Transportation shutdown in southeast Texas; How We Roll, Aug. 28

by ,

Most of the alerts are for road closures. Source: Google Maps.

https://twitter.com/B911Nature/status/902233568054792192

https://twitter.com/B911Nature/status/902233568054792192

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYWPTdXHfBY/?tagged=houston

Embed from Getty Images

Photos: the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey (The Atlantic)

Best and toughest collection of photos from the hurricane and tropical storm that struck southeastern Texas over the weekend.

To help provide perspective: downtown Los Angeles received 19 inches of rain in the past rainy season (July 1, 2016 through June 30 of this year). Many parts of southeast Texas have already received more than that in the past few days.

Obviously, our thoughts are with everyone impacted by the storm and its aftermath. The flooding damage is going to be immense. We also encourage readers to prepare for disasters that could impact us in Southern California, most notably earthquakes. This website by the city of L.A. has plenty of tips.

Legislators believe they found a way to close gap in Glendora-to-Montclair Gold Line extension (SGV Tribune)

Several state lawmakers have written a letter to the State Senate’s Budget Subcommittee requesting $289 million from the state’s cap-and-trade fund for an extension of the Gold Line to Claremont and Montclair.

Measure M is providing about $1.2 billion for the project. But Metro estimates its portion of the project — to Claremont in L.A. County — would require another $249 million and San Bernardino County needs another $31 million to get the line to Montclair.

State Sen. Anthony Portantino said he anticipates hearing whether the request will be granted by the end of September. Habib Balian, the CEO of the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority (the agency building the project), expressed optimism.

Utility relocations for the project are expected to begin this fall with the project forecast to open in 2027. In L.A. County there will be stations in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona and Claremont.

Keep in mind that funding from San Bernardino County has to be secured for the line to be extended to Montclair. Credit: Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority.

Speaking of the Gold Line…

Gold Line-adjacent development to rise in Arcadia (Urbanize LA)

Thirty eight apartments and about 17,000 square feet of commercial space. Not huge, but something.

Public officials in the late 2000s pushed hard for the Gold Line extension beyond Pasadena, saying it would attract development along the route. The Great Recession didn’t help matters and outside of Monrovia few TODs have risen — although there certainly seems to be ample opportunities, especially in Arcadia.

The great transit ripoff: Joel Kotkin and Wendall Cox (Daily Breeze)

Two long-time critics of transit expansion in L.A. County and other big metro areas still don’t like transit expansion. While they are correct that ridership has declined at Metro not all the past-preset comparisons are apple-to-apple and they don’t really provide much in the way of alternatives, other than saying more people should work at home and self-driving cars may help. Yawn.

I think it would be incredibly dumb to rely only on cars for everyone to get around. I think it’s smart to have alternatives. Sure, we can argue about what shape those alternatives take or how they’re operated, but it strikes me as head-in-the-mud to say having a transit alternative is a bad idea.

On the other hand, Joel and Wendall manage to correctly paraphrase the late German communist playwright Bertolt Brecht, who died in 1956. So there’s that.

Dept. of Sportsing

More room on the Expo Line for those who did attend! As for the other fight, Thunderlips vs Rocky Balboa was far more memorable.

You can follow me on Twitter.

 

 

 

Categories: Transportation Headlines

3 replies ›

  1. I think “Home office” is more a phrase… Kinda how players of teams aren’t actually at their house when they play a “home game”.

    Home office to me is simply “telecommuting”, or using your laptop in a comfort zone; whether its your couch, your bed, apartment, studio, etc…

    But again, the Daily Breeze in my opinion is trash due to the fact that simple misnomers like this can be taken out of context.

  2. Interesting:
    “Yet, since 1990, transit’s work trip market share has dropped from 5.6 percent to 5.1 percent. MTA system ridership stands at least 15 percent below 1985 levels, when there was only bus service, and the population of Los Angeles County was about 20 percent lower. ”

    Probably because

    “Since 1990, home office use increased by eight times that of transit use, with virtually no public expenditure.”

    Daily Breeze is kinda garbage. I am a person that has a public transit bias, but I refuse to believe that adding more choices for commuters is a bad thing. Also, EVERYONE CAN’T AFFORD A CAR.

    The article has a bitter and negative tone. Maybe i’m making a poor connection.

    • “EVERYONE CAN’T AFFORD A HOME.”
      Fixed.

      I’ve never lived in an apartment that would be an acceptable ‘home office’.
      Perhaps the downtown ‘backfill’ yuppies have spare rooms and no roommates in their new condos. Yup, that’s it.