“The Red Line (The Freeways Are Not So Nice),” by It’s Casual. Found at LA Taco

Image from Creative Tools on Flickr, used via Creative Commons license

Metro will offer free fare rates on the Eves of both Christmas and New Years. Here is some information from the press release, as found at Metro’s The Source blog:

The free fare program will be in effect between the hours of 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. on the nights and early mornings hours of December 24-25 and December 31-January 1.

Patrons boarding a Metro Bus, including the Metro Orange Line, or the Metro Red, Purple, Blue, Green or Gold rail lines during the hours designated will receive a free ride to their destination.

Have fun; be safe. Happy Holidays!

MINI Coupe: all fun, no mess

Like many Los Angeles area folks, I’m crazy about cars. Fortunately, I’m able to incorporate my love into my work, and covered the L.A. Auto Show on Press Day 1 yesterday. Unfortunately, my day was ruled as much by the cars on the roads outside than by the shiny new models inside the Convention Center.

I left my house by the beach after rush hour to avoid traffic, hit the show very hard, then skedaddled out of there by about 4:15 p.m. to avoid the evening rush. As a result, the compressed time I spent at the show was somewhat manic. Stopping off at Langer’s on the way home? Forget it.

Inside the show, the car companies advertise their cars based on many attributes: quality, value, economy, luxury, technology, and driving fun. But I didn’t see or hear one mention of anything to do with traffic. Such a discussion would seem to be antithetical to the car companies’ mission, which is of course to sell more of those shiny sexy cars.

As a car lover, I’m guilty of moving out here and contributing to the problem. In my defense, however, I work mostly from home, and put on very little mileage. My car is over 8 years old, and I’m going to hang onto it as long as I can. My trips to L.A. city proper are rare.

I know it’s not a new subject area, but what is the toll — to our psyche, our finances, and our quality of life — that we in the Los Angeles areas pay each year for our traffic? Can anything be done about it, or is all hope lost? I’m no traffic expert, but I would think that living closer to where we work, having a shorter commute, is one way to make the problem better. Another is more and better mass transit, to the extent possible in sprawling, designed-for-cars L.A. Maybe the new Expo Line will help.

I hope something will help. The Auto Show demonstrates that we’re putting out amazing cars. The roads in and around L.A. show that there are fewer and fewer places to put them.

With my camera rigged up to the eyepiece of my spotting scope (with duct tape and adhesive putty), from my backyard I pointed it at Sunset Boulevard between Descanso (just out of view at the bottom) and the Maltman bend in Silver Lake (at the top) to timelapse capture the afternoon traffic flow.

You Should Like This

Before The Event That Never Was, I wrote about the need for a rail line along the 405 corridor. I exchanged a few emails with Bart Reed of the Transit Coalition, who shared some insight as to how to get such an important piece of the transit puzzle off the ground (or rather, under.) He said they have been in talks with Los Angeles Council Districts 6 and 11, and that they would begin promoting through social media sites.

The Valley-Westside Rail project is now up on Facebook. You should like it.

I asked Bart how people could get more involved. He said that we need to start by garnering support from neighborhood councils. So, that’s where I began, with a few emails of my own:

This past weekend, the closure of the 405 and the media attention it received resulted in a ripple effect on the entire freeway system. Drivers got lucky. Businesses did not. This further illustrates the need for viable transportation alternatives. Specifically, a more comprehensive regional rail network.

As a contributing author for Blogging.LA, I wanted to get your input on a newly envisioned Metro rail line from the Valley to the Westside, by way of the 405 corridor.

Current proposals by the Transit Coalition would have the first phase of the North-South line connect the Expo and Purple lines on the Westside to the Orange Line, Van Nuys Metrolink/Amtrak, and Sylmar Metrolink/HSR in the Valley. Phase 2 would connect with LAX and onto Long Beach.

What is your council’s position on such a line? What would your constituents stand to gain/lose from it?

I think we can agree that comprehensive transit system is vital to the future of our city. I would like any feedback you could give, as we begin an open, honest dialogue on how to better connect our communities.

Judy Price of the Valley Glen Neighborhood Association was the first to respond:

Personally, I think we must start working toward a transit solution in Los Angeles. I was an early proponent for the Orange Line, although many in Valley Glen fought it. It is a poor substitute for rail or subway but is better than nothing and has been a great success. Thank you for the nudge on this important issue.

Then there was the response from Tony Braswell of Neighborhood Council Valley Village:

We have repeatedly gone on record in favor of more public transportation options to link SFV to the rest of the city.  I  believe our Board will  look favorably on this “newly envisioned Metro rail line”, and will share it with our City Services Committee at their next meeting.  Anything that links SFV to the west side and eventually to LAX would benefit our stakeholders.

Maybe things do start with a Facebook page. Or an email. Have you written your neighborhood council lately? Find yours by entering your address here at EmpowerLA.org.

UPDATE: IT’S ON! Details being finalized right this very second, but this is happening. Point to point. It’s a battle of commuters. A house in Burbank to the Long Beach Aquarium. More details soon!!!

