Tag Archives: Zev Yaroslavsky

Transportation headlines, Monday, May 6

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Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the Library’s Headlines blog, which you can also access via email subscription or RSS feed.

For Los Angeles, the end of the free subway ride (New York Times) 

The old gray lady catches up with gate-latching at Metro subway stations and offers this intro to the story:

There is a startling new sight at the subway station at Hollywood and Vine these days, set amid the handsome trappings of vintage film projectors and movie paraphernalia: five subway turnstiles.

Their appearance amounts to an acknowledgment of the failure of the rider honor system that Los Angeles embraced when it began constructing its subway system nearly 20 years ago. This might not exactly come as a news flash to anyone who has traveled the subways of New York or the Washington Metro, but a gateless subway entrance is not the most effective way to motivate riders to pay their carriage.

Los Angeles transit officials say that millions of dollars in annual revenues have been lost because of riders who calculated, reasonably enough, that they could ride the subway free with minimal danger of detection, no matter the occasional deputy sheriff demanding to see a fare card and a $250 fine for violators.

“A lot of people — if not the majority of people — are not paying their fare,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a county supervisor and a member of the board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “There is no reason for them to pay. The odds of them getting a ticket are slim to none.”

The article goes on to say no one really knows what the fare evasion rate is. One Metro official says that latching of the gates, to begin this summer, will help Metro find out.

L.A. full of road to ruins for cars (L.A. Times) 

The Times offers a very cool map showing the grades for roads throughout the city — as graded by city officials. The gist of it: the city has tried to evenly distribute both good and bad roads across L.A., meaning there’s pothole-ridden despair in both wealthy and low-income areas alike. According to the map — be sure to zoom in for detail — Wilshire Boulevard east of Beverly Hills gets grades ranging from A to F.

Readers and Metro riders: is there any part of Wilshire Boulevard you believe qualifies for an ‘A?’

Time for Big Green to go fossil free (The Nation) 

The nation’s big environmental groups often say they are leading the battle against climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. But Naomi Klein found that many of the groups have been slow to divest their finances and endowments from Big Oil, meaning they are making money off the very groups they are allegedly fighting. Most troubling, some of the groups were somewhat evasive with their answers. Read this one, folks. A lot of these groups, I believe, do some very valuable work on behalf of the environment — but their investments, I also believe, threaten to undermine the message.

San Fernando Valley Council of Governments offers interesting list of transit priorities — check it out

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Final Motion for SFVCOG March PP 2013

First, a caveat: don’t get too excited. The above list of projects recommended recently by the San Fernando Valley Council of Governments are just that — recommendations. And, as usual, funding is always an issue.

But I thought I’d post the motion because I know from reader comments and email there’s quite a bit of interest in some of the above. In particular, the idea of connecting Pasadena, Glendale and Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport by transit is appealing; getting between Pasadena and Burbank by transit often involves a trip through downtown Los Angeles. I’m also a big fan of speeding up the long Metrolink trip (up to two hours, 10 minutes) between Los Angeles Union Station and Lancaster, which are about 70 miles apart.

By the way, Metro’s long range plan has a couple of similar projects, although both are in the tier 2 unfunded section (basically meaning they’re in the back of the line for funding for now). These include a Red Line extension to Bob Hope Airport and an undefined “transit corridor” between the NoHo Red Line station and the Gold Line’s Del Mar station in Pasadena.

One last note: it’s worth noting the four names on the motion for the Metro Board: Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, Glendale Councilman Ara Najarian, city of Los Angeles appointee Mel Wilson and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. Interesting.

MoveLA conference tackles thorny issues: among them, should the threshold for future sales tax measures be lowered to 55 percent?

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Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

I spent a couple of hours at MoveLA’s annual conference at Union Station on Friday. As the group’s name implies, MoveLA — with financial help from Metro — is pushing for an expansion and acceleration of transit projects across Los Angeles County.

Three things I heard that I found intriguing and worth passing along to Source readers:

•County Supervisor and Metro Board Member Zev Yaroslavsky was one of many people calling for the threshold for sales tax ballot measures to be lowered from 66.7 percent (two-thirds) to 55 percent after Measure J lost in November with 66.1 percent of the vote.

