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A friend of mine tipped me off about an OCTA meeting yesterday where they discussed extending the 57 Freeway. And you thought that was off the table? Nope!
This could be quite expensive. Take a look at the graphic above. The options include tunneling under the Santa Ana River.
The idea is to extend the 57 to the 405. A good idea, but this surely won’t be easy – and I can only imagine the political battle that is about to ensue.
Don’t forget that local politicians are on the OCTA Board, including Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido and Supervisor Janet Nguyen.
In related news, Santa Ana Councilwoman Michele Martinez is urging everyone to support a rally this Thursday to save the OCTA bus routes, many of which are being cut back due to budget problems at the OCTA. Here is the information she sent me today:
SAVE OUR BUS SERVICE RALLY –
Thursday, June 4, 6-8 pm
Former Santa Ana Transit Terminal, triangular corner of 5th St., Santa Ana Blvd., & Ross
Please join us this Thursday for a rally to call attention to our huge bus service cuts. Bring as many friends and bus riders as you can so we can let people know how important this is. We will be letting people know about the cuts, encouraging people to attend the June 8 OCTA board meeting vote, and advocating for more bus funding.
Speakers to be announced.
Let us know if you can volunteer to:
Run PA system, pass out literature, be a safety monitor, translate materials into Spanish, phone our mailing list to attend
Send us a quick note to let us know if you can attend.
Please SPREAD the WORD!
& CSU Fullerton/UCI people should attend to help save the buses too! Preserve your UPASS! I know that as a Long Beach student, riding Long Beach Transit for free is beyond awesome.
OCTA Bus Service Reduction Vote –
Monday, June 8, 9 am
OCTA Headquarters, 1st Floor, Rm. 154, 600 S. Main St., Orange
Please get as many people as you can to attend this last meeting on the service cuts. The Board is not expecting the public to show up, so it will send a great message to them that we care about our service! Even if you can’t speak, your presence will make a huge difference.
Let OCTA know what effect these cuts will have for you and your best suggestions on which cuts would hurt least. Also let them know that you’d like them to support finding ways to make bus capital funds available for bus operations.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
1. Attend our June 4, 6pm rally and bring some friends.
2. Attend the June 8, 9 am OCTA Board meeting vote
3. Send this message to your friends.
4. Urge your legislators to restore transit funding (see below)
CONTACT YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS
The only way to stop the cuts is to restore transit funding! Most legislators are not familiar with the huge, disproportionate impact they had on transit when they voted to eliminate state transit operations funds to pass the budget. Let them know how the cuts will affect you and ask them to restore funding.
This is the most important thing you can do!
Speaking points:
• Bus riders are taking a disproportional hit; bus service is being reduced by almost 40% !
• Bus service is lifeline transportation for people with no alternatives – riders will lose their jobs and health care
• We HAVE bus capital funding, but we need bus OPERATIONS funding
• Ask them to explore ways to restore operations funding or ask feds to make capital funding flexible on a temporary emergency basis
If you’re not sure who your State legislators are:
Call the Registrar of Voters – OC: 714.567.7600
or enter your zip code at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
Michele Martinez**
Council Member
City of Santa Ana
(714) 200-3181 Cell
** For Identification purposes only
Buses? And more of them? That’s the only alternative you can think of to building more freeways?
We certainly don’t need more freeways. But we need more creative solutions to the transportation challenges of the future than simply expanding bus ridership.
But then, you oppose the taxes necessary to fund such solutions, so it’s no surprise that you wouldn’t mention them.
#1,
What do you want us to do? Bring back horses?
Do you want to waste millions on light rail?
You don’t seem to be offering up any ideas…
And buses are a huge part of our county transportation system…but then you probably don’t like the people riding them, do you?
Clowns like Big Dig Bill Campbell will keep pushing ever more ridiculous versions of this idea, and wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money studying alternatives that are preposterous.
A FOUR BILLION dollar tunnel to move four lanes of traffic seven miles? Where do they think they will find that money? The project isn’t included in Measure M2. And if they talk about tolls, it will be even less likely to succeed than the 73, which is insolvent and will eventually go bankrupt.
OCTA can’t afford to keep their buses running, but they just keep doling out millions to study things like a trolley from Santa Ana to downtown Garden Grove. A similar light rail line was studied a decade ago and rejected out of hand because it actually reduced traffic flow.
Art,
It’s truly offensive for you to take a swipe at me and imply that I’m a racist because I don’t see buses as the optimum solution to our transportation challenges. That really says a lot about you. Unbelievable. I’d ask for an apology, but then I know that you’re genetically incapable of offering one.
And your false choice between “wasting” millions on light rail and horses is absolutely ridiculous. You know that there are options out there…do I really have to spell them out for you?
#4,
Really? I have no idea who the heck you are! But your comments speak for themselves. You clearly don’t understand anything about the folks who ride buses…
Yes. Please do note the supposed options.
