Passenger Trains > LA Times: A terrible idea to build a new freeway in LA County...

Subject:     It was a terrible idea to build a new freeway...
Date:     Sun, 6 Oct 2019

Editorial: It was a terrible idea to build a new freeway in Los Angeles County. Now it’s on hold for good.

By The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board

Could the era of building new freeways in California be over?

Last month, the California Department of Transportation agreed to shelve plans for the first new freeway in Los Angeles County in more than a quarter-century. The 63-mile High Desert Corridor freeway was designed as a new route, up to eight lanes wide, to speed travelers and trade between Palmdale and San Bernardino County’s Apple Valley.

The freeway plan was born of old California. The idea for an “L.A. Bypass” connecting the I-5 and I-15 highways surfaced in the 1930s. It was revived in the 1970s as a way to get people and goods around the traffic-clogged Los Angeles Basin, and the project slowly progressed over the next few decades, even as new freeway construction increasingly fell out of favor.

Although proponents rebranded the High Desert Corridor as an innovative multimodal transportation initiative, complete with a train line, a bike route and renewable energy transmission facilities, its centerpiece until recently was still the freeway. But the project raised many serious questions, including:

Why would California plow new highways through open space to enable more cars to travel to far-flung subdivisions when the state is trying to persuade people to drive less to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming?

Why, when Los Angeles County is spending billions of dollars to build light rail and subway lines to provide alternatives to commuting by car, would the region support a project that perpetuates driving and will eventually become another traffic-clogged nightmare?

And what will it take for state and local leaders to follow through on their ambitious climate goals and stop building a car-centric transportation system that sprawls ever outward?

In the case of the High Desert Corridor freeway, it took an environmental lawsuit.

The Los Angeeles-based nonprofit Climate Resolve sued in 2016 to block the freeway, arguing that Caltrans didn’t adequately address the potential contribution to global warming. Projections showed the route would have resulted in 4 million additional miles being driven every day, at a time when California has to slash the number of vehicle miles traveled to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the agreement with Climate Resolve, Caltrans cannot begin work on the freeway without completing a lengthy supplemental environmental impact report. But in reality, the agency has no intention of doing the study or moving forward on the freeway in the near future. The freeway was put on hold before the lawsuit was settled. There wasn’t enough demand to justify building it, nor was there funding to pay for it. Instead, Caltrans is looking at widening existing roadways to handle the area’s traffic needs.

Plus, the state transportation agency has now begun to judge the value of transportation projects based on their climate and development impacts. That’s welcome and overdue. The goal of building infrastructure shouldn’t just be to move vehicles quickly; transportation projects should aim to reduce the need to drive and the length of the drive. That should mean no more large exurban highways that induce long commutes.

That’s why other elements of the High Desert Corridor — including plans for an electric high-speed train and bike route — can go ahead without additional environmental study. Those are the types of projects that California should be working on. The Measure M sales tax increase approved in 2017 included $1.8 billion for the High Desert Corridor, which could still be used for the high-speed rail component. Regional leaders are working with Virgin Trains USA on a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas that would run along the corridor.

California cannot meet its ambitious climate change targets without transforming the transportation system. The transportation sector is the state’s largest source of greenhouse gases, and emissions have risen despite the arrival of vehicles that burn less fuel per mile.

Perhaps the demise of the desert freeway is a sign that California leaders are finally getting serious about matching their climate goals with their transportation decisions.


https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-06/high-desert-corridor-freeway-stopped

Not needed as long as they finish the project to make highway 138 four lanes between the I-15 and the 14.
And they're making pretty good progress on making highway 58 a full freeway between Mojave and Barstow.
And the 58 is the by-pass around LA.

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The freeway plan was born of old California. The
> idea for an “L.A. Bypass” connecting the I-5
> and I-15 highways surfaced in the 1930s. It was
> revived in the 1970s as a way to get people and
> goods around the traffic-clogged Los Angeles
> Basin, and the project slowly progressed over the
> next few decades, even as new freeway construction
> increasingly fell out of favor.

Wow, radical. Didn't Espee make this same route back in the 1960's for the same reason?

> Why, when Los Angeles County is spending billions
> of dollars to build light rail and subway lines to
> provide alternatives to commuting by car, would
> the region support a project that perpetuates
> driving and will eventually become another
> traffic-clogged nightmare?

