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.

[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.

Don’t Pretend Like You Didn’t Know

First, let’s make the admission that the true cost of high-speed rail does include maintenance and operations, which means that the lifelong cost of HSR will be more than $45-$60 billion $98 billion estimation.  But this is not news.  Just as when you buy your new car, you know that the true cost of owning a vehicle isn’t the sticker price you paid at the dealership.  It’s also the maintenance costs you spend during the time you own your vehicle as well as gas.  Similarly with HSR, we must pay to maintain the tracks that we lay and pay for the crews that will both operate and maintain the system.  But the half-truths of critics come from the fact that their only alternatives, roads, also require maintenance and repair and that’s not free.

Roads Are Heavily Subsidized on the Back of the Taxpayer

Just as with rail, roads have costs beyond what the average taxpayer thinks.  Critics would have the public believe that roads are fully paid for by user fees, such as the state and federal gas tax.  This is false under any understanding of highway and road finance.  The truth is that roads and highways are heavily subsidized by both users and non-users.  The fact is that these user fees are unable to pay for the total cost of roads.  An excellent paper by J. Brown in 1999 entitled The Future of California Highway Finance included a chapter on the historical evolution of highway finance in California.  Due to copyright restrictions, I cannot post it here.  However, here is my brief explanation on the same point from a previous post of mine:

The gas tax was once an excellent source of funding for the highway system but has since lost the majority of its purchasing power.  When the gas tax was first implemented, cars were clunky and inefficient.  How much gas you purchased was a good indication of how many miles you were driving.  So the tax was viewed as very fair.  Those who drove more should pay more to keep the roads in top condition.  But over the years as cars have become more fuel efficient, the gas you purchase is no longer an adequate measure of how much you drive.  Consider the following example:

I drive a 2000 Ford Mustang that gets about 18 MPG.  A Prius, on the other hand, gets about 50 MPG.  If we both started from Los Angeles and drove the 350+ miles to San Francisco, I would stop to put gas in my car 2-3 times for a round trip.  The Prius, on the other hand, may only stop once.  We each traveled the same distance and put the same amount of ware on the highways.  The Prius driver, however, is paying less in taxes than I am because he did not stop to put gas (hence pay into the gas tax).  Remember, gas tax revenue is what pays for freeway construction and maintenance.  So what is happening is that as cars become more fuel efficient, they no longer pay as much into the fund that keeps our roads in good condition.  And those of us who drive less fuel efficient cars end up subsidizing those who do.

The site Transportation for America cites a Pew Research Study that shows how user fees make up only half of the cost of construction and maintenance:

In 2007, 51 percent of the nation’s $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees — down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues.

That means in 2007, 49% of highway construction and finance came from additional taxes and subsidies that EVERYONE paid.

What does it all mean?  It means that user fees like the gas tax, either federal or state, do not cover the total cost of roads and haven’t for some time.  As a result, we pay for the construction and maintenance of roads through additional revenue sources, such as sales and property taxes as well as new taxes.  Even that is obviously not enough to maintain our roads because we can see the neglect our California roads suffer from.  Those who drive more are subsidized by those who drive less and those who don’t drive at all and take transit.  Does this at all sound fair?  No, no it doesn’t.  And this is what critics want to continue when they blindly reject high-speed rail.

Further, unlike roads with inadquate user fees, high-speed rail can be realistically expected to turn a profit like many other HSR systems on the planet (Japan, France, UK).  By being profitable, regardless of the capital costs, HSR can do something that roads and air facilities simply can’t: help pay for its operation and maintenance with very little support from taxpayer subsidies.

Roads Require Maintenance Too!

Everyone knows that California roads are the best in the world.  All roads are beautifully paved with no hints of cracking and no one ever complains of potholes.  If you’re still with me so far, then you’ve obviously driving even minimally in the Golden State.

Critics neglect to remind people that roads require maintenance just as rail does.  And just as critics like to argue that we don’t have the money to build and maintain a high-speed rail system, we don’t have the money to maintain the existing roads we have, let alone new ones.  So how do we pay for maintenance?  It’s roughly the same as construction.  That is, we get the rest from taxes and bonds (i.e., subsidies).

