Today, the Los Angeles Times stepped into the fray with an op/ed by columnist Meghan Daum.  The piece is typical of the good and the bad of the coverage.  Daum seems to think that all cyclists are spandex wearing weekend warriors or communist hippies; but she also charectarizes many drivers as socially acceptable sociopaths.  Consider:

Obscene gestures, vanity plates -- it's all part of the romance of Southern California driving. Road rage? That's just the inflamed passion part of that romance. But anyone who's been paying attention to the road lately has probably noticed a marked, even dizzying -- increase in the number of bikes on U.S. streets.

Ugh.  Stererotypes on parade.  However, our car driving friends fare even worse:

Because there's a larger bone of contention here, which is that cyclists make a lot of us feel like lazy slobs. Whereas drivers sit in an air-conditioned bubble, expending only the energy required to press the gas pedal, tap the brake and change from a '70s classic rock radio station to an '80s classic rock station, cyclists are out in the actual elements doing actual exercise. Whereas drivers are consuming calories by eating an entire bucket of KFC over 10 blocks, cyclists are burning calories and consuming nothing but seaweed at home. Whereas drivers' carbon footprints grow more beast-like by the hour, cyclists create no exhaust other than the sweet fatigue they feel as they drift off to saintly sleep at night.

Of course, moral superiority is insufferable, but you still shouldn't try to run it off the road or teach it a lesson with the family car. You might win on the street, but in court, it's a different story.

While I applaud the general sentiment of her story, that drivers and cyclists need to co-exist and it's incumbent on drivers as the bigger road users to be the bigger people; I have to wonder whether painting with such broad brush strokes, "drivers are slobs" and "cyclists are insufferably smug," is the way to get the message across.

If you haven't checked out Daum's column yet, I would recommend you do so.  If nothing else, the comments section gives you a chance to interact with some of L.A.'s less sympathetic drivers in a forum where their two tons of body armor aren't a factor.  I would leave my own comment, but I have to finish my seaweed before grabbing my cloth bags and heading to a farmer's market.

As Metro's "Express Lanes" project starts to make headlines, you can expect to see more and more of these types of articles; misinformation dressed up as altruistic concern for others, appearing in local papers everywhere.  For those of us who love the idea of congestion pricing on highways we're left with an unsavory choice: defend Metro's week anti-congestion pricing program or let non-believers slam congestion pricing altogether.

Fortunately, today's piece in the Times by Tim Rutten, the same journalist who wrote a very similar piece last year, is so tortured in its logic that it doesn't require a lot of ammo to rebut.  In it, Rutten argues that Metro's Express Lanes plan is bad because it is part of a conspiracy to bring road pricing of any sort to Los Angeles County, it won't do anything to reduce congestion because it won't apply during rush hour, and because it's anti-poor people.

First off, let's cover where Rutten is right.  Because Metro lacks the guts to require a toll from hybrids with the anti-logic clean air stickers or "HOV-"2 and because federal law requires that HOV lanes move at 45 miles per hour; the pricing plan will not be in effect when roads are most congested.  This is a very cogent argument.

However, Rutten's defense of the single-working mother who will be forced to choose between being with her sick child or paying the rent because of Express Lanes; is beyond eye rolling.  Last year when Rutten rose to the defense of his imaginary working-class friends, I pointed to the fact that when actually asked, the working class and working poor living in areas with congestion pricing prefer having the pay lanes than not having the pay lanes.  Personally, I'll believe what the less-well-off highway driver says when asked over what Tim Rutten has decided they think without having done any research.

This year, Rutten creates the following imaginary nightmare scenario which is even more easily debunked.  This time I didn't even have to use a search engine.

You're a single mother working in a downtown law office part time because your hours have been cut as one of the firm's economy measures. Just about noon, you get a call from the day-care center, where your 3-year-old is running a high fever. You decide to give up two badly needed hours of work to pick her up early, hoping she won't need a visit to the pediatrician because the state no longer funds healthcare for the working poor. About the same time you leave, the firm's managing partner heads out for lunch and a round of golf at his club.

Despite the time of day, L.A.'s freeways are inexplicably clogged -- virtual gridlock for no apparent reason. The new toll lanes, however, are moving freely. For the senior partner, it's a no-brainer. He pays the $1.40-a-mile toll without a first, let alone a second, thought and arrives at his club early enough for a Bloody Mary before lunch. Our single mom, however, looks at the bumper-to-bumper traffic around her, glances over at the freely moving toll lane and has to do the mental math to decide whether getting to her child in less than 90 minutes is worth being late with this month's rent.

