Late for School Hotsheet for Friday
Patti Smith was great, thanks for asking.
This is one of those mornings when the Mayor's dum-dums right here in blog comments are more interesting than the fishwrap of record. (If you don't believe me, just check. Hah-hah, welcome back already). Re westside traffic, somebody really nailed Zev dead-to-rites here in comments yesterday:
Wow! Someone's lived in LA for---gasp!---twenty years! The comment was hilarious, because the basis of humor, as Freud has noted, is pain, and Zev's reinventions over the years have been painful for many urbanists to watch. But when I followed up with a comment about Weiss becoming the new Zev, a Branch Weissian astroturfer noted:
Trust the Daily News to follow up with something meaningful, even if vaguely so. At one of their blogs, the uniquely ugly Sausage Factory, a kind of local answer to Weintraub (and which doesn't blogroll this blog, I note), they note that County officials are talking up toll roads.
Pie-in-the-sky figures, but figures nonetheless---now we're getting somewhere. Between Weiss's $6 million and the faceless officials' $30 billion, we might find some kind of solution. Isn't that nice to know, now that we're two years into the Mayoralty in which traffic was supposed to be a top priority?
This is one of those mornings when the Mayor's dum-dums right here in blog comments are more interesting than the fishwrap of record. (If you don't believe me, just check. Hah-hah, welcome back already). Re westside traffic, somebody really nailed Zev dead-to-rites here in comments yesterday:
Zev was shocked, shocked to learn that there is development and traffic congestion going on in this city, and he offered to lead the people's revolution. Nice way to try to make people forget he was there first with the Westside Pavilion and Bev Center, then made sure there were no local or fed funds for rails or subways, until just this very minute, when he's now the biggest proponent, and insists we get the money right now so that the line can go all the way to Santa Monica. Yeah, what people were trying to tell you 20 years ago, Zev.
Wow! Someone's lived in LA for---gasp!---twenty years! The comment was hilarious, because the basis of humor, as Freud has noted, is pain, and Zev's reinventions over the years have been painful for many urbanists to watch. But when I followed up with a comment about Weiss becoming the new Zev, a Branch Weissian astroturfer noted:
Mailander, respectfully disagree. Weiss has been the biggest proponent of traffic mitigation to go along with the development: DASH bus routes expanded, pushing for metro/ rail to be built alongside the developments, incorporating living/ retail places in a planned community. Forcing the developers to be responsive to the neighbors.Which is all informed, balanced, and fair, and policy wonkish enough to suggest aide-de-camp. If you're interested in pursuing this further, anonymous, take a walk in the woods and email one of us.
The opposition is stuck in 1979, and overlooking the fact that Century City towers that JMB is developing has fallen into total disuse and disepair: the Shubert Theatres and cinemas shuttered and the few little delis bankrupt, like the bank. This is not putting new development into an area. Totally different when Westside Pavilion and Beverly Center were put in without any sense of the future, and opposing the subway/ raillines that would have been built by now.
I've been on several local H A's that have fought development since the 80's, and I see a difference in how companies like Westfield and JMB are treating the community. We can't stop big developments, which do bring in sales tax the city needs. Sales taxes are stagnant here, but growing all around us.
Trust the Daily News to follow up with something meaningful, even if vaguely so. At one of their blogs, the uniquely ugly Sausage Factory, a kind of local answer to Weintraub (and which doesn't blogroll this blog, I note), they note that County officials are talking up toll roads.
With fewer transportation dollars coming from Sacramento and Washington, D.C., transit officials say the very motorists and passengers who will be clogging the system are a reliable source of money for new projects.
The bill?
Officials said some $30 billion for transit and highway projects is needed by 2030 to address the county's congestion problems.
Pie-in-the-sky figures, but figures nonetheless---now we're getting somewhere. Between Weiss's $6 million and the faceless officials' $30 billion, we might find some kind of solution. Isn't that nice to know, now that we're two years into the Mayoralty in which traffic was supposed to be a top priority?
