How We Roll, April 13: potential ballot measure, bullet train routing, safer bike lanes in DTLA

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Things to read whilst transiting: Sports Illustrated has a 100 best Kobe pictures gallery. And here’s the New Yorker’s fine 2014 profile of Bryant.

Art of Transit: 

Photo by Steve Hymon.

Photo by Steve Hymon.

San Fernando Valley residents okay with one-cent transit tax, MTA poll says (Daily News) 

The headline doesn’t quite capture it. A public meeting was held in Van Nuys on Monday night to discuss the potential ballot measure and draft spending plan that Metro is considering. At the end of the meeting, Metro asks those in attendance how they would vote as a way to gauge public sentiment.

There were about 100 people at the Van Nuys meeting; the Valley has something like 1.8 million residents. It’s certainly interesting that those in attendance at the meeting support the idea of raising the countywide sales tax by a half-cent and continuing the existing Measure R half-cent tax. But the headline perhaps jumps to conclusions a bit early, eh?

As for the poll at the meeting, the three answers that caught my eye in the story: “73 percent would support extending the measure to 50 years, rather than 40, to pay for more projects,” “81 percent would support continued funding after transit projects are built to keep the system in good working order” and “70 percent favored building fewer projects but getting them completed sooner.”

The next public meeting is tomorrow in Carson at 6 p.m.. Time, dates and locations for all remaining public meetings are here. Also, there will be a round of telephone town hall meetings in May that will allow people to learn about the projects over the phone or by listening online. Those time and dates will be posted soon.

The Metro Board of Directors is scheduled in June to consider the draft spending plan and whether to put the ballot measure before voters in November.

Protected bike lanes coming soon to Spring and Main streets in DTLA (Downtown News)

The idea is to protect cyclists from traffic with something other than a thin line of paint — i.e. a physical barrier. The protected lanes probably won’t happen until 2017, so says the DN. But it’s still good news with Metro’s bike share program debuting this summer in DTLA.

State releases new details on high-speed rail routes (LAT)

The routes between Palmdale and Burbank involve tunneling under the San Gabriel Mountains and perhaps running at street-level between Burbank and Union Station. The California High-Speed Rail Authority still needs to secure funding to build the project in Southern California, but in the meantime construction of infrastructure for a short segment near Fresno is ongoing.

The Authority has also started a “#IWillRide” campaign, which may sound familiar to those of us who have been following the Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority on Twitter for the past several years. Nothing wrong with promoting the fact that plenty of people — including yours truly — look forward to riding a bullet train in California but let’s face it: the project still must secure tens of billions of dollars in order to build the train from L.A. to S.F.

 

 

Categories: Transportation Headlines

2 replies ›

  1. Unless you first travel to Japan or China, “yours truly” will never get to ride on a real bullet train. What they are now planning to build in CA could only be called a bullet train in government-speak. That’s like saying the 5 freeway is an Autobahn.

    • The government never called California High-Speed Rail a bullet train. As to speed a ride from Burbank to Palmdale in under 20 minutes is faster than anything but a helicopter. Helicopters would be much more expensive to ride and carry far fewer passengers.