Is Antonio Villaraigosa really the Anti-Rail Mayor?
Here is the sound bite from the Metro fare increase hearing on Thursday, May 24, wonderfully captured by Southern California Transit Advocates Treasurer Hank Fung. The Mayor presented a "Band-Aid" proposal that would do little to put MTA on a stable financial footing. Aren't leaders supposed to get that concept? (Get funding to pay for what you have, or remove what you can't afford).
The major amount of bus service that was slashed from the region goes away in late June. But did A.V. come up with any solution to keep that service? No, not a bit. Those folks losing bus service face a double whammy. No bus service at all at any cost, but unlimited $30 taxi rides. How's that for helping the poor and the disabled? The solution is not that complicated...just slowly and continuously raise prices. Gradual price increases are much more desirable than the continuous service decreases.
At the meeting it was just amazing to see The Mayor ripping Zev a New One. Very inappropriate. A.V. has really lost it in what he does in public. Listen to what he says in this emotional rant. He cites costs showing that the rail subsidy is more. He may claim he supports rail, but his cutting of rail service was a VERY real proposal. Try getting back the late night rail service that was cut 24 months ago. Especially if you are a late night service worker, now forced to use a junker, probably without insurance or smog certification. The Purple, Green and Gold Line lost an hour of service and the most recent bus cuts removed the Green Line replacement bus service.
Another A.V. proposal, was buying buses on credit, so you could pay off the loans out of bus operating revenue in a few years would only serve to damage the system even more. Just imagine, you save riders 50 cents per day from a fare increase, so you can pay another $10 or $20 million in bond interest in a couple of years. Heck, when the bill is due, A.V. will be off on some other job, so he won't have to worry about $20 million more in service cuts!
This no brainer idea was first brought forth by Bernard “buses get in the way of our police cars” Parks at a recent Metro Committee Meeting. Where is the deep thinking here?
Behind the scenes, we know it comes from the same guys that got us into the Consent Decree in the first place, the Riordan team. If this kind of terminal dumbness is the best proposal from Jaime de la Vega and the Mayor obviously accepted this advice, then we are still in for a rough road. We can’t let this continue to happen.
We need to communicate with the Mayor and we need to let him know that the “Metro Enterprise” must run on a financially sound basis, rather then his magical thinking style of problem solving.
Yes, I know all this may be true, but it is done. The Mayor lost (4-9), but he did acknowledge that Sup. Molina at least had the temerity and backbone to come up with a proposal. His arguments that Zev had not helped come up with a solution to this crisis (and had in part led to this crisis, having been a Boardmember for the years leading up to this) is both hurtful politically but not without some modicum of truth.
Zev is the same flip-flopper that politically had prevented Expo from becoming a reality a decade ago, and yet been its greatest supporter at this time; the same can be argued with Sup. Burke, who is also fighting the Green Line extension yet in so doing is also enhancing the likelihood that her cherished Crenshaw Corridor project will be a second-rate busway. Yet she, too, is now a prime Expo supporter.
Zev and Yvonne, in a previous era, approved the Consent Decree that got us into this mess and avoided making a decision that might be politically unpopular, and the Mayor, in a previous era, was one of our champions at preserving late-night service, while he helped move the decree forward.
Stepping back from all this, I could argue that we need to save the politicians from themselves in the painful choices that have no easy answer. The real problem may be that we have a governor and a president that treat mass transit (and transportation in general) as something that gets third-rate funding.
This decision should be put behind us because this infighting will take away from pressuring the voters and Sacramento and Washington to fund transportation with the same zeal we do education and health care.
Posted by numan @ 6/02/2007 09:48:00 PM
22 Comments:
Come the end of June, I will be launching a Web site that will make the MTA cvrawl back into its italian marble cave, exhibit the ongoing uselessness of the BRU, and make the schmucks in Sacramento wake up. And no, I am neither John Walsh nor an out-law.
I am simply tired of the motor morons who comprise the MTA—chief among them Tom Horne—ignoring we who ride their crumbling system.
I have evidence of their corruption in regards their being recently voted "best in the nation," by a person whose testimony is unimpeachable. I have videos, photos and more.
And I am not going to waste any time pursuing "justice" by the wasteful channels offered by teh MTA.
