Results tagged “gridlock”

Two to three hundred truckers are currently making their way up the 710 Freeway towards city hall in protest of "new environmental fees at the ports that they say threaten their livelihoods," according to the LA Times [Update: they have arrived to downtown]. Specially, they are protesting container fees for the Clean Truck Program, which has been law for over a year.

UCLA Professor Donald Shoup has been saying it for years: "inexpensive parking fosters urban decay, contributes to sprawl and motivates people to drive alone." How? It's that circling around effect, you know, when looking for spaces, avoiding valet. "Low meter rates can further congest city streets as motorists search for cheap parking spaces," the LA Times writes. "Studies in New York indicate that motorists on the hunt represent about 28% of all traffic on Manhattan and 45% in Brooklyn."

One of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's traffic fixes has been these anti-gridlocked zones. But do people actually listen to signs? No. But with a threat, more will. So then came the Tiger Team, a specialized team that would patrol a heavy rush hour traffic artery to enforce the no parking signs by ticketing and towing away any vehicle parked there. Today, the fourth such team was deployed on Sunset Blvd.

For over a year now, the plan to make both Olympic and Pico one-way(ish) streets has been thought and fought, presented and resented. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Councilman Jack Weiss, the major city backers of the project, were set to go forth with the project this week. That is, until Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Torribio said "not so fast."

Here's a map of central LA traffic at around 5pm the day before Thanksgiving. Ooof. Good luck out there, guys -- and you can keep track of the gridlock you'll be encountering over at Google Maps. Godspeed, my friends, and please be safe. Respect your fellow drivers, hook up with a carpool, and take your time....

We have a friend who gets stuck in traffic so much that he has a pee bottle in his car. Maybe Operation Bottleneck, which begins today, will curb his urinary tract a bit:

Operation Bottleneck is a system of real-time traffic adjustments performed at the Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control Center (ATSAC) to address 35 of the busiest intersections throughout the city of Los Angeles.

Continue reading "Kiss Gridlock Goodbye...Ha!"