Labels: a guy in la
Posted by Joseph F. Mailander @ 8/17/2007 07:14:00 AM
41 Comments:
The current Mayor's a joke. He recently confirmed it. Even his and Rocky's water bills are excessive.
I guess its all that dirty laundry they needed to wash.
So I'll address my comments to every single presidential candidate:
We need 20 billion dollars for infrastructure.....NOW!!!
everyone's moving here, we've spread out into the entire Los Angeles basin, and now that it's full, we need to go up. There's no other choice, it's America, and if people want to move to Sthn California there's nothing we can do but accomodate them.
But we need street repair, and upgraded sewage and water and electrical services if we're pushing ahead with high density housing (affordable or not).
Where do we 'find' the 20 billion? Cancel one of those NASA probes to Uranus.
30 million Americans live in California. half a dozen or so hang out in space.
The priority surely must now swing to the 30 million.
Finally, there's no way we can put subways or trains or rail everywhere. this is a motor vehicle state. the first big public works here needs to be westside street transport upgrades.
One way boulevardes and bus lanes make way more sense than billions of dollars of rail that honestly very few will use.
8.0 earthquakes in Peru, and mining fatalities in Utah also point out the natural hazards of underground development in this earthquake prone state!
People will drive their cars here from all over the U.S.
We need to deal with the roads.
Matt Dowd
Forget NASA probes, what about the WAR?
Nice rant, there, Matt...
If you think we can't put "...subways or trains or rail everywhere," where do you suggest we put the extra roads to accomodate another 26 million cars in California? One way streets?
Matt Dowd @ 9:06 is right on!!
Jack- convert existing boulevards into one-ways.
Okay, I'm no expert at traffic mitigation, but if the concept is to make entire boulevards one-way, wouldn't it be better to put in light rail instead? Particularly in high density areas?
Trying to accomodate more cars seems to be a continually losing battle in Los Angeles. The "car culture," no matter how much we mourn its demise, is still long gone.
Anyway, educate me...I'm listening.
its not extra roads- its upgrading, maybe some widening, definitely some specific laning, and eventually we need to motivate people somehow to abandon larger SUV and truck vehicles, and develop future automobiles along hybrid lines, albeit even smaller, two person type vehicles. Rome Italy already does it. that's where we are heading. little Fiat Bambina's.
raise the price of gas, incorporate registration and insurance into the fuel price too, that way it really is USER PAYS.
every time I fill up my tank, I'm buying registration, and insurance as well. that way, if i leave my vehicle at home, and walk, bus or ride a bike, I'm not penalised every day for all those other expenses when the car in fact sits in the garage at home.
a little old lady who uses her little old car to get food and medication once a week say, is getting hit with the same insurance and fees as someone who is on the road all day long.
if I have 3 cars, say, my 2 person economy vehicle, my family wagon, and a truck to tow my caravan, why should I have to pay every day for all 3, if I can only realistically drive one at a time. if I have a custom classic 57 chev that I only drive once a month in summer, on a sunday, for about 2 hours, is it fair that I pay retgistration and insurance for every other day?
of course the insurance lobby wants you to. however, its a major overhaul of the system to do anythin at this point, but when the seams are breaking on the jeans, do you really want your goods to bust out all over the place? NO. you look at a new pair of jeans, or maybe stretch jeans.
World Financial Services is a SCAM!
News audiences are ditching television and newspapers and using the Internet as their main source of information, in a trend that could eventually see the demise of local papers, according to a new study Wednesday.
"As online use has increased, the audiences of older media have declined," Harvard University professor Thomas Patterson said in a report on the year-long study issued by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
"In the past year alone... newspaper circulation has fallen by three percent, broadcast news has lost a million viewers," said the study, entitled "Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look and News on the Internet."
