July 29, 2010 – Daily Brief

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Jeff
  • Jim Holt, the Signal reporter who did a series of stories about the chloride in the river matter, says that despite Tuesday’s decision to delay sanitation rate hikes, rates will eventually go up in the SCV. Also, a representative from the Ventura County Farm bureau was at City Hall, “Just to tell the folks in Ventura what the mood was.” SIGNAL
  • A last minute temporary injunction was issued on Arizona SB1070, forbidding the most controversial pieces that “among others, that required police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.” LATIMES Meanwhile, Sheriff Joe Arpaio says “Really, nothing has changed” and plans a “crime sweep” today SOME CBS AFFILIATE IN AZ
  • Thanks Bob: A blog called California Watch, which bills itself as part of the Center for Investigative Reporting, says Santa Clarita (and a number of other cities) have officially expressed support for Arizona’s 1070 law. To the best of my knowledge, Santa Clarita hasn’t officially expressed support, but Councilmember Bob Kellar did in fact send a personal letter of support CALIFORNIA WATCH
  • California City Managers gather tomorrow in Sacramento to “limit the damage” of  the City of Bell’s exorbitant pay for its administrators. Check out how the State Legislature is using Bell to its advantage: “However, the Times story suggests this duress may not apply to all our cities, or that some cities are not allowing their economic plight to curtail Fortune 500-level salaries for their senior executives,” State Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) wrote in a pointed letter to the League of Cities last week.” We’ll need more than tap dancing to get out of this one! LA TIMES
  • Though unemployment was at 7.5% and office vacancies at 19.1% in May, the new chief economist for the LA Economic Development Corporation says that she is sure “we are in an economic recovery.” SIGNAL
  • Hart Board member Joe Messina criticized for emailing employees of the Hart District about his radio show. He’s apologized and removed Hart addresses from his email list SIGNAL
  • Alleged gang member gets arrested while at court on another matter. Easiest arrest ever. KHTS
  • Pitchess Detention Center will open its doors to the public on August 7 for a behind-the-scenes look at the 72 year old jail and its 1,000 acres of farmland and correctional buildings. Sounds like a great opportunity for the parents of the SCV to scare their kids straight SIGNAL
  • Does someone want to share with me why there is so much hype over the new Chik-Fil-A store on Magic Mountain near the mall? 100 people hung out in front of the store yesterday and some, apparently caught up in religious ferver for the fast food chicken restaurant, played with oreo cookies during the event. SIGNAL. Meanwhile over at KHTS a morning deejay host got some Chick-Fil-A delivered to him…insert pun about him being in a fowl mood (this just writes itself!) KHTS
  • Two for the two-wheeled crowd: local man plans to ride his bike up to 170 miles to support his older brother who has multiple sclerosis and KCRW host Warren Olney talks with LA bike activist and Streetsblogger Joe Linton and a UCLA public policy professor about Ciclavia, an event in LA where streets will be closed to cars and opened to bikes and pedestrians for a day in October.
  • All star SCV musicians will be at Central Park this weekend as the summer concert series continues. CITY BRIEFS
  • LTE Writer throws some cold water on the idea that drilling for oil in America will lead to reduced gas prices SIGNAL
  • “We should be mad as hell at the mere suggestion” that a mosque be built anywhere near Ground Zero, says LTE writer.
  • Cam Noltemeyer noticed the same funny quote in yesterday’s story about the Skyline Ranch project, namely the one where a sanitation engineer says that excess chloride dumped into the river as a result of the 1,260 home development could simply be flushed away with water. SIGNAL
  • Al Ferdman of the Canyon Country Advisory Committee says the City Manager is unfairly severing the City’s 15 year relationship with the Committee in an effort to censor local residents. What the City has said is that the Committee can no longer use city meeting spaces and it will no longer dedicate staff time to the committee. You decide what’s going on. WRB

Yes, it’s true: I was selected as one of the SCV Business Journal’s “40 under Forty” influential people in the SCV. It’s really an honor to be in a group with such fine people, but this site would not exist without SCVTalk’s readers -without you! So thank you again for making SCVTalk what it is: an interesting, fun and occasionally raucous place to talk about the SCV.

