MetroRiderLA

These aren't racing flags

Yet another good idea we can steal from the Old Continent: the income based speeding ticket.  Already the law of the land in Finland, where a 2002 fine to a director of the Nokia Corporation cost him €116,000 ($103,600 at the time) for doing 75 km/h (47 mph) in a 50 km/h (31 mph) zone.  The man charged, Mr. Anssi Vanjoki, was charged a fine equivalent to 14 days of his €12.5 Million annual income.

What prompted this post was the news on Yahoo! on January 7^th that the record for a traffic ticket has been broken by a Swiss speeder to the tune of $290,000.  This may seem harsh to the offender until you realize that he is worth over $20 million and will definitely not be rolling pennies for gas.

Now for those Angelenos living paycheck to paycheck, a speeding ticket really hurts.  They have the feel of a harsh penalty and getting a speeding ticket definitely affects their driving for months after a citation.  Say an individual makes the minimum wage and works 40 hours a week.  The net pay on the check is about $300.  After a fine and other ancillary costs (e.g. traffic school), that person has lost at least a full week’s wages.  For a person worth $20 million in LA, a $300 fine is laughable and no deterrent to speeding at all.  With a toothless monetary deterrent to hundreds, if not thousands of drivers, what is to stop them from speeding?  There is a point system in place to punish repeated offenders, but this means someone has to get caught time after time to have their driving privileges curtained.  Not the best system that requires the multiple offenses before behavior is punished for a particular segment of the population.

A copy-paste of the income-based traffic fines used in Finland and Switzerland would bring many positive benefits:

1. Rich people would drive better.  It levels the rules of the road for all drivers by implementing a fairer system of deterrence that would make even the wealthiest of people think twice before speeding.
2. Since some people will speed anyway, the city would raise a lot more cash.  The money raised by the city should entirely be used to fund public transportation.  After a few years of this, the city might have enough money to fund European-quality mass transit.
3. Not to bang the egalitarian drum too loudly, but implementing such a system would be a fine example of ending the cultural phenomenon of being able to buy your way out of things in this country.  Think of the children.

If you are driving multiple $500,000 cars and are worth millions, there is not much of a defense in arguing against such a proposition on monetary grounds.  Those people have the money to pay two weeks of their annual income should they be found exceeding the speed limit.  If there are any millionaires that read the metroriderla blog and would like to mount a defense of the current system and how it keeps them in check, contrarian views are most welcome.

The route names, rationales for the changes and service frequencies are on the Google Map for this series. Click on a line and look.

This map covers route suggestions for services between the Santa Monica Mountains and the 10 Freeway. There are DASH proposals for East and Northeast Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley as well.

The route names, rationales for the changes and service frequencies are on the Google Map for this series. Click on a line and look.

Damn, I was supposed to post this for Tuesday. As I’ve said, the Google Maps problems are keeping me tied up, hence the lull in activity.

The first series may look familiar. These suggestions first appeared in February. It is a repost of suggestions for lines LADOT should consider as it plans to restructure service. These suggestions were originally for routes that would augment both the northeast and eastern Los Angeles segments of the Metro Gold Line. Remember …

the Gold Line Eastside Extension is opening Sunday.

While the opening is a time for revelry, the Eastside’s first rail service after almost a 50-year absence has an accessibility problem. The bus services are terribly thin on all stations but Soto Street and Atlantic Boulevard. LADOT should bulk up neighborhood connections within L.A. Originally, three lines have been proposed to serve eastern and Northeast L.A. One is included, but it is a new version of a Metro route that may be too busy to operate by DASH buses.

Before the presentation of the routes, I would like to gauge opinion as to what fare LADOT should charge for absorbing and operating citywide service outside of downtown L.A. Please answer the fare poll. Thanks.

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Photo by Fred Camino via Flickr. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.

First of all, my apologies to MetroReaders.

I had promised a quick and orderly turnaround for this Open Source Transit series, which covers how LADOT could refocus its DASH service in light of projected funding shortfalls. The problem: Open Source Transit does not lend itself to quick turnarounds. Alas, the posts here will show it.

Google Maps, which has a useful tool to draw lines on local roads, has been very buggy. Many times I have had to redraw routes all over because the lines would disappear for no apparent reason. Also, the line draw tool has a bad habit of shifting away from streets on its own. Third, drawing more than just a few routes has been a serious drain on memory. I didn’t see this problem when I had done the Transit Service Interface Proposals for the Eastside Gold Line and the Expo Line.

I have to push the schedule back for these releases. The revised schedule will be one DASH restructuring per week. This week, I will “start” with the Eastside. It is simply a repost of the route suggestions LADOT should consider to interface with the Gold Line. There are three routes, and I will repost the proposals in a new thread to open up new discussions.

I am also going to allow this to become truly Open Source Transit for you MetroReaders. Google Maps has a collaborate feature. If you wish to draw your own routes and have them included with these proposals, I can add you as a collaborator. Get a Google Maps account and then send us an e-mail.

Now then, we have a very busy week of transit ahead of us. L.A. is eagerly anticipating the opening of the Eastside Gold Line, with free rides this Sunday (and Sunday only). Orange County transit users, though, are in the fight of their lives. They have the unenviable task of stopping OCTA’s bus service cuts that would take the county back to mid-1970s levels. We may have much to celebrate, but we should also help out Orange County riders in any way we can.

Back to the task at hand. The overarching theme is for LADOT, outside of downtown L.A., to run bus service in place of low-ridership Metro lines rather than duplicating portions of productive lines.

Wouldn’t this put LADOT into a deeper hole? That may weigh on planners and politicians’ minds. This edition of Open Source Transit, though, instead looks at the current DASH system as focusing too much money and energy to fill its buses by poaching Metro of its local ridership. If LADOT would be forced to cancel all DASH service, L.A. riders would still have Metro available. However, Metro is facing the same cuts, and it will go after its weakest performing routes first. If these disappear, riders who used these lines would have nothing in their place.

LADOT’s cheaper operations, roughly half the cost of Metro’s service, can help salvage lines and build a ridership base to sustain them. LADOT, and especially DASH, are also more liked among riders than Metro. People would be more willing to use these services.

So what are the next steps? The prologue suggests two steps LADOT should take in order to revamp its local shuttle services: 1)a rebranding away from the DASH name, and 2) a fare structure that would be higher than the 25 cents for most DASH buses now but lower than the $1.25 Metro cash fare.

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I had promised to save this until the conclusion of the World Series, but there will be no World Series (of Transit) this year.

The workers of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the agency standing in for defending champions the Philadelphia Phillies, have gone on strike. Despite promises not to leave riders high and dry while the World Series was in Philadelphia, SEPTA workers picketed abruptly Tuesday. Philadelphia has forfeited its spot in the Fall Classic (of Transit).

I am no Yankees booster, but as a result of the Philadelphia strike, I hope New York closes the World Series tonight.

By default, the New York Yankees are the winners of the World Series (of Transit) for 2009, broadcast live exclusively on MetroRiderLA.

It might be for the best that Philadelphia dropped out of the Fall Classic (of Transit). In both the Division and the Championship series, they were taken to the limit by the Rockies and the Dodgers, respectively. (Yes, L.A. readers, the Dodgers managed to hang in there and take it to a 7-game stretch — though in the games evaluating transit, they were largely outmatched.)

On account of forfeiture, the rundown for the games will not appear.

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