OC Blog

Measure M Debate Tonight

La Habra Vital Community Task force-- Town Hall Meeting

Date: Sept 19, 2006

Time:  7 PM 

Location: La Habra Community Center, 101 W. La Habra Blvd. at Euclid

Tel (562) 697-8953

O.C. Measure M Transportation Tax

For: Sup. Bill Campbell, Yes on "M" Committee
Against: Larry Gilbert, No on "M" Committee

Other topics include: La Habra City Council Issues; Budget Cuts; Public Safety; Beautification; Downtown Revitalization; Economic Development; Park Improvements; AERA, (3,600, Development, Environmental Impacts; O.C. Measure M Transportation Tax Election; Code Enforcement; Library Services; Historical Preservation; Coyote Creek Watershed Study; Puente/Chino Hills wildlife Corridor; Bike Lanes; Sign Code Improvements; Illegal Immigration; Public Safety.

For more information Contact Robert Dale: Call (562) 697-8953

Larry Gilbert, co-author Rebuttal to Measure M renewal www.NoMtax.com

$300 Million

Lurking at the OCTA Board meeting yesterday, I took in an upbeat presentation on the progress of widening the 22 Freeway.  It's probably OK for the OCTA to do some crowing about the execution of this Project (the design however leaves a great deal to be desired as we've written about before).  It's on schedule and should complete on time, and while it did go somewhat overbudget, the increase was for scope changes that were apparently unanticipated (new EIRs) and an added bridge widening at Magnolia St.  I've always been impressed with the OCTA's Rick Grebner and his handling of this Project -- he deserves an attaboy for the unheard of -- bringing in a government project on time and essentially on budget.  So much for Phase I.

On to the $300 MILLION Phase II.  For TWO THIRDS of the $544 million cost that was the first Phase of the Project -- it's major feature being an end-to-end HOV lane -- we'll now connect those lanes to their counterparts at the 405 and 605 freeways.  Here are the specifics from the OCTA website:

Project Elements:
The 2.5 mile project runs through the communities of Garden Grove, Westminster, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Los Alamitos and Leisure World.

Extension of carpool lanes from Valley View Street to I-405 and I-605 freeways.

Elevated westbound SR-22 to northbound I-405 HOV connector.

Elevated HOV connector from the northbound I-405 to the northbound I-605 and the reverse direction.

Widening of the Valley View Street and Seal Beach Boulevard Bridges.

Continuation of the landscaping and hardscape elements on the SR-22.

$300 MILLION for carpool lane connectors, a little street widening, one bridge and a lot of bushes.  All for carpoolers -- soccer moms, cub scout troops and church groups.  This is an unconscionable amount of money for a social experiment gone bad.  And, of course, consider the next Phases and the probable costs for the carpool lane connectors that STILL must be built at the Crush and the other end of the 22 at the 55.

$300 MILLION for the very few, the very privileged and singled out for doing what government thinks (and cannot prove) is best, and nothing for the majority rest of us.

Project S: A Billion Dollar Blank Check

A centerpiece of the Measure M renewal plan is the Citizen’s Oversight Committee, tasked to ensure that funds are spent as promised in the accompanying expenditure plan. That feature was also part of the 1991 measure M, and evidently worked; at least I know of no claim that the funds were spent other than as promised.

But what if the plan did not specify how the funds were to be spent. Then “oversight” would be meaningless. Arguably, that is the case for “Project S” in the present Measure M Renewal.

Project S is described as “a competitive program for local jurisdictions to broaden the reach of the rail system to other activity centers and communities”. A billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) are allocated to this program.

The projects are to be judged and selected on a list of 11 criteria ranging from Traffic congestion relief, to Cost Effectiveness and a Long Term Operating Plan:

“These connections may include a variety of transit technologies such as conventional bus, bus rapid transit, or high capacity rail transit systems as long as they can be fully integrated and provide a seamless transition for the users”.

“No single project may be awarded all the funds under this project.”

