Do You Know How Much Stoplights Cost?

3.7% of the budget, it seems. But are they really necessary? Transportation costs account for nearly 10% of the budget of the city of Los Angeles. But is it a wise investment?

First, let's talk about any investments in freeways. All of the roads are at capacity in Los Angeles, it seems, so if anything we're not making enough of an investment in the roads. But is this really a problem? Maybe an alternative solution is needed. Congestion pricing is that solution. In its typical form, congestion pricing increases the cost of driving on a freeway as demand rises. So the highest prices would be during rush hour and the lowest prices sometime in the middle of the night. What this would do, in essence, is to encourage driving during off-peak hours and it would decrease rush hour traffic. Is this just a benefit to the rich? Two arguments: first, more foods and luxury items and household goods are available to the rich because they have more money, but does this mean that we should all have equal access to those goods? Of course not. What would be the incentive to achieve? Secondly, the funds gained from such a pricing scheme would mean more money to build new roads and increase capacity. Since Los Angeles ranks 8th among US metropolitan areas in lane miles per capita, maybe more roads would be a good thing. After all, we have a unique landscape in this city which means we drive more per capita as well. Bring on the new roads! They're long overdue.

The other issue is stoplights. Now these are simply unnecessary. As evidenced elsewhere (and a link will be provided at the end of this post), streelights do nothing to aid the flow of traffic. They simply impose top-heavy controls that are inefficient and cause accidents. A roadway without stoplights works much better and has less accidents. Why? Well for one, you would not go through an uncontrolled intersection unless you were completely sure that no one was coming at you from the other direction. Also, stoplights tend to get in the way of full use of the intersection. Huge swaths of the intersection are available when people are making left turns, but they go unused. Uncontrolled intersections use this capacity and traffic moves faster.

So Los Angeles is in a good position to save money by congestion pricing roads and getting rid of some stoplights. Traffic will improve and the city will have more money.

I know you're still suspicious about the stoplights thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTI_NthVShc

Brentwood, 40 years ago the same

A neat little tool, Historic Aerials, will show you what the landscape used to look like many years ago. I've been using it lately to see what our freeway system destroyed, especially downtown. There's some incredible stuff. The latest part that I ran into is the most astounding thing I've seen so far. Looking at Brentwood, 1952 looks way too similar to 2009. There isn't too much more development. Even more incredible, 1972 looks EXACTLY like 2009. No changes at all that I can see. The area isn't any denser, no new development, nothing.

This is the square that I was looking at on the website.



Oh by the way, there are about 4,000,000 in the city of Los Angeles today. There were about 2.8 million people in 1972. For this kind of an increase, you would expect some more development. But I guess our politicians think that higher prices are a better option.

Vermont/Beverly (Cityscape)

This area has a Red Line subway station, yet look at the zoning around it. Immediately surrounding it is R4, medium density multiple family density. Not bad, but a subway station right in the middle of LA should be high density. Surrounding that is a medium sized area of R2. This is only two dwellings per lot. That is ridiculous. A subway station can only handle lots that can average 2 families? Intertwined with this R2 and surrounding it is M1. That's light industrial. This, around a subway station? It's impressive. Congratulations planning department of LA. You've really outdone yourselves here. Why would you zone industrial around a subway station? Why not allow other and larger types of development? Way to really make that station efficient.

http://zimas.lacity.org/map.asp?Cmd=panTool&ActiveTool=panTool&ActiveDataTab=AddressLegalInformation1&MapSource=http%3A%2F%2Fzimas.lacity.org%2Foutput%2FZimasMain_68wzimas4044448046.png&MapWidth=616&MapHeight=472&PrevExtXMin=6445956.56651716&PrevExtXMax=6462430.79109343&PrevExtYMin=1848897.40831361&PrevExtYMax=1861520.51545647&MapExtXMin=6457269.22397781&MapExtXMax=6473743.44855408&MapExtYMin=1853657.81736325&MapExtYMax=1866280.92450611&NewExtXMin=6463928.447873088&NewExtXMax=6480402.672449358&NewExtYMin=1844752.1082984782&NewExtYMax=1857375.215441338&LegendStr=95%3A1|12%3A1|80%3A1|85%3A0|89%3A1|87%3A1|53%3A1|6%3A1|91%3A1|74%3A1|24%3A1|16%3A1|49%3A0|28%3A0|54%3A0|11%3A1|55%3A0|58%3A0|93%3A1|0%3A1&BackgroundLayer=GPLU&ClickX=&ClickY=&SelectGeometry=&SelectShiftState=&SelectCtrlState=&SelType=0&Selection=&MultiSelPin=&SelectedMultiAddress=&ToolTips=true&ReportType=&IncludeMap=&PIN=&BufferDistance=0&BufferUnits=&SessionID=746F2C42BA3340B19FCC2DAC68E83B08&StartNbr=0&StrName=&SpecPlan=&ReportQuery=&WorkOrder=&ReportFormat=&RandomFactor=