I'll grant Rutten the point that it is terrible for a mother to have to choose between paying the rent on time and being with her child.  However, since the single mother, driving alone in her car, wouldn't even have that choice under the current Express Lanes plan, Rutten isn't arguing that we should find a way to relieve the mother of her economic condition; but that we should relieve her of the choice altogether.  You see, she can't use the HOV lanes that currently exist no matter how much she wants to.  Under Metro's plan, the only thing that's changed is she has a choice between being with her child or not.

The core of his argument that Americans don’t like cities rested on this survey by Pew Research Center. The survey found that Americans, when asked where they would most like to move to, named Denver, San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, Orlando, Tampa and San Antonio as their top ten, in that order of preference. Because these cities are mostly in the west and the south, Brooks concluded that Americans are interested in living in, well, the west and the south. But then he went further, citing it as general evidence of America’s anti-urban tastes.

What Brooks didn't address -- and which I have a hard time believing he didn’t know, given his usual informedness -- was that most of the 10 cities in the poll are pursuing pro-urban agendas with a vengeance. They are building lots of light rail lines. They are re-configuring streets to make them more walkable and bikeable. They are steering clear of policies and projects that would encourage more driving.

Nowhere is that more true than Denver, the number one city in the poll, which supplied the headline to Brooks' column, "I Dream of Denver." Well, a few years ago, this object of American aspirations voted to approve what is probably the largest new mass transit system in the United States. The city of Denver and a bunch of neighboring political jurisdictions managed to come together and agree to build a half dozen light rail and commuter rail lines at once. The metro area will end up with a complete rail-based transit system in one fell swoop, without having to proceed line-by-line over decades, like most cities.

Portland, of course, has been the most aggressively pro-urban city in the country for three decades, with its mix of pro-transit, pro-biking policies all set in a state that employs some of the most cohesive growth-management practices in the country. In Portland, as readers of Streetsblog know, you can now ride a bike and have priority over cars when you come to a red light, just like in Amsterdam, the place Brooks posits as the epitome of un-American living. If Americans don't want to be urban, why are they putting Portland in their top ten list?

Essentially all the other cities on this list are pursuing pro-urban policies, even if they aren’t all urban yet. Hell, even Tampa, in the belly of a state that defined suburban sprawl, opened a downtown streetcar line a few years ago.

Before posting this piece, I went back and re-read Brooks' column, just to see if I had gotten everything right or missed anything. Upon review, it's actually astonishing how misleading it is. It's such a textbook example of selectively using facts and figures to advance faulty logic that it's worth doing a blow-by-blow here.

First Brooks starts with an arguably true statement, that many urban planners would like Americans to live in denser, more urban places. Then he condenses that into the hyperbole that urban planners want Americans to live in Amsterdam. This is not quite the case, but it’s okay to over-simplify to make a point and to make a column easier to understand.

But then, having set up this over-simple argument, Brooks goes about arguing that the places where Americans want to live are not Amsterdam. As I think I’ve demonstrated, even going by that absurd criteria, Brooks can’t prove his point. Because Denver, Portland, and other cities on America’s top ten list are moving in the direction of "Amsterdam." Plenty of Americans do “want the Dutch option,” or an American version of it.

Every columnist must at times simply pull one out of the air, using whatever is lying around on the desk. I wonder if this was one of those times with Brooks.

Fresh off the news that the Times was bringing back the Bottleneck Blog came the news that my favorite Times blog, the fabulous Emerald City, was closing down effective tomorrow, June 21.  Emerald City managed to transcend being a blog about environmentalism to being a daily guide on how everyone can clean up their lives in ways that were hip and fun.  Along the way, it also became one of the places on the 'Net I visited every day.

Readers that have followed my writing since Street Heat will know that Emerald City was one of the first major blogs to pick up on what we were talking about.  The famously car-free Siel was always looking for new writers to keep Em. City full of new ideas and different voices and soon I was writing op/eds promoting congestion pricing and slamming gas tax holidays.

While tomorrow is Emerald City's last day, its intrepid blogger's writings can still be found at Green LA Girl and other sites around the net.  Siel will be gone from latimes.com but not forgotten.  Nevertheless, make some time in the next 24 hours to take a trip to Emerald City to walk down its green streets and say goodbye.

Last month, the LA County Board of Supervisors issued an edict that all taco trucks would now have to move every hour taking a firm stand against the free market and for increased vehicle miles traveled.  Hilariously, the first taco truck that was ticketed was actually owned by the same people that owned the adjacent restaurant and used the truck as a takeout window. 