The problem is, those are very broad, subjective criteria. For example consider the ill-fated CenterLine Light Rail System. It had been found and OCTA knew as long ago as the 1999 CenterLine EIR that it would actually make overall mobility and congestion worse due to the adverse impacts of its exclusive guideway on street traffic exceeding its beneficial ridership. Nevertheless CenterLine light rail continued to be advocated and represented to OC and to FTA as a cost effective mobility improvement up until the time of its defunding by FTA in November 2004 on the basis of “questionable” and “unacceptable” travel time and cost effectiveness estimates and subsequent “put-on-hold” action by the OCTA board in February 2005.

The “no single project” criterion could be simply resolved by minimal cooperation between two adjacent cities.

So there is little doubt that even projects so counterproductive and wasteful as CenterLine could be said to fit the criteria for Project S.

Does it make any sense to trust the same persons that would knowingly allow, supervise, and advocate such a counterproductive boondoggle with a billion dollar blank check?

$100,000 To Get Another One To Ride The Bus

Last week OCTA issued a $100,000 RFP for its annual Bus Marketing and Outreach Program, triggering some thoughts on the utility of these OCTA efforts to pry people out of their cars and prod them onto the bus.

OCTA has been conducting this program for at least the last five years. I was actually a sub-contractor to the sub-contractor on the bus marketing program during 2002 and 2004, which targeted (respectively) seniors and youth.

For $100,000, OCTA (according to the RFP) wants the winning consultant needs to put together a marketing and outreach program targeting:

• Current riders
• General public, commuters
• Employers
• Students -- middle school, high school and college students
• Senior Citizens
• Persons with Disabilities

In other words, OCTA wants an outreach program that effectively targets everyone in Orange County for just $100,000.

Now, I'm a believer in not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, but this doesn't even rise to that level. Despite the absurdly board target audience that includes current riders, the real goal of these marketing and outreach programs is to convince people who aren't using the bus to use the bus. The virtues of riding the bus are extolled at senior centers, ROP fairs, etc, in the hopes that seniors, students, etc. will get out of their cars and get on a bus.

This is a well-intentioned exercise in futility. People ride the bus because they don't, for whatever reason, own or have access to a car. Once you have a car, you're probably not going to ride the bus anymore because being in a car beats being on the bus any day of the week.

Granted, riding the bus does have advantages, and the OCTA bus system, for a government enterprise, is well run: it's clean, safe, simple to master, saves on automobile wear and tear, etc.

However, the bottom line is people vastly prefer getting around by car because it is faster, more convenient, more comfortable and you -- not the OCTA -- control your travel schedule.

I doubt OCTA really believes in the value of this program. They budgeted $250,000 for the 2002 program, but just $100,000 for the 2006-2007 program. This program exists because it exists -- bureaucratic inertia at work.

Outreach programs are great for consultants (I know). And in fairness, the consultants and the OCTA staff involved do their best to design and implement effective programs that are successful within the scope of the programs.

But in a larger sense, these programs are futile endeavors. Does anyone seriously think a $100,000 marketing/outreach program is going to make a dent in getting people to use the bus instead of a car? The program's budget could be cut to $50,000 or inflated to $500,000 and I doubt the impact on bus ridership would be appreciably different.

Jeff Flint, John Lewis And Measure M

I saw this item in Martin Wisckol's Buzz column this morning:

Last year's battle over Proposition 172 funds found consultant Jeff Flint guiding county firefighters' effort to get some of that sales tax money and former Sen.John Lewis leading the county's campaign to keep the money flowing primarily to the Sheriff's Department.

In November, voters will decide whether to continue a half-cent sales tax to fund transportation projects. Flint is lead consultant on that and the former state senator for whom he once served as chief of staff – Lewis – is working for him.

Actually, the role reversal goes further. When John was elected to the state Senate in 1991, Jeff served as his first district director (although we didn't use that title in legislative D.O.s back then).

OCTA can be incredibly tone-deaf politically. With the notable exception of Monte Ward, the senior OCTA staff hasn't shown much grasp of Orange County's political dynamics or the fact that OC is a conservative county.

