sales tax measure that goes on the ballot this fall.

By now, Air Force One is probably on its way to Los Angeles with President Obama, taking a tough line on transportation, onboard.  As the debate on how

The Mayor and the President share a laugh in 2006. Photo: Los Angeles Times

America should invest in transportation, and the President makes headlines for a ten year $476 billion plan and a threat to veto the “horse and buggy” legislation of the House Republicans, he hits Los Angeles to make some local headlines and raise some cash for re-election.

And the Daily News wasn’t going to miss it’s chance to make a statement.

In a mostly positive editorial on the President’s vision, the News’ editors lay out the stakes of the debate:

The debate on the proper role of government in transportation funding easily could break down along partisan lines. The Obama administration is touting its surface-transportation plan as part of the “blueprint for an America built to last” that the president outlined in his state of the union address; and advocates of nonautomobile transit accuse tightfisted Republicans of waging war on an inevitable future. Republicans are concerned about spending too much.

It’s more complicated than that. It’s about how much the nation and state should spend. But, just as important, also about how to spend it.

As I said, the article is a mixed bag.  It wouldn’t be the Daily News without a shot at High Speed Rail:

The Obama administration’s doubled-down support for the California bullet train should rile those who, rightfully, question the project. Public support for the plan to link Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area at speeds of up to 220 mph has fallen since last year’s new projections of a higher price tag (nearly $100 billion), longer construction schedule and lower ridership. But U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been urging state leaders to push ahead.

However, the most interesting part of the editorial is the end.  Instead of framing the debate as the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party wants, a car versus rail debate, but a high speed rail versus local rail debate:

Should money be spent on the grand plan for a bullet train covering hundreds of miles sometime in the future, or on local transit solutions that will get drivers off the 405 Freeway sooner?

Honk if you look forward to that debate.

Honk.

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board weighs in on the House Republican plan to reauthorize the transportation bill.  If it’s possible, the Times sounds even less impressed with the Republicans efforts to eliminate Safe Routes to Schools funding, decimate transit funding, eliminate programs for bicycle and pedestrian funding and pay for an expanded highway program by increasing opportunities to drill for oil.

Streetsblog will feature ads for the Regional Connector Final EIS/EIR throughout the public comment period.

On Tuesday, the House Republican leadership unveiled its version of the five-year bill. It isn’t just that this bill is so thoroughly partisan that it has no chance of being approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate; it’s that it is less a serious policy document than a wish list for oil lobbyists, and its funding proposals are so radical that they have been decried even by such conservative watchdogs as the Reason Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute andTaxpayers for Common Sense.

If you’re feeling angry about the state of transportation politics, reading the Times editorial is a good way to blow off some steam.  But don’t stop there, both Move L.A. and the Bus Riders Union have action alerts to help turn that anger into a little lobbying effort in advance of today’s hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee on transportation bill.

The Times wants a bus only lane project that looks like this.

In an editorial in today’s paper, the Los Angeles Times comes out swinging while calling on Council Man Bill Rosendahl and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to show some leadership in the ongoing debate over the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes Controversy.

The editorial is a powerful piece, and elevates the opposition to the Westside exemption from a crew of environmentalists and transportation reformers to a mainstream movement.  You can read the entire editorial here, and be sure to leave comments if you do.  You can read more of Streetsblog’s analysis of the piece after the jump.

But let’s give the Times the credit due on its reporting of this issue in the last week.  It hasn’t minced words, but has stuck to the facts in the two pieces by Dan Weikel.  That foundation makes today’s piece all the more important.

Read more…

I always thought this picture on Union Station makes it look as though the station is made of gold. Photo: Christopher Chan/Flickr

It's taken me the better part of a day to figure out how best to write about this Sunday's Editorial in the Times concerning the Governor's plan to end the transit subsidy that is part of the gas tax and cut the gas tax.  After spending the bulk of the column attacking the "gimmicks" that created the state transit subsidy and painting transit advocates as disingenuous for decrying the raids on the subsidy; the Times ends with a call for more funding for transit projects.  Regardless of what one thinks of the Times' coverage of issues, they are the "paper of record" for the second most populous city in America, and largest in the state of California so the influence of its editorial page shouldn't be discounted.

If you haven't done so already, take a moment to read the editorial, then click through to my analysis. 

Read more...

In an editorial earlier today, the Daily Breeze, a newspaper covering the area between LAX and the Harbor, praised the city for moving ahead with a car sharing program and studying bike share.  In its own words the Breeze made the case for shared vehicles and managed to do it without calling supporters communists:

With a down economy, people throughout the Los
Angeles region are looking for ways to cut costs and save money. Now
the city of Los Angeles is working on programs to help folks do that -
through the concept of sharing cars and bicycles…

…The program is designed for urban residents who
no longer want to be burdened by the costs of car ownership, which
include fuel, financing, maintenance, insurance and related taxes.
These folks would use a combination of public transit and car sharing
to go about their daily lives. They can reserve a car online or by
phone in 10 minutes. And with a membership, they can quickly check out cars whose keys are stored in their glove compartments.

