Department of Countdowns: It’s about 154 hours until Election Day, but it’s feeling more like 127 hours if you know what I mean.
Time flies when you’re having fun!
Things to read whilst transiting: what was happening in the world the last time the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians won the World Series, according to National Geographic. I picked Tribe in five; tonight they’ll make almost right.
Sportsing: If I’m reading this right, the Rams are 1.5 games out of the #3 or #4 seed prior to their game to the Carolina Panthers, last seen bumbling their way through the Super Bowl. Here’s how to Go Metro to see the Rams this season. Metrolink has special service, too.
What happened to the good costumes? Not one kid who showed up at my front door was dressed as either of the presidential candidates. No Deadpools, no Captain Americas, no Supermans, no Wonder Womans but five Batmans.
Art of Transit — someone must have appreciated my appreciation of “American Werewolf in London” and dressed appropriately last night.
Dept. of My Brilliant Tweets:
Some train stations have better food than others. In today's How We Roll. https://t.co/uWdR7ELIkg pic.twitter.com/bNEtGp9LYn
— LA Metro (@metrolosangeles) November 1, 2016
See what I did there? I rule!
L.A.’s traffic battle plan; but also Uber, bicycles, cars and a lot more dense development (LAT)
A good look at ongoing attempts in L.A. County to diversify how we get around. The vast majority of us do it by car. The new rail lines have earned new riders but, as LAT transportation reporter Laura Nelson points out, the overall percentages of who takes transit, drives and commutes by other means hasn’t fundamentally changed.
What would it take to change? Perhaps some type of hybrid approach that involves more of everything, the idea being to offer more options, cars included, and probably more development smartly placed near transit corridors. That, of course, has also been the bugaboo out here with opponents saying more development will only bring more traffic and we can’t build until we have more of a transit network.
Read the story. Laura does a nice job of tying to together many threads and I thought the kicker brought it all home with a point I agree with: we can change without changing the things many of us like about the place.
Measure M puts L.A. at the forefront of transit funding (KCRW Press Play)
Traffic, transit and ridership are discussed in this seven-minute segment on Madeleine Brand’s show featuring the Rand Corporation’s Martin Wachs and the aforementioned Laura Nelson of the LAT.
As would be expected, Metro’s Measure M ballot measure figures prominently in this piece and the LAT article above. Measure M would raise the countywide sales tax by a half cent and would extend the Measure R half-cent sales tax beyond its 2039 expiration date to fund a number of transit, road, pedestrian and bicycle projects. To learn more about Measure M, click here. To see a timeline of projects and programs, click here and scroll down.
Related: ‘We must invest in transportation,’ a guest commentary by Pomona City Manager Linda C. Lowry, who is a Measure M proponent. She writes in response to the L.A. Newspaper Group’s editorial advocating against Measure M.
Potential Lucas museum files plans for Exposition Park (Urbanize LA)
Who knows if it will happen but the Lucas folks are at least going through the entitlement process. The view in the rendering is looking east from the Vermont Avenue side of Exposition Park — the Expo Line is just on the left side of the Natural History Museum on the left side of frame.
I hope there’s an exhibit on all that went wrong with episodes 1 through 3, Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull.
Categories: Transportation Headlines
Care for some Billy Goat Birria, Steve?
CUBS WIN!
Congratulations, Chicago, and condolences with highest respect to Cleveland who played superbly to the last out.
Be extremely careful what you wish for with denser development. As I’ve pointed out before, there are some apartment dense areas that are in dire need of innovative transit solutions. Widening most streets isn’t possible!!
One thing BART beats us on is electronic bike lockers. https://www.bikelink.org/map They are three to nine cents per hour of use, which seems like a really good deal. BART also has bike racks inside the station fare gates, which deter some theft.
One thing Metro has control over, in so far as first and last mile, is bicycle parking at rail stations. Within a week after the Expo Line Phase II opened there was a waiting list for a bicycle locker at the eight Expo Line stations that have bicycle lockers. That waiting list at each station is anywhere from 24 to 84 people. The North Hollywood subway has a waiting list of 65 people who want a bike locker and at the Universal City subway station the waiting list is 12 people.
Take a look at the waiting lists for bicycle lockers at train stations and the Orange Line. There is even waiting lists for bicycle lockers at stations that don’t even have them.
http://blrs.metro.net/mobile/blr_public.aspx
The amount of bicycles that can fit on a train is very limited. To get a large amount of bicycling to train stations its all about the parking. Metro has not been keeping up the demand for secure bicycle parking at train stations. There are going to be Bike Hubs opening up at the North Hollywood subway station and at the Expo Line Culver City station, but the waiting lists for bike lockers is at least as big as the amount of spaces that will be available at those two Bike Hubs. In other words, those two Bike Hubs will likely be filled to capacity within a very short amount of time after opening. Metro is moving far too slow in creating more secure bicycle parking.
So, so true Dennis. At least I have some good news to report: I noticed that they delivered ~10 new bike lockers to the Expo La Cienega station this week.
I wonder if there’s any way to implement some way to share bike lockers. I finally got a bike locker at the Culver City station (after a 12 month wait) but I’m not able to use it more than a couple times a week. It makes me feel guilty that my locker is empty so much of the time when someone else could be using it. (Though not guilty enough to risk theft or damage if I switched to using the bike rack.)
Hmmm, how about a system like they use for bike share. You pay for an account, and use your tap card or PIN to open a vacant locker. Maybe even set up a cell phone app to locate and reserve vacant lockers? We’ll call them “Smart Lockers”.
Damn, that sounds like a good idea! If anybody patents the idea, please send me a share of the profits.
I counted 755 people on the waiting lists to get a bicycle locker at a train or brt station. That includes some locations that don’t even have bike lockers.