This is more than made up for in a Measure M renewal campaign team composed of Jeff Flint, John Lewis and Matt Holder. For starters, they are thinking political conservatives and have been active in the conservative movement for many years (in John Lewis' case, since the late 1960s) -- so they understand the conservative OC voter mind. That is crucial, since the effort to renew Measure M will be won or lost among conservative voters.

Just as importantly, they are committed conservatives who possess top-shelf campaign skills and experience  (the former often lack the latter). They understand Orange County and know how to win. I still think acheiving the two-thirds majority necessary for Measure M's renewal is a tall mountain to climb, but but if any consultant team can do it, it's this one.

Wanted: Lobbyist Help with Measure M Funding in Orange County

That is the headline from this Craig's List posting, forwarded to me by faithful reader and fellow blogger Recycled Cholo:

Reply to: hopperbus@hotmail.com
Date: 2006-06-09, 1:15PM PDT

Hello

The O.C. Hopper is the only Newport Beach City Approved Transporation Service with permits of its kind. Our original permit allowed us the hours from 6pm to 2:30 am. Our permit has been expanded from 7am to 2:30 am. However, four months ago, two other investors, Sabrina Dagostino and David muller wanted to expand The O.C. Hopper with myself and my father to all day, thus creating The O.C. CRuiser for day and The O.C. Hopper for the night. My father and I had purchased 4 new buses for The O.C. Cruiser as well as designed the new look, "The Woody Look." My father and I had been working on the new comapny for about three months all day without pay. On May 5, 2006, Sabrina Dagostion and David Muller decided out of the blue they no longer and wanted us involved and stole all our ideas. We found out that they were meeting with city councilmen, Keith Curry, behind our back. There whole purpose is to try and get the Measure M Funding from the city. My father and I beleive we have every right to that funding as well. We are look for some one to lobby the city for us and get behind our company. If you can offer your services, it would be greatly appreciated. Please email back.

Thank you,
Kaylen Morrison

As Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating."

Just Say NO to Carpool Lanes

Hot off the Register's website this morning: Transit agency seeks input on 22 Freeway car-pool lanes.  Transportation reporter Radcliffe writes in part,

Motorists are being asked if they want the new-style car-pool lanes proposed for the Garden Grove (22) Freeway.  The Orange County Transportation Authority has recommended that drivers with at least one passenger be allowed to enter and leave the freeway’s car-pool lanes at any point.

If the proposal wins final approval by various agencies as expected, the special car-pool lanes, one in each direction, would be monitored by transportation officials for a couple of years.  If successful, the new-style car-pool lanes could lead to other Southern California freeways' converting their car-pool lanes to this style, used in Northern California.

Public feedback is being sought now by the OCTA via the agency’s Web site at www.octa.net/sr22, or via the OCTA's phone number, (714) 560-5086.

First, we're impressed the OCTA's even asking.  So now's the opportunity to really tell them that social engineering ISN'T the OCTA business and concrete is -- concrete we're ALL paying for that we ALL ought to be able to use.  This whole notion is ridiculous.

Said in here before, the old and worn out idea of carpool lanes on the "New" 22:

• Are the only complete end-to-end lanes being laid which run the full length of the freeway from the 405 to the Crush to the 55 -- a complete waste of money for critically needed resource.
• Despite the increase in costs for the 22 project (about $46M I recall), the money still isn't there to build the carpool connector lanes from the 22 to the carpool lanes on the 405, 5, 57 or 55 -- thus the HOV traffic will be DUMPED back onto the 22 and the other freeways right at the chokepoints.
• If the OCTA tells us that the receipt of federal money depends on carpool lanes being built, they need to be reminded that New Jersey successfully fought this via a lawsuit, eliminated their worthless and underutilized HOV lanes and got the money anyway.