After similarly praising and explaining bike share, the editorial then ventured into Streetsblog territory by calling on the city to reduce its take home vehicle fleet and invest in car sharing for downtowners and government offices.

For example, instead of financing city-owned cars
for council members, why not just offer them paid Zipcar memberships
and access to bikes when why need to travel around the city? After all,
if the idea is good for average residents, it should also apply to city
employees and elected officials as well, especially when budget cuts
are on the horizon.

Is a movement growing to begin to truly pare down the fleet of vehicles that are treated as private property by city employees?  When Mayor Villaraigosa proposed cutting the size of the executive car fleet in 2008, the response was horror and outrage from City Council Members who claimed they were really concerned about the environment.  With the city and state in a full budget crisis, and with a recession slamming Southern Californians the response from our elected leadership might not be so tone deaf it the idea comes up again.

Photos: Sally M and jm3/Flickr

Last Year, Bus Rider’s Fought for Late Night Service

An editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times calls for Metro to cut bus lines with low ridership so it can avoid raising fares or spending too much of it’s Measure R windfall on operations:

The MTA is projecting a $134-million deficit for the fiscal year that
starts in July. Though Measure R will bring in additional money for
operations, it won’t take care of the agency’s fundamental structural
deficit, which exists mainly because transit fares are so low that they
cover only 28% of operating expenses. There’s a way to fix the deficit
without raising fares, but it requires the MTA board to cut
inefficiencies — such as bus lines that are used by only a handful of
riders. So far, it has lacked the political courage to do so. Unless
that changes, voters will see less bang for their sales-tax buck.

Despite the Times’ editorial, it seems unlikely that the Metro Board is going to work on service cuts anytime soon.  Last year, after a public process that took the entire winter and a lot of the Spring, Mayor Villaraigosa led a group of Board Members to reject the cuts submitted by the staff.  During the hearings on the cuts, bus riders poured their hearts out begging for their favorite local lines that were heading to the chopping block. 

Instead of aiming their slings at a Metro Board who acted to defend the rights of late night bus riders; perhaps the Times could aim it’s arrows at state legislators who look at state transit taxes as just another pot to help them balance their budgets.

The horrific July 4th Crash in Mandeville Canyon continues to be a focal point for discussions about bike safety. On Saturday, the Times published a remarkable editorial pleading with drivers to give cyclists their due respect on the road. Later in the day, Councilman Rosendahl’s office announced the cancellation of tonight’s scheduled meeting on bike issues in the canyon, opting instead to form a task force to decide how best to calm the relationship between riders and drivers on LA’s streets.

The Times‘ editorial is probably the most pro-bike writing to appear in a mainstream LA publication in years. It starts and ends with an unequivocal statement not just that cyclists deserve equal space and treatment on the road; but that choosing to bike someplace is a superior decision to choosing to drive.

As frequent Los Angeles cyclists well know, there are three things you need if you want to ride a bike in this town: a good helmet, a stout lock and a very good life insurance policy.

If the street wars between drivers and bikers in L.A. are a lot less deadly than the gang wars, they are no less irrational. Bikers, after all, perform a public service by reducing traffic and emissions. Few drivers seem to appreciate that. Talk to an L.A. cyclist and you will hear horror stories about drivers who cut them off, yell at them, throw things and otherwise endanger their lives…

…But it’s hard to escape the conclusion that no matter how bike-friendly our government or businesses become, L.A. will remain a rough ride until motorists learn to share the road. Bikers are boosting their health, their pocketbooks and the city’s environment. If it’s a battle for moral authority between drivers and bikers, the bikers have already won. Give them a break.

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Maybe there are some Times' editors reading Streetsblog?

In an editorial in today's newspaper, the Los Angeles Times takes a whack at the politicians who's local posturing endangers Metro's half-cent sales tax proposal, especially Gloria Molina. 

The Times sums up it's excellent editorial:

What Molina and the other obstructionists fail to grasp is that if the sales tax measure doesn't end up on the ballot, everybody loses, including their constituents. A better public transit system would reduce traffic and pollution for all Angelenos and provide an alternative for low-income residents who can't afford to fill their gas tanks. The projects in Feuer's bill would cover areas where the need is greatest. Sales tax hikes aren't a great way to pay for public transit, but voters deserve a chance to decide whether mobility is worth the cost.

Personally, I don't think any politician "fails to grasp" the issue.  It's just that their political pride and sense of what is and isn't fair is more important than what's best for the region as a whole.