New Blog Project: The Sauce!

I have branched out and created a new blog:

The Sauce: No transit updates. Just beer and liquor near LA Metro.

It is a project I have been thinking about for the past several years and my move to Los Angeles afforded me the opportunity.  The site is devoted to bringing Los Angeles residents and visitors a list of great bars and clubs easily accessibly via LA Metro bus and rail service.  Better yet, it is provided by those who know how to navigate a transit system on their way to alcohol: urban planners.  The database at present includes five bars in the Los Angeles area and will be adding more soon! Readers are encouraged to provide their own reviews of their favorite transit-accessible bars and clubs.  So have at it!

Please visit my new site and enjoy the reviews.  And for your next night out, make sure to enjoy the uncomplicated benefits of public transit.

Know Metro. Love Metro. Go Metro!

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the blog, The Sauce, are solely those of the authors.  The Sauce is in no way affiliated or an official project of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority or the blog, The Source.

Roads Aren’t Free [Updated]

It’s high time we explore the dubious nature of how exactly we pay to both construct and maintain our beloved highways and their true costs.

[Updated: Following the release of the draft 2012 Business Plan for the California High-Speed Rail project, I have come back to this post to update the numbers.  The overall argument is still the same and very valid.]

Critics tend to fancy themselves experts in all things sociological and economic when it comes to high-speed rail in California.  They argue the technology will not work –people won’t ride it – and/or that it is simply too expensive of a project to undertake during this time of economic contraction and we simply shouldn’t build it to save the money.  However, as I pointed out in a recent post, the cost of NOT building the California High-Speed Rail Project has never been zero.  In fact, it would cost  $100 billion $170 billion to build new highways and air travel facilities to meet future transportation demand as opposed to the $45-$60 billion $98 billion for HSR.  Even with this fact critics point out that it’s also the operating costs, not just capital costs that make HSR too expensive to build.  But while critics spend their time attacking the cost and financing of HSR, they neglect to check the financing of their favorite alternative to HSR: roads.  It’s high time we explore the dubious nature of how exactly we pay to both construct and maintain our beloved roads and highways and their true costs.

Why I Don’t Like Bill Maher

My roommate loves Bill Maher.  He gets tickets to the live recordings here in LA and lines up hours before the show just so he can be one of the voices in the background.  He occasionally asks me if I want to join him and I usually say no.  I don’t like Bill Maher.  But how can that be?  I am a staunch Democrat, young , Latino and gay, no less.  I should be a far left liberal (or progressive) cheering Bill Maher’s politics – a man who no matter what he says is a left wing activist.  But that is also not true.  I am a self-described left-leaning moderate Democrat.  With that alone, some of you may stop reading right here thinking that my politics are different than Maher’s.  But that is not the case either.  I generally agree with Bill Maher’s political ends, such as universal healthcare, the legalization of same-sex marriage and decriminalizing pot use.  But I still don’t like Bill Maher.

Four Basic Qs & As for Fresno-Bakersfield HSR Segment

Photo Courtesy of AviationMentor

I spent eighteen years of my life growing up in the Central Valley in the City of Visalia, located midway between Bakersfield and Fresno.  I was never a farm boy.  I grew up in a suburban style two-story house in a cul-de-sac.  Though I didn’t grow up on a farm, I developed an appreciation and understanding (especially as I got older) of those who lived and worked in some of the nation’s most productive agricultural regions.  It’s an understanding of, not simply a lifestyle but a life devoted to the cultivation of essential crops and resources. But over the course of the debate on high-speed rail (HSR) over the first leg of construction from Bakersfield to Fresno, I hate to see these local communities being pushed and misled by local city officials and executives who would throw hardworking famers under the proverbial bus because of their own intransigence.  Here are four basic questions and answers on the “why” for the Fresno-Bakersfield segment of the California High-Speed Rail project.

$45 billion or $100 billion. Which is cheaper?

The cost to NOT build the California High-Speed Rail project has never been zero.

Critics of California’s High-Speed Rail project usually have their eyes fixed on one part of the project – the bottom line.  The most common line of attack against the project is its cost, estimated around $45 – $60 billion (depending on who you ask).  They call it a “boondogle” because they say it is just far to expensive for the state to undertake.  As a post in the California High-Speed Rail Blog points out, critics’ arguments rest on one assumption: That we are to spend $45-$60 billion on HSR or we don’t build it and spend $0.   This, of course, is not true.

From CAHSR Blog:

This claim has always been utterly false. The cost of doing nothing is not zero. Californians are going to have to get around their state somehow, and as population grows and gas prices rise, the cost does too. The cost of expanding freeways and airports to meet the travel demand HSR will meet is estimated at $100 billion. Compared to that, HSR is a bargain.

Anyone who goes shopping can tell you that if you can buy the same thing for a cheaper price, then you do it.  Californians will need to travel around our state whether we build HSR or not.  To suggest that we can do so for nothing is not only false but utterly irresponsible on the part of officials and critics.  Over the next 25 years, California’s population will increase from 38 million residents today to 50 million by 2035, a lot of that growth will happen in the Central Valley.  The fact of the matter is that we are going to build something, either more freeway and airport capacity or HSR in order to meet the transportation demand that will come. High-speed rail is and always has been the cheaper alternative to expanding freeways and airports.