SNEAKY LITTLE METRO SEXUAL FABIAN. LAWEEKLY.COM
Sacramento's Poison Pill
A sneaky move by Fabian Núñez aims to stop statewide charter schools
“IT’S THE FIRST INTELLIGENT surgical strike I’ve seen against charter schools,” Michael Piscal says over the phone from his Crenshaw office at View Park Preparatory. “All of the anti-charter people thought we were a fad and we would just fade away. Now they realize we aren’t going anywhere, and they’re trying to do something about it.”
Piscal, chief executive officer for the Los Angeles–based Inner City Education Foundation, is talking about a “trailer bill” called Senate Bill 92. It would make opening and operating charter schools throughout California extremely difficult, if not impossible. The bill, according to Piscal, is the harshest and most serious effort to stop the expansion of charter schools in California.
Senate Bill 92 was born in the middle of the night on July 20 in Sacramento. Attached to the massive $145 billion California state budget, the bill was quietly passed in the California State Assembly after an all-night session and without a public hearing.
The proposed law would prohibit the California State Board of Education from allowing statewide charter schools to operate longer than three years — a limitation that would discourage schools from opening. After the three years are up, the fate of each school would be turned over to local elected school boards — many of whom oppose charter schools as an incursion against the public schools.
Assembly Democrats are trying to force Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the law, by tying the bill to an $18 million pot of money earmarked for rental assistance for charter schools in low-income areas.
“It was an attempt to make the governor look really bad through midnight legislation,” says Gary Larson, spokesman for the California Charter Schools Association, an industry lobbying group. “The Democrats chose to either beat up on poor kids now, or hurt them later by preventing access to charter schools later.”
Larson, a seasoned Sacramento watcher who keeps a close eye on the Legislature, was completely surprised by the passage of Senate Bill 92 — and the public was left even more in the dark. “It was done under the cover of night,” he says. “We were shocked.”
Green Dot, Inner City Education Foundation and the Knowledge Is Power Program — high-performing charter schools — want to expand statewide. Under the proposed law’s three-year limit, plans to go statewide would be nearly impossible. Moreover, the law would strip power from the state Board of Education — which has been fairly supportive of charter schools — and unfriendly school boards could quickly pull the plug on a charter school no matter how well it is performing.
Oddly, the man behind Senate Bill 92 is self-described charter-school supporter and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who represents a Los Angeles district where 52 charter schools operate, and where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa touts charter schools.
The Mayor’s Office declined to comment on Núñez’s bill. Written by Rick Simpson, Núñez’s deputy chief of staff, Senate Bill 92 was probably instigated behind closed doors by the California Teachers Association, according to Larson, a powerful union with an anti-charter-schools history. Simpson acknowledged to the L.A. Weekly that he spoke to the Education Coalition, which includes CTA, before writing the bill.
Our response to traffic congestion and high gas prices is to stay home.
There was a time when we used to venture downtown to visit our old haunts - Phillippe, Cole's, Taix, Cliftons - but no more. We used to go to concerts sometimes, or the Autrey, or the MOCA, or just wander around and look at the old landmarks. The traffic is such a nightmare on the 110 that it just isn't worth it any more.
We adapted by moving closer to my wife's work and I schedule almost all of my work travel between 10 AM and 2 PM.
We also found a circle of little local restaurants within a couple of miles of home. Now we have evolved away from that even that to just staying home a lot more.
I think that this is the future. There is no $20 billion (unless Arnold can convince us go go even deeper in debt), let alone the $1 trillion thrown about for national infrastructure issues. Mr. Bush has squandered it in Iraq.
People will just stay closer to home, or finally be forced to move closer to where they have to be. Businesses will have to adapt to this somehow. It is not unlike the contraction of print and broadcast media mention elsewhere here today - a new reality.
As to Zev and his miraculous discovery of traffic problems, it's just like the Supes expressing their dismay that "they" have been doing such a bad job at MLK. Who is "they"? Look in the mirror Supes.
The solution is to push CARPOOLING!!! It's an inelegant, unsexy solution. But it is scalable and cost effective. Incentives can be configured in many ways. Is it necessary to describe potential incentives? If you've never partook, then try it (or research it).