I am going to make the MTA pay by way of having their tax revenues cut off, and by showing the world how wasteful are their ways.
Antonio waited until a couple days before the MTA board meeting to present his "proposal", one which he knew would never be acceptable. BUT he did it in order to try to look good (to grandstand? to pander?) to a constituency that had been waiting to hear something, anything from their great leader.... As for Jaime de la Vega, not much disagreement out there that this is one of the worst staffing choices that the mayor has made.
No the worst choice Antonio made was putting John Mack the anti-LAPD protester on the police commission.
I feel sorry for Bitter Bernie. He's still acting like a woman scorn and filled with jealousy. Excuse me but he not only coverd up Rampart he promoted his best buddy Deputy Chief Moore who was being investigated by the FBI and IRS for money laundering. But Bernie wants us to believe he was a good chief. Yeah right!!!
The Times' Bratton worship
The paper consistently praises the police chief while taking shots at his predecessors.
By Bernard C. Parks, Former Police Chief BERNARD C. PARKS is a member of the City Council.
June 3, 2007
GET OVER IT, MOVE ON, START ACTING LIKE A MAN INSTEAD OF A PUSSY
To the author of the post:
What is your proposed solution?
Walter: In the post: "The solution is not that complicated...just slowly and continuously raise prices. Gradual price increases are much more desirable than the continuous service decreases."
Having the right amount of money to run your enterprise is no different from an Urban Transit Provider, an Airline, a Freight Hauler or Ocean Carriers.
Most of these organizations are operated with customer cash, although the government and your taxes pay for the roads, airport infrastructure and other shared elements.
5:29. No on rides rail, proving that it is unworkable in SoCal. I can't the BRU but they have a point. Expanded bus service makes a hell of a lot more sense than more rail.
1:02p, Take a ride on the surfrider or the suncoaster -- you'll change your opinion fast. A lot of young anglo folks are riding the rails all the way up from SD to NoHo and back.
No one rides rail? That's the statement of a fool who definitely does not and, thus, doesn't see how many people do!
Metrolink sells tickets to as many passengers as they have room for during prime time runs.
Metrorail - subway and light rail - runs substantially full (sometimes SRO) during peak periods, with the possible exception of the Green Line. The Blue Line is the most heavily ridden light rail line in the U.S. And most of the lines (including the much-criticized Gold Line) have surprising numbers of passengers at various times during the day and evening during off-peak. If you ever rode them you'd know this.
Arrogant rhetoric is cheap. The truth apparently requires some effort to learn. Try it some time.
Without rail we will strangle on traffic. Folks who can get away from L.A. (and its horrific traffic bottlenecks) will do so. Just don't count on THIS mayor to do anything about it....
Rail does not always improve traffic. The Gold Line has destroyed traffic in Pasadena and I rarely see those train cars even 50% full.
1:02 p.m. said: No on rides rail, proving that it is unworkable in SoCal. I can't (missing words) the BRU but they have a point. Expanded bus service makes a hell of a lot more sense than more rail.
Reply:
Uh, facts and numbers just don't support your unqualified opinions. Using your logic, I am sure that we could cut the wasteful lanes on the 405 freeway by two in each direction, since hardly anyone uses that freeway for 14 hours per day.
Have you ever used the 210 Freeway between Pasadena and Sylmar? It's empty 20 hours per day. It was a waste of public funds to build more than two lanes in each direction.
During the peak hours, the Red Line, Purple Line and Blue Line have ridership numbers that match lines in other big cities.
The Green and Gold Lines have ridership numbers that exceed those of Light Rail Lines in other Western Cities.
Our bus service is heavily used in some corridors, but do you actually use the bus service? Could you? Many routes run only once per hour and are there bcause of public policy that requires MTA to fill wide coverage gaps.
Buses also exist as rail feeders. But you wouldn't know that, as you haven't been on a bus or used our rail system.
and Antonio Watch said...
Rail does not always improve traffic. The Gold Line has destroyed traffic in Pasadena and I rarely see those train cars even 50% full.
Reply:
The goal of our rail lines is not necessarily to improve traffic.
It is there to provide a viable alternative to the car in certain corridors. Just because you don't see something full doesn't reflect the ridership of a rail trip.
You could see a trip that just alighted a full load at the previous station or a trip that is coming up to a full load.
