Selfish Rich NIMBYs at it again!!

Saw this story in the Orange County Register about south county cities that aren't too happy about the proposed tunnel under the Cleveland National Forest. Seems those pesky middle class Inland Empire people might actually want to come to the beach on the weekend.

"Residents told us that they heard that people in Riverside were getting presentations that they could be in Laguna Beach in 20 minutes," Laguna Beach Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider said.

"That's just what we need, another 100,000 people here in the summer. We can't move. Our quality of life is already affected."

The mayor must be getting lessons from her co-horts in South Pasadena.

Before she gets too self-righteous, she has to realize that Orange County isn't innocent in this traffic mess. Thousands of OC residents clog the Inland Empire freeways every Friday on their way to Vegas. I bet those Inland Empire people aren't too happy about that.

The last thing they need is to be sitting in traffic on the 91 and 15, sucking down the fumes of a Mercedes or Lexus SUV with a Surfrider bumper sticker and Laguna Beach license plate frame.

New 91 Report Released!

The new report on 91 freeway has been released.

It is refreshing to see that adding capacity is the biggest part of the equation, instead of the old standby "more public transit and ridesharing."

No Finessing Transportation Flaws on the 91

Time to build the "Southern Connection" between the IE and OC!

Below is a very well written letter to the Orange County Register!

The Orange County Transportation Authority should realize by now that there is no finessing away problems on the 91 freeway ["New commuter buses may put zip in trip on 91," Local, Aug. 3]. It requires a brute-force solution, namely more lanes. The latest proposal for a special bus line looks good on the surface, but let's look deeper.

To keep these buses on schedule, FasTrak lanes will have to be kept moving. How will OCTA do this? The only way is to raise tolls, which will move cars onto the 91 freeway lanes, which will make it more congested.

As far as the OCTA is concerned, it's a win-win situation. It gets to charge more for the express lanes while the added congestion adds to the lane's appeal. The buses will probably get a couple of hundred riders to use their new bus line and declare it an overwhelming success.
OCTA will add to its budget and its over-inflated sense of importance, and all the while it adds to an ever-increasing bureaucratic empire.

The only losers in this are the 95 percent of us who pay into the Measure M fund who will get nothing in return. Seems like a nice little money-making circle, yes?

Robert R. Daoust Anaheim

OC Traffic EXTREME Makeover

Well... time once again to express your thoughts on Orange County's worst freeways and surface streets to OCTA. If you fill it out, make sure to mention the 57 extension down the Santa Ana River and perhaps the 55 tunnel under Newport Blvd. Also the "Southern Connection" freeway between Orange County and Riverside County needs to definitely be included, as well as the 241 south extension to I-5.

Westminster NIMBYs block 405 Expansion

Now Westminster is having a fit about the possible widening of the 405 freeway and wants to block the expansion.

They are upset it might take some homes and businesses. However, they don't realize that the freeway being there in the first place allowed many more homes and businesses to be built.

"Car Crazy" Californians at it again

The Victor Valley Transit Authority has voted to drop its bus service that takes commuters from the High Desert to Metrolink and bus stops in the Inland Empire.

According to the article, some of these huge busses had no more than 19 people on them.

Said the VVTA General Manager, "It seems Victor Valley residents, like most other people in Southern California, prefer not to park their SUVs and use mass transit"

No duh.

Now lets put that money to better use. ... like perhaps fixing the 15/215 interchange, US 395, Building the High Desert Corridor (138/18). You know, something people actually use.

Dateline NBC: Most Dangerous Roads

Tonight's Dateline NBC took a look at the nation's most dangerous roads. At the end, they did the top 5 most congested cities. Of course our Los Angeles was #1.

They had an interview with Doug Failing (Director of Caltrans District 7). The reporter asked him "Is it ever going to get any better?"

His reply, after a short pause and a sigh was, "No. No it's not." They cut him off after that and I would be curious to see what he had to say afterwards. Doug's a bright guy and he knows what needs to be done to fix the problems.

Also, NBC was very fair with the evaluation. Instead of saying the solutions are to build more mass transit, they actually admitted it is too expensive and the cities are too spread out. Amusingly, they showed the empty Red Line subway while talking about that. They also briefly discussed HOT lanes.

A Regular Commuter Comments on Carpool Lanes

Looks like it is starting to dawn on regular Joes that carpool lanes aren't such a great idea.

Welcome to the new FOSCH Blog!

To facilitate easier and quicker posting of news articles and comments, FOSCH has converted our news section in to a blog format.

This allows us to post articles, comment on them and then allow our members and visitors to also comment on them.

Enjoy!