Yaroslavsky said it’s a perversion of Prop 13 that general sales tax measures — that is, measures without a specific funding target (such as transportation or education) — only require a simple majority but measures with funding plans and goals must reach a much higher target of two-thirds.

Yaroslavsky also acknowledged that everyone knew ahead of time that Measure J needed 66.7 percent to win and that the campaign wasn’t perfect, nor did it help — in his view and in particular — that turnout was much lower in 2012 than in 2008 when Measure R secured 67.9 percent of the vote.

There is a bill pending in the state Legislature that would change the state Constitution to allow for a 55 percent threshold. If the Legislature approves it and the Governor signs it, the issue would then go to state voters. At this point, Metro doesn’t have any proposal to return to voters although the agency continues to pursue funding for project acceleration from Congress.

•There was a lot of talk, as would be expected, about development near transit stations. It’s pretty clear to me that this is still a very thorny issue in many parts of our region. Among the issues: how much density should be allowed, how much parking should be required at developments and what tools are best to preserve affordable housing near transit stations and areas that are gentrifying.

My three cents: It’s hard to get any affordable units built if the overall number of units allowed to be built is on the low side. Developers will simply walk away. And while I completely understand fears of gentrification, I also think it’s equally dangerous to keep redevelopment at bay because needed money and investment may simply go elsewhere.

•There was a brief conversation about using California cap-and-trade funds as a source of funding for mass transit. That’s an interesting notion, of course. But it depends on cap-and-trade raising some serious money and also state transit agencies firmly being able to quanitfy that their services are reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Transportation headlines, Monday, Feb. 4

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Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the Library’s Headlines blog, which you can also access via email subscription or RSS feed.

ART OF TRANSIT: A Metro Rapid bus on Broadway passes by Grand Park and Los Angeles City Hall. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

ART OF TRANSIT: A Metro Rapid bus on Broadway passes by Grand Park and Los Angeles City Hall. Photo by Steve Hymon/Metro.

Fixes on tap for TAP at Metro (ZevWeb) 

A very good summary of work underway on TAP by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky who is, of course, also a member of the Metro Board of Directors that makes the final call on issues related to TAP. Among the news, some of which we’ve reported here in drips and drabs:

•In the last 11 months of 2012, more than 65,000 tickets were issued for fare evasion on the Metro system. That, of course, doesn’t mean that there were only 65K cases of fare evasion — those just represent the people caught and cited.

•Gate latching on the Red/Purple Line will begin this summer and eventually spread to the Green Line and parts of the Blue and Gold lines.

•Metro is working on revising the on-screen instructions at ticket machines for those buying and loading fares on TAP cards. Validators will also be moved to more convenient locations.

•Paper TAP cards with electronic chips embedded in them are being tested for Metrolink passengers so they will have a way to get through the latched gates.

Will a smooth Blue Line ride finally come to Long Beach? (L.A. Streetsblog)

After all these many years, the city of Long Beach still hasn’t given signal priority to the Blue Line. Why? It’s costly and it requires a tech upgrade are two of the big issues. The Long Beach City Council recently voted to ask Metro for funding and that could be a start. But let’s be honest here: signal priority is a rarity for mass transit in the region and the city of Los Angeles — as riders of the Expo Line, Eastside Gold Line and Orange Line likely know.

Villaraigosa says he’ll stay for the rest of his term (LA Observed) 

Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Member Antonio Villaraigosa released a statement late Friday saying he plans to stay on the job until his second term ends on June 30. There had been a lot of buzz and rumors in the media about him being nominated to replace the retiring Ray LaHood as the next U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Whether he was offered the job or not is anybody’s guess — the media hasn’t verified it one way or the other.

AEG giving seed money to Pershing Square effort (Los Angeles Downtown News) 

Very short story but AEG is providing $700,000 for an effort to re-imagine the downtown park. There’s no money yet to actually revamp the park. If so, my big idea: open it up to the surrounding streets instead of walling it off. It would also help if the parking lot on the north side of the park is finally developed, as has been proposed.