Why don't you stand at Union Station and see some of the packed loads that leave for points northwards.
If we used your system of measurement, it would be a good idea to tear down Dodger Stadium, Staples Center and the Music Center because their overall occupancy is only aboout 60%, therefore way overbuilt.
SS, so your position is that it's perfectly acceptable to make traffic 5x worse for many, many thousands of drivers in Pasadena for the purpose of providing a much, much smaller group of people a viable alternative to the car?
That's called dogma, not good public policy.
I been observing the Gold Line at every leg of its route since the day it opened. In fact, I was a Gold Line booster until I saw what it did to Pasadena.
Why wasn't the train elevated above street level? Did a rush to build the Gold Line come at the expense of consideration for the needs of drivers?
By the way, my assessment of the Gold Line's ridership isn't based solely on watching trains go by. Let's just say I've got some solid inside information on MTA's practice of falsifying the numbers.
More on this when the stars align properly.
The solution is for the Feds to go after the employers of illegals here in Los Angeles. Do you remember how nice the traffic was when they were marching last March 25th? The freeways and streets were cleared of traffic. This has to say that its the illegals who have infiltrated Los Angeles that is causing all the traffic on our streets. Also, Bus Rider's Union has no one to blame but themselves for the price hike. They sued MTA for not having enough buses (guess for who) and now are complaining because MTA has to pay for those buses thanks to their lawsuit. Be careful what you ask for.
Antonio Watch said...
SS, so your position is that it's perfectly acceptable to make traffic 5x worse for many, many thousands of drivers in Pasadena for the purpose of providing a much, much smaller group of people a viable alternative to the car?
reply:
Truth distortion seems to be your specialty. The only streets that the Gold Line crosses at grade in Pasadena are Glenarm, California and Del Mar. The synchronized signal system is designed so that the north / south trains allow normal east - west traffic flow and these streets and the trains only go when the east - west streets would normally have a red light.
Since there are only normally 8 trains per hour (4 in each direction), except during peak weekday hours, it's hard to see how a train crossing an intersection for about 30 seconds delays traffic such as you claim.
The actual capacity of both Del Mar and California is about 1,800 vehicles per hour in each direction. Factor in the effects of the Arroyo Parkway north / south signal priority.
The truth is that the Gold Line may have been underground at these three intersections at a cost of $40 million, which wasn't in the budget at the time. However, even without the Gold Line, the traffic flow at these three streets is controlled by the Arroyo Parkway.
So, unless the city traffic numbers are diffent from what I've seen, you are making up statistics as you go.
As for Gold Line ridership, my insiders at Metro tell me that the line is undercounted and the actual ridership is higher. Frankly, your so-called solid information just isn't so. But since this is a blog and you just have an opinion, I couldn't find you and force the truth upon you anyways.
MTA Transit plans focus on political expediency rather than sound transportation planning.
Gold Line extension to East Los Angeles is another boondoggle. What the commuting public needs is a fast public transit to major work centers from the suburbs.
Work needs to proceed on extending the Red Line to Santa Monica immediately - to service UCLA, Veterans Administration, and all the major employers in West Los Angeles.
Villaragosa is only interested into get the palms of his political benefactors greased as does Waxman, Zev, Rosendahl, ad nausem. The last thing West Los Angeles wants is progress much less reducing gridlock
If the system was, if fact, designed to allow normal east/west traffic flow, it failed, and with no small consequence.
Waiting 30 seconds for a half-empty train to drag across California Blvd. does not mean that everyone proceeds normally when the gates retract; the resulting backlog forces motorists to sit through subsequent lights, only exacerbating the problem.
To suggest that the trains only proceed when motorists would normally be sitting at red lights is patently false. The signal at Glenarm, for example was dramatically altered to accommodate the trains. All traffic stops (logically, to prevent right turns from Arroyo south onto Glenarm) when a train passes through. This creates a dangerous build-up of cars on the Pasadena Freeway.
By your own admission this might have all been avoided with a (relatively meager) $40 million expenditure, but the project was rammed through anyway, motorists be damned.
It would be great if a credible agency or organization would quantify the impact the Gold Line has had on Pasadena traffic, because despite all of the numbers you throw out, it's clear to drivers on the ground that an already-critical traffic situation in Pasadena has been made far worse by the train.
