Angelenos Against Gridlock

Thoughts on the "Orange Crush"

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:29:00 -0700

Zev Yaroslavsky’s blog has a great story about the crushing crowds on the Orange Line. Click the headline above to read the story.

If we might add some reactions:

It’s a real reminder of the limitations of BRT and of non-grade separated transit lines.

Los Angeles tries to get away with bus rapid transit lines, and lower capacity, sometimes non-grade separated light rail (think of all the accidents and delays they cause for the Blue/Expo lines), leaving heavy rail just for the the Red/Purple line, while many other cities around the world choose roomy, faster heavy rail subways.

Recent Press Highlights: Good Morning America, Bloomberg, Telegraph (UK), TechCrunch, and More

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:06:00 -0700

We could not be more thrilled with the interest around the city, nation, and even the world in our Faster 405 Campaign, supported by Elon Musk. For the latest press highlights from Good Morning America, Bloomberg, the UK Telegraph, TechCrunch, and more, visit our Faster405.com site.

Like What You've Read in the Press? Donate, and Help Us Fight Gridlock!

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:54:55 -0700

Given the scale of Los Angeles’ infamous gridlock challenges, and the need to fight for both short-term and long-term solutions, there’s so much to do. Like what you’ve read in the press this week? Donate to support our efforts. Thanks!

We Need More Metro Rail Construction -- Not Less

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:47:00 -0700

Some are asking what the 405 delays mean for future Metro construction. Do the 405 highway delays mean we shouldn’t support future Metro subway construction? Absolutely not.

We’re as strong as ever in our belief that the solution for LA’s mobility crisis is a fully built-out rail system. That requires much more Metro rail construction, not scaling back. Can lessons be learned from the highway delays to avoid rail construction delays? Sure — but that’s not a reason not to proceed with what’s required to get LA moving. (It may be a reason why watchdog groups — like ours — continue to be needed, but let’s not lose sight of the main point: LA needs a huge amount of rail construction.)

LA is far behind the rest of the world. These slides show just how far behind we are. (Click the full screen button at bottom right to enlarge the slides.)

Visit Faster405.com for links to & our reactions to the LA...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:48:00 -0700

Visit Faster405.com for links to & our reactions to the LA Times article & chat on the 405 delays.

Visit our Faster405.com site for full coverage relating to today’s Los Angeles Times article & live chat. There, we have links to read the Los Angeles Times article and participate in the live chat on the 405 delays and on our efforts to push back, and we’ve posted our reflections on the pace thus far.

From the LA Times’ live chat announcement:

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has formally acknowledged the completion of the widening of the Sepulveda Pass on the 405 Freeway will be delayed at least 13 months.

Projected date for completion is now mid-2014. A variety of problems caused the delay — notably the requirement to move dozens of utility lines under Sepulveda Boulevard.

Join us at 9 a.m. [Thursday, 4/25/13] as we discuss the project and its latest delays with Times reporter Martha Groves.

Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind PayPal and Tesla electric vehicles, jokes he can shoot one of his SpaceX rockets into space way faster than he can commute on the 405 Freeway from Bel-Air to the Hawthorne factory where those rockets are made.

“It varies from bad to horrendous,” he said of the ongoing project to add a carpool lane to the busy road through the Sepulveda Pass.

Musk is backing a group called Angelenos Against Gridlock [that’s us!], which wonders why elected officials are not making a bigger deal of the delay.

Interested in following further developments? If you haven’t already signed up for our mailing list, please do so using the signup form at right.

Final Hours to Vote for AAG in the LA2050 Challenge; Plus: Reddit, Patch, & The Source

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:32:00 -0700

Cast your vote for more transit before it’s too late!

Have you voted for Angelenos Against Gridlock yet in the LA2050 Challenge? If not, the deadline is fast approaching (Wed, noon). Click here to vote (or to learn more) now! (Use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox if you have trouble, and be sure to click the email confirmation link after you vote.) We need your vote to succeed — it’s going to be VERY close!