Posted in Daily Brief | 30 Comments

Causes of death in LA County and healthy valley of villages?

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Jeff

I’ve been reading through the LA County Department of Public Health’s report (PDF) on Life Expectancy in Los Angeles county. It’s not only interesting because it measures the life expectancy of Santa Clarita residents (a flat 80.0 years), but it shows the leading causes of death in the County as a whole for men and women:

According to Wikipedia generic “heart disease” is the leading killer in the United States, accounting for 25.4% of all deaths in the US. So its rank as the number one killer of both men and women in LA County is hardly surprising.

But who would have thought homicide and motor vehicle crashes account for the #2 and #3 causes of premature death respectively for men in LA County? Do men get into that many crashes in LA County that it ranks as the #3 killer of us? Apparently so.

Sadly, homicide ranks as the #1 killer of blacks and Latinos in LA County, according to the report. Lung disease is the #2 killer of whites behind heart disease, followed by motor vehicle crashes. As the report notes, risky behavior contributes heavily to these causes of death.

Speaking of health and motor vehicles, there’s another aspect to the report that applies to us here locally. I don’t think Santa Clarita is more or less obese than any other community, but the report notes that obesity “is one of the greatest challenges facing Los Angeles County” and that, taken together with diabetes, “threatens to halt and even reverse the gains in life expectancy we’ve achieved.”

As many planners and so-called new-urbanists have argued for years, increased obesity rates are a direct result of suburban, car-friendly and pedestrian-unfriendly development (see this 2003 NYT story “As Suburbs Grow, So Do Waistlines” for a sample). And this report takes that same line, arguing that city planners and decision makers ought to “increase access to safe places for residents to walk, bike, play and exercise” and “incorporate health considerations in General Plans, transportation plans and redevelopment activities.”

And I think “incorporating health considerations” is one thing the City of Santa Clarita (and arguably Newhall Land with Newhall Ranch) is trying to accomplish with its “valley of villages,” ped-friendly concept. Of course one SCV man’s ped-friendly, jobs/housing balanced development is another man’s high density OVOV nightmare (that they moved here to escape from!) so therein lies the crux of the matter.

This is one of the reasons I choose to live in Newhall and one of the reasons I’d live in Valencia: they are relatively walkable compared to other areas of the SCV like Stevenson Ranch. And this report backs that idea up: living in walkable communities contributes to a healthy, more active lifestyle.