I won't be so presumptuous as to suggest that your insider information isn't so, but I must seriously question the logic behind underreporting ridership when those numbers have such a direct role in securing additional mass transit funding.
Without revealing too much, would you kindly explain why MTA would do this?
I would like to temper my statement about the Glenarm traffic signal. It's been my perception that it operates this way, but I can't say with 100% certainty that it does, and at all times for that matter.
I will be in Pasadena again tomorrow and will document.
It is interesting in reading all these post, especially the ones regarding the Gold Line. It is obvious that some posters don’t have any engineering background or have done any research to back their claims. Just because information is published on the web by anyone, including me should be taken at face value at first and research should be done to verify the correctness of the post and the motive behind the poster. When a poster starts answering questions or talks about politicians being paid off and corruption as arguments indicates to me that they don’t have any facts to support their arguments.
There are posts dealing with the three at-grade Gold Line crossings in Pasadena. No one in the know will say that the Gold Line did not change traffic patterns between South Pasadena and Old Town Pasadena. Three minor streets were closed; modifications were made to five traffic signals on Raymond and Arroyo Parkway with a new traffic signal at Glenarm and Raymond. Before the Gold Line cars would be queued waiting for a green light over what is now the Gold Line Rights-of-way. The Gold Line Construction Authority worked with the City of Pasadena designing and updating these signals. The City of Pasadena and not MTA is responsible for traffic movement within the city.
Glenarm has always been a problem with traffic. Even before the Gold Line construction started and any street closures or traffic signal modifications, traffic was backed up from west of Fair Oaks to almost to Pasadena Avenue to east of Arroyo Parkway.
Traffic is getting worst all over the Los Angeles region, even where there is no rail construction, how can we say that the Gold Line is the cause of increase traffic? Pulling a figure of “5X” more traffic would be felt for miles each side of the Gold Line ROW – in other words – Pasadena would be at a standstill within its own city limits and all the surrounding cities as well. Even a figure of “2X” would have similar impacts.
Even after posts about ridership and car loading factors, it was still stated that the ridership capacity is 50%. Do we look at capacity based on the number of seats or maximum capacity that includes those standing? Riding the Gold Line and stating an unscientific observation, the maximum ridership capacity is a Union Station. Even leaving Union Station to Pasadena, the trains were full at 10 p.m., that is, all the seats were taken with a few standing riders.
Tu
Tu,
Thank you for your comments.
Let me be clear. My argument is not based on statistics or any claim of expertise.
I am a guy with a car who spends a considerable amount of time in Pasadena. I was very enthusiastic about the Gold Line (I was present for the grand opening), but disillusioned by the traffic mess it has created there.
I am not opposed to rail, but it angers me when projects are rammed through with a "screw you" attitude to motorists. The Gold Line, as implemented in Pasadena, is the quintessential example of this. It should have been constructed underground or above grade.
No one rides rail? Is this some kind of joke? Obviously, you who state that don't ride and don't see who does.
If only we could get parking at the Red Line, we would be able to take the subway.
Who needs public transportation? Younger people love it. I should know; I am one. I am one who rides the rail, the subways and the buses. I have tons of friends in their 20's who will never buy a car.
Now if only we had a mayor or a city council or anyone who would listen to us and not the old people who love their gas guzzling, environmentally devastating cars. Even the trendy Prius owners are just doing it to prolong having to take care of the real problem. They pretend to be "doing their part". Doing their part would be taking public transportation. The city should issue MTA passes, not Crown Victoria's and Cadillac SUV's. Who the heck is Jaime de la Vega and why would he be expected to solve this problem on his own? Assuming he is a mayoral staffer, since someone considers him to be the worst staffing choice that the mayor has made, what would he do in two years that hasn't been done already? Rather than blame him, shouldn't someone be blaming the politicians who put us here in the first place? What a bunch of dumb bells here.
All talk, no action nut jobs.
Who can really solve this problem? I would honestly like to know.
Let me be clear. My argument is not based on statistics or any claim of expertise.
That's the funniest statement I've ever read on this blog!
What is your argument based on, then, AW?
My argument is based on sitting at the intersections, before, and after the train was built. I'm running out of ways to say this.
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