Here’s the thing: there’s already significant public spaces at the first three Red/Purple Line stations: Olvera Street and the L.A. Plaza Park across from Union Station, Grand Park at the Civic Center Station and Pershing Square at Pershing Square. But Union Station doesn’t feel very connected to the L.A. Plaza Park, nor does the subway station at 5th and Hill feel very park adjacent, thanks to the steps across the street leading up to the park.

CO2 emissions down in 2010 in California, continuing a trend (U.S. Energy Information Administration) 

New data just released shows that carbon dioxide emissions in California dropped again in 2010 — both overall and in the transportation sector. CO2 is a heat trapping gas that is primarily responsible for climate change — i.e. global warming. That’s good, but the Golden State still belches more CO2 into the air as a result of transportation than any other state.

Texas, however, is the overall CO2 emitter, thanks to being an amazing energy hog (see bottom chart). I’m guessing a more temperate climate near the California coasts help keep our usage down. In the entire United States, transportation is responsible for 33.3 percent of CO2 emissions behind the leading cause, electric power generation at 39.8 percent.

It’s really a shame that it takes more than two years to collect and process the data from the states. Some type of real-time — or close to that — data might provide a greater incentive for the public to try to reduce its footprint.

As we’ve mentioned before, a great way to reduce your carbon footprint is to take transit instead of driving alone, particularly in vehicles that aren’t very fuel efficient. The top document shows California’s yearly numbers and the bottom one is a state-by-state comparison of the 2010 numbers. Click on the red type to see larger.

Transportation headlines, Friday, Nov. 30

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Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the Library’s Headlines blog, which you can also access via email subscription or RSS feed.

Quality of life and visitor experience: public transportation and pedestrian-friendliness (Travel and Leisure)

Based on a reader survey, the magazine says Los Angeles 29th out of 35 major cities on a vote by residents while visitors scored L.A. as No. 32. Not to sound too much like a spinmeister, but I’m guessing transit in Los Angeles scored better than local sidewalk scene, which is very lacking in many parts of town. It probably didn’t help that there is no rail connections yet to Santa Monica or Disneyland, two parts of the Southland that attract a lot of tourists.

Yaroslavsky criticizes Board’s use of money, Courier’s publisher (Beverly Hills Weekly, pdf, please see page 2)

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky spoke to the Beverly Hills Rotary Club earlier this week and didn’t mince words — in other words, he was refreshingly himself, as usual — about the dispute with Metro over the route of the Purple Line Extension. Yaroslavsky, in particular, took aim at the Beverly Hills Unified School Board’s decision to keep spending money on lawsuits against Metro while it considers asking voters next spring to approve a parcel tax to help erase a budget deficit.

Yaroslavsky’s main point is that even if the lawsuits succeed, a victory would only ensure that Metro has to re-do parts of its environmental studies on the subway project. A court victory does not mean that Metro has to change the subway’s route and it remains unlikely the Metro Board would choose to do that given there is no credible scientific evidence that it’s safe to build a station under Santa Monica Boulevard, nor is there any evidence that it’s unsafe to tunnel under any parts of the Beverly Hills High School campus.

Yaroslavsky also criticized the Courier for attacking Beverly Hills Mayor Willie Brien for attending the groundbreaking event for the beginning of utility relocation of the subway’s first segment, which ends at La Cienega Boulevard, far from Century City. The Courier has used its news and editorial pages — the two are often indistinguishable — to fight the subway route and support/promote local politicians who agree with the newspaper.

Mobile ticketing expands in the Boston area (BostInno)

A new app allows commuter train riders to buy a ticket on their smartphone. Conductors on the train are trained to check tickets on a phone, saving the local transit agency the hassle of printing and dealing with paper tickets. The app is nicely designed and easy to use.

Dissent of the week: praise for NYC’s BRT (Human Transit)

Using New York City’s new bus rapid transit routes as an example, transit planner Jarrett Walker encourages transit agencies and their planners to aim high and seek serious improvements in travel times — not just slight improvements over already embarrassing travel times. Excerpt:

For example, in the original Seattle Transit Plan that I worked on in 2005, we asked not “what interventions can we make to speed up those buses a bit?” but rather “how fast (and frequent) do the buses have to be to deliver the scale of mode shift that is essential to what Seattle wants to be as a city?”  San Francisco’s Transit Effectiveness Project is a similar model.   Get influential policy people thinking about the second question, and the battlefield changes, because now each struggle to remove a parking space is part of a citywide or regionwide sustainability mission.