Probably because all those rail lines are down in LA proper and not up in the growing high desert part of the county.

> And what will it take for state and local leaders
> to follow through on their ambitious climate goals
> and stop building a car-centric transportation
> system that sprawls ever outward?

Convincing people to live like bugs in stacked little boxes would probably do it. As long as people want their own affordable home, they'll move outwards.

> Plus, the state transportation agency has now
> begun to judge the value of transportation
> projects based on their climate and development
> impacts. That’s welcome and overdue. The goal of
> building infrastructure shouldn’t just be to
> move vehicles quickly; transportation projects
> should aim to reduce the need to drive and the
> length of the drive. That should mean no more
> large exurban highways that induce long commutes.

What kind of goofballs come up with these ideas? Transportation projects to reduce the length of driving? Isn't that what a highway bypass is?

> That’s why other elements of the High Desert
> Corridor — including plans for an electric
> high-speed train and bike route — can go ahead

Are these people serious? Who bikes 30 miles in the high desert?

> without additional environmental study. Those are
> the types of projects that California should be
> working on. The Measure M sales tax increase
> approved in 2017 included $1.8 billion for the
> High Desert Corridor, which could still be used
> for the high-speed rail component. Regional
> leaders are working with Virgin Trains USA on a
> high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las
> Vegas that would run along the corridor.

People don't want to travel from downtown LA to Las Vegas, they want to go from their home to Vegas. Where do Vegas visitors live? That's where the train should go.

> California cannot meet its ambitious climate
> change targets without transforming the
> transportation system. The transportation sector

They could always reduce the population to do it.

> is the state’s largest source of greenhouse
> gases, and emissions have risen despite the
> arrival of vehicles that burn less fuel per mile.

Because they keep importing more people to California which means more drivers and more emissions.
 

Caltrans LOVES to spend money.  The more the better.  Though it does deserve recognition for spending on rail projects, I can't imagine the need for an 8-lane freeway up in the High Desert.

Wife and I are retiring and clearing out of California next year.  Our tax money is being squandered and spent on things we can't abide.

-John

I live on the High Desert and think that freeway is a boondoggle.
Improving the dangerous existing road and making it multi-modal is a good idea.
 

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Perhaps the demise of the desert freeway is a sign
> that California leaders are finally getting
> serious about matching their climate goals with
> their transportation decisions.

Good thing this is just an editorial. Nope, this is all about pandering for votes. It has little or nothing to do with transportation "planning." I second abyler's mockery of this opinion piece.

Silicon Valley voters already got duped into financial scheming disguised as transportation "planning" 3 years ago with Measure B. California's political leaders are transportation incompetent and/or corrupt. Baiting people with climate issues isn't going to change that.

It seems High Desert Corridor freeway shouldn't be built regardless of environmental issues, but stupid leaders (California) shouldn't plan on building anything until they clean up their act. 

jcaestecker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Caltrans LOVES to spend money.  The more the
> better.  Though it does deserve recognition for
> spending on rail projects, I can't imagine the
> need for an 8-lane freeway up in the High Desert.

There's over a million people in the high desert and Route 138/Route 18 is a single lane in each direction between the two major population centers.

I'm sure another light rail line in Los Angeles, or maybe installing some multimodal bike lanes along 18 will cure the traffic.

abyler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> GenePoon Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------

> > California cannot meet its ambitious climate
> > change targets without transforming the
> > transportation system. The transportation
> sector
>
> They could always reduce the population to do it.


I guess we’re gonna have to start eating all the babies then...
 

MojaveBill Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I live on the High Desert and think that freeway
> is a boondoggle.
> Improving the dangerous existing road and making
> it multi-modal is a good idea.
>  
I lived in Lancaster in the late 1960s and early 70s when the population was bouth 35,000+-. It is now about 170,000 according to the 2010 census. The problem is that there are simply too many people on the face of the earth. Americans tsk, tsked when the Chinese limited families to two children, but the brutal truth is that we are eating ourselves out of house-and home. It won't be long before we wont be able to feed the population because too much arable land has been turned into housing tracts and shopping centers. I'll be 80 years old on Wednesday, so I won't live to see it, but sadly my grandchildren will.
Bill Pyper
Salem, Oregon
 

Remember the movie Soylent Green? Coming to a planet near you.