Posted in Development, Environment, Opinion, Recreation | 12 Comments

July 28, 2010 – Daily Brief

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Jeff
  • Sanitation Board delays vote on chloride tax hike until spring, with board member Supervisor Antonovich saying the “board was rushing to a decision,” according to the Signal. It was standing room only in the Council Chambers with protests outside the building occurring before and during the meeting. The move buys more time for SCVers to return their rate hike protest forms SIGNAL
  • City Manager Ken Pulskamp earns $241,633 for overseeing the City of Santa Clarita, an amount the city says is inline with other cities in California. And our City Counilmembers take home about $18,860 a year for their part time service. All this in reaction to the City of Bell, whose city manager was making over $800,000 a year SIGNAL
  • The County approved yesterday a 1,260 home development named Skyline Ranch in Canyon Country. The development, which will be built by Pardee and includes a new elemntary school, will be built south of Vasquez Canyon between Whites and Sierra Highway. Interestingly, Lynne Plambeck used the chloride card to protest the development, saying the new homes would increase the amount of chloride in the Santa Clara River, to which the sanitation dude said, “the concentration of chloride in the Santa Clara River wouldn’t increase because whatever chloride is discharged into the river would be diluted with more water.” Huh? By the way, Al Ferdman of the Canyon Country Advisory Committee says neighbors support the development SIGNAL
  • If you were born today in Santa Clarita, first of all, welcome to the Daily Brief and congratulations on being able to read so early in life. Secondly, LA County Public Health says you can expect to live an even 80 years, all things being equal, and further says that our city ranks in the “third quintile” for life expectancy in all of Los Angeles County. We were beat out by places like Agoura Hills and Beverly Hills (those rich bastards live five years longer on average!) but we dominated -dominated!- Lancaster and Palmdale, so at least there’s that LA TIMES
  • Home and condo sales increased in June, but the median home price of $400,000 and the median condo price of $230,000 is down by 2 and 1 points from this time last year. But SCV realtors are happy with the increase in sales saying the SCV real estate market’s “pulse is getting stronger.” SIGNAL
  • Meg Whitman trailing Jerry Brown 46-40 in polling with evidence that some Californians resent the amount of money she has spent on her campaign, says TALKING POINTS MEMO
  • Former First Lady Nancy Reagan will be at a signing ceremony with Governor Schwarzenegger at the Ronald Reagan library today as the Gov signs George Runner’s Ronald Reagan Day bill KEYT
  • Congressman Buck McKeon says that despite the Afghanistan “war logs” leaked on WikiLeaks, he is “confident US forces will succeed in Afghanistan if given the time, space and resources they need to complete their mission.” NEWSPAPER
  • A Virginia blogger responds to McKeon: “Can you even define realistic success, Mr. McKeon? And what resources are you talking about? We are fighting guys in robes with state-of-the-art weapons and still can’t break the back of the Taliban. What resources aren’t we providing, Mr. McKeon?” BLOG
  • Getting scary out there: That Signal LTE protesting the Ground Zero mosque is a picnic compared to what’s going on in Temecula, where self-described patriotic residents are set to protest a proposed 24,950 sq. ft. mosque that City officials say has met planning standards. The patriots plan to bring dogs and women to their protest Friday “because Muslims hate dogs.” ROLLEYES
  • Autoblog.com test drives the $33,000 all-electric Nissan Leaf (“gadgetry is impressive…[but] the Leaf is simply a car”) while Grist.org compares the Leaf with the Volt, which just got priced by Chevy at $41,000 or $350/month on a 3 year lease
  • LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants a bicycle summit following his bike crash earlier this month LAist
  • Can I get an amen? “Speed, speed, speed” in the Santa Clarita Valley is a way of life. Speed-limit signs be damned. This unfortunate collision will plague us for the rest of our lives. This should be a good lesson to all motorists who can’t control their speeding to realize the havoc that this crash has caused a family and the damaging repercussions to one and all,” Letter Writer says.
  • Newhall Land to host a Canines, Coffee and Donuts event this Saturday in West Creek. “Visitors will be treated to free coffee from Newhall Coffee Roasting Company while local favorite S&S will provide guests with free doughnuts throughout the event. Meanwhile dog lovers will get a chance to meet and mingle with each other on what is expected to be a beautiful Saturday morning.” Of course they’re going to invite you to take a look at some new homes, but free coffee and donuts in this day and age is a pretty sweet incentive! VALENCIA.COM
  • Local blogger details run-in with “crazy lady” in her neighborhood COMICALLY FLAWED
  • John Boston remembers a kinder, gentler, and more articulate age in the SCV and the nation when young men and women weren’t so cavalier about using curse words WRB
  • Great column by Gary Horton this week on bigotry in the SCV, the military, and the media SIGNAL
Posted in Daily Brief | 31 Comments

Newhall Ranch: Not Your Parents’ Valencia

Posted on July 27, 2010 by John B.

Note: this is a follow up to Jeff’s post on Newhall Ranch, prompted by our on-site tour of the property with Newhall Land representatives.

Are all developments inherently bad?  Is it possible to pave nature in a responsible way, perhaps even balance out some of the irresponsible development in SCV?

The concept of Newhall Ranch is a live/work/play community, facilitated by local jobs and smaller homes in what is known in developer parlance as “high density”  (synonymous with “multi-family residences”: typically condos, townhomes, zero lot line or patio homes).  The project will likely take at least two decades to complete.

Some have been quick to draw comparisons between Newhall Ranch and Valencia; while both are Newhall Land communities, the two share a number of differences.

Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Opinion | 22 Comments

July 27, 2010 – Daily Brief

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Jeff
  • Jury sentences child killer to death SIGNAL, KHTS
  • Protest over chloride fee hike begins today at 4:30 pm in front of City Hall, followed by the actual hearing at 6:30 pm in the City’s Council chamber. Details at WRB
  • We’re number 1! A proud distinction for us: local fire chief says SCV is renowned throughout the world for our vulnerability to brush-fed, fast-moving wild fires. The chief says SCVers ought to ember-proof their homes by placing metal screens on openings of their house. SIGNAL
  • A felon and previously deported illegal immigrant named Byron Rousil was arrested yesterday in Canyon Country after Deputies stopped him for speeding. Rousil apparently had meth in his possession and after searching his home, Deputies found more meth and a loaded handgun. KHTS
  • Speaking of illegal immigration, Hart Board member and radio host Joe Messina tackled that thorny subject yesterday in his The Real Side radio show. And who better to talk about illegal immigration than Bob Kellar? Assemblyman Smyth was also on the show. Keep an eye out for the podcast if you missed the show THE REAL SIDE
  • Geez: a woman who got in a fight with her husband while driving on Highway 14 became so upset that her husband wouldn’t let her out of the car that she pulled keys out of her purse and allegedly stabbed her husband in the head with them. The husband pulled off the freeway and called the Sheriff’s Station SIGNAL
  • Schwarzenegger says he may leave office without signing a budget unless the state Legislature gives him what he wants. California’s new fiscal year began on July 1 and the state faces a $19.1 billion budget gap LA TIMES
  • Congressman Buck McKeon has argued that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell shouldn’t be repealed until a formal survey of all 2.5 million military members is conducted. In response, a blogger takes a look at the last time the military was surveyed about black and Jewish integration in the 1940s and the results aren’t pretty. His conclusion? The military follows orders and will integrate gays and lesbians just as it integrated blacks and Jews BRITANNICA BLOG
  • New local dog rescue group tries to save the “mutts on doggie death row” at County shelters SIGNAL
  • Interesting post on how the City is using lady bugs to fight a tree pest infestation in the SCV CITY BRIEFS
  • If climate change is allowed to continue unchecked, agriculture in Mexico might be devastated, leading to even more migration to the Southwest United States. Closer to home though, a new study says California, Arizona and Nevada will have the highest risk of water shortages as global warming accelerates.
  • Kevin Korenthal, candidate for Water Board, pens an interesting column about the taste, smell, and hardness of SCV water supplies SIGNAL
  • LTE Writer says Santa Clarita could be like the City of Bell due to public’s lack of attention SIGNAL
  • Speaking of that, the Signal was supposed to have an article about whether Bell could happen in the City of Santa Clarita, but I don’t see it today.
  • No two ways about it, Bruce McFarland’s column likening Ken Pulskamp to a crime boss is outrageous. I tackled some of the same issues in a recent post, but the larger point needs to be stated again and again: if things are so bad, voters had a chance to kick three of the bums out in April, thereby increasing their chances of firing Ken Pulskamp, which appears to be what some of them want.
Posted in Daily Brief | 29 Comments

Put some speedbumps on Bouquet Canyon

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Jeff

When I was a freshly-licensed, pimply-faced, up-to-no-good teenager, my parents and my friends’ parents all warned me to stay off of Highway 126.

“It’s nicknamed Death Alley for a reason,” they said. “It’s one of the most dangerous highways in the state,” a friend’s dad who happened to be a CHP officer told my friends and me. “Stay away from it!”

Now whether that was true at the time or not, it certainly made sense for parents to tell their kids to stay away from the picturesque road, which used to feature suicide passing lanes before it was modernized.

Zoom forward 16 years and I feel that if I had kids I’d tell them to stay away from Bouquet Canyon for the same reasons. Consider the death and destruction of the last two years:

  • Bicyclist hit and paralyzed by a hit and run driver in Spring 2009
  • Bicyclist hit and killed by a hit and run driver in summer 2009
  • Stevenson Ranch dentist kills himself after crashing his Lamborghini in the Canyon
  • 24 year old, allegedly intoxicated, twists his Porsche around a tree, killing his 26 year old female passenger
  • Unidentified sport biker killed in March 2010

Last year I wrote about some sport bikers who were zooming up and down the canyon, making my friend Kevin Korenthal and I nervous to ride. So we pulled over and filmed them shooting through at speeds approaching 100 mph.

Look, the point is this: Bouquet Canyon may not have any more fatalities or accidents than any other stretch of road in or near the SCV, but it is clear that it attracts those who like to speed because, let’s face it, it’s a really cool place to drive/ride.

