Streetsblog Los Angeles

Councilmen Garcetti and Reyes Celebrate the Groundbreaking with city staff and future path users. Photo: Creek Freak

Yesterday, the city officially broke ground on a three mile extension of the L.A. River Bike Path that will take the path from its current terminus at Fletcher Drive all the way to Barclay Drive.  While it's true that you can currently bike along the river in this area; the "path" is in terrible condition with water collecting in dips, uneven surfaces and tree roots forcing themselves through the asphalt.  These obstacles create a rough ride for anyone looking to ride along one of the most scenic parts of the L.A. River.

Joe Linton at the Creek Freak blog covers not only yesterday's groundbreaking ceremony, but in a post from last November researched the "tortured" histories of this segment and another for the West San Fernando Valley.  Officially the Elysian extension should be open in six months, but Linton reports that it could be early 2010 before it's completed.

Construction should be underway this week, with the most significant part of the project being the construction of an underpass below Fletcher Drive. The project is supposed to take six months to complete, though it was suggested that that is slightly optimistic, and could easily take up to eight months. Pardon the dust, and look for a brand new bikeway opening in January or February 2010!

Regardless of the exact date of the opening, this has been a good week for L.A. cyclists.  Combined with last week's installment of new bike parking throughout the Downtown and Westside, that's two stories about better bike facilities in one seven day period!

The House oversight committee has launched an official inquiry into the resignation of Amtrak's veteran inspector general (IG) earlier this month -- on the same day that an outside law firm reported on alleged interference with his work by management at the rail corporation.

Amtrak IG Fred Weiderhold left earlier this month after 35 years at the rail corporation. (Photo: WSJ)

The bipartisan congressional investigation focuses on a report commissioned by Amtrak IG Fred Weiderhold several months before his June 18 departure. The report, prepared by the firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, confirmed Weiderhold's past contention that the IG's "independence and effectiveness are being substantially impaired" by in-house policies at Amtrak.

But one particular charge in the report caught Congress' attention: that Amtrak managers prevented Weiderhold from monitoring their use of economic stimulus money without their approval.

As the oversight committee's chairman, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), and senior Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa (CA) explained in a letter sent yesterday to Amtrak chairman Thomas Carper:

[T]he legal analysis found that Amtrak management claims that all expenditures of funds designated for the Inspector General must be approved by Amtrak management. In other words, the Inspector General may not use funds provided by Congress to investigate potential waste and fraud in stimulus programs without the consent of the organization being investigated. This is contrary to the clear intent of Congress and is unacceptable.

In a statement released yesterday, Amtrak noted that it had no opportunity to weigh in on the Willkie Farr report and stated that "there was no relationship between the timing of Mr. Weiderhold’s retirement and this report." Carper added that the rail corporation "would like to maintain an open line of communication
and are looking forward to cooperating fully" with the congressional inquiry.

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• Oberstar: Midwest is ahead of California in high-speed rail planning (MinnPost)
• EPA Allows CA to Limit Car Emissions (Times)
  
• Local Papers Checks in on L.B. Sharrows (Press-Telegram, LB Post)
• Hit and Run Driver Hits Fox News Reporter Covering Jackson Death (Daily News)
• Metro Starts "Gold Line Bus" and Tweaks Some Rapid Schedules (LAist)
  
• Chicago Looking for New Transpo. Commissioner (Carfree Chicago via Streetsblog.net)
• Summer Streets 2009: 13 NYC Neighborhoods Get Car-Free Days (NYT)
  

When the government passed the stimulus bill last spring, it set a 120 day deadline for states to allocate at least half of transportation funds in the bill. As that deadline passes today, CALPIRG and Smart Growth America released a report detailing how California is spending its stimulus dollars.

The news isn't good.  Despite pretty rhetoric about trying to ween the state off its car-dependency, California is actually spending more of its stimulus funds on highway projects, and highway widenings, than the national average.

Chart: California Public Interest Research Group

That California's roads aren't in great shape isn't news to anyone that lives here, yet the Golden State is spending more money on adding more highway capacity than 41 other states. Eleven other states, including the progressive transportation hotbeds of South Dakota and Alaska, didn't spend a dime on highway expansion.  Meanwhile, California is home to the highway widening that is sucking up more stimulus dollars than any other highway project in the country right here in Southern California.

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The entire family of San Francisco city agencies responsible for maintaining its streets made an unconventional decision to close a portion of a street to cars and convert the new space into a simple, yet elegant, public plaza.  The project combines all the important elements of plaza creation that have been successful in New York City and elsewhere: take space from cars, use simple treatments to convert the space into a pedestrian sanctuary, including movable furniture and leftover granite blocks from city salvage yards, and engage commercial interests around the plaza to help maintain and care for the new public realm.

