710 project, cars vs streets: HWR, March 2

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Art of Transit Literally: 

 

Art of Transport 2 / Dept. of Nor’easter: The plane below was headed to Dulles International in the Washington D.C. metro area.

Metro backs away from controversial plan to widen the 710 Freeway, opting for more modest changes (LAT)

710 freeway proposal decision delayed by MTA Board (LA Biz Journal)

Major step forward for $6-billion 710 Freeway widening: Metro Board backs plan (Daily Breeze) 

Metro Board approves 710 Freeway widening as preferred alternative, pushes for only early action improvements now (Streetsblog LA)

Interesting to see the different ways media and blogs covered yesterday’s Metro Board action on the 710 Corridor Project. All the headlines above, btw, are accurate — the Board approved the ‘locally preferred alternative’ that includes widening but would have to make a decision down the road on whether to pursue that.

Of course, at this point it’s a little bit of a hypothetical exercise given that alternative 5C is estimated to cost $6 billion versus the $1.2 billion that will be available. That’s a considerable funding gap although $1.2 billion is certainly a significant amount of money. And selecting an LPA and  finishing up the environmental studies for the project certainly could help secure more dollars for whichever items the Board decides to pursue.

What did you think about the Board action yesterday, Source readers? Given all the concerns on the table from different parties, I thought it was a reasonable path forward.

I also thought that Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia hit the nail on the head by pointing to the fact that as ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are both striving to be zero emission ports by 2035 — and have been putting stricter requirements on trucks that access both ports. Port of L.A. clean truck plan and Port of Long Beach clean truck plan. Interesting but wonky stuff that, if successful, will continue cleaning up truck emissions on the 710.

Red Line cell service north of Wilshire (Reddit)

Good news as redditers have found service worming its way north. Here’s an update from December with work continuing to get service all the way to NoHo.

In Germany’s car capital the unthinkable: the right to ban cars (NYT)

Excerpt:

On Tuesday, a German court ruled that Stuttgart, one of the country’s most polluted cities, can ban diesel cars from driving in downtown areas to improve air quality. The ruling could ultimately lead to bans in a host of cities in Germany, a country with millions of diesel cars on the streets. Unlike in the United States, where diesel cars are the exception, in Germany roughly one in three passenger vehicles runs on diesel.

It’s a court ruling and who knows if any cars will be banned from any downtowns. But it’s still interesting given the fact that Germany — like America — has its own kind of love affair with the car.

On a similar note…

https://twitter.com/CurbedLA/status/969706455581343744

And some other tweets of interest…

 

Categories: Transportation Headlines

1 reply ›

  1. I’m glad that the Metro board hesitated on widening the 710 Freeway. Until the Alameda Corridor achieves full usage, this project shouldn’t even be considered.