So cool, in fact,t hat those who like to race it warn each other about enforcement crackdowns. Check out this post in a motorcycle forum from 2008:

Boquet is under heavy CHP patrol looking specifically for bikes (with modifications). I should know. At the start of Boquet on the only straight, I pass a car with Radner rapidly coming up on me, as soon as we pass, we see a totally white CHP radar unit on the shoulder…SH*T……! We roll by him and he doesn’t move, we go around the next right hander and a CHP Interceptor is all lit up blocking the road. We slow and he waves us next to him, and points at me to pull over and let all others go. He says they got me at 85 in a 55. He was real nice as I explain they must have gotten a fix on that blue sportbike guy (Radner) about to overtake me. I think they really did ’cause Mike was going faster about to pass me (where he shouldn’t of as I am passing a vehicle!). The cop seems to be thinking about it. I couldn’t f*ckin’ believe it! WHAT THE F. He radios the Radar Unit for a desription of the bike. (I am on the black Sprint with bags). I hear over the radio “He’s on a black bike with saddlebags wearing a black jacket.” Cop #2 asks “What color of helmet?” Cop #1, dark helmet, {long pause}, maybe blue. I am thinking, “DAMN, ticket for sure!” Then Cop #2 says. “Well it sounds like we may not have the right guy, there is some doubt here. And your bike looks expensive, one doesn’t modify a bike like that, we are looking for illegal mods also. Since we aren’t sure you are the right guy, we’ll let you go, have a safe day.”

It’s unreasonable to expect the CHP to patrol the 10+ mile long canyon at all hours of the day and night, especially when the sport bikers with mods are so much faster than conventional CHP cruisers.

Therefore a simple, cost effective solution to the problem emerges: Speed bumps (or humps) every half mile or so at least through the twistiest, funnest sections of the canyon. I know they are hated by everyone (including me) but you can’t deny their effectiveness. The next time a group of adrenaline junkies want to race their Lambos or suped-up motorcycles, they’ll be forced to slow down lest they go…well…airborne.

Posted in Crime, Transportation | 14 Comments

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Jeff

The ultraconservative video-blogger behind the Not a Ferry Fan videos seems confused about the City’s proposal to “seize” three County libraries in town:

If he weren’t so blinded by anti-City rage, NAFF might realize that what the City wants to do is essentially privatize the operation of our public library system by outsourcing staff to a privately-held, for-profit library services company in Maryland.

Under the city’s preferred scenario, those highly skilled, educated and -yes!- unionized library employees in the SCV would either get the boot and have to work at other LA County Libraries or leave their jobs and apply to work for the private corporation, ending their time on the public dole.

This outcome, it seems to me, would be a most favorable one for a conservative guy who has appeared at Tea Party rallies holding “GREEN IS RED” signs and who drives around town in a Hummer with an anti-Jane Fonda bumper sticker.

But because the library seizure is proposed by the City (which he -without irony- attempts to tar with Obama’s Hope ‘n Change mantra) it’s toxic to him, and so he sides by default with public unionized library employees.

The folks who have a real, honest beef with the direction of the SCV need a better spokesperson than Not a Ferry Fan.

