Car Culture

Tomorrow and Sunday will mark the Fourth AltCar Expo & Conference in Santa Monica.  Admission is free and directions can be found on the AltCar's website.

The extraordinary documentary movie Crude is showing in Santa Monica this week. It's a compelling portrait of epic legal struggle by indigenous peoples in Ecuador to force Chevron/Texaco to clean up the toxins left behind from decades of oil extraction in the Amazon rainforest.

Billionaire Ed Roski seems bound and determined to give those people opposed to the construction of a new stadium to lure an NFL team back to Greater Los Angeles plenty of cause for concern.  Recently, Roski's lobbyists have been pushing Sacramento law makers to grant exemptions from environmental and planning requirements for his mega-stadium project in the City of Industry.

As Washington conventional wisdom has it, raising gas taxes or creating a vehicle miles traveled tax to pay for transportation is impossible during the current recession. After all, who would want to squeeze cash-strapped commuters during tough economic times?

The Treasury Department sent $81 billion in taxpayer-subsidized aid to General Motors and Chrysler -- which is unlikely to be recouped in full -- using legal authority that "is the subject of considerable debate," according to a report released today [PDF] by the congressionally appointed bailout oversight panel.

Ted Rogers, who's Biking In LA blog should be required reading for L.A. cyclists, has discovered a plot in the Valley to take out a Bike Lane on Resedal Blvd., along with street parking, to double the car-capacity of the road at rush hour.  Apparently, traffic engineers in the West Valley Department of Transportation decided that not enough cyclists use the lane to justify its existance. 

Public Safety officials continually lecture cyclists about the need to follow not just the letter of the law, but also to follow proven safety tips to stay safe during their rides.  However, during a recent trip through the Downtown and in my own neighborhood, I've begun to notice anecdotal evidence that those charged with protecting us on the street don't know what those rules are.

CBS News reports (with video) that business owners along Victory Boulevard in Burbank opened their shops on Monday morning to a bad surprise.  The curb in front of their stores was painted red, as the city had banned street parking for several blocks to increase the boulevard's capacity for left hand turns.  The city gave shop owners less than 24 hours notice before removing the parking, in possible violation of a recent Los Angeles County Superior Court Ruling, causing an outcry from an already struggling business community.

The government's Cash for Clunkers program officially begins today, but car dealers have been running ads like this one for a while already. They have to keep the public informed: Now you can trade in your old car and buy a brand-new SUV or pick-up truck with a hefty assist from Uncle Sam.