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SirPablo posted:I live in a city near the proposed line and a large contingent were actively fighting against it. You loving idiots! You don't want a direct line to 25 million people for your lovely town!? Ugh, the valley . All those towns that the interstates didn't connect are doing great.
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Jul 10, 2013 22:45
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GD_American posted:I'm curious what the cost estimates for connecting that Victorville spur to LA so they can have a Vegas-LA line would be. I guarantee they've run the numbers already. I think that line will never happen because it's essentially a weekend party bus for people in LA, there's not a lot of business reasons other than tourism, and I don't know that tourism alone could sustain that line. Unless I'm missing something.
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Jul 10, 2013 22:47
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Ardennes posted:I guess the Las Vegas metro area is about 2 million people at this point, enough to probably deserve some type of line along with the usual tourist traffic. I agree, but that doesn't make sense if it's running from Victorville.
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Jul 10, 2013 23:18
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Van5 posted:What would be the best way to design a statewide rail system that doesn't just end up benefiting rich people, from a conceptual standpoint? Build it, subsidize the tickets. The rail system in and of itself isn't elitist, it's going through the right places. It just needs to be affordable.
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Jul 10, 2013 23:45
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Glass of Milk posted:Can they not have express trains that only do the LA-SF-SD stops along with the normal ones? That would seem to be the way to go. That seems to be exactly what they are doing. The map I posted earlier shows both local stops and "express" stops which are much more limited.
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Jul 11, 2013 00:46
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The real travesty of the train is how slow it is and how long it will take. We had trains that were almost as fast back when we were on steam, and we could build the entire system in less than 10 years but, you know, ~America~.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:42
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A Winner is Jew posted:Wait, have they released how fast (slow) the express train will be yet? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail#Travel_times Assuming that's express. I told a coworker visiting from Hong Kong about an average speed of 180 and he laughed.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:51
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Ardennes posted:Uh the fastest (regular service) TGV goes about 200 miles per hour. Heh, I'm getting my fastest speeds mixed up with running speeds, my bad. I was under the impression that those trains ran at 300mph, because they can do it. I'll go back to whining about project timetables.
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Jul 11, 2013 22:09
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I bike along the creek and boy does it smell awesome.
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Jul 17, 2013 23:47
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Ron Jeremy posted:I don't know if data is there, but anecdatally, many purchases in the bay area have been cash. I dunno if we can separate the institutional investors vs the mom and pop rentals from the google millionaires buying a primary residence in cash. I'd suspect most of those are investors, as even the new rich often will finance to spread the cost out.
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Jul 31, 2013 23:52
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SirPablo posted:I learned that Reagan single handedly saved the american economy by lowering taxes and getting inflation under control. Bork was not confirmed due to partisanship. Ron new nothing about selling weapons to fund terrorists. Socialism is Bad. It CAN be done. He was a proud union man. Peace through strength. Did you urinate on his grave?
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Aug 2, 2013 21:45
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enraged_camel posted:Economically, the city has suffered very badly in the past five years. Most high quality businesses left downtown, and it has become a barren wasteland of abandoned buildings, empty parking lots and low-value shops. It doesn't help that there's also a WalMart (that I live across the street from) that attracts all kinds of people from the ghetto and drives wages down in the area. There is a lot of crime everything from petty theft to robberies. There's a public parking lot next to my apartment building, and us residents park our vehicles in gated areas of the lot. Despite this, my car has been broken into twice over the past year. Did I mention that I don't venture outside after dark, despite being a fairly strong guy? Tell me more about the "people from the ghetto" that WalMart attracts.  Leperflesh posted:Courthouses do not usually anchor nice business districts. They attract bail bondsmen, pawn shops, and payday loan sharks. There's actually the police HQ directly across from the new courthouse, and they're spending quite a bit of money in DTLB to nicen up the neighborhood, including at least one new upscale apartment building. Ardennes posted:So what is greater LA's weakest food category? It isn't Mexican, Chinese, or Korean obviously. I guess pizza isn't spectacular, but doesn't seem that bad. Not a lot of representation of French food in Southern California? Maybe Thai? It's probably French or Italian. There's just not a lot of great Italian around, outside the Mozzo-plex. Similar to how the pizza is not good. Traditional French is also pretty rare. Thai though, there's a ton of good Thai in LA and Long Beach. vvv Good point...it's so off-the-radar here I didn't even think of it. There's like a couple of George's Greek Cafe's around. Zeitgueist fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 21:57
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nm posted:Depends. We have a somewhat higher than average income tax, but property taxes are probably the lowest in the nation unless some state doesn't have property tax. Prop 13 especially insures that anyone (or their family) who bought property in the 80s or earlier, pays almost no property tax. This applies to companies too. Property values can only be re-assessed up if the property is sold to a non family member. The best part is that if you sell a business that owns property, that property stays assessed at old values. Companies create corporations for the sole purpose of holding a single large property, then instead of selling the property they sell the holding company. To add to this, Prop 13 was essentially created with the express purpose of loving California through Starve The Beast, and did so pretty well. Despite being one of the top 10 economies in the world, the state is in a perenial budget shithole. Though with a Dem supermajority and Governor, it's got slightly better, but for the most part our Team Blue is Team Light Red like in most of the country. To make up for our massive property tax hole, we have regressively high tax rates and fees on most everything else. It's not wrong to say that our budget problems could be pretty much entirely solved by fixing the property tax issue, since the gaps are never more than a tiny, tiny fraction of our state GDP. The weighting of the budget on income and sales taxes also means that we're very sensitive to booms and recessions, moreso than many other states.