Though some neighborhood constituents voiced skepticism that the plaza would be empty at best, or filled with miscreants and vagabonds at worst, the plaza's success is hard to dispute. In fact, so many people are using the new space and enjoying the tables and chairs, the businesses around the plaza have contemplated leaving the furniture out later than sunset, which was the initial closing time agreed upon between them and the Castro/Upper Market Community Betterment District.  This film takes an in-depth look at the construction of the plaza with some of the agencies responsible for it, and includes some entertaining man-on-the-street interviews.

View of a departing Moscow subway train. All Photos: Alexander Friedman

I just returned from a trip to Moscow and noticed an interesting trend. Despite the economic slowdown, which Russia is also certainly experiencing, their public transportation is not only as efficient as it's always been, but - it keeps getting better and better.  Unlike in the United States, nobody is discussing service cuts!

Namely:

• Buses, trolleybuses, and streetcars run more frequently than ever before;
• Subway trains continue running every two minutes (every minute during rush-hours);
• Commuter/Regional electric trains run even more frequently than before (5-15 minute headways, including evenings!);
• New, state-of-the-art Express Commuter Rail routes have opened to various regions, including Airport
• Connector trains to all 4 (four) Moscow region's airports;
• New Subway lines continue to be built as we speak (3 extensions now under construction, that's in addition to the existing 180-mile subway network);
• No service cuts are on the horizon whatsoever!

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Late Update: An earlier version of this post used the committee-approved version of the climate bill rather than the final, House-passed version. The climate bill's identifying number was changed at the last minute, from the original H.R. 2454 to H.R. 2998, which can be downloaded at the fourth link from the top on the House Rules Committee's website. Streetsblog Capitol Hill regrets the error.

The climate change bill that squeaked through the House on Friday night allows U.S. states to use a share of their carbon emissions allowances to invest in green transportation, thanks to the combined efforts of a group of senior Democrats. 

The deal was billed last week as a narrow one, letting transit and other sustainable transportation receive 10 percent of the states' allowances (which actually comprise 10 percent of the bill's total haul -- much of which will be given to industry).

But the committee-approved version of the climate measure, available at the Library of Congress, tells a different story.

Section 132(c) of the committee's draft says that states can use "not less than 15 percent" of their emissions allowances for any of the following purposes (emphasis mine):

• revamping building codes to be more energy-efficient
• an energy-efficient manufactured homes program
• a building energy performance labeling program
• setting up a "smart grid" for electricity
• energy-efficient transportation planning 
• help for low-income areas seeking efficiency improvements
• "other cost-effective energy efficiency programs"

Russ Roca, the photographer and bike activist who has taken the lead on promoting Long Beach's world-class shared lane, brings us a video on people's first reactions to the lane.  For anyone that missed Friday's story, Long Beach painted a travel lane green and installed Sharrows on 2nd Street, one of the busiest streets in the city for both bikes and cars.

Longe Beach's sharrows policy is groundbreaking both locally and internationally.  As far as I know, this is the first time that anyone, anywhere has colored a lane with Sharrows and the world is watching to see the results.  An email thread of the Caltrans' District 7 Bike Advisory Committee posits that these are the first Sharrows on public streets anywhere in Los Angeles County, although there is some question about whether or not the Sharrows on Westwood Boulevard are on the campus of UCLA.

While there has been some debate on whether or not painting a shared lane in a similar way that other cities paing bike lanes will confuse people; the early results show cyclists esctatic cyclists whizzing past parked cars well outside the door zone.  Long Beach residents don't seem confused, they seem ecstatic.  Of course, there will always be some malcontents, but the early returns are happy returns.

As an Angeleno, I'm certainly jealous of Long Beach for making such a dramatic statement when Los Angeles won't even have a plan to make a plan to install Sharrows until next year.  However, the end of the video when L.B. Mobility Coordinator Charles Gandy is encouraging two young cyclists to ride in the center of the lane because "it's the safest place to be" is such a far-cry from "ride to the right or you'll be bug splatter" attitude at LADOT that it sort of makes me want to cry.

Roca has more videos on the Long Beach Sharrow experience at his YouTube page.

We hear the arguments again and again from DOTs: they need to widen highways and expand interchanges to improve safety on the nation's roads.

Streetsblog Network member The Political Environment, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sees it differently: 

Photo of the Marquette Interchange in Milwaukee by TracyJ_Brown via Flickr.