These "one-way street", or mass transit solutions are either too costly or are local only solutions.
Just "get real" and do the obvious. Get people to commute together that are headed similarly. CARPOOL
The Branch Weissian is more likely a JMB executive...and, whoever he is, isn't really telling the truth. The JMB project, like the CBRE project across the street, will build out to the road and then ask DOT for permission to block off one lane permanently for Valet Parking. The traffic in and around Constellation Boulevard will be horrendous. And the DOT will give its blessing because Weiss' office will tell them to give it.
The Branch Weissian is more likely a JMB executive...and, whoever he is, isn't really telling the truth. The JMB project, like the CBRE project across the street, will build out to the road and then ask DOT for permission to block off one lane permanently for Valet Parking. The traffic in and around Constellation Boulevard will be horrendous. And the DOT will give its blessing because Weiss' office will tell them to give it.
Dowd, regarding both of your comments on this thread:
First, you stated on your 9:06 comment, "everyone's moving here, we've spread out into the entire Los Angeles basin, and now that it's full, we need to go up."
This is in direct conflict with your statement later in the same comment, "...the natural hazards of underground development in this earthquake prone state!"
Take a look at our earthquake history! If one builds upward, these high-rise buildings will crash into each other during an earthquake! I've lived through a few earthquakes here, as I am a native Angeleno, and no youngster from elsewhere such as yourself. When one of our earthquakes strike, buildings tend to sway, and if they're high enough, they will sway right into each other.
Your comment "Finally, there's no way we can put subways or trains or rail everywhere. this is a motor vehicle state. the first big public works here needs to be westside street transport upgrades. One way boulevardes (sic) and bus lanes make way more sense than billions of dollars of rail that honestly very few will use."
You have no idea of how you're attempting to revise L.A. history with that crack. Rail transit was here a long time before the advent of the automobile, and the last of the electrified trolleys was abandoned in the early 1960's. As a friend of mine readily comments, "In the name of progress, it now takes about 3 hours to travel to Long Beach from downtown Los Angeles. It used to take 30 minutes by the express trolley system named Pacific Electric."
Part of your 11:38 comment makes absolutely no sense - to wit: "...eventually we need to motivate people somehow to abandon larger SUV and truck vehicles, and develop future automobiles along hybrid lines, albeit even smaller, two person type vehicles."
If one wishes to keep their home-improvement goods out of the rain, or away from possible theft, it's a good idea to have a SUV. If one needs protection from reckless drivers, it's better to drive a SUV than to drive a two-seat-motorized-fiberglass-and-beer-can combination automobile. Besides, the last time I checked, choice of what one drives is still legal in the United States.
While I'm on the subject of SUV's, when was the last time you were able to keep your two-seater on the road while a gusty Santa Ana wind was blowing? I'll wager that certain SUV's can stay on the road, while your two-seater was blown clear into the next county.
BTW, to implement a CARPOOLING solution, set aside half of all freeway lanes as CARPOOLING/EMERGENCY VEHICLE LANES. Install high-res cameras to "snapshot" violators. Set large monetary fines for violators.
All else will work out on it's own, obviously.
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES. These idiot council people can't even get the gang programs squared away and audited here in LA but they vote for a statewide gang office. What a bunch of f---ing morons!!!! Add to that the fact that at least 4 gang bangers who ran the programs all abused our tax dollars and have been arrested on felonies yet these idiot council people have kept silent. This is total corruption again. Fix the damn problem in the city first morons.
Council Supports Statewide Gang Prevention Office...A bill to create an Office of Statewide Violence and Gang Prevention won unanimous support Friday from the Los Angeles City Council...AB 1381 was introduced by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles.
The office would collect data and research on gang violence, develop gang prevention strategies, and connect local agencies with state and federal grants. (MORE DUMB ASS STUDIES FOR NOTHING)
"This office will go across jurisdictional boundaries to work on a comprehensive effort to reduce gang violence and offer our youth better opportunities," City Councilman Jose Huizar said.
