LA has made quite a commitment to light rail transit. My kid took the Amtrak there and then maneuvered around on the subway to visit her friends and returned telling me that ."the nice thing about Los Angeles is that you don't have to own a car." A slight exaggeration, I'm sure.A Subway to the Sea irony
And other issues...
IF you are traveling between areas served by rail transit or if you work downtown and have a car at the other end, L.A.'s public transit is actually not that bad.LA has made quite a commitment to light rail transit. My kid took the Amtrak there and then maneuvered around on the subway to visit her friends and returned telling me that ."the nice thing about Los Angeles is that you don't have to own a car." A slight exaggeration, I'm sure.A Subway to the Sea irony
And other issues...
I'd like to see the feds pay for some of this as part of the stimulus. The fact is, the Los Angelinos were willing to make a huge financial committment to transit with their own money. That's a good
indication that its a good prospect for federal money.
Even some places that are accessible by transit take a long time. A few of us at AU gathering went out to Cantor's deli. The transit info lady gave lousy instructions necessitating a long walk one way. Even so, I remember thinking at the time that this would have been a lot quicker by car, and it was a good thing we were going as much for the journey as for the destination. It would have been much worse if we had not been starting and ending at Union Station (I think for those trips suggested by Jackal, one should get a motel room at the destination and return the next day.)IF you are traveling between areas served by rail transit or if you work downtown and have a car at the other end, L.A.'s public transit is actually not that bad.LA has made quite a commitment to light rail transit. My kid took the Amtrak there and then maneuvered around on the subway to visit her friends and returned telling me that ."the nice thing about Los Angeles is that you don't have to own a car." A slight exaggeration, I'm sure.A Subway to the Sea irony
And other issues...
I'd like to see the feds pay for some of this as part of the stimulus. The fact is, the Los Angelinos were willing to make a huge financial committment to transit with their own money. That's a good
indication that its a good prospect for federal money.
The problem is that there are HUGE swaths of the L.A. basin that are inaccessible by rail transit (and bus transit in L.A. is a joke).
What if you live in La Canada Flintridge and work in Santa Monica or live in Woodland Hills and work in Torrance? Actually, the decentralized nature of the city (such a large proportion of people work and live away from Downtown [the CBD]) makes the current hub-and-spoke system unpalatable to the vast majority of Angelenos.
To convert L.A. to the kind of place that would make a car-free lifestyle feasible, you'd need a system that would make the New York MTA, the Paris Metro, or the London Underground look like a toy train system.
I'm all for L.A. trying to do it, but you can't pretend it's going to be accomplished by two or three more light rail lines and a subway to the sea.
It's possible for the government to run the bidding process in such a way that a company that's planning on massive change orders will be willing to bid ``lower'' than a company that's going to do things in the most cost effective way with minimal change orders and the cost fully described up front, and that the government can be too incompetent to select the vendor that will actually be more cost effective overall. Whether that's happening in LA, I don't know.I think they are incompetent; my brother thinks they intentionally bid in a way to get highly profitable change orders (fraud?).
I'm not sure there's any city that really quite works on a hub and spoke system. If the New York City Subway system has a hub, I haven't figured out where it is. The Boston subway system certainly has a hub (Park St, Downtown Crossing, Government Center, and State Street), and the fact that you have to go through those stations to change from one line to another (unless you're going between the northern parts of the Green Line and Orange Line, in which case you can change at North Station or Haymarket) means that for certain trips, the travel time is pathetic (for example, from the far end of the D branch of the Green Line to Alewife on the Red Line).What if you live in La Canada Flintridge and work in Santa Monica or live in Woodland Hills and work in Torrance? Actually, the decentralized nature of the city (such a large proportion of people work and live away from Downtown [the CBD]) makes the current hub-and-spoke system unpalatable to the vast majority of Angelenos.
Uh, that was my point. L.A. needs a non-hub-and-spoke system because it is such a decentralized city. Right now, it has one. Virtually every mode of transit (Metrolink, Amtrak, and Redple Line, which is the vast majority of commuters) offers exactly one place to connect: Union Station. (The exceptions are the Blue/Redple interchange at 7th St/Metro Center and the Blue/Green interchange at Rosa Parks (about 8 miles south of Downtown) and the IEOC line, which runs from Riverside to Oceanside (and connects to the 91 and OC lines at Fullerton).I'm not sure there's any city that really quite works on a hub and spoke system. If the New York City Subway system has a hub, I haven't figured out where it is. The Boston subway system certainly has a hub (Park St, Downtown Crossing, Government Center, and State Street), and the fact that you have to go through those stations to change from one line to another (unless you're going between the northern parts of the Green Line and Orange Line, in which case you can change at North Station or Haymarket) means that for certain trips, the travel time is pathetic (for example, from the far end of the D branch of the Green Line to Alewife on the Red Line).
I'd say that you live too far from where you work. Even if one had a car, why would you want to spend so much of your life in it?What if you live in La Canada Flintridge and work in Santa Monica or live in Woodland Hills and work in Torrance?
Pittsburgh, perhaps?I'm not sure there's any city that really quite works on a hub and spoke system.
Probably, but then again, with SoCal housing prices, many people can't afford to move, especially if they're renting.I'd say that you live too far from where you work. Even if one had a car, why would you want to spend so much of your life in it?What if you live in La Canada Flintridge and work in Santa Monica or live in Woodland Hills and work in Torrance?