Local roads (owned by a city) are paid for through your property taxes.  However, this has also fallen short due to the limitations of Prop 13.  We keep building more roads to reach out to new homes have their property taxes capped.  So while we are building more roads that require ongoing maintenance costs, we don’t have an adequate supply of revenue to meet those requirements (Hence all the neglected potholes). In some cases we simply leave it alone and let the roads stand in disrepair.  Other times, we pass bonds or special taxes to help meet these needs.  Make no mistake, these are all subsidies.  As for maintenance on highways, that is paid for by the gas tax as well as other instruments, such as bonds, I.e. subsidies.  But exactly how much does it cost to maintain and repair a road?

It bolsters an argument when you have numbers.  However, quantifying how much it costs to build and maintain a road is tricky because costs vary depending on where the road is located.  For example, highways built in Northern California near the mountains, such as Interstate 80, must be engineered to handle extreme drops in temperature during the winter months.  However, highways like Interstate 10 in Southern California need to be engineered to handle extreme climbs in temperature during the summer months.  The unique conditions in each region of the state have a direct impact on the cost to build and maintain a road.  But to help give you an idea, I will use the Sacramento area as an example.

A 2008 report created by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments shows that the local cities and counties spend about $250 million on road maintenance and repair a year for its 10,000 miles of roads.  The report, however, states that this number should be closer to $350 million in order to ensure all roads are in good condition, which means they are short $100 million.   This means that the cost of road maintenance in Sacramento is approximately $35,000 for every mile of road annually.  This is also a low estimate because roads require major maintenance projects at other cycles.  For example, the report shows that the cost for basic maintenance can be about $20,000 per mile every year.  But the cost of heavy maintenance (slurry, chip seal coat) can cost $50,000-$80,000 per mile every seven years.  And for that fun and nice looking (but terribly smelly) new black asphalt look, it can cost $300,000 to $400,000 per mile every 15 or 30 years, depending on the type of road.

Ok, that was a lot of numbers.  To break it down, road maintenance and repair in the Sacramento area can cost anywhere between $20,000 per mile in any given year or as much as $500,000 per mile in any given year ($200 million or $50 billion in one year if Sacramento decided to do everything at once).  That’s just maintenance and repair, not for new construction. These numbers increase if you account for inflation to today’s dollars.

Hidden Costs and Benefits

While we spend much of our time arguing about money, we neglect what economists call “externalities” – a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices, incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit.  Whenever you hear proponents of HSR refer to the environmental benefits of HSR, they are referring to a positive externality of HSR. That is to say, the costs of building HSR in California is the $45-$60 billion $98 billion for construction and the additional maintenance and operating costs, but then there are benefits to HSR that are either difficult to quantify (such as improving air quality) or economic benefits.  The economic benefit one is important because critics of HSR often attack the claim that roads are bad because they too have an economic benefit.  But what are they?

Economic benefits are things like new jobs.  People will work on HSR and will earn money they can spend on the economy.  Also, stations in urban areas around the state can spur new developments of homes and job centers, which also contribute to the economic activity of the region and state.  Also property values tend to increase when your home is in proximity to a transit station by as much as 15%.   For roads, economic benefits also include those who build them as well as the mobility of the consumer: People travel to make transactions, etc.  However, there are many negative externalities to roads that critics either ignore or simply don’t believe.  For example, building roads, by definition, requires people to drive on them.  Driving causes more carbon emissions to be generated and reduces air quality.  HSR does not have this same problem during transit because HSR is run on electrical lines.

The point here is to not assume there is no trade between cost and benefit occurring in the greater marketplace.  There are numerous benefits to HSR and numerous costs to roads and highways that critics of HSR would like you to ignore.  They are hoping that the convoluted nature of externalities will keep people from understanding the truth.  Don’t let them.

Know the Whole Truth

If there are any undecided people out there regarding the California High-Speed Rail Project, the main takeaway from this post is the same as the last post.  The cost of NOT building the project has never been zero and will never be zero.  Yes, there is an additional cost to maintain and operate a future HSR system, but don’t believe those who imply roads are spared this extra cost.  Even if we chose to spend the $100 billion $170 billion to build new road and air travel facilities, there are still ongoing steep costs that we can quantify and those we can’t.  And these costs will be a lot more in the long run.  If you think it costs a lot to maintain a road in Sacramento, simply multiply that by all the cities and counties in the State of California.  High-speed rail, again, looks like a great bargain if you’re really interested in saving money.

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. 

I don’t like Bill Maher because, to me, he is the “liberal elite” that Republicans use in talking points.  While the term itself is over-generalized to condemn the whole left wing of the Democratic Party, it is not without some truth.  If you’ve ever engaged in heated debates with an average left wing activist (those who don’t know when they shouldn’t say something) you will eventually get that smug, “well, you just don’t know what you’re talking about” response.   And I get that from Bill Maher often.