"We look forward to our continuing work to address this issue with gangs and youth, and hopefully we'll come to something sooner rather than later because we continue to lose kids in our streets each and every day," he said.
The city of Los Angeles has set aside $169 million for anti-gang and youth development programs. Earlier this year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appointed the Rev. Jeff Carr as the city's first gang czar.
A recent study by the Advancement Project found that the city's gang prevention and intervention programs lack accountability and should come under the direction of a single director to be effective.
NO DUDES! We don't need streets and costly shit like that. The answer is SKATEBOARDS don't you get it? You can get one for like a hundred bucks. not to mention it's totally a green mode of transpotation. Me and my friends all ride them. We don't have jobs and shit like that but if we can get around on skateboards SO CAN YOU so get out of your cars, cuz you're just making fat white men rich at Exxon. Peace out.
I am so FUCKING SICK of people whining about the STUPID RAIL SYSTEM that carted around a couple hundred stinky cowboys in the 1800s before the advent of running water. It's a pointless argument. It has NOTHING to do with 2007!
Dowd is a dumshit like hs boyfriend ZD.
Trying to tell him anything has the same result. Expect three pages of vitriol, followed by a page of gibberish.
Don't you guys ever learn not to get in pissing matches with skunks??
1:30 PM has a good point.
Imagine the carpooling incentives you could give out for the price of the multi-billion dollar "Subway to the Sea", never mind the intrest on the bonds.
Plus, you could do it right now, as opposed to 10-20 years down the line.
I'll bet that you could give every carpooler $25/trip and still be money way ahead.
Cohorts Say Vick'sA Dog Killer
Athlete'sremaining codefendants cut plea deals in dogfighting case
AUGUST 17--Ratcheting up da pressure on Michael Vick, two o' da NFL star'scohorts taday pleaded guilty ta federal dogfighting charges, leaving da athlete alone--at least fo' da tyme being--to face trial. During an appearance dis here morning in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia, Quanis Phillips an' Purnell Peace each copped ta uh felony conspiracy rap an' signed plea agreements pledging ta cooperate wiff federal investigators. In nearly identical fact summaries, both Phillips an' Peace stated dat da dogfighting ring's"operation an' gambling monies wuz almost exclusively funded by Vick." Additionally, both men fingered Vick in da execution earlier dis here year o' about eight dogs dat performed poorly in tess fighting sessions. Phillips an' Peace each told investigators dat Vick participated in killing da dogs, which wuz hung or drowned, an' dat da animals "died as uh result o' da collective efforts" o' da trio. A copy o' da Phillips fact summary can be found below. In his fact statement, Peace recalled traveling wiff Vick an' other Bad Newz Kennels figures ta uh 2003 dog fight in North Carolina. Peace told investigators dat, prior ta da match, Vick an' his Bad Newz cronies, "took uh picture together wiff 'Jane,'" they beotch pit bull. Presumably, dis here photo wuz turned over ta probers by Peace an' will end up as uh da system exhibit at uh Vick trial. Last month, Tony Taylor wuz da first Vick crony ta cut uh deal an' agree ta testify against da Atlanta Falcons quarterback. With taday'sguilty pleas, all three o' Vick'scodefendants gots admitted involvement in da operation o' Bad Newz Kennels, which da trio has described as uh brutal pit bull fighting operation dat wuz headquartered at uh Smithfield, Virginia property owned by Vick.
all ye damn hood ratz..
Combine ideas here. If we convert certain major streets to one way traffic giving us 8 lanes how about we through light rail down on them also? Probably take up a couple of lanes but you would stll get an extra two lanes for faster traffic movement and public transit to boot. Maybe a bike lane too, if you really want to go green.
You truth-denying carpool fantasizers combined with you irrational rail freaks are exactly why we're all stuck in traffic now.