Recently James Rojas, whose model of downtown appeared earlier this week in Streetsblog, wrote a piece for the Planning Report proposes a solution to the taco truck problem which would allow local government to collect some money and legitimate taco trucks to stay in business. Rojas' piece is reprinted in its entirety here with the permission of the author.

Latino Urban Forum's James Rojas Supports Permitting L.A.'s Street Vendors

A recent move by the L.A. County Supervisors has sparked a debate about the benefits that mobile food vendors bring the community.

The county of Los Angeles recently passed a law prohibiting street vendors (i.e., taco trucks) from lingering too long in one location, engendering controversy between the public and the brick and mortar businesses who claim to be threatened by these street vendors. In the following TPR exclusive, James Rojas, of the Latino Urban Forum, makes the case that the county's new restrictions on street vendors may be overlooking the solutions to problems of walkability and pedestrian-friendly streets that these "mobile" businesses offer the region.

Many major cities in the United States have developed street vending policies, often managing a variety of urban needs in the process. For example, the city of Portland believes that vendors provide valuable street amenities for pedestrians, but requires street vendors to meet design standards in order to maintain the city's pedestrian-friendly aesthetic. New York City allows street vendors to sell fresh fruits and vegetables in city neighborhoods that have high obesity rates among its residents, providing a creative, portable solution to a problem often caused by a failure of planning and neighborhood development.

In addition to providing numerous entrepreneurial and job opportunities, street vendors offer other valuable services for urban problems specific to Los Angeles. Street vending could help strengthen the neighborhoods of Los Angeles by making the city more walkable and pedestrian-friendly and by helping to provide another level of safety through the presence of vendors and patrons on the streets.

For the most part, Los Angeles' existing street and sidewalk infrastructure discourages people from walking their neighborhoods and the areas they visit, work, or shop. Wide streets, poorly marked crossings, lack of directional signage and lighting, and the absence of quality pedestrian amenities all deter people from walking, which is an activity all residents of this diverse city have in common. It doesn't help that the city's history of auto-focused transportation planning necessitates that the vast majority of Angelenos drive for all of their day-to-day transportation need.

Street vendors could transform L.A.'s staid, auto-oriented streets into hubs of lively pedestrian activity through their do-it-yourself urban design interventions.

Street vendors move across L.A.'s commercial, residential, and industrial zones, looking for economic opportunity and helping to blur the line between these areas through their activities. They push carts down residential streets, bringing goods to residents who would otherwise have to drive or walk to the store. During lunch hours, they move into industrial zones. On weekends, they transform L.A.'s sidewalks into linear markets by displaying merchandise on chain-link fences, which also helps promote walking at these locations.

Street vendors sell everything from fresh fruit to elote (corn) at bus stops and rail stations, and they offer transit riders quick purchases that they can easily carry as they move around the city. In fact, street vendors make up for a striking lack in conventional retail activity at the region's transit stops.

Also, at no cost to the city, street vendors and their clientele provide security and safety improvements to city streets by providing additional "eyes and ears on the street," which helps deter crime and makes city streets feel safer.

Street vendors informally and inexpensively add a human scale and bring healthy activity to otherwise car-friendly and empty L.A. streets. The activity of seeking out and patronizing street vendors brings Angelenos outside and helps to create bonds with otherwise insignificant spaces in the city, such as surface parking lots, vacant lots, and sidewalks. Street vendors instantly transform these boring, under-used places into lively public spaces.

Allowing street vendors the opportunity to profit from the use of public rights-of-way could be a new way to make L.A.'s increasingly unsustainable, auto-oriented infrastructure more compatible for pedestrian uses. Street vendors have ingeniously tapped into the pedestrian energy in this city by wisely identifying streets where people tend to congregate, temporarily transforming vacant lots, sidewalks, and curbs into pedestrian-oriented patios and mercados.

The city and county of Los Angeles should support, while regulating, street vendors to operate in selected transit areas. This could include both heavy and light rail stations, where sufficient space and appropriate facilities are in place for such operations. Bus transit centers, including areas along the Orange Line, could also be made available for street vendor business operations. Among the requirements could be a series of reasonably-priced annual vendor permits, requirements for maintaining at minimum a "B" rating from the Health Department for food service operations, and other appropriate requirements. This could help add much needed revenue to local government coffers, and at the same time provide assurance to the transit-using public of the legitimacy of the presence of vendors at selected transit stations.

