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ChineseChat with the chair
Contributed by Wad on October 15th, 2007 at 1:30 am
[tags]los angeles, mta, public transit, santa monica, pam o’connor[/tags]
Metro board chair — and Santa Monica council member — Pam O’Connor invites Metro riders and haters to an online chat beginning at noon Wednesday.
Questions may be submitted to Metro in advance, and will be answered during the live chat.
This is Metro’s first online chat.
Discussion
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Chairwoman O’Connor:
Currently Metro collects 16 cents via fares for every dollar spent on transit.
What, in your opnion, is a “fair share” of costs that should be each borne by the riders, the community and the taxpayers?
Even with advance notice of ths question you all know the answer. “Things are about right.” She’s gong to talk about the need for more investment but she won’t tell us who gets the bill.
What is the short term and long term goals of the MTA?
Has the MTA defined different subareas within its vast region?
Is the MTA focusing on making a bigger push for rail?
i was in there and saw fred and aaron and rob dawg… i was hoping to copy and past it here for all metroriders but metro being really reliable closed the session the second pam was done with the last question. there’s an archive section that is isn’t “up” yet so hopefully it’ll be available soon so i can post it here, plus all the questions she didn’t have time to answer.
all in all though, it was a pretty useless experience, as she chose to answer such pressing questions like some guy complaining about a bus that stops next to his house in alta dena rather than the possibilities of late night rail and when the new screens are going to have the train information rather than rules on not drinking. but i’m hopeful that she’ll get around to this kind of stuff soon.
tyke did you see my three questions or just that I was online?
The three questions were roughly:
Currently Metro collects 16 cents via fares for every dollar spent on transit.
What, in your opnion, is a “fair share” of costs that should be each borne by the riders, the community and the taxpayers?
#2 For the last generation Metro has disproportionately invested in transit at the expense of roads. Over that time congestion has gotten much worse. In fact the more transit the greater the congestion. Why after nearly a quarter century of failed policy do you think things are about to reverse?
#3 Metro’s Misson Statement:
“Metro is responsible for the continuous improvement of an efficient and effective transportation system for Los Angeles County.”
The word is TRANSPORTATION not transit. Depending on how you count anywhere from 78%-87% of your budget goes to transit oriented activities that provide some 3% of all passenger mobility and a miniscule fraction of all transportation in the region. Why is this not a fundamental abbrogation of your mission?
I also submitted them in advance. Readers here may not like my questions but they should still be enraged that the important questions were all giben the shine.
Densification causes congestion, not public transit. Public transit creates alternatives to sitting in ever-worsening congestion. There aren’t enough roads that could be built to offset the ever worsening congestion as millions more come to Southern California over the next decades.
Transit provides alternatives to keep Southern California economically and environmentally viable. Land Use Planning and economic development affects congestion also.
Also, how is the policy a failure? “Failure” is based on opinion of what the outcome should be. If our Land Use and Transportation policy is aimed at enabling damaging sprawl or catering to single-occupancy motorists with a sense of entitlement to their cars, then the social-engineering over the last five decades in favor of the
“car culture” has been a success.
That’s decreasingly a sustainable outcome.
Also, the people who want Los Angeles to stay “horizontal” need a time machine. Those days are gone for good.
nah rob, i just saw that you were in the room. we weren’t able to see any questions asked by others unless they were chosen by the moderator to be answered by pam. and i agree, your questions that weren’t addressed, like mine, fred’s and i’m sure aarons and a slew of others were much more pressing than the ones “she” chose to answer. the construction hours question and the bus making noise were at the tops of uselessness i’d say, but i’m sure if they ever show the actual transcript in their archive we’ll see some others at par. and though she did choose one of my questions about the TAP pass, her answer was seemingly useless just saying it might be working by the end of 2008 and to get an EZ transit pass in the meantime.
I would not be surprised if your questions go unanswered Rob. She seemed to be handling questions very politically and probably wasn’t interested in tackling more controversial issues.
How about: the more people the greater the congestion? I don’t understand what’s so confusing about this. Imagine we have a jar and it represents Los Angeles County. Now imagine we have some jelly beans, those represent people. Throw those jelly beans into the jar. It’s now pretty full, but not totally full. Now let’s take some jawbreakers, about 5 times bigger than the jelly beans, these will represent automobiles. Let’s throw an amount of jawbreakers equal to the amount of jelly beans into the jar. Whoa, it just got a lot more crowded, I can hardly close the lid! Now lets take out 3% of those jawbreakers, but leave the same amount of jelly beans in. It’s a tiny bit less crowded, but still pretty full. If only we could get more than 3% of jelly beans to not bring jawbreakers with them into the jar. I think this is what Metro is trying to do. Sure we can try to find all kinds of ways to squeeze the jawbreakers in (usually at the expense of the jellybeans), but even still our jar is of a limited size, and 3.5 million more jellybeans are expected to be put in the jar in the next 42 years. If they are each coming with one or two (or even three!) jawbreakers in tow, that jar is going to be packed so tight that not even the atoms on the jelly beans will be able to move.
Dan W.,
Densification contributes to congestion but so does transit. That’s not some wild tinfoil raving it is just the way things work. Ever been “stuck behind a bus?” Even when in another bus? Densification doesn’t have to contribute to congestion it is just that we don’t densify correctly. You need enough transportation capacity; roads and transit alternatives. Being denser it costs more. Again not some fatal flaw I wave in pyric victory, just an aspect that needs to be addressed by effective planning and investment.
I still assert that Metro’s stewardship of the mission we have given them has been an abject failure. They have failed to even hold steady exissting levels of mobility and have to my knowledge failed to produce a single planned project on time and on budget. (The “unplanned” Northridge Earthquake repairs show that it is the system not the work that is inadequate.)
tyke,
Yeah, she chose to swing at the softballs. I can’t wait until I get an email thanking me in helping make the netcast a great success.
Sure we’ve all been “stuck behind a bus”, but more often and more likely we are “stuck behind a bunch of other cars”. I don’t think anyone on either side of the issue is going to deny that better planning and investment is, but I also don’t know if you can call Metro an abject failure. The mission isn’t over. It seems to me like things like this take time, especially in today’s climate. I mean look what it takes to get anything done, good or bad, it’s an endless process that usually results in something half-assed. Does the fault lay squarely on Metro? You may think so, but I think there’s more too it. Community objection, politcal objection, fiscal objection, it’s a wonder anything gets done at all. It’s a miracle anyone can get anywhere.
…don’t know if you can call Metro an abject failure. The mission isn’t over.
How about an interim grade? Failed, failing and not showing any improvement.
It seems to me like things like this take time, especially in today’s climate.
Those are two different things. Yes, things take time but we are already decades under their stewardship withy no progress.
Second, I think there’s a problem with the idea of “today’s climate.” There will always be something, inflation, war, recession, on and on. Those aren’t valid excuses.
I mean look what it takes to get anything done, good or bad, it’s an endless process that usually results in something half-assed.
Let me guess, you aren’t 40. How can I guess this? Because older people either experienced or know of the real California, the Pat Brown California. New freeways open roads, vibrant economy, manufacturing base, upward mobility. You probably only remember Joe “Gray” Davis proclaiming the 210 as the last California freeway ever. How’s that latter vision working out?