Ron's Log

#WheninLA

A Tumblr blog made up nothing but animated gifs and observations on life in L.A. including this one:

When I Drive Around In December And Think To Text My East Coast Friends

Correlation Between Liberal Politics and Urban Walkability?

An article by Will Oremus in Slate in which he says he perceives a correlation between urban walkability and liberal politics. He gets his data on walkability here. If you sort that list of cities by their walkability scores, you'll see it tops out like this:

1. Cambridge MA
2. New York NY
3. Jersey City NJ
4. San Francisco CA
5. Berkeley CA
6. Boston MA
7. Paterson NJ
8. Chicago IL
9. Philadelphia PA
10. Newark NJ
11. Seattle WA
12. Burbank CA
13. Providence RI
14. Hartford CT
15. Miami FL
16. Elizabeth NJ
17. Yonkers NY
18. Costa Mesa CA
19. Torrance CA
20. Minneapolis MN
21. East Los Angeles CA
22. Glendale CA
23. Oakland CA
24. Pasadena CA
25. Arlington VA
26. Allentown PA
27. New Haven CT
28. Long Beach CA
29. Portland OR
30. Los Angeles CA

Down at the bottom of the list we find these cities:

265. Winston-Salem NC
266. Brownsville TX
267. Enterprise NV
268. Augusta-Richmond County GA
269. Frisco TX
270. Murfreesboro TN
271. Killeen TX
272. Fayetteville NC
273. Palmdale CA
274. Chesapeake VA
275. Surprise AZ
276. Victorville CA
277. Cape Coral FL
278. Clarksville TN
279. Port St. Lucie FL
280. Palm Bay FL

One can see that if you've maybe had a drink or two and are just glancing at this list, your seat of the pants observation might be the same as Mr. Oremus's. But I think that some sort of objective measure of what makes an entire city "liberal" is needed before you can make the connection that he does. New York City, for example, is a lot more than just Manhattan and includes a lot of conservatives.

He suggests four possible reasons for the correlation he sees:

• Liberals build denser, more walkable cities.
• Liberals are drawn to cities that are already dense and walkable.
• Walkable cities make people more liberal by forcing them to get along with diverse neighbors and to rely on highly visible city services such as parks and subways. [I kind of like this one].
• The same factors that make cities dense and walkable also make them liberal.

The Boston Daily discusses the subject and says " a good public transportation system" is a major factor in walkability. In my own view, the continuing malfunctions of the MBTA got me to walk a lot more. I doubt that I would have walked from Harvard Square, down Mass Ave, across the Charles and to the Hynes Green Line station as many times as I did if it weren't for the fact that the number 1 bus (Harvard-Dudley) was so unfailingly unreliable. You could wait an hour for that bus, and then six would show up all in a row. That combined with the general unreliability of the Green Line, got me to simply walk from Brighton to Harvard Square if the weather was good.

I think it's a promising mass transit system that encourages people to live more densely coupled with the continual failure to live up to those promises that gets people to walk everywhere in Boston. I don't know where liberal politics comes into that.

Tom Kirk Talking About The Whitewater Pathway

The audio recording of CVAG Executive Director Tom Kirk addressing a luncheon of the IES-APA on the subject of the Whitewater Pathway is available here. The IES-APA is the Inland Empire Section of the American Planning Association.

This address was probably a variation on a standard presentation that Mr. Kirk has been giving, so if you've already attended one of those, most of this will probably be familiar.

Mr. Kirk said the idea of the trail is an old idea. It goes back at least to 1972 - but probably pre-dates that. In 2009 the Desert Recreation District and county Parks District did a study of it, looking at three possible routes. He called it the Dangerman study. One route was along the Whitewater River, another along Dillon Road, and a third that followed the Coachella Canal. They assumed that wherever the Whitewater River route came to a golf course, the route would leave the Whitewater River and onto the street system. A Class 1 path is one that is off the street system; Class 2 is a path that is basically a painted bike lane on the street. While along the Whitewater the path in this earlier study would be Class 1 until it came to a golf course, and then it would become Class 2.

That study envisioned a bike path on one levee and an equestrian trail on the other levee. The estimated cost was $36-million to $38-million. That did not include all of the cost for grade separation - the places where arterial bridges go across the river channel. A pathway could go under the roadway, over the roadway, or directly across the roadway (at some version of a crosswalk).

The planners said that project would take 30 to 40 years to build. They planned on local money along with federal and state grants. Maybe a few hundred thousand dollars a year would be invested in its gradual construction.

Mr. Kirk rhetorically asked how the approach would change if we had a lot of money available to construct a major portion of the pathway. He suggested it could be "transformational for the Coachella Valley." A couple of changes were made to the plan. The one we are most familiar with is changing the design to accomodate small electric vehicles (golf carts and neighborhood electric vehicles).

He displayed a graphic showing a cross section of what the pathway might look like. As a bicycle and pedestrian path it would have been (in most places) 12 feet wide with a few feet of buffer on both sides. With electric vehicles the width would be increased to 14 feet, achieved by reducing the width of the buffers.