In actually taking a look at the survey, we'll give the OCTA the clap for Question #8:

8. Carpool-lanes are not necessary.

Well, hot spit.  Unlike their Measure M survey a few months ago, this time they had the cojones to ask the basic question (which should have been at the top of the list).  Let's all vote "Strongly Agree". UPDATE: And another thing... The whole idea behind this survey (and again, I applaud the OCTA for doing it -- really) is to determine if we, the unwashed unskilled motorists we are, should be allowed to enter/exit the carpool lanes at any point along their miserably useless length.  Despite the idea that this procedure has worked in northern California for years, Caltrans is afraid the new concept will be hard to understand and confusing since it won't also be tested on the other miserably useless HOV lanes on our other freeways.  Caltrans also ignores the potential, again as done in northern California, of opening the lanes up during "non-peak" hours. How about this: Let the new carpool lanes operate on the 22 for, say, six months.  THEN, eliminate them for six months and allow general use.  And THEN take the survey to see how many of us (the ultimate funders of the resource) want them back.  Let the AQMD, the other treehuggers, the Prius lovers and the liberal 'we just know better than you' elitists monitor the air quality during both periods along the 22 and tell us if pollution increased or decreased.  Let the real carpoolers and soccer moms organize and defend their use of the resource -- hell, we'll even give them their own Blog like the one we do for Measure M which I'll personally pay for if necessary.  Let the OCTA and Caltrans and AQMD do some REAL measurements on average speed, throughput, actual number of vehicles not used for commuting due to sharing, bodies moved, etc. etc. and let's have a REAL analysis.  Let's develop REAL data and make an informed, adult decision of the value of this social engineering. Anyone have the cojones for THAT?

Time to Wrap the Wraps

The Register was correct this a.m. (Brakes rightly put to Measure M mailers) in supporting this week's OCTA Board decision to STOP the Measure M Campaign mailers.  These $400k rounds were clearly advertising and no one really believed the "public outreach" argument.  It was more than disingenuous and inappropriate that tax money was being used to promote the 30-year extension of a temporary tax.

The Register editorial also spoke to the questionable ethics of the campaign and the bus wraps:

OCTA's efforts weren't that outrageous, but close. There is a decent case to be made for and against a Measure M extension, but it is unfair to use tax dollars on the yes side. These mailers stack the decks in favor of the tax. Citizens can rarely raise the kind of money necessary to combat these taxpayer-funded "information" pieces. It's unfair, unethical and an abuse of the taxpayer's dollar. Just because many agencies play this game doesn't make it any better.  So OCTA's board deserves praise for putting the brakes on an unethical campaign strategy. More government agencies should be so fair-minded and careful about their expenditures. Now, if the board could only do something about those construction signs and bus wraps that also use tax dollars to promote Measure M.

We'd been pounding the table about the $8k non-revenue generating bus adverts before the Reg picked up on them, and they're right -- it's time they go -- and the signs too.

French Firm Takes Over OCTA Access

From the OC Business Journal just now.  Lead,

Veolia Takes Over OCTA Bus Pact -- Three-Year Deal Worth $95.5M

By Pat Maio, Orange County Business Journal Staff

A unit of Paris-based Veolia Environnement SA has replaced Laidlaw Transit Services Inc. to run the Orange County transit agency’s bus service for the handicapped and elderly.  The Orange County Transportation Authority awarded a $95.5 million contract to Veolia unit Connex Transit Inc. to run bus service for three years starting July 1.  Veolia is set to operate out of the transportation agency’s 10.5-acre Irvine bus base and maintenance facility, where Laidlaw had employed 647 workers.

OCTA Plans 2,000 Self-Regulating Intersections

From the Orange County Register:

OCTA plans for 2,000 self-regulating intersections

Gadgets will detect traffic and adjust signals to ease flow.

By JIM RADCLIFFE

Orange County Transportation Authority officials are mapping out plans for 2,000 of the county’s 3,250 intersections with signals to become high-tech – intersections capable on their own of detecting how many cars are approaching them and to automatically adjust greens and reds to move people through as quickly as possible.

Now, perhaps 20-25 percent of the county’s signals are top-drawer. In Anaheim – home to Disneyland, the Pond and Angel Stadium and one of the county’s most progressive traffic-light cities – 118 of its 290 signals are sophisticated.

You can read the rest here.