freeways

OCTA just sent out its usual weekly update. In essence, the latest laws signed by Governor Schwarznegger will make a further deep cuts in bus services unlikely this coming September. OCTA's also pushing ahead on new freeway construction along the I-5 carpool lane. And Mayor Cavecche of my very own city of Orange helped guide seniors at a local center on how to use Text4Next, how to navigate the buses, and more.

Relatively benign weekly update. But very good news overall. read more→

OCTA's weekly update was posted a few days ago. Just a few highlights I've found interesting with my opinion in italics:

• California Awarded $2.34 Billion In High-Speed Rail Funding.
• San Clemente Considers Wayside Horn System at Rail Crossings: could this be another "transit" project to benefit homeowners in the area?
• Orangethorpe Rail Corridor near Placentia and Anaheim to grade-separate 5 different crossings: could this be another "transit" project to benefit motorists in the area?
• OCTA's still throwing a few million dollars away in studies to evaluate building a several-billion-dollar freeway/tollway tunnel beneath the mountains separating Corona and Irvine. I'll post more about this later.
• OCTA will likely cut deeper into bus service in September. More about this later. 

The Weekly Update follows: read more→

Two Mondays ago at the OCTA Board Meeting, Jerry Amante — mayor of Tustin — was unanimously elected as chair of the OCTA Board. Amante served on OCTA's Board of Directors since 2006.

The irony is that Amante is now in charge of making decisions for OCTA's bus system. Why is this bad news?

• Amante has been unabashedly vocal about his preference for road-building over bus and rail.
  • Amante wrote an opinion piece bashing Los Angeles's Metro Rail system and squawks about how awesome Orange County's freeways are.
  • Amante's platform says nothing about the crowded, unreliable bus system that he currently runs. Instead, he wants to see money funneled into streets and roads.
• Amante has great enthusiasm for freeway and tollway committees. He's part of:
  • OCTA's Central County MIS committee, which is proposing to extend the 57 as a freeway UNDER THE SANTA ANA RIVER. OMG.
  • OCTA's State Route 91 Advisory Committee, which is using OCTA funds to add lanes to a freeway that's largely clogged with Riverside County commuters.
  • OCTA's Highways Committee.
  • the board of directors in charge of the 241, 261, and 133 toll roads in Orange County (the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency). He blew his top when he found out that activists successfully blocked the extension of a tollway through San Onofre State Park, claiming that anti-road activists will "mire our residents in a poor quality of life" and threatening national security. Uh-huh. At least he didn't invoke Godwin's Law.
• Amante has hardly lifted a finger to help with the current transit crisis. He's voiced his desire to effectively double the cuts to OCTA's bus system this March 2010 — from this March's 150,000 hours to the full 300,000 hours of cuts. "...Better, he said, to make drastic cuts now and restore later. It's the old pull-the-bandaid-off-quickly theory." 

  read more→

I'm just now catching up with this week's stories, so bear with me. :-) Among these:

OCTA is accommodating CSU Fullerton protests to its bus cuts: CSU Fullerton's Daily Titan covers how OCTA's cuts will hurt students with OCTA's proposed elimination of routes 21, 24, and 33. About two dozen people appeared at OCTA's not-very-well-publicized Transit Committee meeting last week, protesting the service changes. As a result, OCTA staff will propose Monday that route 24 be retained on hourly headways weekdays only, and route 129 will start at La Habra Square (portions of the current route 29) and Miller/Miraloma (portions of the current route 59); OCTA has also included "mitigation suggestions" for eliminated routes. Some of these maps suggest that riders may walk up to 2 miles to catch another bus.

Metrolink's Board of Directors backtracked on a plan to jack up ticket prices by 6% after facing thousands of protests from angry riders, according to the Los Angeles Times. The San Bernardino County Sun newspaper interviewed train riders considering switching back to driving cars, and noted that the current weekday roundtrip Metrolink fare from San Bernardino to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles would change from $20.75 to $22.00. StreetsBlog LA credits rider "activism."

The FlyAway bus — which offers direct $25 service to between Irvine Station and LAX — just launched. Some comments on the post believe that $25 is too steep a price to pay; others note that private operator SuperShuttle from Orange County Airport to LAX can cost up to $45.

The L.A. Times notes Los Angeles County's emphasis on public transit and Orange County's over-reliance on freeways causes bottlenecks along freeways such as the 405 and the 5 between county lines. OCTA is undertaking a massive freeway expansion effort — unfortunately cannibalizing their public transit system — which L.A. StreetsBlog discusses in their post on OCTA's 91 freeway widening. A notable excerpt from the L.A. Times:

"L.A. is more transit-oriented; Orange County is more freeway-oriented," said Peter Buffa, chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority. But as congestion mounts, that attitude will probably change, he believes.