Take Maher’s most famous on-air gaff in 2002 after he agreed with a guest that the 9/11 terrorists had not engaged in a cowardly attack.  He has gone on further to describe how America essentially had the terrorist attack coming because of our imperial-like behavior around the world.  Ignoring the fact that I completely disagree with both of Maher’s assertions, when he has been confronted with the fallout Maher does not apologize for those statements like most people would.  Instead, Maher goes on to defend himself with child-like stubbornness who refuses to apologize if he thinks he did nothing wrong.

Bill Maher’s movie, Religulous, was another example of Bill Maher’s arrogance.  Now I have no love of organized religion and consider myself agnostic, but I find Maher’s tactics incredibly offensive.  Maher is highly critical of religion in general with the essential argument that it is not worth any investment of resources or thought.  He goes on to point out all of its flaws and, in essence, insult those who follow a religion.  Who is Bill Maher to lay judgment on those who chose to follow a faith?  I don’t care that Bill Maher doesn’t like religion.  I do care that he goes out of his way to point this out and essentially mow down those who do.  It is arrogant and it is insulting to those who follow a religion, for whatever reason.

Further, Bill Maher is very aggressive in his politics.  He sees a political or societal wrong and demands change, which is fine.  But his solutions seem painfully simple for very complicated problems.  He frequently surrounds himself with guests that tend to agree with him, like his friend Michael Moore – who I am also not a huge fan of.  To his credit, Bill Maher speaks with passion about subjects he cares about but, to his detriment, he seems to have no patience for working on the hard and complicated tasks of actually legislating or governing.  No patience to work with another side, convince another side, or out maneuver another side with pure Machiavellian grit.  Instead, I feel Bill Maher pushes his sole agenda as some objectionable truth that we all must eventually reach.  If we don’t, then it’s we who have failed, not he who is wrong.

I feel as if Bill Maher could run for office if he represented a far-left leaning congressional district.  But he couldn’t win a statewide election because I do not believe he is willing to work with opposing sides.  If your goal is to govern then you cannot fight intransigence with intransigence.  Yes, the current Republican Party is a joke and doesn’t want to govern at all as we enter the 2012 election cycle.  And going down the party line is an acceptable truth to try and win so we may gain another four years to try and improve the lives of all Americans.  But I feel Bill Maher would have his viewers believe that his way is the way and if you don’t agree, then you must not be as intelligent as he.

I don’t like Bill Maher, not because I don’t agree with his political preferences, but because I believe his arrogant attitude gives liberal and moderate Democrats who are actually trying to work to improve the lives of Americans a bad name. He gives fodder for an increasingly intransigent and polarized Republican Party.  It benefits no one and helps improve nothing.

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.

Where is the proposed high-speed rail route for the segment?

At present, the California High-Speed Rail project will run through the Central Valley hugging much of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) rights-of-way (ROWs).  However, some track must be laid out in open farmland near the City of Hanford.   The picture below illustrates the Fresno-Bakersfield segment, with the blue line representing the preferred alternative of the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) and the dark red line representing the existing BNSF route.  As you can see, the blue line and the dark red line align throughout much of the route.  It is near Hanford where the lines digress.

Farmers and some community groups are questioning this move, which is understandable.  HSR tracks will need to be laid through existing farmlands, in some cases splitting properties in two.  Some would like to see HSR travel along the existing Highway 99 route to the East.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this and most HSR supporters would be fine if this was the case.  I would personally like it more because it allows for a station to be built closer to my hometown of Visalia.

So why aren’t they building along Highway 99? 

The problem is with Union Pacific Railroad.  Union Pacific owns the ROWs along Highway 99.  If you look at the map above, the lighter red line running along Highway 99 is the Union Pacific railroad.  Union Pacific has refused to participate in anything HSR related in California.  BNSF, on the other hand, has been willing to work with the CAHSRA.  So when it came to alignment in the Central Valley, it made sense to continue to work with a partner in BNSF than fight with an adversary in Union Pacific.

But why does the route go outside of Hanford when the BNSF route continues through the city? 

