Nothing – absolutely nothing! – pisses people off
more in LA than traffic.
It’s our collective hate.
Traffic makes us late for work. It prevents us to picking up our kids from
school on time. It boosts our heart rate,
takes years off our lives and often locks us behind a steering wheel when we
have to pee.
We hate it so much that we passed Measure R to boost
transit spending even though we clearly don’t trust Antonio and our other
leaders to spend it on the right projects.
(Bill “I Love NY” Bratton fronted the campaign and it squeaked by. Then he took off for a city where you can
take a train to a Yankees game.)
Because we loathe traffic, we understand when we’re
delayed by improvements – like the project at Sunset Boulevard and the San
Diego Freeway. Those guys are working
hard to replace that incredibly busy overpass in the middle of the night to reduce
the chance of grid locking all of Southern California and most of Tijuana.
What we don’t appreciate is when two government agencies
don’t talk and their lack of coordination makes a situation worse.
Guess what agency is doing work in the same area and
making matters worse? Yep! It’s the DWP!
Buried in a Dog Trainer story this morning by
Westside correspondent Martha Groves about the work at the Sunset and 405 is
the following paragraph:
“Complicating matters, Church Lane, which runs
parallel to the freeway just to the west, has been closed to all but local
traffic because of a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power project.”
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
I’m not sure what interim DWP GM and Master City Hall
Multi-tasker Austin Beutner is doing today, but Groves might want to track him
down and ask why the DWP needed to rip up Church Lane at the same time Caltrans
was ripping up Sunset Boulevard?
Or better yet, find the guy who is supposed to be
running LA. It shouldn’t be hard. As Ronnie pointed out this morning, Antonio’s
at a news conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of Metro Rail
- the trains that don’t come near the intersection of Church Lane and the 405 -
or Dodger Stadium, for that matter.
Woof!
Thanks Bruno you cute doggie. We missed you at LA Clean Sweep. Another tid bit of info showing the incompetence of DWP is on Wednesday morning Sunset Blvd. right in front of the Kaiser Permante new hospital buildings something happened and patients and hospital had NO WATER for hours. Sunset near Vermont was completely backed up with traffic cause DWP guys were trying to figure out what the hell happened and lanes blocked off. We pay a fortune to DWP and water mains are breaking, power outages, and complete diaster in our city and they continue to want to raise our rates.
Raise rates? DWP rates are 40% lower than Edison.
And that makes it OK? DWP is a taxpayer owned utility and not-for-profit Edison.
You guys are stupid. It’s the same damn project and it’s not even a Cal Trans or DWP driven project, it’s an MTA project.
They’re adding a reversible lane to ease 405 congestion. Obviously you can’t widen the freeway when there are power lines in the way so DWP has to be working concurrently to relocate them underground.
I’m glad none of you are engineers.
4:19, Engineers on this site? Forget it-these people rip things down. Do not look for constructive solutions here.
I sure as hell hope its not those DWP guys David Goldstein found drinking beer on the job and heading over to the strip club that are working that strip
Last time 40 DWP workers did work in my neighborhood, we all got rocks and dirt in our indoor plumbing–several neighbors and me.
It cost me over 5 thousand in plumbing bills. Each homeowners’ plumber said the damages must have occurred when DWP shut off the water to repair the line. When I complained to DWP they sent some water tester out and said the irrigation water wasn’t contaminated and my complaint will be forwarded to the back flow people. I told him it wasn’t a water contamination problem nor a back flow issue and that several neighbors had the same problem right after they “fixed” the broken water line.
Of course, after that, they never returned my call. I really hate them. No, I loathe and detest them.
I believe that it is a pipeline replacement for MWD with coordination from DWP Water system.
To July 23, 2010 7:37 PM: Was it DWP or was it a DWP Contractor? Not that this would matter to the bad situation that you experienced.
Please don’t “hate” people/groups, it is not good for your health to get so worked up about something even though it was frustrating.
It was definitely DWP. Some of the pipes, 1/2 mile up the road, are MWD; but the repaired one in question was DWP. No other pipes in the area were repaired during that time (a couple of months before and after). We have the dates of repairs from DWP and MWD to confirm this.
8:52, why didn’t you go to court
Hi Bruno, I`m Nick the Greek. I have been following your humor, indignation, anger, being pissed off and pissing all over. I hope not on Ron`s carpet. But tonite, I want to join you in pissing on DWP. Well, it`s not the first time for me. While I was President of this disgraceful and discredited agency, led by incompetent managers, the present one included, who don`t give a damn for little creatures like you and me, I raised this issue in public a number of times, before I really got pissed off and quit. As a resident of SFV and using this route almost daily, I was concerned of the traffic conditions along Sepulveda during the $1 billion improvement, hm waste, to be spent on an HOV lane on 405. Asked if they talked to Caltrans, the CM, the Community. You know what? I got a blank look. I agendized it again . Have they talked to MTA? No! They will follow it up……however. Guess after I left they forgot……It`s a mess over there, if you want to get from the West Side to the Valley. It`s a death trap in case of an emergency. But, hey, who makes the decisions. $200k+ bureaucrats who have no clue where the Valley is, and electeds who become indignant and demand answers after the disaster. Come on Bruno, have you pissed more? Be honest.