Posted in Opinion, Politics | 18 Comments

July 26, 2010 – Daily Brief

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Jeff
  • Contentious chloride conference concerning all Claritans coming to City Hall tomorrow SIGNAL
  • 24 year old Porsche driver loses control of his car in Bouquet Canyon and runs into a tree, resulting in the death of a 26 year old female passenger. Michael Hemperly Jr, the driver, tested above the legal limit for alcohol and has been booked for felony drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter. The collision occurred Saturday morning at around 2 am and the driver suffered only slight injuries SIGNAL, KHTS
  • Michael Dean Stephens, the 21 year old man accused of the 2007 murder of Canyon high grad Joshua Pipho, will face trial soon says the SIGNAL
  • LA Times profiles Carole and Dave Lutness, the local uber-liberal duo, in a piece about financial security, retirement, and financial planning. The Lutnesses have done everything right: paid off their house, their cars, no credit card debt and over a half million in savings, but they are hesitant to retire even as a financial planner says they are ready. LA TIMES
  • Newhall woman celebrates her 100th Birthday. Gladys Laney has called Newhall her home for her entire life. Here’s what she told the Signal about her century in the SCV: “We had ten acres. We had school from grades one through eight at the corner of Newhall and Lyons Avenue,” Laney said. “I like to say I’ve seen things change from the horse and buggy to computers.” AWESOME
  • Daily News looks at art in the Santa Clarita Valley and praises the local ProxArt group as well as Brave New World comics on Lyons Avenue. DAILY NEWS
  • Annexation Action! Businessman in Valencia Commerce Center says LA County treats him and his business with “benign neglect” while City’s planning commission recommend in a 5-0 vote that Tesoro Del Valle and West Hills join the City
  • Also regarding the above, City critics take note: land owners in unincorporated County areas say they prefer County rule because it favors developers
  • Captain Paul Becker tells a Sheriff’s Association Fundraiser that “there’s a lot of drug abuse up here,” particularly with black tar heroin, Vicodin and OxyContin. He says 85 percent of the “evils in our community’ relate to drug abuse and gangs SIGNAL
  • Hart District looks at saving electricity costs by installing solar panels at its facilities SIGNAL
  • At least we’re not the only ones: Starting in the 1950s, the US Navy developed and tested torpedoes in the Morris Dam reservoir in the San Gabriel Valley. And like our Whittaker Bermite site, the Navy’s tests left behind perchlorate in the soils surrounding the lake. The SGV Tribune says the Navy will clean up the site and truck the contaminated dirt up to Kettleman City where it will be disposed of SGV TRIBUNE
  • The Signal deserves some applause for its great “Future of Sports in the SCV” series. Particularly interesting are these articles on how popular mixed martial arts has become in the SCV and what the City is trying to do to attract major sporting events like the Amgen Tour, soccer matches and golf tournaments to town (in 2010 we haven’t had any pro-level events) ENTIRE SERIES
  • KHTS reviews the Castaic Lake Water Agency’s Water Conservation Garden. Pretty KHTS
  • AB 32, California’s progressive and highly-praised climate change bill, has resulted in new jobs. Okay okay, those new jobs are with the California Air Resources Board, the lead agency charged with implementing AB 32 SAC BEE
  • 50th Anniversary of Hollywood Walk of Fame LA TIMES
  • Governor Schwarzenegger signs Assemblyman Cameron Smyth’s AB 1643 bill which “would make it legal to sell or drink alcohol at a public K-12 school housed on the campus of a college, as long as no children are present. In addition, alcohol could be served only at fundraisers for nonprofits.” Sounds like this would only impact schools like Academy of the Canyons, or am I misreading it? Also there are two other bills by Smyth that were signed, one concerning service animals VECO STAR
  • NotaFerryFan’s latest video tackles Laurie Ender and her idea to takeover local libraries, Frank Ferry and Sterling King’s outburst, and me and John B, whom NAFF calls the SCV’s Beavis and Butthead YOU TUBE
  • Carole Lutness predicts that if the City takes over our libraries, we will get “minimum wage pseudo-librarians, limited selection and probably a fee-per-book levy to tap into the Los Angeles Public Library system.” SIGNAL LTE
  • LTE writer says NYC Mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero is “tasteless, insensitive [and] offensive.” He even says he has a “friend who admits to being a Muslim” (as if that’s a crime now?) and he recognizes that the first amendment guarantees religious freedom, but he’s still outraged about the proposed Mosque SIGNAL LTE
  • KCRW’s To the Point show had an excellent show on Friday regarding Breitbart, Shirley Sherrod and conservative/liberal media. One of the panelists on the show was Congressman Brad Sherman, Democrat of the San Fernando Valley who may someday represent the SCV, depending on how Congressional districts get redrawn next year TO THE POINT
  • Myers reviews how impossible it would be to undertake a recall effort of the City Council SIGNAL
  • Don’t be a sucker, show up and protest at tomorrow’s chloride meeting says the SGINAL
  • Cool BIG PICTURE posts shows what we in the Santa Clarita Valley miss during the summer: amazing (but destructive) summer storms BIG PICTURE
Posted in Daily Brief | 23 Comments

Fire, 2 lanes closed on I-5; traffic snarled

Posted on July 23, 2010 by John B.