"Ultimately, because of the pressure — with the growing population, environmental impacts — ultimately people will say, 'We get it, we can't get around one person to a car, that's not going to work.' In Orange County, quite frankly, we're not there yet," he said.

Buffa said many of the major differences in the transportation approaches are because of the counties' differing populations. Rail customers in Orange County usually have cars and take the train to avoid congestion or to save money on gas. In Los Angeles County, however, there are more people without cars who must rely on the bus or rails.

L.A. County has "more people, but also denser areas where trying to sell a rail line that goes down the middle of the street is a little easier than in some kind of wide open, very suburban, south Orange County city. . . . It's a political fight," Buffa said.

The disputes surrounding the plan to widen the 405 could be the first signs of the sort of political change that Buffa forecasts.

One hotbed of opposition to the widening is Westminster, a suburb of 90,000 that straddles both the 405 and 22 freeways. There, critics have been fighting over the 405 widening for years, saying OCTA could better spend the money on other transportation needs like street improvement, more buses and perhaps even a rail system.

"They're adding two lanes and putting everyone through this, and then they'll turn around and 10 years from now, we've got to expand four more lanes," said Paul Martorella, 51, a Westminster resident. "It's impractical to keep pouring cement."

In the last two decades, various Orange County entities have opened toll lanes on the 91 Freeway, built three toll roads and added miles of carpool lanes. The 405 is just the latest major project. read more→

OCTA asks, "How would you improve central O.C's Future Transportation System? Have your say right now here" in a posting last week to the Santa Ana Community Development Resource Network.

Take the two minute survey and share your "transportation tips." If you think transit is the way of the future, register your opinion with a click of the mouse. Or maybe you think it's better to increase and improve connections to Metrolink? Or perhaps you believe its best to enhance our streets and/or expand or extend freeways. Whether you think some of these, all of these, or none of these, are good ideas, click your mouse on http://www.surveymonkey.com /s.aspx? sm=PvOkciehFgboK QRKyM8saw_3d_3d now and have your say today!"

Fernando Chavarria
Orange County Transportation Authority External Affairs Division
(714) 560-5306 fchavarria@octa.net

Some of the survey's proposals make sense — including bus rapid transit with dedicated lanes, and traffic signal synchronization — while others are pretty crazy (or creative, depending on how you look at it). On the left, OCTA proposes to run an expressway at the bottom of the Santa Ana River, during the dry season. And below, OCTA is proposing running a freeway in a tunnel underneath the river.

What do you think? Should we promote healthier transit alternatives, or keep on building freeways in Orange County? Vote now. read more→

Roughly 30 riders attended OCTA's March 2010 bus cuts community meeting last Thursday, with quite a few speakers (at least 20) including seniors, working professionals, blue-collar workers, students, disabled persons, a homeless person and a former bus driver. Even a member of the Orange County Grand Jury attended. Mayor Pro Tem Cathy Green and Greg Winterbottom — both OCTA directors — chaired the session with Ellen Burton, External Affairs Director of OCTA staff.

The comments made by the public were extremely interesting and engaging. A lot of riders opposed route cuts that would diminish geographic service area, as this would then cannibalize ACCESS, Orange County's current paratransit network, which only services areas 3/4 of a mile from regular bus routes. One Night Owl rider said he, plus many others, use the 24-hour bus routes to get home from work; OCTA staff responded by saying cutting Night Owl would save 5% of the funds as Night Owl requires not just paying the bus driver, but also maintenance, central dispatch, and ACCESS drivers. And a new issue also emerged: a growing number of riders were worried about overcrowded standing-room only buses, particularly those buses that travel at high speeds on the freeway.

Community leaders from the Transit Advocates of Orange County also asked OCTA's board about funds OCTA already has and could use for saving bus service; Jane Reifer mentioned that not printing the quarterly system map would salvage $2 million that could preserve the 24-hour Night Owl routes. I myself asked why OCTA declared a financial crisis and are cannibalizing bus service when they're about to expand the 5, 91, and 405 freeways. OCTA director Greg Winterbottom replied that many of these funds — such as funds dedicated to the freeways — couldn't be switched over as the "color of money" is dedicated to specific purposes. But others argued why OCTA wouldn't be more aggressive with finding funding when OCTA used bus service funding for non-transit programs like the purchase the 91 Express Lanes, widening Bristol Street, and promoting non-public transit programs of Measure M and M2.