This is because the City of Hanford didn’t want the train to run through its downtown.  The city claimed it interfered with its historic preservation efforts and future development plans.  As a result, the CAHSRA tried to meet the demands of the city and determined a route to the East of Hanford was the best alternative, unfortunately necessitating tracks to run through existing and parceled-out farmland.  Because of Hanford’s demands, HSR has no choice  but to move eastward because going to the west of Hanford would still impact farmland but also be farther from the population centers of Visalia and Tulare.

As a farmer, why shouldn’t I blame the California High Speed Rail Authority?

Farmers have a right to be worried about their land and a right to protect their property.  However, farmers who want to protect their farmland are focusing their anger at the wrong group.  The CAHSRA cannot force Hanford to allow HSR to go through the city.  They can also not force Union Pacific to let them align HSR tracks with theirs.  So are hardworking farmers going to let Hanford city residents or Union Pacific executives throw them under the bus because they don’t want to compromise?  Farmers should target their frustrations and energy at the city officials in Hanford and at Union Pacific. Many of the problems being expressed would be solved if Union Pacific would let high-speed rail run along its routes and Highway 99 or if Hanford would let HSR run through existing BNSF routes through the city.  It is very easy for cities to maintain historic properties, allow for development and construct transportation corridors.

If farmers want to protect their farmland, they should contact Hanford Mayor Dan Chin and tell him they want to see a HSR alignment through Hanford and not sacrifice farmland for the city’s intransigence.

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. 

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. 

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:

The east coast’s famous past time has always been to make fun of their West Coast brethren.  Whether it be Carmageddon (which, face it, we kind of deserved even though, just like the East Coast earthquake, nothing happened) or culture, the East Coast has never been shy of making fun of California, including our wildfires and mudslides whenever someone wants to move to California from the East Coast.  Further, visiting tourists or new residents of California are often caught maligning the state that they are in, saying that there is little culture, transit is terrible, the people are shallow or whatever.  You know, because when you visit Hollywood you obviously visited all 37.3 million of California’s residents.  Even Gawker, the website that posted the “insufferable” post, only a few days earlier ranked (by their own personal measures) California as the 46^th worst state in the union with quotes like:

Plus there’s the aforementioned city of Los Angeles, a wasted hellscape of strip malls and strippers and people desperate to be in “the industry.” Oh, and, well, the entire state is broke and their public school system is “broken” and nobody has a house there anymore.

Not to say that our public schools aren’t suffering but wow, you guys like to dish it but you can’t really take it, can you?  At least Hollywood never caused a nationwide economic recession (Wall Street is in New York, right?)

Gawker went on in their post and had some smart-ass remarks that even science will side with California on. Case and point, Gawker wrote:

In a misguided attempt to be sympathetic, LA Weekly wrote, “Even by L.A. terms 5.9 is a rocker.” Even by L.A. terms—because, you know, Southern California invented earthquakes.

Being from the East Coast it may make sense that Gawker doesn’t understand the science of earthquakes all that well.  Let me explain.  First, neither LA Weekly nor Californians ever claimed we invented earthquakes.  But we live with earthquakes every day, from small micro earthquakes to larger ones.  The reason is because of tectonics (geology).  The West Coast sits on the edge of the North American Plate and the crust is much softer because this area is seismically active (earthquakes, volcanoes).  So when we have an earthquake, we need to have a moderate to big one to feel it.  You, my dear East Coast publication, need only a relatively small or moderate one, like today, to feel it and the effects are felt much farther because you are not on the edge of the plate.  You sit in the middle of the plate where the earth is older and cooler, vibrating like a bell when the earth shakes.  So LA Weekly’s comment is quite accurate.  By LA and California terms in general, a 5.9 quake is a good sized quake and we can say that because how we measure the impact of an earthquake here is different from how you do out there.  Again, get over yourself.

Also, gawker makes fun of the fact that Californian’s seem to have an emergency kit at the ready with a power bar being stored in our LA Laker fanny packs.  Ignoring that I’m not really a basketball fan and probably have a SF Giants backpack somewhere in my garage, this isn’t something to make too much light of.  Its good to have an emergency kit.  I will point out that Gawker’s home state of New York and the City of New York recommend the same emergency preparedness kit for its residents as well.  Maybe you should get that power bar after all since you apparently didn’t have one ready for this emergency.

Finally, gawker goes for the zinger in any argument you have with an east coaster, specifically a New Yorker:

We deserve our fear, California. Because of 9/11! This earthquake could have been another 9/11, for all we knew. Yeah, didn’t think you had anything to say to that.