wjpyper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MojaveBill Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I live on the High Desert and think that
> freeway
> > is a boondoggle.
> > Improving the dangerous existing road and
> making
> > it multi-modal is a good idea.
> >  
> I lived in Lancaster in the late 1960s and early
> 70s when the population was bouth 35,000+-. It is
> now about 170,000 according to the 2010 census.
> The problem is that there are simply too many
> people on the face of the earth. Americans tsk,
> tsked when the Chinese limited families to two
> children, but the brutal truth is that we are
> eating ourselves out of house-and home. It won't
> be long before we wont be able to feed the
> population because too much arable land has been
> turned into housing tracts and shopping centers.
> I'll be 80 years old on Wednesday, so I won't live
> to see it, but sadly my grandchildren will.
> Bill Pyper
> Salem, Oregon
>  

build it!   every city planner is anti auto  , even taking away lanes in inner cities, reducing lanes to 1950's amounts, we love to drive, don't you



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/19 09:49 by dan.

wjpyper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MojaveBill Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I live on the High Desert and think that
> freeway
> > is a boondoggle.
> > Improving the dangerous existing road and
> making
> > it multi-modal is a good idea.
> >  
> I lived in Lancaster in the late 1960s and early
> 70s when the population was bouth 35,000+-. It is
> now about 170,000 according to the 2010 census.
> The problem is that there are simply too many
> people on the face of the earth. Americans tsk,
> tsked when the Chinese limited families to two
> children, but the brutal truth is that we are
> eating ourselves out of house-and home. It won't
> be long before we wont be able to feed the
> population because too much arable land has been
> turned into housing tracts and shopping centers.
> I'll be 80 years old on Wednesday, so I won't live
> to see it, but sadly my grandchildren will.
> Bill Pyper
> Salem, Oregon

So it was OK for you and your grandchildren to be born, but not for others.  Thanks, pal!  Who should we get rid of first?  Malthusianism and it's consequences were disproved long ago, anyway.

wjpyper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MojaveBill Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I live on the High Desert and think that
> freeway
> > is a boondoggle.
> > Improving the dangerous existing road and
> making
> > it multi-modal is a good idea.
> >  
> I lived in Lancaster in the late 1960s and early
> 70s when the population was bouth 35,000+-. It is
> now about 170,000 according to the 2010 census.
> The problem is that there are simply too many
> people on the face of the earth. Americans tsk,
> tsked when the Chinese limited families to two
> children, but the brutal truth is that we are
> eating ourselves out of house-and home. It won't
> be long before we wont be able to feed the
> population because too much arable land has been
> turned into housing tracts and shopping centers.

It's not American born citizens reproducing that is driving population growth, it is legal and illegal immigration.  But for immigration, American population would have steadied at about 250 million back around 1990.  A great deal of American infrastructure, like the interstate highway system or our airports was planned and sized int he 1950's and 1960's for this much smaller projected population.  As the population exploded post 1970 and especially post-1990 from immigration, there was nothing done to update our needed infrastructure to match a new projected population.

It seems like no one even wants to try, instead they blame congestion on Americans for simply existing, as if we don't know how to plan and engineer transport systems to accomodate their users.

abyler Wrote:

> > And what will it take for state and local
> leaders
> > to follow through on their ambitious climate
> goals
> > and stop building a car-centric transportation
> > system that sprawls ever outward?
>
> Convincing people to live like bugs in stacked
> little boxes would probably do it. As long as
> people want their own affordable home, they'll
> move outwards.
>
> > Plus, the state transportation agency has now
> > begun to judge the value of transportation
> > projects based on their climate and development
> > impacts. That’s welcome and overdue. The goal
> of
> > building infrastructure shouldn’t just be to
> > move vehicles quickly; transportation projects
> > should aim to reduce the need to drive and the
> > length of the drive. That should mean no more
> > large exurban highways that induce long
> commutes.
>
> What kind of goofballs come up with these ideas?
> Transportation projects to reduce the length of
> driving? Isn't that what a highway bypass is?
>
There's no need to stuff people into boxes.  But there's also no need to keep building sprawling suburbia where the only way you can get anywhere is to drive in a car.  Car culture was forced on the U.S. similar to how women were coerced into wanting to smoke cigarrettes.  Even worse tactics were used to wreck cities' neighborhoods and promote far-flung suburbs. There was no spontaneous public clamor for freeways and living in isolated developments far from a convenient transit ride to the workplace.  There is a better way, embodied in the pre-auto centric cities of walkable neighborhoods and their rail-centered suburbs of Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Boston.  This lifestyle holds on to a large extent in these places despite the elites attempts to wreck them with urban freeways (which Eisenhower had no intention of building when he agreed to the interstate highway system) and subsidized driving at the expense of rail.
 

