♫Ding, ding, ding" went the bell♫
"Streetcars may make comeback in Los Angeles" April 09, 2012
LOS ANGELES - Half a century after the last of the lost Pacific Electric Red Cars rumbled through Los Angeles, a move has begun to return streetcars to downtown LA.
Gone because of an actual court conviction between big oil, big auto, and big rubber.
With a route chosen by the city and an environmental review begun, the proposed four-mile Broadway-to-Figueroa loop is a modest project compared to the region’s subway extensions and freeway expansions, but would provide a link between the key spots of the downtown renaissance and a symbolic link with the city’s mythologized past.
Los Angeles once had a thousand miles of streetcar tracks, and along them ran the Yellow Car Line and the more famed Red Cars. After giving way to freeways in the early 1960s, they have become a symbol of the city’s lost intimacy and identity, celebrated by politicians looking to restore transit glory and by films like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.’’
While the streetcars of memory are invoked often - the city’s soon-to-open Expo light rail line has Red Car tickets etched into the concrete at its final stop and city leaders on a recent test run shared memories of riding it - the proposed downtown project would be a far more direct restoration, starting with the route itself.
“Virtually every bit of this alignment is on streets that have historically had Red or Yellow car lines,’’ said Robin Blair, director of planning for the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
While boosters are quick to point out that the new cars would be thoroughly modern, sleek, and environmentally sound, nostalgia is their biggest emotional selling point.
“Everyone has a story about themselves or their parents or somebody riding these streetcars,’’ said City Council member Jose Huizar, whose 2008 “Bringing Back Broadway’’ plan started the push.
Huizar’s $36.5-million plan has sought to revive the movie theaters and nightspots that have sat in disrepair. It appears to be working, and the streetcar line could make its restoration complete.
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I guess it would be safer than a car:
"2 USC students slain in possible carjacking attempt" Associated Press, April 12, 2012
LOS ANGELES - A gunman opened fire on a BMW near the University of Southern California campus Wednesday, killing two international students from China in what may have been a bungled carjacking attempt, police said.
The couple was sitting in the new 3-series luxury car when the gunman fired around 1 a.m., shattering the car windows. The woman, Ying Wu, was slumped in the front passenger seat.
The wounded man, Ming Qu, managed to get out of the car and run to a nearby home, where he pounded on the door pleading for help, and someone called 911, police Commander Andrew Smith said. It was not known if anyone answered the door before the man collapsed.
Paramedics took the victims downtown to California Hospital Medical Center, where they were dead on arrival, authorities said. Both were in their 20s.
“This is every parent’s nightmare,’’ Smith said.
Investigators say it may have been a robbery or a carjacking attempt. Witnesses said the car was in the roadway, not at the curb, during the shooting.
Whoever shot the two fled, and no one has been arrested, Smith said. Police have taken the $60,000 BMW for examination and attempting to determine if there were any surveillance cameras in the area.
Four people have been killed this year in the area, police said, but violent crime is down 20 percent from 2011.
USC is in an urban center not far from gang-infested neighborhoods. But gentrification has begun in the district.
Beatriz Moreno, who lives across the street with her family from where the shooting occurred, said the neighborhood has been cleaned up. The last shooting she could recall was in 2003. “We used to see this every day,’’ she said. “This isn’t normal.’’
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Too bad no high-speed rail.
"California’s high-speed rail authority released a fresh proposal Monday for a bullet train linking Northern and Southern California, with a price tag of $68.4 billion and a scaled-back design to address sustained criticism of a project that has been called a boondoggle and a train to nowhere....
Yeah, that is BILLION with a B!
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Related: Plans for high-speed rail are slowing down
Also related: Rumble at Beverly Hills 90210
"Calif. campaign treasurer admits $7m theft" Associated Press, March 31, 2012
SACRAMENTO - A former California campaign treasurer pleaded guilty Friday to looting at least $7 million from the accounts of dozens of Democratic candidates and political organizations in one of the nation’s most egregious political embezzlement cases....
The plea ended a criminal case that left numerous state and federal candidates with little or no money in their campaign accounts, heading into an election year in which they face newly drawn districts and a new primary system....
Yeah, I really feel sorry for them after they received a taste of their own medicine. They have been looting taxpayers for years.
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