OK, could this have been another 9/11?  Yes it could have.   Because east coasters don’t have to live with earthquakes, the rumbling of the earth and buildings may bring back memories of planes flying into the World Trade Center towers.  That is legitimate PTSD.  But the fact of the matter it wasn’t.  And we can all thank the universe for that.  And it’s not like the East Coast doesn’t have some things to legitimately be afraid of during an earthquake.  Buildings don’t go through the same stringent building codes as California’s do.  California has some of the strictest building codes in the country and the world for the simple fact of earthquakes being common.  So I would be a little worried too if I was in an east coast building that may fall in on itself after some good shaking.  But again, none of that really happened.  Instead, we got scenes of people running out of office buildings onto the street – something a Californian can tell you is a bad idea in an earthquake (falling glass can hurt like hell).

9/11 was a terrible national disaster that changed everyone’s lives in this nation.  But you are equally smug for using it as a shield whenever you feel your ego threatened by us fearsome Californians.  To use it with such callousness robs the date of its importance.  But if you insist on going there, when you east coasters comes back and say, this could have been another 9/11, here’s what I want them to remember:  When California experiences another quake, it could be another Northridge Quake, or Loma Prieta Quake, or 1906 San Francisco Quake, or Haiti Quake, or Japan Quake.  You know, seismic events that actually caused real damage and sadly took the lives of many innocent people.  So while we can all mourn the loss from 9/11 as a national tragedy, don’t pretend other tragedies are absent outside of New York.

A more calm exploration of what happened in this West Coast vs. East Coast barrage was an article I read on MSNBC this morning entitled: “Hey East Coast! The entire West Coast is mocking you!”  When all is said and done, what this article points out is that it wasn’t so much as the reaction of the people on the ground (though that was good part of it) so much as the media attention.  A 5.8 earthquake on the West Coast would have gotten a side note on the evening news in San Francisco or Los Angeles.  But a similar size earthquake that causes little to no damage, injuries or fatalities apparently threw the fall of Tripoli off primetime.  When California was having its devastating wild fires in 2007 that caused a hell of a lot more damage and displaced thousands of families in Southern California, the network news gave us segments in their broadcast lineups.  But when the East Coast rumbles, its all East Coast all the time.  Hey, we had two earthquakes over here in the past 10 hours but was CNN here for that?  It highlights the kind of East Coast-centric attitude that makes us Californians and West Coasters roll our eyes and yes, poke fun at you when the opportunity arise.

In closing, my dear friends on the East Coast and at Gawker.com, get over yourself.  Learn to take a humorous punch over your overreaction to something that, whether you like it or not, we on the West Coast simply have more experience with than you do.  Get over it.

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. 

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.

What is City Beautiful (“CB”)

City Beautiful was a movement in urban planning and architecture around the late 1800s and early 1900s.  To put simply, the movement was a means of social reform; to create a “beautiful” city where beauty was promoted, not simply for its own sake, but to establish community cohesion, loyalty and civic virtue among the population.  The idea was that an urban population that was in love and proud of their city are more likely to be better citizens: not engage in criminality and establish moral virtue.  It is similar to the modern sociology Broken Window theory.  The movement has since given way (and inspired) more contemporary urban planning and architecture methods.  However, there are some essential factors to CB that I think should be re-focused in the infrastructure playbook.

How Can City Beautiful Help

City Beautiful recognized the connection the individual has with their physical environment.  Other scholars in urban planning like Kevin Lynch expanded this understanding with his work on how the user experiences his physical environment.  Everyday we exist in a city filled with visual stimuli, such as the buildings, the cars, the people and the landscape.  But our perception also helps fuel our own discontent.  We see a struggling community where buildings are decaying and roads are crumbling and we think our society is coming apart with it.  We think this neighborhood is in decay and the people in it suffer from that decay.  But when we see the construction of the new, we are filled with hope.  New is exciting.  A new bridge is possibilities.  A new commercial tower is jobs.  Cranes represent the construction of the future where we will not only utilize what we are building but where we can take pride in what we have built.  Buildings, bridges, rail and roads are the new monuments that can have the potential to affect the perception of residents just as monuments and columns and Beaux-art architecture fueled the CB movement.

So when we ask to build new or repair existing infrastructure, its not simply for the intrinsic and wise utility of it.  Yes, building a high-speed rail network in California will be an economic boom for the state.  But the construction of and existence of such a system will settle within the residents of California as something to be proud of.  The construction crews laying the track are people with jobs but the visual stimuli of crews and cranes building the future of California to its residents is an equally powerful means to help us push past this economic recession.