I followed the meeting throughout on my HTC Touch Pro2's with a live Twitter session @TransitRiderOC, posted below, from first tweet to last tweet: read more→

Talk about priorities.

OCTA recently sent out an email soliciting feedback for yet another freeway widening project, the I-405. They're asking for help with "transportation alternatives to improve traffic flow and reduce congestion along the 14-mile stretch of freeway between the San Joaquin Toll Road (SR-73) and the San Gabriel River Freeway (I-605)."

Their most recent presentation indicates that, to meet existing and future demand, they would like to expand the existing 12-lane freeway to 20 lanes, something Texas would be proud of.

Unfortunately, the only options they're going ahead with lack any sort of public transit component. Damien Newton at Streetsblog LA writes, "The four alternatives are basically a one-lane widening in each direction, a two lane widening in each direction, a two-lane widening that would be one HOT Lane and one general purpose lane, and just widening parts of the 405 in Orange County as funding allows.  No mention of trains, buses, bus-only lanes, or anything of the sort appear anywhere inside the Register's article or on the OCTA's project page."

Now, to be fair, OCTA has some transit connections between the Long Beach-Seal Beach area and Costa Mesa, but OCTA has some very shoddy options. They have an express bus that travels only a few times a day and makes very few stops, and Route 1 that travels only once an hour on weekends.

The lack of decent public transit options — coupled with Orange County's poor transportation planning and an uninformed public mandating this freeway project — makes the I-405 freeway widening project a short-sighted waste of taxpayer funds. Traffic is effectively so bad because there are no transit options!

You can do something about this. You can ask OCTA at their public outreach meetings to, instead of widening the I-405, do a better, more cost-effective project, such as replacing or adding I-405 lanes for bus rapid transit. Click here for a list of meetings. Here's a map of the widening project:

read more→

I wrote this editorial for UC Irvine's New University newspaper. You can also read the edited version, which was published today. Although I will say the edited version contains an erroneous name for the OCTA, I'm thankful that their editors allowed my piece to be published.

Watch out, UC Irvine students. Traffic's about to get a lot worse.

OCTA will cut transit service by up to 25% this year. Students now pay $95 more for a UC Irvine U-pass. In fact, earlier this year, OCTA staff proposed to slash all routes to and from UC Irvine, which would have left students with no choice but to purchase a $10,000 car and a $500 parking pass, and add congestion on 2-lane-wide Peltason Drive. OCTA has also proposed to:

• Cut all 24-hour service, stranding blue-collar workers.
• Severe reductions in frequencies, resulting in longer waits for passengers.
• Cut back express and Metrolink-connecting StationLink shuttle routes.

Part of this is attributable to the economic downturn and our state government's illegal $1 billion raid on transit funds. I understand that OCTA staff say they're doing the best they can with the scant resources they've got for transit operations. read more→

I apologize for the lack of timely posts and all the fluff food pieces along OCTA; as you can see, the website's been running on auto-pilot and posting pre-written blog posts while I've been living in a hospital.

Los Angeles's many transit riders talk optimistically about expanding its subway to UCLA, light rail to USC and Santa Monica, and light rail to Ontario Airport. Meanwhile, Orange County continues to turn to freeways to support automobile users while ignoring the needs of non-drivers, seniors, the disabled, and other public transit users.

Two weeks ago, the OCTA spent $155,000 on a (rather gaudy) freeway sign welcoming automobile drivers to Orange County. Ted Nguyen and OCTA seem to be happily promoting their rather gaudy monument, while ironically calling for bus users to "share the pain" of deep bus service cuts. It's pretty much a kick in the groin for bus riders who have to tolerate waiting longer in the sun, say, at Jamboree/University/Eastbluff in Newport Beach, because there are no bus shelters. This money could have been used, say, to purchase 15 bus shelters. read more→

This article in Tuesday's Orange County Register did a very good job at dispelling the myth that the bus is just for the "undocumented" and shows how hard OCTA's 25% cut in transit service impacts students. (read below)

I myself have had a lot harder time getting around Orange County since buses are more crowded. Line 57's less frequent scheduling has caused buses to show up late (it takes additional time for more riders to alight), along with some crazy bus bunching issues. I've had to abandon using my full-sized bicycle since the racks are almost always full. Now, I wouldn't have a problem with less service if Orange County weren't also studying a $3.8-billion tunnel to lengthen the 57 freeway under the Santa Ana River. Oh, and the 91 freeway expansion. And the proposal to double-decker the 55 freeway through Newport Blvd. And the freeway expansion along the 405-22 junction. The imbalance in transportation makes me pissed beyond belief. read more→