Streets with high pedestrian activity can serve as additional areas for the creation of street vending zones. This will enhance the pedestrian experience in ways similar to that of shopping malls such as the The Grove.

As L.A. becomes denser and people are encouraged to walk, bike, and use public transportation, street vendors meet the needs of these newfound priorities. The car-oriented mini-malls of the '80s are giving way to the street vendors in the new century. As Los Angeles seeks new ways to deal with congestion and to get Angelenos out of their cars, the city should think about using street vendors as an innovative way to help solve our congestion problems.

Photo: BeastandBean/Flickr

Since So I'm a bike commuter, or at least I was up until an amateur football match two weeks ago at Pan-Pacific Park, next to the Grove.

Ending up on the wrong end of a tackle, my right foot has now been multiple shades of purple and I've been told by various medical personnel to 'stay off it' for either a) the next few weeks or b) until a leftist is in the White House.

This is troubling to me. First of all because these lovely, cool, clear days are great days to be out on the bike in West LA (the siren song of the Santa Monica Bay Bike Path is so sweet). Secondly, because I now have to rely on my mostly-trusty '79 Mercedes 240d (The Desert Fox) to get around the West Side. This is a hassle for everybody, mostly for my wife, Nicole, who's stuck ferrying me around. From a less narcissistic standpoint though, having to drive around in the car is a hassle because it means needing to participate in the vehicular orgy that is rush hour in Los Angeles and it means needlessly spewing out hydrocarbon exhaust as we putter around Palms/Mar Vista.

First hassle: Rush Hour

Sitting in a miles-long queue of cars kills men's souls. Doesn't matter if it's on the freeway or on surface streets, a mass pneumaticide is going on in the greater Los Angeles area every day. Sure KUSC or KCSN provide calming classical music, sure KPCC will allow you to drown out your sorrows in progressive news and banter, sure KFUO will indulge the insanity you feel after taking 45 minutes to get between Wishire and Olympic on Westwood. But at best, the airwaves are only filling a part of all of us that is dead, killed by the crawling king snake of steel, plastic, and rolling rubber. We need to get cars off the road. More of us need to file onto buses or enjoy the sartorial splendor of whizzing, on the right in the liberated zone between the cars and the curb, past the stopped line of cars on our bicycles.

Second hassle: Exhaust

I like the folks in the Inland Empire as much as the next person. My college roommate was from Yucaipa. I have a colleague in Upland whom I respect. Yet, I feel pangs of guilt when, turning the key and feeling the 2.4 Litres of pure diesel power, the Fox is fired up and CO2, CO, NO2, NO and a host of Particulates warm the cold winter air behind my exhaust pipe. If these various and sundry emissions were to stay in place, I suppose that would be kinda OK. But given the offshore breeze that makes Palms a quasi-Eden, my vehicular refuse will end up as part of the lovely haze that graces the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire, and eventually, if conditions are perfect, the Mojave National Preserve. The fine folk and flora and fauna of these locals simply don't need this gift that I have to offer them every time my four-speed performance machine hits the road. Much better would it be, and has it been, for me to bike the 1.5 miles to work and for my wife to walk down to Venice Blvd. to take the bus all the way to CSULA. We find ourselves in the desirable position of living within walking distance of a Trader Joe's, Albertsons, two bars, and a number of restaurants. We live within easy biking distance of a Whole Foods, a Target, and the Westside Pavilion. Really, much of LA live within easy walking or biking distance of much of what we need to live on a week-to-week basis. We just need to start walking and biking more, treating our cars properly, as a guilty pleasure, best used driving up PCH or Angeles Crest Highway on Saturdays!

So, use your legs! Be good stewards of both your body and the earth! I'd pontificate more, but I'm off to practice on my crutches so I can make the walk up the hill on Palms to Sepulveda, so I can bus it to work on Sunday.

Take this op/ed by the Long Beach Press Telegram's Thomas Elias, who argues both the "there called FREEways for a reason," "the roads were already paid for with taxpayer dollars" and the "think of the poor" arguments. The exact same arguments, with similar wording and the same quote by Mayor Villaraigosa, appeared in Tim Rutten's column in the Times two weeks ago. Lest one think I'm accusing Elias of plagiarism, his piece does have these car culture warrior gems that Rutten's does not.

There was a time when politicians knew better than to get between Californians and their desire to drive...

...The bottom line: While its plain money can convince elected officials to do almost anything, voters should make it clear they will bounce, recall or otherwise take revenge on any politician who tries to bait and switch them in so fundamental a way as this.