Problem is under the current revenue flow and the restrictions placed on the legislature by previous propositions and federal mandates, these expendatures will have to be cut to come close to a balanced budget.
There is going to be a lot of unpopular cuts that will have to be made to equal 25 billion, without tax increases.
Just got word from back in ohio, that the township next to where I grew up that is the richest part of the county just declared it was bankrupt. We are not alone.
My hometown there is reverting back to a township rather than a city to cut back expenses.
Art,
You have no idea who I am? Yet in the next breath you presume to know what I understand about people who ride buses?
That one statement lays bare the utter lack of logic in much of what you write.
But go ahead, play the race card whenever you can.
Trams, Trolleys, Monorail, Light Rail, Heavy Rail, High-Speed…that spell it out for ya?
#7,
Listen, I don’t know your name but you are obviously one of the “Usual Suspects.” That much I do know.
And as I predicted, you are a light rail guy too. Horrible option! And damn expensive…
What is wrong with light rail?
There was a very efficient trolly system here back in the early 1900’s. I still can’t find a sensible reason why it was dismantled.
What if they had dismantled the New York subway system when some clowns had protested that is was “too expensive” to expand?
CQT96,
The problem is that we developed without it. Now it is prohibitively expensive to construct it.
Moreover, the lines are static. It is easy to change bus routes – not so easy to change rail lines.
The proposed Santa Ana trolley, for example, is ridiculous. Are there really that many people looking to go from our train station to downtown Garden Grove? Really?
Nothing has changed.
the conclusions in the prior studies have shown a freeway extension or toll road is a bad idea.
This is about spending large amount of money on BS studies, whos business owners give direct and indirect campaign dollars. Why not have a study section and bring out the old study?
This is a form of theft.
Art,
You have no idea who I am. And I’m not one of the Usual Suspects. That’s just a lame accusation you toss out against anyone you “don’t know” but who dares to not put up with your BS race baiting. Once again, your ability to defy simple logic and create those connections where none exist never ceases to amaze.
And where did I say I was “a light rail guy”? I merely threw out some mass transit options…that’s all I did. Then you proceed to bring your criticism down to a city-wide level. Don’t you realize that the transportation challenges we face are bigger than that?
#12,
They may be bigger, but check the post. It is about extending the 57 through Santa Ana. Therefore my comments are relevant.
Tell you what, if you want to be judged as per who you are, then post using your name, like I do. Otherwise you sure seem like one of the Usual Suspects. At least you express yourself like one.
BTW, did you notice that no one is voting in the survey for the “get out of your cars” option? There is the problem with light rail. No one wants to get out of their cars.
And who is going to subsidize the light rail? The cost per rider is huge compared to riding buses.
“Tell you what, if you want to be judged as per who you are, then post using your name, like I do.”
There’s just one problem with that, Art.
That’s not how you treat people. I’ve read enough to know better.
#14,
As you like, but I don’t see you mounting much of a defense of light rail…
“…I don’t see you mounting much of a defense of light rail…”
That’s because I’m not TRYING to defend it. Can’t you read?
Why not consider PRT? See http://www.prtstrategies.com/ , which is one of the advertisers on this blog, or see the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
#16,
So you are just feeling generally grouchy?
Look, if you are going to offer up light rail as a solution you should be prepared to back that up.
Paul,
I agree! PRT is the way to go, but too many politicians are making money off conventional light rail. So they won’t touch PRT.
Believe me, the OCTA is fully aware of PRT. They just opt not to consider it.
Sacramento has a fairly heavily ridden (Per my observation during the commute hours) light rail system that feeds into downtown. It was built long after the area was urbanized, so it can be done if the funding can be found and a community will develops.
“So you are just feeling generally grouchy?”
Call me crazy…I get like that when someone who doesn’t even know me implies I’m a racist, or that I harbor prejudice against low-income folks, or that I’m one of the Usual Suspects.
Here’s the thing…I’m for mass transit solutions that are smartly planned, that build an infrastructure that will take us WELL into the future, and that have the greatest possible impact on driving habits in Southern California. Maybe that includes light rail…maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it includes light rail as part of a mix of solutions.
All I know is that throwing more buses out on the streets completely lacks the creative, visionary aspect that I believe needs to drive the solutions to the transportation challenges we face.
I understand, despite your irrational accusations to the contrary, that buses provide a very important solution to folks, many of whom are low-income and have no other means of transportation. I understand that some of these folks are recent immigrants who are simply trying to establish themselves in a new country. I got no problem with any of that. I just don’t think more buses are a good solution to our transportation woes.
And this post was about transportation, not race or income, right?
casual observer,
Sacramento however has vast plots of farm land and empty land. It is not nearly as packed as Santa Ana. Or most of Central OC for that matter.