LA Zoning Website (Cityscape)

This is one of my favorite websites. It shows how Los Angeles is zoned for development. It's pretty interesting to see how neighborhoods are ruled. Take a look at it here.

http://zimas.lacity.org/map.asp?Cmd=legend&ActiveTool=zoomInTool&ActiveDataTab=AddressLegalInformation1&MapSource=http%3A%2F%2Fzimas.lacity.org%2Foutput%2FZimasMain_68wzimas4964438858.png&MapWidth=616&MapHeight=472&PrevExtXMin=0&PrevExtXMax=0&PrevExtYMin=0&PrevExtYMax=0&MapExtXMin=6235210&MapExtXMax=6588657&MapExtYMin=1685416.98701299&MapExtYMax=1956240.01298701&NewExtXMin=6235210&NewExtXMax=6588657&NewExtYMin=1685416.98701299&NewExtYMax=1956240.01298701&LegendStr=95%3A1|12%3A1|80%3A1|85%3A0|89%3A1|87%3A1|53%3A1|6%3A1|91%3A1|74%3A1|24%3A1|16%3A1|49%3A0|28%3A0|54%3A0|11%3A1|55%3A0|58%3A0|93%3A1|0%3A1&BackgroundLayer=GPLU&ClickX=&ClickY=&SelectGeometry=&SelectShiftState=&SelectCtrlState=&SelType=0&Selection=&MultiSelPin=&SelectedMultiAddress=&ToolTips=true&ReportType=&IncludeMap=&PIN=&BufferDistance=0&BufferUnits=&SessionID=746F2C42BA3340B19FCC2DAC68E83B08&StartNbr=0&StrName=&SpecPlan=&ReportQuery=&WorkOrder=&ReportFormat=&RandomFactor=

I'll be posting reviews of how certain neighborhoods are zoned and discuss the effects of this.

LA $1 billion in the red. Go for pensions? Obviously. (Politics)

There's no doubt that a government job is a sweet deal. You get a government job and you're set for life, or at least that's how it used to be. More than 60 years of this spoils system and even government officials now are talking about those cushy jobs seriously. Maybe it's not such a good idea that we pick and choose which jobs will be loaded. Maybe not letting consumers decide which jobs will be most lucrative was a bad idea. Maybe, just maybe, government is as efficient as consumers are with how they spend their money. We know what we want, the government is never going to be as good as us.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/la-faces-1-billion-deficit-by-2013-budget-chief-calls-for-pension-reforms.html

Anyway, the budget chief is calling for pension reforms. What else can you say but "about friggin' time."

Unions compromise on furloughs (Politics)

Will they agree to pay cuts? No way. Will they agree to lower retirement benefits? Nope. What is their incentive?

A public employee union has all the power in the world. They already have salaries well above market rates, and it's easy to see why. The state can't fire them all, the politicians who organize that will never be reelected. Those politicians would be accused of being unsympathetic or of even being inhumane. When a union has no possibility of being laid off, then they have no reason to compromise. They will lose nothing if they strike outside of a few weeks or months pay. There is no risk of losing a job. When the company cannot compromise with the laborer, then the company would start losing money because labor would be ridiculously overpriced. It's a failed business model that the state so openly embraces. It's no wonder California is failing.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd24-2009nov24,0,1277280.story

Can you balance the budget? (Politics)

The LA Times has put up their user-friendly approach to the California budget. It's designed to show that it's impossible to balance the budget without raising taxes.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-statebudget-fl,0,95571.htmlstory?sel=2/4/10/33/12/27/30/32/42/44/49/54/9/29/19/34/47/11/26/43/45/50/52/53/37/35/36/38/40/51/41/23/24/

That's my solution. With it, the state is still $4,000,000,000 in the hole and I'm really out of options since I'm not going to choose things that are illegal. So how else do you make up $3,000,000,000. I think the state could get close if it tolled all major roadways and made those tolls pay for the roads. Then the surface streets would be paid for with the gas tax. Through this approach, you may still need a gas tax increase, but the goal is for the roads to be budget neutral. That itself would save a ton of money.

Would I attack prop 98? Of course. Would it be successful? Of course not, so it's not something that could fix the current mess. More like a down the road kind of thing.

What would really get the state out of the red though is population growth. This is where local governments come in. These municipalities must loosen zoning laws so that housing prices can come down via more housing units getting built. More people, more tax revenue.

If you have more solutions, post them here.