Frankly, I'm surprised how many people confuse pollution, debt, and foreign energy dependence for the American dream.
There is a lot you don't know here. I have worked for PB for 20 years and am currently involved in the California HSR. PBis BY FAR the best in the business. And they do operated at the highest level of integrity in what they do.Also, why is Parsons-Brinckerhoff in all of these big projects? Sure they've built a lot of the current LA transit system, all over time and over budget, and with an expensive sinkhole to their credit. I think they are incompetent; my brother thinks they intentionally bid in a way to get highly profitable change orders (fraud?). Either way doesn't sound good to me. For you easterners, Parsons-Brinckerhoff was in on the Big Dig, too. It also pains me that they'll be part of high speed rail in California. Aren't there any other engineering firms that do big projects ethically and competently in this day and age?
What is "PB"?There is a lot you don't know here. I have worked for PB for 20 years and am currently involved in the California HSR. PBis BY FAR the best in the business. And they do operated at the highest level of integrity in what they do.
George
Parsons-Brinckerhoff, I suspect.What is "PB"?There is a lot you don't know here. I have worked for PB for 20 years and am currently involved in the California HSR. PBis BY FAR the best in the business. And they do operated at the highest level of integrity in what they do.
George
YesParsons-Brinckerhoff, I suspect.What is "PB"?There is a lot you don't know here. I have worked for PB for 20 years and am currently involved in the California HSR. PBis BY FAR the best in the business. And they do operated at the highest level of integrity in what they do.
George
YesParsons-Brinckerhoff, I suspect.What is "PB"?There is a lot you don't know here. I have worked for PB for 20 years and am currently involved in the California HSR. PBis BY FAR the best in the business. And they do operated at the highest level of integrity in what they do.
George
If you're going to do that at all, you need to be a little bit careful about it. You don't want to create a situation where anyone who has any concern at all about their long term future will choose not to take the job for fear that someone else's minor screwup that they could not reasonably have been expected to know about might ruin their life, leaving as the only candidates those who are incapable of considering what might happen a year or five from now when choosing their actions.really mean, nasty, federal prosecutors from the Public Integrity section of DOJ who train the local feds to do the same.
Sad and VERY TrueThey only know cheap, and good engineering is not cheap.
Way, way too true."Value engineering: Removing value without doing any engineering."-- Dr. David W. Orr
Birdy, let me tell you a little story:
In 1986-1988 I was working for a consultant involved in the DART planning in Dallas. We were determined that we would NOT end up with low-ball price estimates. Instead, a very good job was done making sure the "engineer's estimates" included all likely and many unlikely contingencies.
Were we thanked for it? NO. Instead the authority said, well since these cost estimates are usually low, it is going to be really expensive, so we will postpone the whole thing. As a result, the only thing we got for doing a very good job was to lose or jobs, both corporately and personally.
A few years later, when construction of DART actually began, with other consutants, and they ahd all our work handed to them, our estimates proved to be very solid, and in some instances higher than actual bid prices by up to 20% or more.
Again, any thanks, it is great that we are spending less than antiicpated! NO.
There are plenty of watchdogs looking over the shoulder of any design and construction management consultant already. Occasionally some actually know what they are looking at. Again at an even earlier time and another employer, we were doing some highway design work in a state I won't name. The person looking over my shoulder, and a few other shoulders in our office, knew so little about what we were doing and we spent so much time explaining a lot of the basics of what went into a design to him, we felt like we should be charging the guy tuition in addition to the design fees.
Most of the characters with watchdog agencies we deal with really do not know the difference between good and bad quality work in this field. They only know cheap, and good engineering is not cheap.
You seem to have missed the paragraph I left in above.A perfectly reasonable point, but you are speaking about competence and best practices in constructing highly complex projects, of a type (rail) which are uncommon in the U.S., which is a huge issue, no doubt, and I am speaking about graft. Grafters are not terribly sophisticated,and to address Alanb's point, the people who get prosecuted are almost always way over the line in any semblance of ethicality.Birdy, let me tell you a little story:There are plenty of watchdogs looking over the shoulder of any design and construction management consultant already. Occasionally some actually know what they are looking at. Again at an even earlier time and another employer, we were doing some highway design work in a state I won't name. The person looking over my shoulder, and a few other shoulders in our office, knew so little about what we were doing and we spent so much time explaining a lot of the basics of what went into a design to him, we felt like we should be charging the guy tuition in addition to the design fees.
Most of the characters with watchdog agencies we deal with really do not know the difference between good and bad quality work in this field. They only know cheap, and good engineering is not cheap.
Usually its some fairly blatant deal. In my jurisdiction, they had a completely unqualified guy (the bag man, actually, ) be the construction manager. That's one red flag. Then the bribees were paid through inflated change orders, although the payoff could have happened any old way. The phoney-baloney "consultant" contract is a favorite. It was a federal prosecution, so naturally there were heavy duty money laundering charges to lay on these guys. My point is, that the DOJ Public Integrity section has been defanged just like the guys at the FDA who are supposed to detect Salmonella in peanut butter. Graft is a fact of life on the projects the size we are talking about. Don't just hope for the best. Plan for it the way you plan for other contingencies. With the bazillions of dollars being spent on public works and an ethical milieu which has been on the downswing for a while, we will regret it if we don't take the initiative.
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