3;47 you are wrong!!! Get your facts right. That`s the myth sold to the Council and the public when they want to raise our rates. Ask your CM to request documentation of this myth, when the smoothie Beutner feels like it….to appear before the Council.
10:27, you’re dead wrong, and on top of that you’re a moron for thinking you have to contact a council member to figure out what your rates are.
Yes, DWP rates are cheaper than Edison. There’s some variation depending on where you live because Edison covers a huge area and has a ridiculously complex rate system, but as a whole, DWP rates are much cheaper than Edison’s.
If you want to know why, figure out when DWP’s last rate increase was. Then count how many rate increases Edison customers have had from then until now.
“why didn’t you go to court”
‘Have considered it. ‘Am still considering it. My guess is the case wouldn’t be strong without the other homeowners acknowledging the same thing happened to them. It seems like quite a hassle. Then again, it might be worth the effort.
‘Know any good attorneys?
Bruno, you have permission to bite the rude idiot commentor who called another commentor an idiot.
My take on Edison versus DWP is that both have way too much power over the people; both over charge; their employees are the present day elite; and we, the rate payers, are screwed.
That one charges more than the other is hardly something to feel better about. Such a comparison is akin to a person having their home/car/cash robbed versus their cash/car stolen. Both are bad. One is worse; but that doesn’t make the other good.
I see a lot of DWP workers on the weekend around the city getting OT. I bet that number is really high. Does anyone know how much the DWP gets from the trash fee hike? They collect the fee then are suppose to transfer to Sanitation Dept. It seems odd DWP would even be involved in collecting the trash fee at all. They must get something out of it, I just would like to know how much.
“‘Have considered it. ‘Am still considering it. My guess is the case wouldn’t be strong without the other homeowners acknowledging the same thing happened to them. It seems like quite a hassle. Then again, it might be worth the effort.”
That 5 grand lost is a lot of money and if your neighbors all suffered a similar loss, I think it would be worth getting together collectively and hiring an attorney, especially if you can prove that DWP was at fault.
“My take on Edison versus DWP is that both have way too much power over the people; both over charge; their employees are the present day elite;”
Other than being natural monopolies, which can’t be avoided, exactly how do they have too much power over the people? Note that like all utilities in the US, they’re subject to federal regulations by NERC, FERC, and DOE. Since you think they overcharge, what KW/H rate would you consider acceptable for someone living in Southern California?
“I see a lot of DWP workers on the weekend around the city getting OT. I bet that number is really high. Does anyone know how much the DWP gets from the trash fee hike?”
DWP workers have to work on the weekend for the same reason Cal Trans workers have to work on the weekend. Because if they didn’t, that hole in the ground that was jackhammered to lay conduit would be sitting there for 3 times as long. As for your second question, if you could actually prove that DWP is cooking the books with Sanitation, you’d have a smoking gun. Any proof?
Bruno,
How many times have we driven down newly repaired, asphalted and/or slurry coated streets only to see them being dug up again – by a cable company, the DWP, the phone company, and/or the Gas Company?
Why is it that we keep having to re-hash the same problems over and over again? Could it be that we need to do some sweeping?
Wish I could hold a broom. But my legs are way too long and skinny.
To:
By Anonymous on July 23, 2010 10:16 PM
Hi Bruno, I`m Nick the Greek
It really stinks that anyone would try to pretend that he is Nick. Nick would never use this kind of language publicly – from what I have seen of him. He is a gentleman.
I consider Nick to be a very intelligent, well qualified person who is capable of not only being President of the Commission but qualified to be the GM as well. When I say qualified – he is not only an engineer, he has his own business. It is too bad that this is a political position. If the GM were being hired based on qualifications – not on what they owe the Mayor – Nick would be the most qualified person that I know for the job of GM. Nick knows how to bring in projects on time and some even under budget.
We need a Nick for our next GM. Look where the LADWP assets are going under Buetner. He wants to sell the LADWP Building and lease it back to them?
What happened to all of the solar projects that have been planned in the last year? Measure B? First Solar? Owens Lake?
Wrong:
If you want to complain about traffic, make it the rush house projects they COULD do at 10:00am but instead do at 8:30.
Bitch about traffic lights on Santa Monica set to stop traffic every two blocks. Or tree trimmers out at 8:30 am on Olympic.
But the project at Sunset and 405 makes perfect sense–do it at the same time when people are shying away from the area due to the freeway and overpass rennovation.
I’m actually glad DWP took the time to get this done when the area is already a mess. Thank god they didn’t pick the same time to do Santa monica or Olympic.
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