Event page: Pasadena & Foothill Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. RSVPs requested.

DATE/TIME
Friday, February 11, 2010
7:30 AM Breakfast
8:00 AM Program

LOCATION
Burger Continental Restaurant
535 South Lake Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91101

COST
$15 AIA members (food donation)
$30 Non-AIA members pre-registered online
$35 Non-AIA members at the door

Read states that building the tunnel will leave communities above ground “intact.” How can the largest tunnel ever constructed be carved out underneath San Gabriel communities without any impact? Where will all the dirt and rock go? What about necessary vents and side nodes? Where will the construction equipment be located? Even if the tunnel could be built with no impact, how will these communities fare if (when?) there is a major crash involving toxic materials inside it?

Read also states that the project “will reduce congestion more than will any other highway project in the county,” and “will benefit the environment by reducing air pollution and use of fossil fuels.” Freeway projects in Southern California don’t reduce congestion; they make it easier for more cars to get on the road. A light-rail freight transport alternative would do far more to reduce congestion, air pollution, and use of fossil fuels than Read’s exorbitantly expensive short stretch of underground freeway.

California taxpayers should not be asked to fund this project when low-cost, low-impact, 21st-century solutions must be out there. Comments to Read’s editorial echo these points:

Look for alternatives:

What impact will the exhaust fumes have on the surrounding homes and communities? Dig a little deeper and you will see that this project is far from perfect and will lead to problems similar to that of the “big dig” and will not solve traffic problems. Have we seen freeways extensions and additional lanes reduce traffic? That is like trying to cure obesity by adding more belt loops. You need to address the problems and increase light rail, bus lines, etc. This is a dangerous and costly project and will lead to unforseen problems in the future.

Inteurbans:

Shame on the MTA for spending billions dollars on this misguided project that needs to be stopped now and laid to rest before any more money is spent. Do we want another Boston Big Dig boondoggle that went way over budget and is costing millions annually just to keep it open?

Is this a 1960 solution to a 2010 problem? Building or even widening freeways do little to help congestion they only help the construction companies that design and build them. Is this really going to reduce congestion or just move it around? The wading of the 22, the 5 and some interchanges in Orange County at many billions of dollars did little to help with congestion. Within weeks of the completion of the projects traffic was back to its pre -improvement state. Will the 710 tunnel be any different? Even if it is built will it help?

lets be real:

What this does do is make it easier to drive from some Points A to some Points B. Mobility is generally a good thing. However, people move about based on how easy and expensive a trip is. Making automobile trips easier increases the number of automobile trips. There are real economic benefits to this new travel, but claiming that driving more is good for the environment undermines any credibility the author might have had.
Can we do a real analysis of opportunity costs for these billions of dollars?

Dean Serwin:

This tunnel (which looks to be potentially the largest ever undertaken) will simply concentrate emissions into vented plumes poisoning the community. The currently estimated 6 year construction time will hugely disrupt the local community, including nearby schools.

Dissenter Dave Weaver said he needed more information which would be developed as the project took a definite direction. Weaver said Southern Californians have appreciated all area freeways, even though communities opposed each at the time of construction.

Laura Friedman countered that the region is worse off today because before the freeways were built, a light rail system that used to serve many communities here was dismantled. Friedman opposes the 710 Tunnel project proposal as a policy matter, and advocates a rail system for moving freight from the ports through the region.

Council member Ara Najarian, who heads the MTA, was taken aback as Friedman criticized his recent MTA abstention vote on the 710 Tunnel project and questioned why Glendale city council wasn’t alerted to the matter ahead of time. Najarian explained that the vote was combined with another project that he does support, and that he’s made his position very clear and led local opposition to the tunnel well before other council members.

Following council members’ comments, city manager Jim Starbird and city attorney Scott Howard both discussed how staff would proceed to establish Glendale as a leader in opposing the multi-billion dollar CalTrans proposal.

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke about westside subway plans during the summit, saying Measure R will “lay the tracks for a system worthy of a world class city,” and local voters’ financial commitment can be leveraged for this and other transit projects. The MTA board voted on September 24 to submit the project for federal funding, which could help the mayor achieve his goal of completing it in ten years.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, at a press conference today at Union Station, announced California’s application for a share of $8 billion in federal recovery funds set aside for high-speed rail development. California voters have already approved a bond measure, Proposition 1A, for high-speed rail ($9 billion) and connecting services ($950 million).

Another transit funding victory occurred this week in the state courts: the California Supreme Court upheld an appeals court decision that state diversion of $3.4 billion in transit funds to the general fund is illegal.

Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Mortimer Downey said at last week’s summit that “High speed rail won’t work unless there is good public transit on each end.” MTA Chair Ara Najarian responded to Downey’s concern:

“At its heart, the California High Speed Rail project is intended to connect major public transit hub networks that already exist, such as Los Angeles Union Station, San Diego, and San Francisco. These stations already provide a large cadre of bus, light rail and subway services that have the potential to connect entire county regions to the statewide high speed rail network. Other cities – Anaheim in particular – are planning multimillion dollar transit stations envisioned as truly regional multimodal transportation hubs. Where other statewide high speed rail stations are identified, the project is anticipated to create a robust network of public transit options that would complement high speed rail service.”

With westside extensions (Expo Phase I and II) and Gold Line eastward extensions, is a fully coordinated scheme (think “user-friendly”) emerging for Southern California? As summit speakers noted, support for projects will only be forthcoming if voters see long-term benefits: routes and schedules must be reliable, accessible, and affordable, and take people exactly where they want to go when they want to be there.

A recent Streetsblog critique of Union Station’s confusing layout (along with a great photo essay beginning with the old ticket office, exactly where the Governor’s press conference was held today) charts the distance between this ideal and the realities now faced by hopeful transit users and several transit agencies.

“Schedules aren’t coordinated for seamless journeys around the region,” was one of many shortcomings of the network Paul Dyer, President of the Rail Passengers Association of California and Nevada, cited in a letter to the LA Times yesterday.

The lack of a local bus system in the city of Burbank, led a local blogger to question the need for a new Empire Center transit hub.

Meanwhile, LA Green Girl celebrates the westside extension and the possibility of “bus only” lanes on Wilshire, and an auto-industry commentator sees the potential of a mass transition to transit in LA, saying “No one should sell the city short, because when it comes to transportation, Los Angeles is the land of the early adopter.”

Job creation is another selling point for the big push to high-speed rail and connecting transit. The MTA board just voted to tentatively exercise options for light rail cars from AnsaldoBreda, based on several key stipulations the company must agree to within 30 days, according to Najarian. Villaraigosa pushed successfully to gain the Italian rail-car manufacturer as an anchor tenant and employer for LA’s new clean-tech corridor in an agreement that was concluded this past week.

There are only a few rail vehicle manufacturers that have provided train cars to MTA, including Japan-based Sumitomo Corporation, U.S.-based Siemens, and Italy-based Ansaldobreda. Najarian said that the selection of any light rail vehicle manufacturer is primarily based on a firm’s ability to meet Metro’s requirements and that there are no current plans to award a high speed rail car contract. In addition to cars, jobs required for a coordinated high-speed rail system will include surveying, land use clearance, construction, maintenance, administration, green energy enhancements, electronic systems, and more.

Najarian announced the beginning of his term to colleagues and the audience at Glendale’s council meeting June 30, saying, “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Glendale and our region gets its fair share of transportation dollars to help us break the cycle of dependency on crude oil. We have great projects in the works – subways, light rail, transit lines, van pools, etc., and I will keep you posted.”

Also on June 30, as LA Now reported, a state Court of Appeals decision ratified the California Transit Association’s lawsuit over state siphoning of mass transit funds to balance the budget.

Najarian’s response to my email query on the decision: “The MTA applauds the court of Appeal’s ruling in the CTA case. It is important that the legislature realize that transportation money is just that…money for transportation! The State has already indicated that they will appeal the ruling, so a final decision by the Supreme Court may be months away, but it nevertheless sends a strong message to Sacramento that transportation funds can not be their slush fund to patch holes in the state budget. The MTA remains comitted to give LA County residents transportation options that do not involve the single passenger automobile.”

Friedman Also Comments on Energy Independence, Alternative Transportation

Concerning crude oil dependency and alternative transportation projects, council member Laura Friedman spoke along the same lines at the June 30 meeting. Friedman had just attended the Los Angeles Building Council’s annual sustainability summit. She noted that the local business community has begun to realize that our economic, ecological and energy crises present opportunities for innovation, job creation and efficiencies that will provide long-term benefits.

Friedman went on to deplore the billion dollars a day the U.S. sends to the middle east for crude oil: “That’s money that really should be staying in the U.S. While we are in this crisis, to be exporting our wealth for crude oil when there are alternatives available is really pretty incredible. As these new technologies come online, because we do have the brainpower in California we can kill two birds with one stone. We can not only create new businesses and new industry … but we can also now keep that wealth in California and in the US. There is a very clear nexus btween local policies that we have or don’t have in terms of alternative transportation, complete streets, [policies and programs] that will keep people from using cars, and national security and national wealth. That’s one of the reasons why its so important that we take as many actions as we can at the local level to be as aggressive as we can in terms of conservation … not only does it improve our local quality of life but it improves our national security in very direct and obvious ways.”