Posted on Thursday November 19th by Alex Lessard-Pilon | 174
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- A federal ruling says the Army Corps of Engineers was negligent in its maintenance of a navigation channel in New Orleans and therefore is to blame for the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. 100,000 people could receive billions in payouts from the government. (WaPo)
- A group of Senators is scrambling to pass a third short-term extension of the transit bill, which has failed to garner attention due to the health-care debate. A DoT official says federal funding for highways and mass-transit could drop by 30% if something isn’t done soon. (NYTimes)
- Transit fares in New York will rise in 2011 and again in 2013, if not sooner. MTA Chief Jay Walder called for a permament overhaul of the MTA, saying the agency can’t rely anymore on bailouts from the state. (Reuters)
- Wealthy investors are turning to infrastructure investments as safe, long-term bets. Target returns for infrastructure reach as high as 18 percent for unlisted investments, and they offer the added bonus of feeling good about building bridges and roads. (Globe and Mail)
- A New Zealander whines about a trip through Los Angeles: the taxi driver doesn’t speak English good, and doesn’t drop him at the door of the airport shuttle; the airport is a hassle and there’s nothing to do. He’d much rather be in Shanghai or Amsterdam, where the airports are veritable carnivals of fun. (Stuff)
- A think tank says the smart-grid may pose privacy risks, as enormous amounts of information about energy consumption migrates to the internet. Would you want someone knowing when you’re on the treadmill, how often you shower, or how often you activate your home security system? (SecurityFix)
- New York will begin running super-stretch buses on Manhattan’s east side next year, and will install curbside MetroCard readers to end the painfully slow one-by-one boarding process currently in use. Wireless technology will change lights from red to green as the 62-foot buses approach. (NY Daily News)
- In George W. Bush’s fantasy world, hydrogen would supplant oil as the prime mover of vehicular traffic. Unfortunately, hydrogen, unlike oxygen, “doesn’t grow on trees.” Building hydrogen-powered cars isn’t impossible–it’s just “stupendously difficult and probably pointless.” (WaPo)
- That gruesome Welsh video depicting an accident caused by texting-while-driving apparently hasn’t really resonated with the kids. 25% of teens say their friends text while driving, and their parents do too; half a million people were injured last year in texting-related accidents. (WaPo)
November 19th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Oh, piffle. LAX isn’t that bad. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Terminal 4, but most of the terminals have plenty of food and shopping options.
I also don’t understand the near-constant complaining about it being “dilapidated” and “shabby” and the like, it seems about the same as most airports to me. Maybe it’s just the international terminal.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
The smart grid will also save a pretty penny for everybody concerned. The arguments are asinine. The pro’s outweigh the cons in any event. The system can be programmed to work behind a firewall, the meter can request energy as it deems necessary and the information sent across the internet can be as simple as “Bob used this much energy, send him a bill…” As always though it needs to be sensationalized and blown out of proportion, headlining all the negatives with the least amount of positives.
The energy that is wasted everyday is astounding, people going to work leaving their AC to keep the house at 70 degrees, everybody having a washer and dryer to do laundry, things like that. The wasteful habits that have become the norm can be easily curbed by a smart grid and that means everybody saves money in the process, even the energy companies because it will allow them to run a more efficient setup. The trivial BS being preached is astounding. For once I’d like to see pro’s and cons without bias and BS. Just the facts.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Well Eric, it’s painfully obvious to me that you have not been to a real world class airport lately. LAX is a clusterfuck for transiting passengers (separate unconnected terminals from the 1950s, small cramped TSA area, airlines from same alliance scattered across different ends of airport, lack of sensible transit connections from terminal to another terminal, transit from terminal to city center, dilapidated VIP lounges, lack of working toilets etc. the list goes on). All the observations from the Kiwi traveler are spot on as to what is wrong with LAX. It’s embarrassing to me as an American that LAX is the first experience with USA for a lot of foreigners.
The airport authority (LAWA) needs a complete education on what an international airport looks like and how it functions. LAX is like a drivethru McDonald’s window serving a high speed rail line… A couple of easy and cheap upgrades would go a long way:
1. Enable passengers to transfer between terminals without exiting secured areas. Add several bus bays inside each terminals and run buses both clockwise and counter clockwise so connecting passengers from another city can get to his/her final flight without having to clear TSA again. This is a short term solution of course… LAX is such a big airport that it needs a people mover badly.
2. Move all airlines within the same alliance to the same terminal. Or at least neighboring terminals. It makes no sense that Air NZ is in terminal 2 while United is across the airport in terminal 6, and ANA is in Bradley. LAX is the only major international airport that I know of that makes ZERO efforts to put Sky Team, OneWorld, and Star Alliance airlines in close proximity. If they did this and nothing else, the traveling experience at LAX will improve by 1000%
3. Upgrade the VIP areas in all terminal, especially Bradley. It’s seriously embarrassing that the business class lounge at LAX looks like the reception area of a gym.
4. Change the vehicle flow pattern so instead of departure upper level, arrival lower level; it becomes bus and shuttles upper level, taxi and passenger cars lower level. Separating transit vehicles from other vehicles will speed up movements of people to rental car and hotel desks, not to mention city bus and Green line light rail.
5. Following changes to #4, it will then be possible to allow city buses to arrive at LAX curb side at each terminal instead of at the Bus Center.
6. Refurbish the gate areas of terminal 1, 2, 7 and Bradley. These are seriously some of the ugliest and most run down of all terminals in the USA. Terminal 4 (AA) and 5 (Delta) are pretty good (no great but not terrible).
None of these changes will involve hundred of million of investments but will pay immediate dividend.
Of course, longer term, LAX needs to build that people mover and expand Bradley terminal. And having the Green line/Crenshaw line come closer to the terminals will be a plus too.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:27 am
The Army Corps of Engineers committed contributory negligence. The base problem is that as a semi-sunken (and still sinking) city New Orleans and Louisiana needed to take steps to “harden” the city thirty to fifty years (30 - 50 yrs.) ago.
When I read the reports about the flooding caused by Katrina I was struck by how far the floodwaters spread. The city does NOT have interior dikes to contain floodwaters. Had the dikes existed they could have boulevards (and possibly transit) on top and hardened utilities inside (electricity, communications, storm sewers, etc.). The storm and flooding knocked out power and phone service for most of the city. But had the dikes been in place there would have been less disruption and faster recovery.
So don’t take too many pot shots at the Corps of Engineers. They do make mistakes but they also cope decently with a bitch of a juggling act.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:41 am
The taxi driver doesn’t speak English *well*
November 20th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
The biggest joke about LAX is that not a single easily understandable rail/transit line goes directly to the airport. Having this would reduce the traffic at LAX considerably, as people could take the train for the last/first leg of their journey to the airport.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
That report is bogus. We all know Bush personally detonated the C4 to blow the dikes. The science is settled.
November 26th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
The traveler was NOT Kiwi. Hes an Aussie. No slight to either, but you’ll have both barking at you if you mix them up.