MetroRiderLA

Image courtesy of igetrad.

• Metro wins at the Rail Rodeo, a competition to see which agency is  the best at rail maintenance, for the second year in a row. America’s Best!
• Wendy Greuel talks about the staggering costs of traffic congestion in Los Angeles.
• The United States gets a D+ in transit infrastructure which generally means people are stuck in their pricey gas-guzzling cars or on over-crowded buses.  Land of the free!
• Marketplace takes a look at the ridership/infrastructure gap. It seems the idea that transit is just for poor people doesn’t bode well in a era where everyone is poor because of pricey gasoline.
• Congestion pricing works! For the wealthy, L.A.’s freeways are suddenly fun to drive on again.
• Los Angeles used to be a two funicular town.  How the mighty have fallen.
• Santa Clarita Transit to add GPS tracking information at 35 busy bus stops.

Image courtesy of Telstar Logistics.

• Will California High Speed Rail be a boon to the Silicon Valley too?
• I don’t know if I’d call 1,100 miles of rail “quaint” (especially considering the scant 73 miles we have today), but the Daily News takes a nostalgic view of the Red Cars.
• A two-fer on the Blue Line: light rail continues its destructive attack on humanity.
• U.S. Transportation chief wants gas taxes gone, replaced with tolls and congestion pricing.

Rush hour commuters enjoy their subsidized ride.

Let’s talk subsidy. The American Automobile Association just released the results of a study called Crash vs. Congestion: What’s The Cost to Society [PDF]. Yes, the American Automobile Association, the group that lobbies for automobiles and was formed in order to get more auto roads built. The study reveals that in most metropolitan areas, the cost of traffic accidents far outweighs the already high costs of congestion. In the Los Angeles metropolitan statistical area (which includes almost 13 million people in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Santa Ana) the report concludes that the yearly cost of crashes amounts to $10.5 billion. Traffic congestion in the metropolitan area costs $9.3 billion annually. Together, crashes and congestion cost Los Angeles and Orange County $19.8 billion a year. That comes out to $1,561 per person per year ($817 per person for crashes, $744 for congestion).

Yikes.

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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.