So far there seem to be suggestions for everything from converting to one-way streets, along with the bus lane on Wilshire that's already a Go this week, incentives to carpool (like @25/car which seems a little unrealistic), combining carpool incentives with one-ways/a bus lane and a light rail line going down the middle of the boulevards; throw in incentives to use "coffee-can" cars, bikes and even skateboards.
(And concerns that mini-cars the size of suitcases and bikes may work in European countries with old and poor infrastructure, where cars can park on sidewalks, but not on German-style freeways and big cars as we have here.)
The guy who said traffic is forcing him and the wife to dine and seek entertainment closer to home is on the mark, too: urban villages where people do just that, like in Manhattan, New York, actually give them more of an identification with their neighborhoods and the people in it. But they don't want to be "stuck" there all the time.
Meanwhile, the light rail from downtown to La Cienega has fianlly broken ground, and the money to get it to Santa Monica has been stolen or "reappropriated" (depending on your party) by Sacramento. This is the ultimate goal of the Mayor and most urbanists like the Transit Coalition, but while we're trying to get the money for this, we've got a variety of above-ground fixes in the works and on the table.
Hey why are the council meetings cancelled for next week? Don't tell me they have another week
why does El Sereno always get so much money like Eagle Rock? Thsi street concert is for profit. Its not a non profit and they can pay their own fees.
06-1899
CD 14 t. MOTION (HUIZAR - HAHN) relative to declaring the El Sereno Labor Day Weekend Street
Concert and Fair on September 1-3, 2007 a Special Event (fees and costs absorbed by the City
= $16,549 off.
When officials have mistresses, we are more likely to have traffic congestion. I know that is a stretch (unless they are rushing here and there to visit their mistresses). But the following is not a stretch.
**********************************
Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Behind every corrupt official, there is …. what? There must be at least one mistress. China has lots of corruption. We should take note of what they learned. LAT editors, please read your own November 22, 2005 Column One article, “Second Wives” Are Back, by Don Lee, with the subtitle that says: “Mistresses are again a status symbol in China. As scandal spreads, the government worries that they are a motive for public corruption.” The article further quotes “If a government official has a mistress, there must be some corruption.” says Sun Youjun, a private investigator in Shanghai. China has started taking anti-corruption measures by first kicking out those officials who have mistresses. You can read a lot of other more recent mistress and corruption stories over international wire services. Please don’t pretend that we have no clue of what is going on between MISTRESS AND CORRUPTION.
**********************************
Now, when officials or leaders have mistress and becoming corrupt (or the other way around), they wouldn’t have much time or energy left to deal with some real city problems such as traffic. Would they? It is not that much of a stretch after all.
I dunno, 5:14, Yul Brynner seemed to get a lot done as the King in "The King and I" and he had time for his many wives and concubines -- AND in his spare time he waltzed with Deborah Kerr! And look at Siam today!
First, thanks 4:49, for mentioning The Transit Coalition. Even though their newsletter has been relegated to the outlands of MS2, it is worth a thorough read on a weekly basis.
As for the COB's (Cranky Old Bastards) at 2:20 and 4:10, seriously dudes, why blog at all when you can just roll up socks and throw them at the TV when the 6 o'clock news is on? Since you probably don't take mass transit, it's bound to be the most exercise you'll get all day.
Just a thought: The "spirit" of carpooling was lost many years ago when the gov't failed to recognize that a carpool is actually a FULL CAR, not just an open lane for two people sitting in the front seat of a big-assed Buick. Big Business never really supported carpooling, never really bought into it, and that's why rush hour continues to be rush hour after all these years.
"jack off said:
I dunno, 5:14, Yul Brynner seemed to get a lot done as the King in "The King and I" and he had time for his many wives and concubines -- AND in his spare time he waltzed with Deborah Kerr! And look at Siam today!"
They didn’t have minimum wage at that time. They had slavery? A lot of poor folks had to work hard and get nothing for themselves, in order to get things done for a few privileged. Please don't tell us that we are heading back in that direction.