Meanwhile over at CityWatch, Charles Tarlow, who at the very least can't be accused of group think because he's been opposed to HOT Lanes before it was on the mainstream press' radar, is upset that the City Council isn't returning his email about HOT Lanes. That they have no jurisdiction over HOT Lanes, excepting Councilman Parks who also sits on the Metro Board, doesn't seem to be a concern.

Tarlow's March 28^th piece, "Paying to Use Our FREEways," offers no new arguments until the last three paragraphs when it presents the argument that tolling HOV lanes on highways will stop the author from picking up his kids at school. Then the column ends with a call for more transit.

And let's be real for a moment. The goal of Congestion Pricing is painfully obvious. The proponents of this scheme want to FORCE people out of their cars. By people, I don't mean them ... that would be crazy. By people, I mean people other than them. People who actually have to worry about what it costs to go to work, go shopping and pickup the kids.

This isn't as much about toll roads and parking fees as it is about quality of life. Congestion Pricing is an assault on the quality of life in our cities. If the decision makers in Los Angeles, our Mayor and our City Councilmen, had to take public transportation, Congestion Pricing wouldn't even be in the public discourse. We would be talking about mass transit and how we are going to pay for it.

In the end, that is what we should be talking about: Mass transit. It's the only long term answer to the city's gridlock. It is the only true solution; and not just for the rich ... for everyone.

First, most of the people that support congestion pricing are not rich people. If you go back to the March 14^th Streetsblog column's comments you'll see the people supporting pricing are not a bunch of upper class snobs, but a collection of activist bike riders and Metro Riders. I guess you could argue that we hope that people other than us will get out of their cars because, for the most part, none of us drive that often, if at all.

Second, I'm not sure if Mr. Tarlow understands what's being proposed for Los Angeles. What's being proposed is converting HOV Lanes, both those planned and those in existence, into variable toll lanes. I'm not sure what a highway pricing strategy would have to do with one's ability to go shopping or pick up their kids. Unless you live in East Hollywood, the kids go to school in Anaheim and you do your grocery shopping in Woodland Hills.

And last, I agree that Los Angeles needs more transportation options and especially needs an expanded transit system. If only we could think of a way to pay for it. I propose a user fee for highway users, I wonder how Mr. Tarlow would pay for it.

Tarlow's argument can be divided into two parts. First is that congestion pricing will divide highway transportation into the "haves" and "have nots."

...the entire country will be changed forever and the divide between the "Haves" and the "Have Nots" will continue to expand until we won't be able to recognize this country.

The "Lexus Lane" argument, that congestion pricing is just a scheme to keep lower and middle class people off highways, has been used since congestion pricing was first introduced. Unfortunately for those that rely on class-warfare to fight congestion pricing, the argument doesn't hold water. Polling shows that where congestion pricing has been utilized, people of lesser means overwhelmingly support it.

The second argument is that roadways and many parking spaces have already been paid for and the government has no right to restrict their use.

If we the people want to be able to use our public roads and highways, if we want to be able to park in the public parking spaces that were bought and paid for by our tax dollars, we must write down the name of any politician that would deny us free access to our public infrastructure and we must not forget them at election time.

With California in a major transportation funding crisis and an estimated $152 billion needed over the next 30 years to maintain our infrastructure, arguing that the roadways are paid in full is specious at best. If L.A. County is going to raise this gigantic amount of money for transportation, it has to raise funds from somewhere, and charging for use of the existing transportation network is one way to do that.

Metro has made it clear that the money raised from congestion pricing will be used to invest in transit service along the corridors where congestion pricing is utilized. In other parts of the world, London is using some of the proceeds from congestion pricing to fund its billion-dollar bicycle plan. In New York, if Mayor Bloomberg's plan ever comes into fruition, fees paid by drivers will be poured back into transit and non-motorized travel.

I'm not sure why Tarlow brings up parking spaces, congestion parking isn't being considered for Los Angeles in the short-term, but it raises the opportunity to point out that low cost parking has a ruinous effect on communities and helps cause pollution. Of course, when the proponents of low-cost driving attack congestion pricing of any sort, the environment is one thing that rarely comes up.

So I'm a bike commuter, or at least I was up until an amateur football match two weeks ago at Pan-Pacific Park, next to the Grove.

Ending up on the wrong end of a tackle, my right foot has now been multiple shades of purple and I've been told by various medical personnel to 'stay off it' for either a) the next few weeks or b) until a leftist is in the White House.

