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 blog.
TTI study says L.A. is top offender on fuel wasting list. So what else is new? (Wall Street Journal)
The Texas Transportation Institute reports (again) that Los Angeles is mired in traffic. No surprise there. What is somewhat interesting is that the report specifies we are responsible for 72 percent of all of the wasted gasoline in the U.S. I don’t know about you but to me that seems like a lot, considering our able competitors in New York and Chicago. Also something of a surprise is that the greatest L.A. waste offender is not our beloved 405 Carmageddon Corridor but a 27-mile section of the southbound 101. The good news, I supposed, is that we don’t qualify for the TTI “Reliably Unreliable” list. We rarely need to guess how long our daily commutes will be because traffic is reliably bad.
L.A. County Bicycle Coalition urging county to make changes to new bike plan (StreetsBlog LA)
It’s not that they don’t like the new plan. LACBC is asking the County Planning Commission to make a few changes, including adding more miles of bike lanes and bike boulevards (aka bicycle friendly streets) before the plan moves to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors for approval. There’s a meeting of the County Planning Commission tomorrow, Nov. 16, at which the plan will be discussed. LACBC is urging cyclists to ask the Commission to send the plan back to staff for revision. See the story for details.
FTA Deputy Administrator in Southern California to tout jobs and innovation in sustainable transportation (Federal Transit Administration)
Sustainability is the key word here as Deputy Federal Transit Administrator Therese McMillan joined officials from the SunLine Transit Agency in Thousand Palms for launch of a new hydrogen-powered fuel-cell bus. I know it’s just one bus but it’s an example of green transportation which is, of course, the wave of the present as transit agencies convert their fleets to more eco friendly vehicles, such as Metro’s low-emission fleet of mostly CNG buses. One upshot is that new technology creation is what many experts say will ultimately pull us out of recession. As a small side benefit, it also produces what we are currently ravenous for: jobs.
Categories: Transportation Headlines, Transportation News
Checking the data, the I-405 corridor through Getty Center has the 2nd highest amount of fuel waste of any corridor in the country–so Carmaggedon Corridor is still exceedingly bad and unlike the 101 Freeway, has no viable transit alternative yet. Even more stunning: when calculating the fuel waste per mile of roadway, that stretch of the I-405 Freeway has *DOUBLE* the fuel waste of the comparable stretch of the 101 Freeway through the Cahuenga Pass.
TTI Study article:
‘”We don’t have enough good public transportation,” said Dan Jacobson of the environmental advocacy group Environment California, explaining why California roads are so congested. He advocates for high-speed rail and local bus service.’
No surprise there, particularly Metro glossing over that bit.
You mention competitors in Chicago and New York. They come to LA and laugh at the fact that our train system has a map because it is so tragically limited.
Do any of you actually take a look at our current public transit offerings and compare them to other large cities in the United States? I do, and it depresses me.
You don’t get to complain about things like fuel waste in LA when you are part of the problem.