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Aug 7, 2013 08:10
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Ho Chi Mint posted:The line I hear from guys at work is "California is broke because it has too many social services and Union leeches." Not even remotely true. California is(was) broke because rich people don't want to pay taxes, just like most every other state.
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Aug 7, 2013 17:03
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GrumpyDoctor posted:There is a supermajority. The prop 25 change allowed a simple majority to pass a budget, but new taxes still need 2/3rds. This is correct. The 2/3 new tax thing is part of Prop 13.
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Aug 8, 2013 18:13
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:Man, I remember an OC Register article I'm fine with Orange County politician tears because the OC has some really reprehensible politics.
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Aug 8, 2013 19:06
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-ing about how Orange County's mostly-Republican state legislators were now completely hamstrung by the new supermajority.
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Thanatosian posted:Yeah, the fact that it applies to commercial properties, and properties owned by corporations and trusts is loving bullshit. Well that's kind of the classic, thing, isn't it? Sell it to the middle class as something for them, when it's actually nothing of the sort. Similar to how the estate tax abolitionists talked about family farms.
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Aug 14, 2013 00:54
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CrazyLittle posted:I don't disagree, but "no parking" is also inappropriate. I'd be fine with "no parking" as long as it applied to rich and poor alike. 
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Aug 15, 2013 18:25
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Dusseldorf posted:20 percent over 20 years isn't "major population growth". It is if that's entirely millionaires.
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Aug 15, 2013 20:36
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A Winner is Jew posted:LA's not bad when it comes to museums though since the MOCA and LACMA are like 7 miles apart, and you can spend a day between the two of them and go to the Griffin Observatory in the evening. Plus there's the Pantages, Ahmanson, Disney Concert hall, or seeing a show being taped at WB studios and all of them being really fun but cheep / mid range (ok concert hall is expensive) things to do if you have a free day there. The Getty is a pretty awesome museum(s) as well.
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Aug 17, 2013 02:59
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Aren't a bunch of cities in Orange County named for Klansmen?
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Aug 17, 2013 06:12
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Glass of Milk posted:Edit: Obviously, the best landscaping would be natural drought-resistant plants and rocks, but there's lots of people for whom it would be sacrosanct. I do a little fist pump every time I see a fake-grass or rock lawn in LA. If I could to own a home in southern California(nope), I would definitely get rid of any grass immediately.
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Aug 19, 2013 22:21
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Ron Jeremy posted:Fake grass is meh. If you're going to use water, might as well water something edible. Pull up your backyard and plant a garden. The idea is not to use water, which I don't believe fake grass needs.
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Aug 19, 2013 22:29
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Papercut posted:Or not using grass. Clover lawns are great, but they attract bees so of course that makes them completely unacceptable for a family, from the typical suburban parents' perspective. Well the bee problem appears to be well on it's way to taken care of.
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Aug 19, 2013 23:27
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Leperflesh posted:LA has freeways with like six lanes each direction that are parking lots all the drat time, it's completely insane. You get phenomenons like the 10 freeway which is inexplicably heavy traffic at basically all hours. I've come to a stop at 4am on a Saturday. withak posted:If traffic was better in LA then people would have nothing to make conversation about when they finally arrive at their destination. True that.
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Aug 20, 2013 18:06
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WampaLord posted:Traffic is the great equalizer. Or it was, until the Express Lanes became the real-life version of Pay to Win DLC for video games. In a complete shock to nobody at all, Express Lanes are a dumb idea except for making money. My favorite part of this is they did the analysis after they made the change, instead of, you know, looking at any other place that did this.
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Aug 20, 2013 18:28
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appropriatemetaphor posted:So wait with those toll lane things on the 110, can I just drive in it if I'm carpooling? Or do I have to buy some gizmo? You have to buy a gizmo that requires a deposit of like $40.
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Aug 21, 2013 20:20
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Dusseldorf posted:Yeah, one of my good friends died on a cycle last year and a bunch of other people I know have wiped out or gotten taken out in traffic. As a bicycle commuter, I'd actually wager that a lot more motorcycle accidents are car error than bikes cutting lanes.
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Aug 21, 2013 22:16
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Willa Rogers posted:Brown's proposal is also a great example of how labor, at times, allows itself to be corrupted out of self-interest. And yah, the prison-guards union has never cared a whit for social justice or saving the state money. Yeah the corrections union's awfulness has nothing to do with organized labor and everything to do with how awful capitalism is.
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Aug 23, 2013 21:56
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I like that Portland comes in better than LA, when it's only slightly larger than Long Beach.
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Aug 27, 2013 00:28
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