From CA HSR Authority, numbers derived from submitted 2004 EIR:

Statewide, over the next two decades, California’s HST System would alleviate the need to spend more than $100 billion1 to build 3,000 miles of new freeway, 5 airport runways, and 90 departure gates to meet the transportation needs of a growing population. In fact, the San Joaquin Valley is projected to grow at a rate higher than any other region in California. Three counties—Merced, Madera, and Fresno—are projected to grow by 68% by 2035.

So when critics are saying we can’t afford to spend up to $60 billion on HSR, what they are really saying is we can obviously afford to spend $100 billion on more freeways, airport terminals and runways and other costly and less efficient modes of transportation.  In other words, critics would rather Californians pay more than pay less.  Does that make any sense?  No. No it doesn’t.  High-speed rail is a cheaper, more efficient and environmentally friendly means to meet the transportation demands of Californians now and in the future.

Check out the rest of the post at California High-Speed Rail Blog.

Roobs is a masters student at UCLA in the Department of Urban & Regional Planning with concentrations in Transportation Planning & Policy and Urban Design & Development. He has a BA in Legal Studies and Sociology from UC Berkeley. Roobs is a former Waterfront Commissioner for the City of Berkeley and former paralegal for a law firm specializing in real estate development. 

East Coast being insufferable about the West Coast

Now famous picture of DC earthquake devastation

Following the 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia, east coasters and media essentially panicked.  Buildings were evacuated and thousands, if not millions of people went to the streets during the rare seismic event.  But when all was said and done, the earthquake caused minimal damage across the East Coast with no major injuries or fatalities reported.  Those of us on the West Coast essentially had a field day with this news.  Californian’s deal with earthquakes everyday with larger earthquakes happening more frequently.  In fact, in the last 10 hours, there have been two earthquakes in California.  A 4.2 magnitude earthquake in Central California and a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area.  So it comes as little surprise that when Californians saw their East Coast brothers and sisters overreacting to an event that caused little damage, we decided to poke fun.

Twitter and facebook blew up with Californians poking fun.  A lot of them focused on welcoming the East Coast to the earthquake club.  Some in California also went further to point out that, yes, the East Coast may have been overreacting.  But it looks like not all East Coasters can take their punches with that famous New York attitude.  I’m not entirely sure it was a joke post or a serious attempt at a rant, but the people at Gawker.com – an internet gossip site – apparently are crying (literally?) foul over the West Coasts attitude with a post entitled: “Californians are being insufferable about this earthquake.”  I’m assuming it was a serious attempt at a rant considering they wrote a post later on in the day on how Californians are overreacting to an oil tanker on a train that burst into flames causing the evacuation of 4,800 people.  In any event, Gawker (and the East Coast), all I have to say is… get over yourself.

Are Californians being insufferable about the earthquake?  Probably.  However, is it justified?  Of course it is.  Here’s why:

How City Beautiful Can Help: The Psychology of Recovery

Washington DC was the first US city to use City Beautiful concepts when redesigning its Mall

Washington gets a lot of flack lately for reasons both justified and not.  But one complaint many are jumping on is President Obama’s specific jobs plan, or lack thereof.  Obama is now scheduled to give a speech near Labor Day on what he plans to do about jobs and reducing the deficit, presumably in response to the increasingly loud crys from Democrats and Republicans for him to do so.  The real question is what is he going to propose?  We are getting a better picture on what the President is planning: extending the payroll tax credit and extending unemployment benefits. There is also talk of some infrastructure component to the plan as well.  The infrastructure component is where I want to focus this post.

President Obama has shown many that he’s more of a lover, not a fighter.  Despite coming from Chicago politics, he has not been eager to pick a fight with austerity driven members of the GOP and Tea Party.  Instead, he deals and comes back with very watered down plans that don’t do much to help our ailing economy, and in many ways hurts his own political clout and re-election bid.   Obama should take a look at some of the principles of the City Beautiful Movement of the early 20th century to help see why a big push to fund infrastructure, like roads, rail, bridges and buildings, can prove extremely beneficial to not only the economy but to people’s perception of where we are as a nation.

Does The WeHo Mayor Think Gays and Families Don’t Mix?

West Hollywood has been a haven for the LGBT community  since its incorporation in 1984.  Though it has always been identified as a pro-LGBT city and area of Los Angeles County (what I like to call the Castro of LA), it has never enjoyed an official designation.  On August 18th, the West Hollywood News (aka: WeHo News) reported that the West Hollywood City Council voted to direct staff to begin looking for ways the city can begin to officially identify Santa Monica Blvd. between Doheney Dr. and La Cienega Blvd. as “Historic Boystown”.

The desire to name the strip as “Historic Boystown” has not been without controversy.  First, the Lakeview neighborhood in the City of Chicago has long been known as “Boystown” before West Hollywood was even a city.  The decision to identify a part of West Hollywood has spurred a debate between cities over who is the “real” boystown.  But now the West Hollywood Mayor, John Duran, has added himself with a gaff to the WeHo News.