Mr. Kirk said there still could be an equestrian trail on the opposite levee, but CVAG is not focusing on that now. The proposed bicycle/pedestrian/electric vehicle pathway would be on the right bank, the south levee. It would have a pedestrian trail, probably of decomposed granite, separate from the hard-paved trail for bicycles and electric vehicles. This would be the layout from Palm Springs to Coachella, and up to Desert Hot Springs "if that community wants it." He said "it's a bit complicated to get it to Desert Hot Springs because, of course, the Whitewater River doesn't run through Desert Hot Springs." [Oh, if the only challenges in Desert Hot Springs happened to be the location of geophysical features, life would be so much simpler.]

Another change is a proposed connector into downtown Palm Springs along Tahquitz Creek. There is a trail there now, but it needs improvement.

The biggest cost component to this project is the grade separation. Mr. Kirk cited the bike path along the Santa Ana River as an example of undercrossings wherever a bridge crosses the river. Fred Waring, Cook Street and Frank Sinatra, however, are low water crossings. In those places the pathway would go over the motor vehicle roadway. This grade separation is what makes travel on the pathway competitive [in terms of time] with travel by automobile for short trips (under 5 miles).

He pointed out that bicycles and golf carts already share the same lanes in some places in Coachella Valley.

Electric charging stations may be included on the pathway. He said the charging stations won't add much to the cost. He repeated that it was the grade separation that would be the biggest cost factor.

He cited a figure of $80 million for construction, right-of-way, planning and design. He compared that to the estimated cost for the new Jefferson/I-10 interchange: $55 million. Three years ago that interchange project was estimated at $80 million. He suggested that the interchange will probably cost less, when real bids come in, and he suggested that the cost of the pathway could likewise be lower than $80 million. CVAG's budget this year for infrastructure projects is $80 million.

He finally got to the funding issue. One person in attendance admitted he was not familiar with the Sentinel Power Plant - obviously, he came from some faraway foreign land. Mr. Kirk gave the quickest summary of the power plant and mitigation funds I've heard so far. I will spare you the story, assuming you've heard it all before.

CVAG will be submitting a proposal for up to $40 million of the air quality mitigation money. CVAG has authorized a matching $20 million from its other sources. Prior to this, CVAG has paid for Class 2 pathways when building a major arterial, but it has never paid for a Class 1 pathway. They are talking to other possible sources of funds including the Desert Healthcare District, endowments, and federal and state governments. Mr. Kirk said there isn't much money available from the federal or state governments.

Mr. Kirk said that getting people out of their cars is a known control measure for dealing with air quality. Mobile sources account for 70% of our greenhouse gases [I guess "mobile sources" includes not just motor vehicles, but also cows and other ruminants]. Natural gas vehicles "are nice," but still generate greenhouse gases. Electric cars generate greenhouse gases, depending on the source of their electricity. Bicycling or traveling by foot are the best in terms of greenhouse gases.

Jobs: the standard thing done with air quality funding is to issue an RFP and then go buy a bunch of natural gas vehicles, put emission traps on diesel engines, pave roads, put dust control on dirt lots. "That's all nice and helpful," Mr. Kirk said. "None of it is long term, except maybe paving roads." He loves the idea of converting school buses to an alternative fuel, "but in 10 years or 15 years, those school buses are going to be in Mexico or some other place." They also generate almost no local jobs. Purchasing alternative fuel vehicles generates jobs in Mexico, Korea and Japan. [I need to point out that CNG buses are made in America.]

Construction is the sector of our economy hardest hit by the recession. Building the pathway would me a major, local construction project. Also, it would provide public health benefits. "If you build facilities, they will come," Mr. Kirk said. A lot of people currently drive to a trailhead.

He listed Denver, Portland, and Minneapolis as cities that have built trails to attract "active tourism." Fewer people are coming here to play golf, he said.

CVEP is assisting on an analysis of the economic benefits of the project. Besides the construction jobs, it could raise property values along the pathway. In the Outer Banks of North Carolina a study has been performed on a $6 million bike pathway facility [only $6 million?]. The study estimated the economic benefit to the region to be $60 million/year. Theirs is a tourist economy, as is ours.

The Coachella Valley can't keep relying on golf courses to drive our economy. There are already a lot of golf carts in the valley. That base can be built on.

Mr. Kirk said that very few people show up for any CVAG meetings, unless the meeting is about trails, and then a big crowd turns out.

I've been part of that crowd at least a couple of times. I think the interest among cyclists and hikers is partly generated out of a fear that CVAG decision makers may just not "get it" when it comes to good bike paths or good hiking trails.

He suggested that the pathway could support rickshaws, pedi-cabs or bike-sharing (as has already been done in Boston).

The pathway would be public and free. If you wear shoes when you walk, then that would be your minimum equipment requirement for using the trail.