The 5N is closed again, this time due to brush fire near LaSalle Canyon:

Homes on the west side of LaSalle Canyon Road are being evacuated due to a fast-moving brush fire reported near the I-5 and Calgrove Boulevard, in the LaSalle Canyon area.

Resources from Los Angeles County Fire and Angeles National Forest are on scene.

The CHP has closed two lanes on the northbound lanes of the I-5 at Weldon Canyon.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those with property at risk due to the fire.

Let us also not forget the commuters – for the second time this week during peak traffic hours, a substantial portion of our only major artery has been cut off, and there is no real alternative but to sit and wait.

UPDATE 3:10pm: KHTS is reporting that the fire is moving away from the homes at LaSalle Canyon.

UPDATE 3:57pm: Just what first responders need: a bunch of drivers making a bad situation worse. From The Signal:


Posted in Complaint Dept., News, Traffic | 12 Comments

LA County Bicycling Infrastructure Meeting

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Jeff

Over a dozen people attended LA County and Alta Design’s Bicycle Master Plan meeting last month at Hart Park.

The meeting, which focused exclusively on bike infrastructure in the unincorporated County areas of Santa Clarita, was useful and informative. County staff and Alta planners started the meeting off with an overview of the previous meeting (held in Castaic back in April) and laid out the goals for the night.

Cyclists were then invited to review maps of the SCV, note areas of the valley they’d like to see more cycling infrastructure and note their priorities for county bicycle programs (like driver education, safety courses, etc).

Overwhelmingly, cyclists at the meeting said they’d like to see a marked bike lane running the entirety of the Old Road from Castaic to the Newhall Pass. Adding a lane there would address a major weakness of bike infrastructure in the SCV: a total lack of a safe north-south route on the west side of town. Right now, it’s downright frightening to ride on portions of the Old Road, yet there is no other route to places like Castaic, Val Verde, or the businesses in the Commerce Center.

I also had my pet list of bike lane recommendations: I wanted lanes in both directions on Sierra Highway from Agua Dulce to the City line (ideally those lanes would continue into City territory, Sierra Highway is very wide), lanes on Pico Canyon Blvd connecting to Stevenson Ranch Parkway’s lanes, and lanes on Vasquez Canyon Road, north of Saugus.

The great thing about meetings like this is that you get to see how and where other people ride.  Some suggested lanes on roads I had never thought of, and it turns out the County is already studying sections of the SCV for lanes that I haven’t even considered. Check out the map:

Bike lanes on county portions of Copperhill Road would be particularly welcome as the City has bike lanes on Copperhill east of Haskell. A bike lane on Placerita Canyon Blvd east of Highway 14 would be sweet for both road and mountain bikers, as would a lane on Bouquet Canyon Road, which has been the site of two vehicle-on-bike crashes (one of them fatal) in the last 18 months.

Of course, not everyone rides their bicycle the same way. Quickly there emerged among the cyclists divisions in the old bike path vs bike lane debate. Some cyclists at the meeting were more recreational-minded; they argued that investments should be made in off-street bike paths, like the ones the City of Santa Clarita has built to segregate cyclists from vehicle traffic.

Other cyclists who view cycling not just as recreation but also as transportation argued that on-street bike lanes are preferable in that they are cheap to implement and go where the roads already go.

It’s an important debate: are bikes merely toys or exercise equipment, or are they vehicles that should be seen as part of the transportation network? I think that unless an off-street path system is complete from one end to another with minimal obstructions to the rider that on-street lanes are preferable.

A minority of cyclists (none of whom were at the meeting as far as I could tell) don’t believe cyclists should have any infrastructure whatsoever, arguing that segmenting cyclists from vehicle traffic paradoxically increases danger to cyclists.

Overall it was a very useful and interesting meeting and I thank the County and Alta for coordinating it and coming prepared.

More County Bicycle Master Plan meetings will be held in the coming months. Keep an eye on SCVTalk.com and LACOUNTYBIKEPLAN.ORG for more.

Posted in Traffic, Transportation | 12 Comments