The economic stimulus of 2009 was not enough.  Some argue that we should have not done it all.  I say we should have done more.  We should have spent more money fueling the reconstruction of our country after years of neglect: rebuilding our bridges and roads, rebuilding our sewers and electrical grid.  Constructing new and efficient forms of transportation and finally funding existing transit operations.  There are so many projects that need attention by our government that nearly $800 billion is not even scratching the surface.  Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money, spoke with Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, around the time of the 2009 stimulus and Jim Cramer famously (to me anyway) pointed out the obvious:  $800 billion is not enough because a large city like Boston could go through all of that in a heartbeat to rebuild its ailing infrastructure and still need more.  Again, by fueling these projects; injecting them with funds we can create an environment where people can touch and feel our recovery, improving their own mood and outlook on the economy and our country but also the effort of the President.

Keeping It Beautiful

The Golden Gate Bridge was built during the Great Depression. It is still considered one of the most beautifully designed bridges in the world.

If it was only the physical presence that can help, then City Beautiful would be but a footnote.  However, it’s not only their function but their form that is important.  As residents of cities with national monuments know, we take pride in their presence in part because of their great beauty.  We enjoy them.  So when we ask to build new infrastructure like bridges, we should consider moving beyond utilitarian design where function weighs heavy over form.  Encourage unique design that adds to the skyline and character of the neighborhood and city.  Going for what is simply cheapest robs us of one of the key components of our physical environment that gives us pride: beauty.  The use of unique architecture in what we build helps residents of struggling cities have an object that can manifest their hopes and dreams for a better future.

When Obama addresses the nation around Labor Day to give his jobs speech, I sincerely hope he pushes for a strong infrastructure spending bill.  There are hundreds if not thousands of projects in each congressional district that are on many congressional representative and senator’s wish lists.  Let’s build them.  I want to see him call to not only repair the many dilapidated bridges that families drive across, but to fund future investments like California’s High Speed Rail system.  It’s not simply because these investments are intrinsically wise in their own right as they boost economic development.  Its also because they too establish a tangible message to the community of where we are going as a nation.  We live with infrastructure every day.  We cross bridges, ride on roads and rail daily.  Let us build our monuments to our perseverance and strength as we meet our country’s challenges both today and in the future.

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. 

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.

The move to name part of the city “boystown” has some in the community questioning its exclusion of lesbians.  Mayor Duran stated that the move is reflected in history and demographics because the majority of the LGBT population is gay men.  But in his statement, he has suggested the focus on gay men and families are mutually exclusive.  Below is the section from the WeHo News that has prompted the questions of Mayor Duran.

“You have to recognize that it’s been a haven for gay men for a long time,” Mayor Duran said.

He gave Koreatown as one example of a place with a traditional usage that had no negative connotation. “And that’s what we have here,” said the gay rights advocate.

In fact, he noted that of the 35 percent of LGBT people living in West Hollywood, 90 percent of those are gay men, and that the area has traditionally catered to gay men, not families.

The quantitative data is not in question here, though actual numbers prepared for City Hall show 44% of West Hollywood’s population identifies as gay, lesbian or bisexual.  Thirty-five percent is those who identify as gay men.  Perhaps another slip of the tongue by Mayor Duran to ignore the non-gay men in the city he is supposed to represent.

The real issue is over Duran’s suggestion that West Hollywood’s historic focus on gay men is exclusive and incompatible with families.  Simply because West Hollywood is gay should not mean that families should be skeptical of life in this small Southern California city.  Does John Duran think gay men and families should be kept separate?  With the continuing struggle the LGBT population has been going through to attain equality, including with regard to families and adoption, Mayor Duran’s suggestion is a step backward.

I will admit I am a past critic on language coming from West Hollywood’s elected officials that appear to dictate what it means to be an LGBT person in West Hollywood (and Los Angeles to a larger extent).  However, it is inappropriate for an elected official to make the suggestion that gay men and families are mutually exclusive. There are thousands of committed gay men in loving families with children and West Hollywood should strive to welcome them into the city, not push them away.  Mayor Duran should clarify his statement to the WeHo News or retract it all together.

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.  Roobs currently serves as Co-Chair of the California Young Democrats LGBTQ Caucus.  The views expressed in this post are those of Roobs and not the official position of the California Young Democrats or the CYD LGBTQ Caucus.