This is troubling to me. First of all because these lovely, cool, clear days are great days to be out on the bike in West LA (the siren song of the Santa Monica Bay Bike Path is so sweet). Secondly, because I now have to rely on my mostly-trusty '79 Mercedes 240d (The Desert Fox) to get around the West Side. This is a hassle for everybody, mostly for my wife, Nicole, who's stuck ferrying me around. From a less narcissistic standpoint though, having to drive around in the car is a hassle because it means needing to participate in the vehicular orgy that is rush hour in Los Angeles and it means needlessly spewing out hydrocarbon exhaust as we putter around Palms/Mar Vista.

First hassle: Rush Hour

Sitting in a miles-long queue of cars kills men's souls. Doesn't matter if it's on the freeway or on surface streets, a mass pneumaticide is going on in the greater Los Angeles area every day. Sure KUSC or KCSN provide calming classical music, sure KPCC will allow you to drown out your sorrows in progressive news and banter, sure KFUO will indulge the insanity you feel after taking 45 minutes to get between Wishire and Olympic on Westwood. But at best, the airwaves are only filling a part of all of us that is dead, killed by the crawling king snake of steel, plastic, and rolling rubber. We need to get cars off the road. More of us need to file onto buses or enjoy the sartorial splendor of whizzing, on the right in the liberated zone between the cars and the curb, past the stopped line of cars on our bicycles.

Second hassle: Exhaust

I like the folks in the Inland Empire as much as the next person. My college roommate was from Yucaipa. I have a colleague in Upland whom I respect. Yet, I feel pangs of guilt when, turning the key and feeling the 2.4 Litres of pure diesel power, the Fox is fired up and CO2, CO, NO2, NO and a host of Particulates warm the cold winter air behind my exhaust pipe. If these various and sundry emissions were to stay in place, I suppose that would be kinda OK. But given the offshore breeze that makes Palms a quasi-Eden, my vehicular refuse will end up as part of the lovely haze that graces the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire, and eventually, if conditions are perfect, the Mojave National Preserve. The fine folk and flora and fauna of these locals simply don't need this gift that I have to offer them every time my four-speed performance machine hits the road. Much better would it be, and has it been, for me to bike the 1.5 miles to work and for my wife to walk down to Venice Blvd. to take the bus all the way to CSULA. We find ourselves in the desirable position of living within walking distance of a Trader Joe's, Albertsons, two bars, and a number of restaurants. We live within easy biking distance of a Whole Foods, a Target, and the Westside Pavilion. Really, much of LA live within easy walking or biking distance of much of what we need to live on a week-to-week basis. We just need to start walking and biking more, treating our cars properly, as a guilty pleasure, best used driving up PCH or Angeles Crest Highway on Saturdays!

So, use your legs! Be good stewards of both your body and the earth! I'd pontificate more, but I'm off to practice on my crutches so I can make the walk up the hill on Palms to Sepulveda, so I can bus it to work on Sunday.

Driving the problem

Re: your Oct. 19 editorial, "Ride the rails into the future":

The editorial was absolutely correct. If Southern California is ever going to find its way out of perpetual gridlock, it's going to be by getting more people out of their cars, not by continually finding more ways to encourage driving.

On the East Coast, its somewhat older infrastructure has fallen into a state of disrepair while Department of Transportation officials tried to build their way out of congestion. Now, these governments are spending more and more money on maintenance with funds needed, and originally dedicated to, upgrading transit and local roads.

Hopefully, our elected officials will remember the lesson of Oct. 15 next time they're
tempted to take funds dedicated to expanding transit and using them to balance
the general fund. If not, we'll find ourselves in the same position as our
friends to the east — unable even to maintain the transit system that we have as
congestion and commuting times continue to rise.

Damien Newton, Los Angeles

(The writer is the author of the blog "Street Heat," which can be found
at streetheatla.blogspot.com. — Editor)

What Mr. Lutz was describing Monday morning was what rush-hour freeway
travel could be if Southern Californians would just abandon their cars, if only
for a couple days each week, and give public transportation a try.

It would do wonders for stress levels, not to mention cutting down on
pollution-generating car trips, saving gasoline, reducing household expenses and
time. A recent report showed Ventura County drivers each wasted nearly a full
week of work sitting in rush-hour traffic in 2005.

Imagine how many more hours would be lost, especially during rush hour,
without the Metrolink rail system. When it began in 1992, Metrolink had a daily
ridership of 2,500. Today, the system has seven lines, 54 stations and serves
more than 42,000 riders daily.