Light rail simply won’t work her. Except for the Pacific right of way – but the City of Santa Ana wants to waste that on their dumb trolley idea. A monorail would make more sense. But that route doesn’t make much sense.
Express bus routes are a good solution too.
Light Rail is not cost efficient. It requires heavy subsidies from the public because the farebox doesn’t pay for the cost per rider.
Subways work in New York and Chicago because they were designed to take people from where they live to where they work. Rail transportation is not cost effective when you have dispursed populations and multi-modal business districts.
We could go back to a 19th Century economy by riding horses. There would be new jobs for the newly unemployed. (People Pooper Scoopers, Horse Groomers, Blacksmiths, etc.) This would give modern meaning for our elected officials. The old phrase “Let Them Eat Cake”.
The OCTA (orange county tranporation authority) is nothing more than a glorified BUS COMPANY. Remember when they were the OCTD? The kind Ralph Kranden use to work for. They aren’t close to being a Bullet Train.
Based upon how the OCTD Board acts, they should be the OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
The OCTA should stick to buses and bus lines and leave rail lines to the Japanese.
Art, with regard to vast amounts of land, you must be referring to Sacramento County, not the City. Or else you are about 20 years behind times. Just look at the urbanization in the Natomas area in the last 10, an area that once was judged too flood prone to permit development. It is a big city, and the light rail runs right downtown, on what they call the K Street mall (a rail and pedestrian conversion of K street) but a block and a half from the capital. It can be done here except for the Nimby’s and the collapsing economy. Not sure in the current economic and crime climate the ridership of folks wishing to come and go from the city/county civic center- government center in Santa Ana is there. Even the Social Security office has moved out of downtown (about 6 years ago)to the glitzy Xerox tower on First and the I-5, another abandonment of the civic center area.
All the 57 options were spelled out in the Central Orange County Corridor Study – Phase I July ’05 Available from OCTA. They have further been discussed in the Central County Corridor Major Investment Study Stakeholder Working Group, in Nov ’08 and again in ’09. Minutes should be available from OCTA.
All of the options appear to be totally ridiculous, but they keep getting discussed because the Supervisors seem intent on handing out more study money.
I really don’t understand the negative stigma attached to bus riding particularly in Southern California. Having lived in San Francisco, EVERYONE from all walks of life rode the bus. No big deal. It was strongly encouraged.
Though I do drive a lot, I do use the bus; especially during the busy Christmas shopping season when there is rarely a place to park at the malls.
The 57 extension will only work as a toll road. The state should sell the freeways to a toll road company and then we can let the market decide if this extension is a go. That way the state can balance the budget until the economy recovers without making drastic cuts. It’s easy enough to finance, if CALPERS buys toll road company bonds, they’ll set the rates high enough to guarantee a favorable return to CALPERS – thus solving any shortfall in the pension funds.
Obama’s three main focus areas: Health Care, Education and Clean Energy.
I would think that clean energy is going to have to be important for any kind of fed support when dealing with transportation. Displacing scads of people might be a wet dream for the mayor and council members who could somehow benefit from all the construction etc…
Michele is right to focus in on the city’s bus system and routes. Good for her.
But it worked in the EARLY 1900’s????
The 57 extension will only work as a toll road. The state should sell the freeways to a toll road company and then we can let the market decide if this extension is a go.
Are you completely disconnected from history?
The state issued a toll road franchise on the 57 to the Perot Group and Greinert engineering.
The private sector failed for a decade to figure out how to make this work, although they kept sucking up to the public trough for public subidies.
The county approved a 14 million dollar non-recourse loan to the private firm a month before the county bankruptcy, except that the money was funded by the “endowment” earned by Citron’s fraud. Supervisors were in favor of giving money to Ross Perot, Jr., who might have borrowed a little money form his dad.
Again, OCTA asked for money to fund the engineering through the state, but the earmark for subsidizing “private” investment was vetoed.
Toll roads are a scam, where they need to maintain congestion on alternate routes, and where the consultants, contractors, and vendors make fortunes, while the public is raped.
#31,
“Toll roads are a scam, where they need to maintain congestion on alternate routes, and where the consultants, contractors, and vendors make fortunes, while the public is raped.”
Why does that remind me of GOP consultant and OC lobbyist John Lewis?
“Toll roads are a scam, where they need to maintain congestion on alternate routes, and where the consultants, contractors, and vendors make fortunes, while the public is raped.”
Why does that remind me of GOP consultant and OC lobbyist John Lewis?
I have no idea.
Was John Lewis right once?
So all the routes have been studied, and the most cost effective choice is?
I think the dedicated bus routes, and the current study monies sure could fund a great start.
So what was the outcome here?
The Central County Corridor Major Investment Study Stakeholder Working Group is studying the routes and I believe the consultants have been hired or will be to look at the cost and viability. Last I heard was the tunneling was the focus. Isn’t that a joke? $$$$ more to tell us what The Perot group figured out over 15 years ago.