“Sure!” I said, cutting her off. “I’ll buy the pizzas for you. How many you need?”

As expected she hadn’t set up for the curveball I pitched and the words stumble out of her mouth wondering if it would be OK if I just gave her the cash. I told her all I had was my debit card at which she shook her head. Her “Thanks anyway,” confirmed my suspicions that the pizza story was a fiction, and for their sake hopefully the children were, too.

Out from the Rite Aid the young lady starts for me again until realizing she’d hit me already and sharply turns away as if I don’t exist. As I head east on Santa Monica Boulevard I wonder if it’ll ever dawn on her that duh, she missed an opp for free pizza that if nothing else could’ve helped fuel the drive to her next fix. Oh well.

I pass the stately Cahuenga branch of the library where I startle a homeless woman who is changing clothes in the relative privacy of the library’s locked-up lower entryway. I pass the Little Temple club, cross Virgil, and look down upon the shack that used to be the beloved Jake’s Jay’s Burgers, but now since its eviction is home to the latest in a succession of nondescript and noninteresting eateries.

Next I eye a small mural and double back to get this snap of it (after the jump; click for slight enlargification):

Normally I get bummed when murals are defaced with tags, but the ones scarring this — crossed out and overwritten — emphasize the work’s title: To Live and Die in Los Angeles. Further reinforcing its point came the tragic news that less than eight hours after I took this picture and about 230 feet to the west of this mural, a man was killed outside Little Temple, reportedly the end result of a verbal dispute.

Though the Law of Commuting states, “What goes out, must come back,” year in and year out Bike Week organizers ignore that all-important second part. On the designated “Bike To Work Day” that “To” part is taken literally. Mornings are chock full of strategic events and pitstops and various freebies, sprinkled with the occasional councilpersons who’ll don helmets and grins and pedal under an MTA sign and past a camera pool. And if you’re in the right place as you pedal, you might find a few scattered Starbucks that’d give up a free drip coffee if you rolled there before 9 a.m.

But pretty much after that hour things are broken down and packed up and put away — which is literally half-assed; a willingly missed opportunity to keep the good vibrations and awareness going on for that integral return trip. Well, with this coming edition of Bike Week (May 16-20; with Bike To Work Day on May 19) I’m pleased to report some progress has been made. Not by the city or the county or Metro, but rather by the LA County Bicycle Coalition who for better or worse is gonna help returning cyclists get their drink on.

From the LACBC website:

This year, we thought we’d do a little something different and organize some informal Bike FROM Work Happy Hours around the county for you to stop by on your commute home. So stop by, have a a drink, and hang out with some other bicyclists (more info).

[Shrug]… It’s a start — which is exactly what I did and thought back after the first Bike Week (then called Bike To Work Week).  But without any further buzzkill, though perhaps to belabor my whole Bike FROM Work point, below for your viewing seizure-inducing pleasure is a nighttimelapse of one of the hundreds of evening commutes I made back home to Silver Lake from my old office in Westchester, followed by a layout of the week’s more prominent morning glories:

Bike Week LA 2011:

Monday, May 16, 8:30am: Kick-off event at North Hollywood Red Line Station
Tuesday, May 17, 8am: Blessing of the Bicycles at Good Samaritan Hospital (1225 Wilshire Blvd, 90017)
Wednesday, May 18, 8am:  Downtown LA Bike Ride, meets at Union Station (route map).
Thursday, May 19 – Bike to Work Day. Visit pit stops from 6-9am, free rides for cyclists on MTA buses, trains (map of pitstop locations).
Friday, May 20: Bike to School Day

Other sources for info on additional events:

• Streetsblog’s LA’s Bike Month 2011 page
• Bike Month Glendale
• Bike Month Long Beach
• Bike Week Pasadena with CICLE
  

Your move, @villaraigosa.

A few years back, I proposed the Metro Flyline – a rail network from Union Station to every airport in the region. It was kind of a joke, in that not many people need to hop a train from Downtown Los Angeles to fly their personal jet out of Van Nuys Airport. But what about a line that did service the major transportation hubs in the region? A high speed TRIANGLE, connecting LAX, Bob Hope in Burbank and Union Station.

Put it all underground. Run the whole thing elevated. Tunnel through every living room in Beverly Hills.

I don’t know where the money would come from. I don’t know ridership numbers. I don’t know environmental impact blahbitty blah. What I do know, is that people would use it. Isn’t that what mass transit is for?

The point here is that it’s time for Los Angeles to start thinking big again. No matter how far-fetched and ridiculous it may seem. Let other cities celebrate highway widenings and Target openings. We’re better than that.

Maybe someday, we’ll have a mayor that won’t mind rolling up his sleeves and putting in a solid 8 hours of work.

With gas prices surging, the city’s renewed interest in a viable bike network, and increasingly popular events like CicLAvia, this can only be a good thing.

But, exactly how will Metro handle the possible flood of fixies? There has been some talk of removing seats from rail cars.  Instead of simply placating cyclists, why not encourage them by going a step further?

What Metro needs now is a multimodal rail car with bike storage. Sound far fetched? Plans were drawn up in 1976.