Also, don’t miss our Q&A on Reddit going on now!

And thanks to Patch, The Source, and Streetsblog LA for covering our LA2050 project.

Jerry Brown slams slow pace in CA

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:05:36 -0700

Governor Jerry brown spoke to reporters today traveling on his delegation to China, bemoaning the slow pace of progress in California, versus the incredible pace of construction in China.

“We sit around and mope. And process. And navel gaze,” said the governor about the political environment back home. “And the rest of the world is moving at mach speed. So when we go back, we’ll emulate some of that.”

Read more in reporter John Myers’ piece: http://www.news10.net/news/california/article/240458/430/Brown-rides-praises-China-bullet-train

Press Release: Vote for in the LA2050 Challenge to Transform LA into a World Class Place to Live

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 09:18:00 -0700

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: David Murphy,

President, Angelenos Against Gridlock

dmurphy@endinggridlock.org

Vote in the LA2050 Challenge for Angelenos Against Gridlock’s Ambitious Bid to Dramatically Transform LA with World-Class Transportation & Housing Options

It’s Time for LA to Join Tokyo, London, Paris, NYC, and others with World-Class Subway & Commuter Rail Systems, and Ample Housing Near Jobs Centers

Los Angeles, Calif. (April 9, 2013) — Angelenos Against Gridlock (www.endinggridlock.org), a group dedicated to solving LA’s most vexing and infamous problem, calls on on frustrated residents to vote online at bit.ly.com/vote4lafor its proposal to fight for world class transportation and housing in the Goldhirsh Foundation $1 million LA2050 Challenge.

Angelenos Against Gridlock’s proposal calls for an ambitious program to rally the Los Angeles region into achieving its full potential as a world-class place to live with a ubiquitous, fast, efficient rail transportation to rival any transit system in the world, and ample and affordable housing near job centers.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” said David C. Murphy, President of Angelenos Against Gridlock. “We just the bold, collective vision and willpower to implement solutions that have worked in cities across the nation and the globe.

“Angelenos have suffered long enough. It’s time to rise up, and vote for change: we’re urging frustrated Angelenos to vote for us in the LA2050 Challenge, so we can fight for the future we all deserve. LA needs a fully-built-out subway system and frequent, expanded Metrolink commuter rail, to free us all from crippling gridlock, and enable us to build the concentration of housing near jobs centers at the rate needed to make housing more affordable for hardworking families,” Murphy said.

HOW TO VOTE:

The Goldhirsh Foundation is revolutionizing philanthropy — they are giving citizens a role in saying how the foundation will pay out $1 million in funding (ten $100,000 grants) in the LA2050 Challenge! It’s easy to cast a vote using the GOOD Maker website — just do so before the deadline, April 17 at noon. It just takes a matter of seconds to vote:

1. Go to bit.ly/vote4la (or the full URL: http://myla2050.maker.good.is/projects/fundthisproject ). Google Chrome or Firefox work better than Internet Explorer.

2. Click Vote.

3. Submit the form with your email and create a username and password (or login with Facebook).

3. Check your email for a confirmation link to finish casting your vote. IMPORTANT: you must click on this confirmation link for your vote to count!

That’s it — but don’t forget to share the link on Twitter & Facebook, and to print out and post or email the flyer.

###

ABOUT ANGELENOS AGAINST GRIDLOCK

Angelenos Against Gridlock (www.endinggridlock.org) advocates for LA to join the ranks of world class cities, with a fully-built out rail system, bike safety improvements, and more. With programs ranging from pro-transit outreach supported by funders like the David Bohnett Foundation, to theFaster 405 Campaign (faster405.com) funded by Tesla & SpaceX Founder & CEO Elon Musk, Angelenos Against Gridlock is fiscally sponsored by theRose Foundation, a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. Angelenos Against Gridlock has been featured on NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, and by the LA Times, LA Daily News, LA Business Journal, Curbed LA, LA Observed, HuffPost, and more. Join us in fighting for a LA to meet its full potential, by tackling our most infamous problems.