Boy, I’d love to hear local transit planners be more explicit about this and say something like “If we’re trying to get Jane Smith our of her car, which she can take directly from her driveway to a free parking spot near her desk, we probably need to build something that travels at X speed and runs X frequently and that will come at a great expense: X amount of dollars.

Metro, Kiewit complete major reconstruction work on Sunset bridge, reopen all lanes to Westside motorists

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This is a nice kickoff to Carmageddon week. Here’s the news release from Metro:

Los Angeles, Calif. – Marking the first bridge delivery milestone for the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and its contractor, Kiewit Infrastructure West, have officially completed major reconstruction work on the Sunset Bridge over the I-405 in West Los Angeles, and today reinstated all traffic lanes to motorists.

The new Sunset Bridge is higher, longer and significantly wider at 120 feet — approximately 30 feet wider than before.  It features two additional traffic lanes and higher capacity on- and off-ramps to improve area traffic flows and reduce congestion on local streets.  Motorists will now enjoy dedicated turn lanes to access freeway ramps, and motorists traveling east/west through the bridge will be able to do so more quickly.

“The completion of the Sunset Bridge brings us one step closer to a faster, more efficient transportation network on the West Side of Los Angeles,” said L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “The Sunset Bridge is a crucial connection to the 405 Freeway and these improvements will provide much-needed relief to the residents who travel in the area.”

A gateway to UCLA to the east and Brentwood and Santa Monica to the west, the Sunset Bridge typically accommodates between 18,000 and 22,000 motorists on an average weekday.  It is a critical, freeway-accessible segment of Sunset, a major east/west arterial for the Westside.  The reopening is anticipated to bring much-needed relief to local residents and commuters who have endured approximately two years of construction-related traffic impacts.

“The completion of major bridge work at Sunset will provide immediate relief to the many thousands of drivers who use Sunset Boulevard to traverse West Los Angeles every day,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, L.A. County Supervisor and Metro Board Member. “While this construction process has not been easy on anyone, the benefits are certainly worth it for anyone trying to negotiate the Sunset/405 interchange.  I’m confident these capacity improvements will better prepare the Westside for the traffic demands of tomorrow.”

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What are you doing during Carmageddon II?

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Carmageddon 2011. Photo by Paul Lovine via Flickr

Tell Zev what you’re doing for Carmageddon II during his live internet chat tomorrow at noon … right here at metro.net. Or send in your great ideas and questions in advance to livechat@metro.net

L.A. County Supervisor and Metro Board Member Zev Yaroslavsky will be here to talk to you about the 405 Sepulveda Pass closure next weekend, Sept. 29-30, and about plans for the future of the Sepulveda Pass corridor. 

Ask him about the chronic Sunset Bridge traffic backups. Ask him about the Wilshire ramps project. Ask him what he’s doing during Carmageddon. Ask him live during the internet chat from noon to 1 p.m. tomorrow. Or send in a question NOW to livechat@metro.net.

Reminder: Live chat with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky about Carmageddon II this Friday

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In anticipation of the planned 53-hour closure of the I-405 freeway between the I-10 and U.S. 101 for demolition work on the Mulholland Bridge, Metro will hold an interactive Live Chat on Friday, September 21, 2012.

Please join our special guest LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to discuss this event. Submit questions or comments in advance before the discussion. Send question/comments to livechat@metro.net

Notes & Tips: Use “Live Chat” in the Subject line of your email. Questions submitted in advance will be answered during the chat period. Questions under 300 characters will receive priority consideration. More info here: http://www.metro.net/news/livechat/

And here's a message from Zev:

I’ve referred to this second 405 closure as “Carmageddon on steroids.”

Metro’s contractor will once again be battling time to complete the final demolition of the iconic Mulholland Bridge on Sept. 29-30, only this time there will be 30 percent more work to do in the same 53-hour period. That’s because this year, two sets of columns, as well as the bridge’s span over the I-405, must be torn down.

Carmageddon II, as it is widely known, will face the exact same challenges that created heartburn for transportation, law enforcement and other emergency responders last year. Nothing has changed.

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