[M]ost fatalities on the road are caused by speed, alcohol or other factors tied to driver inattentiveness or indifference, and spiffy new lanes and perfect pavement only makes these menaces more dangerous.

Twice in the last two weeks -- once on Madison's beltline heading west and once in the gaudy new Marquette Interchange -- I was nearly sideswiped by motorists on my right who changed lanes without looking... I find the new Marquette more hazardous for motorists who want to exit westbound at 26th or 35 St. as they have to move quickly to the right into traffic coming from behind coming downhill from high ramps feeding in from the Hoan Bridge or I-43 south. The new Marquette induces speeding -- smooth pavement, gravity, the perception that the whole machine's alleged efficiencies are there to make your trip faster have created a Death Valley in the interchange just past the Marquette University campus.

It's the stupidity factor that kills people on the highways, and I am convinced that WisDOT's rebuilding and redesigning schemes only make idiots more dangerous.

A recent article in Popular Mechanics came to a similar conclusion.

• AnsaldoBreda Looking to Buy Land for New Plant...In New York (Daily Gazette)
• "Broke" California Subsidizing Car Buying (Pasadena Star News)
• Pickup Truck Driver Arrested for Deadly Hit and Run on PCH (Ventura County Star)
• Third Term Councilmen Better Deliver (Daily News)
  
• Report: States Spending One-Third of Their Transpo Stim Cash on Road Expansion (MTR)
  
• GOP: Climate Bill Going Nowhere in the Senate (NYT)
• Global Warming Legislation Has America on Brink of Energy Revolution (Daily News)
  
• Park(ing) Day Is On Its Way! (Soap Box)
  

Last week Streetsblog NYC's Brad Aaron posted what is sure to be a car-culture classic.  This three minute web-only commercial celebrates people that enjoy putting so much money into their cars' sound systems that they can terrorize entire neighborhoods by blasting music at ear-splitting volumes.  A lot of times when I'm writing an "Ad-nauseam" post I might exaggerate a part of the commercial to help make a larger point. 

If you watch this video, you'll see that now is not one of those times.

The people in the commercials are so proud of their cars, and their sound systems that they just want to share with the world whether they wish to receive this gift or not.  Witness one dude who smirks as he describes cranking it up when people in other cars look at him in disgust or my personal favorite the dude who's music is so loud he makes children on the streets cry and then shrugs at the parents because, "these things happen."

It sort of puts the rather modest sound systems that accompany some Midnight Ridazz and Critical Mass rides into perspective, doesn't it?

The scene of Monday's Metro crash in D.C., where the local transit agency still has 15 outstanding "SILO" tax deals. (Photo: AP)

The D.C. Metro accident that killed nine riders this week has renewed calls for rail safety upgrades and reminders that car travel remains far riskier than transit. But the crash is also shedding light on a problem that goes beyond Washington: tax shelter deals between banks and struggling transit agencies -- deals that were given a retroactive pass by Congress even though the IRS considers them illegal. 

The tax shelters at issue are called "sale in, lease out" deals, also known as SILOs. Starting in the 1980s, local transit agencies began selling rail cars and other equipment to Wall Street firms, which would then turn around and lease the goods back to the agencies.

Why would either side want to get into such arrangements? Sarah Lawsky, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School, has explained the situation in detail. But the short answer is that banks got tax write-offs for their newly leased transit equipment, while local agencies got a cash benefit for giving away tax deductions they could not use.

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Public Radio station KPCC, 89.3 on your radio dial, is looking for stories about car-free living and the fiscal impact of owning and riding a bike instead of driving a car. I've heard some people worry that Streetsblog and similar websites end up becoming an echo-chamber for like minded people; well here's a chance to tell your story to a larger group of people.

This car-free outreach is part of what KPCC is calling the Insight Network, where the newsroom looks to the public to inform its coverage of issues. If you want to take a second to fill out their form to tell them why you choose to ride instead of driver, you can fill out their survey here. All information is for their private use unless you state otherwise. To read the announcement of this new initiative by Sharon McNary in the KPCC newsroom, read on after the jump.

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Kate Sheppard from Grist is Tweeting the heck out of the climate bill debate on the floor of the House of Representatives today. Barbara Boxer, who is working on the Senate version of this bill, yesterday reminded sustainable transport advocates that this is probably going to be their only chance in the next 18 months to get something done in Congress.

And Al Gore and the folks at Repower America say call your U.S. Representative today because you can be sure the guys from the coal industry have made their calls. Here's Al...