PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

How can we understand a totally avoidable train accident on September 12, 2008, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Chatsworth, , in which 25 people died and over 125 were sent to the hospital, many with serious injuries? In this case a MetroLink commuter train collided head on with a Union Pacific freight train sharing the same track, but moving in the opposite direction. Yes, sharing the same track. Image driving on a one lane highway in which cars, trucks, and busses traveled at freeway speeds in both directions, but had to share that one lane. Furthermore, the only way a driver would ever know that an 18 wheeler was heading towards him or her was a stoplight. If it is red, drivers must get their car off the road. If it is green, just drive ahead on that one lane highway and trust that drivers coming from the other direction know what they are doing. If this strikes you as lunacy, you are only half right. This was the deliberate policy of the Metrolink Authority – mostly appoin...

In each presidential year we hear that the Democrats are the lesser evil and that even if they are hawks on foreign policy, the differences on domestic policy justify supporting them – as opposed to the alternatives of focusing on extra-parliamentary politics and voting for third party candidates. But, does this domestic argument hold water in 2008? I think not. Those who have worked in local government – which has been my professional milieu for the past 25 years – can all testify that it is impossible to discern a difference, especially in Los Angeles. Nearly all of the elected officials at LA’s City Hall have been or are mainstream to liberal Democrats (except for Richard Riordan, who was a liberal Republican tied to many Democrats, like Antonio Villaraigosa.). The elected officials are to a person blindly devoted to expanding the LAPD, direct financial aid to large developers in the form of tax and fee breaks totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, total cr...

The revenue rationale offered by LA's elected official for allowing commercial advertising on public spaces, especially sidewalks, as well as commercial advertising, such as billboards, and electronic signs which intrude on public spaces is extremely unconvincing. The several millions per year which the city earns from billboards and kiosks bolted to sidewalks, plastered on bus benches and bus shelters, pasted on newspaper vending machines, and now electronic billboards, could be easily offset by two simple steps: First, stop giving large developers and projects, such as LA Live, hundreds of millions in tax and fee breaks. These are the true budget breakers. Second, collect the various fees owed the cities on everything from bootleg construction to burglar alarms. Shame on those elected officials who justify dreadful visual pollution for phony revenue reasons. In fact, if they took these two small steps, they could also revoke the various regressive taxes they are foisting on...