5:14 PM, you are funny!
I went over to Yahoo World News, typed in “mistress and corruption”, and indeed found quite a few very recent stories, one of which is the following August 9, 2007 article - Sad and not funny:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/10/worldupdates/2007-08-09T172900Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-289039-1&sec=Worldupdates
….. Duan Yihe, once Communist Party secretary and head of the local assembly in the eastern city of Jinan, asked his niece's husband, Chen Zhi, to help with the plot, the official Xinhua news agency said. Chen was also sentenced to death.
Duan had had "irregular sexual relations" with victim Liu Haiping, the report said -- official speak for an affair.
"During that time, Liu asked Duan to buy a house for her and got him to arrange jobs for several relatives, but still kept demanding money," Xinhua said. "Duan gradually tired of her, yet found it hard to extricate himself."
… Duan was also found guilty of bribery and being unable to account for the large amount of assets he had accrued, the report said. …..
From another report of the same story:
…. Duan had been having an affair with Liu Haiping, a divorced woman 30 years his junior, since 2000 but had grown tired of her incessant demands for money and for him to leave his wife, the paper said.
She had also threatened to report him to local authorities after he said he wanted to end the relationship.…
I am not going to defend MAV, but if the conversation is going this way, perhaps we should back up the "mistress and corruption" hypothesis by turning it to American leaders such as Garfield, Harding, Johnson, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, Clinton...
Isn't Sam Yorty the guy who ripped out the light rail lines L A used to have, to favor the oil companies in their promotion of cars? Is he really the face "Mayor Sam" wants to be represented by? Can't imagine a mayor with less vision for the future as everyone wants to go the other way now (most everyone), trying to figure out how to pay for rail lines like we used to have, and most every little s-t hole country's major cities have. So we can get people out of cars.
World Financial Sercives is a SCAM!
Someone once described zuma dogg and Jim Alger going at each other like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and Mrs. Butterworth slugging it out. But in that case, Mrs. Butterworth has got the sauce poured all over the dough.
everyone's moving here, we've spread out into the entire Los Angeles basin, and now that it's full, we need to go up. There's no other choice, it's America, and if people want to move to Sthn California there's nothing we can do but accomodate them.
***************
Yes there is something we an do, cities pass buliding restrictions all the time, just for this very reason. Drive around southern california not every city has large multi-story apartments with the streets full of parked cars.
While I'm on the subject of SUV's, when was the last time you were able to keep your two-seater on the road while a gusty Santa Ana wind was blowing? I'll wager that certain SUV's can stay on the road, while your two-seater was blown clear into the next county.
******************
When was the last time you saw an over-turned compact car in the Cajon Pass or on the freeways around Fontana and Ontario, a large vehicle with a large cross sectional area, such a a big 18-wheeler or SUV is what will be blown over by the wind. My small Nissan-Z sports car will not be blown over in the Santa-Ana winds.
Speaking of overturned tiny tin-cam cars and China, in China they have those tiny cars for everything including the fire department; on the other hand, buses and big and top- heavy with luggage, and blow over very easily in the desert winds which are fierce all across middle China.
Driving there, one sees lots of buses blown over, and a fair number of fires. Then, some time later, itty- bitty teeny-tiny 4cc fire "trucks" that look better-suited to a child's train track come racing along, blowing their toy horns, and squirt a few gallons at the flame.
After a dozen or so of these tiny fire cars, just maybe there is enough collective water to keep the bus from erupting into total flame, but it has already been burned down.
Should a bus or other vehicle ever collide with one of those official fire cars, that would be one more little lady-bug lost to the road.
SUV's and buses don't turn over in the wind unless they're top-heavy, and tiny cars serve no use outside of certain ancient cities which have no real roads.
But I propose this: matt and his friends can have their tiny cars if they keep them confined to the back alleys of Venice Beach and certain other cities permitting them.