Vote for us in the LA2050 Challenge! Share this flyer with...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:29:21 -0700

Vote for us in the LA2050 Challenge!

Share this flyer with friends and colleagues. Here’s a downloadable PDF / Scribd document that you can email or embed.

LA Deserves a World Class Subway & Commuter Rail System -- VOTE to Help Make it Happen!

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:26:00 -0700

Vote in the LA2050 Challenge from the Goldhirsh Foundation & GOOD, and we could receive one of ten $100,000 grants. Our ambitious project proposal calls for a completely transformed Los Angeles region, with a fully-built-out Metro subway and Metrolink commuter rail system. But we can’t do it without your help: click here to learn more and to cast your vote right now!

WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR US:

OUR VISION: in 2050, LA County will have a world-class, fully built-out Metro rail and Metrolink system, with fast, frequent, ubiquitous rail transit and commuter rail service that saturates the region, and rivals the world’s best transportation systems. Besides dramatically transforming quality of life by freeing Angelenos from crushing gridlock, rail will also lay the foundation for greatly increased housing options to be built close to jobs centers, reversing sprawl and increasing supply to help make housing more abundant and thus more affordable.

OUR LA2050 PROJECT: This year, if approved for an LA2050 grant, we will bring prominent global leaders to Los Angeles to shatter the status quo, and dramatically expand Angelenos’ vision for what’s possible. We will invite top visionaries to come to LA for high-impact public lectures and meetings with LA’s political and civic elites, such as:

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London: London has a bit of a lead over Los Angeles, having launched its subway system a full 150 years ago; more recently, their bikeshare system also has lessons for LA.
Tyler Brûlé, founder of Monocle magazine (known for its global Quality of Life city rankings) and columnist for the Financial Times.

Other cities around the world have solved their transportation challenges. There’s no reason we can’t too.

We’ll also produce a YouTube video and infographics laying out our bold vision for LA’s future with world class rail transit and commuter rail options that move Angelenos quickly and efficiently, and how to pay for it and make it happen. And we will do outreach and work to build a network of supporters to endorse the vision and to support Los Angeles’ ascendancy into the ranks of world class cities.

Read more on our project page. But we can only do this with your help, and your vote!

CAST YOUR VOTE TODAY:

Please vote for our project, make comments on the project page, and share the link with your friends. Here’s how:

1. Visit our project page at http://myla2050.maker.good.is/projects/fundthisproject

2. Click the vote button on the webpage. Sign in or create an account on GOOD, which is hosting the voting. (If you don’t have a GOOD account, it’s free to join, and you can use either your email or Facebook to join. After you join, you must verify your email for your vote to count.)

Once you’ve voted, you’ll get a notification at the top of GOOD’s website verifying that your vote has been counted.

Remember, you can only vote once, but please invite your friends to vote, too, by sharing the link via email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Please also Tweet to Your Followers!

CEQA, the Expo Line, and High Speed Rail

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 11:55:00 -0700

CEQA, the Expo Line, and High Speed Rail:

The California Economic Summit website has a roundup of some effects of CEQA on important rail projects for LA & the California (and we quote):

Transit lines in Los Angeles: The CEQA Working Group released another case study this week featuring how CEQA has been used to stop the building of a transit line that will relieve congestion on a major Los Angeles freeway. A neighborhood group has locked the project up in a CEQA suit since 2010 while they push for an alternative route. Barring further delays, the project is finally underway—and is now scheduled to be completed eight years after the approval process began.
High-speed rail: The governor’s favorite reason for reforming CEQA got a boost this month when a judge dismissed a CEQA suit that threatened to disrupt high-speed rail’s route through the Bay Area. The suit, brought by the peninsula cities of Menlo Park and Atherton, had long been criticized for having more to do with the way the rail system will look than with any concern over its impact on the environment. “This lawsuit is a reminder that some sort of CEQA reform is badly needed,” writes Robert Cruickshank of the California High Speed Rail Blog. The Atherton City Council recently sent $10,000 to the lawyers representing the Central Valley farmers whose CEQA suit is high-speed rail’s next major hurdle. That case will be heard beginning in April.