I guess Pear blossom Hwy isn't good enough nowadays?

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

RRTom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> abyler Wrote:
>
> > > And what will it take for state and local
> > leaders
> > > to follow through on their ambitious climate
> > goals
> > > and stop building a car-centric
> transportation
> > > system that sprawls ever outward?
> >
> > Convincing people to live like bugs in stacked
> > little boxes would probably do it. As long as
> > people want their own affordable home, they'll
> > move outwards.
> >
> > > Plus, the state transportation agency has now
> > > begun to judge the value of transportation
> > > projects based on their climate and
> development
> > > impacts. That’s welcome and overdue. The
> goal
> > of
> > > building infrastructure shouldn’t just be
> to
> > > move vehicles quickly; transportation
> projects
> > > should aim to reduce the need to drive and
> the
> > > length of the drive. That should mean no more
> > > large exurban highways that induce long
> > commutes.
> >
> > What kind of goofballs come up with these
> ideas?
> > Transportation projects to reduce the length of
> > driving? Isn't that what a highway bypass is?
> >
> There's no need to stuff people into boxes.  But
> there's also no need to keep building sprawling
> suburbia where the only way you can get anywhere
> is to drive in a car.  Car culture was forced on
> the U.S. similar to how women were coerced into
> wanting to smoke cigarrettes.  Even worse tactics
> were used to wreck cities' neighborhoods and
> promote far-flung suburbs. There was no
> spontaneous public clamor for freeways and living
> in isolated developments far from a convenient
> transit ride to the workplace.  There is a
> better way, embodied in the pre-auto centric
> cities of walkable neighborhoods and their
> rail-centered suburbs of Philadelphia, Chicago,
> New York and Boston.  This lifestyle holds on to
> a large extent in these places despite the elites
> attempts to wreck them with urban freeways (which
> Eisenhower had no intention of building when he
> agreed to the interstate highway system) and
> subsidized driving at the expense of rail.
>  

Forced upon us? Yes - Durant, Ford, Sloan, etc were all evil. People were dragged into auto ownership!

Get real!

Posted from Android

Read my words again: Car CULTURE was forced on us.  It's extremely difficult for a family to get by in our country without a car, or without having to drive almost everywhere.  Urban neighborhoods were wrecked in most every city in America to build highways and public housing, forcing people to move to suburbs out of reach of walking or public transportation.

The argument about whether what some critics call "sprawl" and "car-centric" metro areas are forced on Americans or were the result of free choices has been going on for years.  Back in the 1970s, one of the fellows I worked with said that suburbia was the result of the "establishment" wanting to get the "working class" out of the crowded urban area, where they would be targeted by "radical agitators" and "commies", into their own detached homes and automobiles where they would be too busy with yard work, home repairs and car maintenance to be roused by rabble rousers.  We could also add commercial television to the mix.  Consider the percentage of TV ad revenue comes from motor vehicle commercials, which usually show the cars, SUVs and pickups on some lonesome country road, far from the reality of jammed freeways.
We can also discuss the proposition that Americans have been "brainwashed" by the media into thinking that "Real Americans" drive cars and live in single family homes.  Those who ride transit and live in apartments are "second-class citizens".  One European luxury car maker uses the slogan "You are what you drive".  Some years ago I wrote an article on "Why the automobile took over local passenger transport," and tied it to three less than admirable human characteristics: Selfishness, Impatience and Laziness.  Later I amended it with an element that does not apply in my life, Snob Appeal.

RRTom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Read my words again: Car CULTURE was forced on
> us.  It's extremely difficult for a family to get
> by in our country without a car, or without having
> to drive almost everywhere.  Urban neighborhoods
> were wrecked in most every city in America to
> build highways and public housing, forcing people
> to move to suburbs out of reach of walking or
> public transportation.


NO, it's called invention and evolution if you will...

No one is FORCING YOU to own a vehicle. I work with someone who doesn't own a car and STILL does everything the rest of us do. He rides a pedaled bike...??!!

Posted from Android