So on one end of the spectrum we have a subway that would cost billions, somewhere in between we could spend billions widening streets and destroying neighborhoods, and whatever anybody proposes to do that doesn't cost an arm and a leg is too little for the likes of Mailander. Yet he's part of the "don't raise my taxes" whining crowd.
Idle talk is the cheapest traffic solution of all, but even more than the expensive fixes, it DOESN'T WORK! So what would Mailander and all the other members of this broken blogosphere propose if you really think that people who know something about the issue don't really know what they're doing?
We're all waiting...
Pressure Codgill, R-Modesto, who's head of that Repub group fighting to keep L A (and S F) from getting our fair shase of traffic mitigation funds. Jack Hoff's right-on post in newest Mailander thread shows the LAT writeup, I can't repost it now...
We've got the worst traffic in the country but "our" state senators would rather give the money to any podunk town that is Republican.
Gotta shame them. Why isn't Nunez and his crew getting all kinds of P R on this, bringing heat on them?
And locally, Tom McClintock from Thousand Oaks, who is happily screwing us, too. Even though a lot of people from his cheapie bedroom community come here to clog our roads and freeways, create pollution, then go home and pretend they're not a part of it.
Too bad Republican CM from W VAlley Greig Smith doesn't lobby his buddy McClintock, but I don't think Smith knows he represents L A, either.
This anti-LA isolationism of the suburbs who act like they're cheap housing makes them smart, and they can leave their problems with us, has to stop. Call them on it.
Last week at the Van Nuys City Hall the Director of Public Works, Street Services, and the "City Forester" gave a powerpoint presentation saying overall the condition of the streets including re-paving, pothole, general maintence and safety repairs- (He said the city pays over $ 6 million dollars in injury claims involving bad sidewalk condition.)-He said it was accepted that the way we were going now nothing would change. It's simple math, we need thousandsw of miles of street repairs, and only enough budgeted, including Fed.and State money, to do a fraction. He graded his our city's streets D+, with some on the brink of failing. He also was trying to sell a BOND ISSUE to voters that would provide more money for his department. He also floated the idea for a impound ("POS") fee when a property is sold requiring some money to be set aside for sidewalk repairs.
Someone asked about the Mayor's program to plant 1 million trees, because our "URBAN CANOPE)" some experts say is only 11% of what it should be in L.A.
The issue of a million more trees is obvious, it sounds good, who doesn't like trees? But now it the city is years behind in trimming, and maintainig existing trees. How could we handle more?
I was going to ask the new Villaraigrosa appointee $ 120,000 Board of Public Works Commissioner Ernesto Cardenas, the brother of Councilman Tony- (but really he was the best qualified to receive the raise in his income).
I had seen Mayor Villar's picture in the Daily News with a pair of new yellow rubber boots, and gloves and an official City shovel, the message was: The Mayor is going to personally be accountable for filling every pothole, and resurfacing failing city streets. What a nice smiling picture of our Mayor. We realy have nothing to worry about, unless you read beyond the picture. The career management usually tells the truth, and it is there for the taking. This city is in big trouble.
Please note the mayoral announcement last week, along with Jan Perry that declared the suburbs of Los Angeles are going to be history, big lots- no way jose. The city developers that are connnected, build up, not out. Who are thest people that they can proclaim a way of life over.
The transit corridor, dense housing benefits the guys that own the land, build the cheap housing, next to the transit corridors. One little problem, these are already at capacity, and don't pay for themself.
Accountability: I'll vote for it.
bigZ
Mayor Villar's appointment of the Rev. Joe Missionary, is visionary. $160+million spent for unproven, largely inneffective, and hugely paid, undereducated bullshitters. A criminal gang member is by defination a criminal. Will the mayor's Christian Missionary gang fighting genius have the experience and god given guidance necessary to give away huge sums of money, praying the criminal gangs will be reduced. Maybe the gangs will have to find the right God, first.
Maybe we could have a old fashioned Elmer Gantry style revival meeting downtown, with free food. (English spoken here).
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