Great LA Times Op-Ed on L.A.'s Deficit of Civic Consciousness

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 11:22:00 -0700

Great LA Times Op-Ed on L.A.'s Deficit of Civic Consciousness:

This Los Angeles Times op-ed by Harold Meyerson addresses an important deeper issue that speaks to one of the reasons we’re in the gridlocked mess we are in Los Angeles. Here at Angelenos Against Gridlock we’ve seen what we’d term a pretty big failure by those you might expect to be civic elites to actually be involved in the local issues around them. And our cities and region suffer mightily for it.

Good for Harold Meyerson for calling out this problem. Now we just need some arm twisting by this generation’s equivalent of Dorothy Chandler to get more people to step up to the plate and meet their responsibilities to be involved. The question is, who will take that role?

The face of public transit? The new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio,...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:52:37 -0700

The face of public transit? The new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, rode the bus instead of a limo.

Air // Rail 2013 Conference: April 16-17 in Salt Lake City

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:26:00 -0700

With all of the questions about whether the future LAX airport rail connections will be done right, it’s worth noting that the International Air Rail Organisation is hosting its 21st conference next month. We certainly hope Metro & LAX leaders will be well represented among the attendance, to be reminded how things are done right in other cities around the world.

Air//Rail 2013 Conference:

AAG Commends Metro for Launching Bike Safety Campaign

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:42:00 -0800

Angelenos Against Gridlock is thrilled Metro is launching a bike safety campaign. You can read more about it here.

Let’s face it: the state of bike safety in Los Angeles County has been pretty abysmal. “I’ve been hit and had my bike ‘totaled’ multiple times,” said David Murphy, President of Angelenos Against Gridlock. “I feel lucky to be alive. Bike safety issues are not some abstract low-priority issue. It’s incredibly important we make the Los Angeles region safer for residents and commuters on bikes.”

When meeting with Metro bike staff in the past, one of the things we encouraged them to do was to use Metro buses for an ad campaign for bike safety, just like Santa Monica Big Blue Bus had done, and which we believe Metro had been considering. We’re thrilled that they’re doing so.

Don't Miss Our Updates at Faster405.com, too!

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:18:00 -0800

Don't Miss Our Updates at Faster405.com, too!:

Have you visited our Faster 405 Campaign website lately? Be sure to check Faster405.com frequently for our updates about the latest on the delays on the 405 construction project.

Lest we forget how far we have to go: here’s Tokyo’s...

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:34:23 -0800

Lest we forget how far we have to go: here’s Tokyo’s subway map. LA’s just a little bit behind.

Link: California Bike Coalition Sets Ambitious Reform Agenda for 2013

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:20:37 -0800

Link: California Bike Coalition Sets Ambitious Reform Agenda for 2013:

(Click the headline to read more on Streetsblog LA.)

The Santa Monica Chamber’s excellent Santa Monica State of...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:27:00 -0800

The Santa Monica Chamber’s excellent Santa Monica State of the City event is going on now. Angelenos Against Gridlock is proud to have moved our offices to Santa Monica last month, and we appreciate Its bike and transit friendliness. (And yes, that’s our own president, David Murphy pictured in the blue shirt on the slide, giving the thumbs up biking to the Santa Monica Bike Center’s grand opening!)

Don't Dismiss the Merits of Connecting the 710

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:26:26 -0800

Don't Dismiss the Merits of Connecting the 710:

The Alternatives Analysis for the 710 has been released, and while we’re all for greater transit connections all across the region, we also think it’s a damn shame the 710 is cut off from itself so abruptly. Despite the controversy finishing the connection deserves consideration.