MetroRiderLA

Image courtesy of Fire Monkey Fish via Flickr.

Kymberleigh Richards, webmaster of San Fernando Valley Transit Insider and Metro Governance Council member, offers an open letter on her site to valley transit users regarding the proposed bus service cuts to many lines that serve the region. In the letter Kymberleigh proposes alternatives for Lines 96, 154, and 155 which include:

• Operate Line 96 only between downtown Los Angeles and Burbank Transportation Center. This service can reasonably operate hourly through the Griffith Park area. Realign Line 96 via Alameda Ave. – Main St. – Victory Blvd. – Olive Ave. to continue service to shopping center near the intersection of Alameda & Main.
• Line 96 portion between Burbank Transportation Center and Universal City Station operated as extension of Line 292.
• Line 96 portion between Universal City Station and Sherman Oaks operated as new Line 162.
• Line 154 portion between Burbank Transportation Center and North Hollywood Station operated as new Line 293, as a branch route of Line 292.

For the proposed cancellation of the midday route for Line 237, Kymberleigh offers these alternatives:

• Operate Line 237 only between Granada Hills and Woodley Orange Line Station.
• Interline Line 237 with Line 239 at Rinaldi/Balboa.
• New weekday peak-hour Line 159 operates portion of Line 239 eliminated by interlining, continuing connectivity between Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station and Cal State Northridge.

StreetHeatLA also has coverage of Kymberleigh’s comments at the hearing on Wednesday, calling her “one of the more pragmatic board members”.

From the LA Times:

The Federal Transit Administration announced today that it would award $23.3 million over the next two years to help fund bus lanes on a portion of Wilshire Boulevard through the heavily congested Westside.

The lanes will be used during the morning and evening rush hours and would stretch from the Santa Monica-Los Angeles boundary to Valencia Street, which is just west of downtown Los Angeles.

At which point our resident anti-rail ideologue promptly starts cheering. But wait, my dear ideologue friend…

The project does not include the part of Wilshire that traverses the city of Beverly Hills.

That funny noise you may hear is me banging my head on my desk. As basically anyone who has taken the 720 or 920 down Wilshire can tell you (and probably at a fairly high decibel level), at least as between the Pacific and Vermont, the part through Beverly Hills is by far the worst, by far the slowest, and, along with the 405, the source of the delays along Wilshire. Whether or not it’s the fault of BH or Century City is open for debate but irrelevant. The worst traffic along Wilshire is in BH, and if you don’t have them along for this project, then you’re wasting money. Bus-only lanes won’t solve the 405 on-ramp problem, and the lanes don’t go through BH, which is the 20-series’s choke point.

Metro, take your $3.7m, put it in the piggy bank, politely return Washington’s funds and either (a) shelve the project and build the subway, or (b) wait until you have Mayor Delshad along for the bus ride.

Mayor Villaraigosa is going to start riding one of these to encourage others to do the same.

The Los Angeles blogosphere is abuzz today with news from the City Council hearing on creating a traffic relief plan for Los Angeles (after a “discovery” by Council Member Wendy Greuel that L.A. has been without a transportation plan for the last 20 years and none for the future).

CurbedLA has been listening in on the hearing, and has had regular updates throughout the day. They note that there’s been talk of land use, density, and the fact that there are no easy solutions. They also heard from a Portland planner who talked about the Portland Aerial Tram and apparently it’s being discussed a solution to traffic around Dodger Stadium.

Metroblogging Los Angeles snarked about the fact that the Mayor, in an attempt to show his dedication to public transportation, arrived late to the hearing because he rode the bus. According to KFI-AM the mayor among other things, wants to create incentives to use public transportation and thinks that it is the key to easing traffic. KTLA also looks at the mayor’s statements, including the possibility of backing a countywide half-cent sales tax to generate cash for public transit.

Downtown blogger Angelenic looks at the possible impacts of the traffic plan for Downtown. The blogger notes that diagonal pedestrian crossings are being considered, and could be useful in Downtown due to the increasing pedestrian traffic thanks to all the new development.

Bike activist ubrayj02, aka Brayj Against The Machine, notes the importance of the transportation hearing and offers his two cents from an bicyclists point of view. He also provides a link to a heated discussion of the issue on the Midnight Ridazz forum.

The North San Diego County Transit District has set Sunday, March 9, as the inaugural day of service for the Sprinter light rail line.

Sprinter was originally scheduled to open January 13, but station construction was not complete and the California Public Utilities Commission had not given the district the green light.

It is a 22-mile rail line from Oceanside to Escondido, also serving the cities of Vista and San Marcos.

Unless they live on-campus at a local university (USC, UCLA, Pomona), Angelenos now have no car-sharing options available to them. Prior to 2008, Flexcar members in Culver City, Downtown, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Venice, and Wilshire Center had access to a large number of vehicles. However, 2008 brought the anticipated/dreaded merger with rival Zipcar, and as CurbedLA reports, the outcome of the merger is a worst-case-scenario come true. Here is an email that many Flexcar members turned Zipcar members received (apparently I was not on the mailing list):

Car sharing is an evolving category of transportation, and we are working hard to pioneer the industry. We are constantly learning more about the best way to operate our service, and sometimes what we learn results in a tough decision.

In Southern California, we have decided to remove our vehicles from areas outside of the universities we serve (cars will remain at UCLA, USC, Pomona, UCSB, UCSD and UCI).

This was a difficult decision for us, and we understand it may present significant inconvenience for you. We apologize for that.

Reservations for all affected locations have been canceled and fully credited. Further, we have refunded annual membership fees for all members who paid an annual fee within the past nine months. Your refund will appear in your account automatically. If you have questions about your refund, please contact us at info@zipcar.com.

We realize that you recently activated your Zipcard. We’d like to encourage you to use it by placing a *new* $25 driving credit into your account. Hopefully, you’ll reserve a vehicle at one of our university locations in Southern California or in any other city where we provide service. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to contact us at info@zipcar.com.

The team at Zipcar

Ummm… no.

(more…)

This picture is not from today’s wreck, but one in 2007. Courtesy of waltarrrrr via Flickr.

Imagine, if you will, a traffic signal. Now imagine that the red light is lit. What do you do? You stop. Why? Because it means that cars are crossing in front of you and if you were to not heed the red light, your would be struck by the passing cars. Now imagine a traffic signal, lit red, with a gate in front of it physically blocking the intersection and bells clanging loudly. The point cannot be driven home any further.

Yet, time and time again it seems that people, from the same species that invented the traffic signal and the crossing gate and the cars and trains and city that they reside in, cannot for the life of them manage to comprehend these direct messages that clearly imply “do not cross”. And so they do cross, which invariably leads to them being hit by a Gold Line train or a Metrolink train.

Such incidents happened on this very day. According to CBS2. com, two people were taken to the hospital today after a 73- year old driver decided to ignore that which she’s had 73 years to learn, and drove under a lowered gate crossing arm only to be hit by the coming train. Luckily it seems no one was seriously injured, the driver and a train passenger were taken to the hospital for minor injuries, but her Lexus suffered major damage and the train suffered moderate damage. While we wish the driver a swift recovery, we do hope someone gives her a remedial lesson in the children’s game “red light, green light”.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune presents us with another tale of train vs. car, this time with a Metrolink slamming into a big-rig trailer that was conveniently backed through the crossing gates and onto the tracks. Only one of the 500 passengers on board the train was injured, and the train suffered minor damage. The trailer hit a nearby storage company resulting in damage to several of the storage units. In addition to taking out the crossing gate, the trailer also took out the traffic signals… but is seems that people don’t pay much attention to those things anyway.