Much of the trail already exists, but it's discontinuous. At the Adams Street bridge in La Quinta, he said you can see the undercrossings being built today.

Q & A

Q: Long term maintenance?

A: How much and who pays for it. There are two parts to maintenance: 1 - keeping the trail safe and clean. There will be no landscaping on this trail. CVWD likes the pathway as long as it plays by their rules, which means no irrigation. There will be some hardscape. In terms of public safety, the goal is to build a first class facility that's well used, so you don't have vacant segments where there are safety concerns. Keeping the trail busy will keep it safe. 2 - pavement rehab. The long term cost for that maintenance expense should be a CVAG responsibility. There are sources of funding to pay for a pavement management system. Total maintenance costs are estimated at less than $1 million/year. In La Quinta, their 2.6 miles costs about $30,000/year.

Q: Small commercial establishments that could be tied in? San Antonio's Riverwalk has restaurants nearby.

A: Bike sharing is one example. Commercial can be developed where there are vacant properties along the pathway. Indian Wells has suggested a link to Miles Crossing and the Esmerelda. The details will be up to the private sector for commercial development.

Q: A suggestion that businesses could now face the wash. The "North City Specific Plan" (Cathedral City north of the freeway) includes a similar pathway. Creation of a Whitewater Pathway may encourage other entities to include pathways in their plans.

Q: The right-of way exists, so what are the additional right-of-way costs?

A: The right-of-way does not entirely exist. There are 200 property owners along the Whitewater River. The largest ones are the CVWD and the county flood control district. They have easements that the pathway may be able to piggyback on. In other places there are private owners. This is the most complicated part of the designing process.

Q: How many miles of the right-of-way needs to be acquired?

A: "We have not even started the right-of-way acquisition process."

Q: "Six months out of the year this thing isn't going to be used at all." April or May into the fall, it's going to be too hot, the snowbirds will be gone, everyone who uses a golf cart will be gone. Riding a bicycle five miles in July is not an option. Walking is not an option. Lack of usefulness is what has kept this project stifled. The questioner suggested that the $80 million estimate did not include right-of-way acquisition costs nor grade separation costs.

A: The right-of-way and grade separation costs ARE included in the $80 million estimate. Mr. Kirk said look at Minneapolis where their trail system is not usable during the cold months.

[I've never been on the trail system in Minneapolis in winter (and I hope to maintain that record), but my guess is that they actually do use it even when it's "too cold." There was never a day of the year when I didn't see at least some cyclists and pedestrians on the Charles River pathway in Boston (not quite as severe as Minneapolis, but painful enough I assure you). If snow isn't cleared from the pathway then it becomes a cross-county ski and snowshoe path.]

Mr. Kirk continued...saying one should look at our Coachella Valley Class 2 system (bike lanes on the street) in May and June. They're in use. He said he would wonder if someone who thinks that the pathway would be unusable for 6 months is actually in the Coachella Valley during the hot weather months. He said he sees more and more people hiking and biking in the warm months. They tend to move their exercise to the shoulder hours: dawn and dusk. His point is that our tourism competitors are doing pathways in very difficult environments. "Like Portland," he said. [Mild and damp?] Mr. Kirk said he was willing to say that a Whitewater pathway would be under utilized for 2 or 3 months of the year, and he considered that acceptable.

Q: It's no different than golf courses. Very large acreages are devoted to golf in this valley. What's their decline in popularity in the hot months? Tempe has something like the Whitewater pathway.

A: Tucson has a pathway, too. "The Loop" is part of their tourism program. It goes around the city, while here we can build something through the city.

Q: Policing and patrolling costs?

A: CVAG builds and funds roads all the time. Nobody ever asks "what about the extra costs of patrolling a standard arterial?" There will be more people speeding, you'll need more police. But build something for pedestrians and bikes and suddenly those questions erupt.

Less and less of our transportation dollars come from gas tax. More comes from sales tax. Pedestrians and cyclists tend to have higher discretionary incomes than average automobile drivers.

He repeated that he would prefer to build a first class trail that is well used. A cheaper trail that attracts fewer users will more likely become a magnet for trouble.

In Addition

I happened to be seated next to a planner from Beaumont who brought along a giant notebook filled with paper (iPads have not yet reached Beaumont perhaps). He's working on that city's trail system which is already quite well developed, including some segments that are for neighborhood electric vehicles. They've built a regional park for RVs where RVers can park their big vehicles, unload their bicycles and get directly onto the city's pathways. They are building a pathway west to connect to a trail in San Timoteo Canyon.

His focus right now is a pathway that will connect Beaumont's system to Banning's. From there the pass cities intend to continue a pathway eastward to connect in with our proposed Whitewater pathway, maybe traveling along Edison's right-of-way (or is it an easement?). Eventually, we'd be seeing a pathway stretching from Coachella into San Timoteo Canyon. Once you've got that, someone's going to suggest extending it into San Bernardino.

Boston's Attempt To Deal With Problem Properties

Boston has put together a list of 16 (only 16!) problem properties throughout the city. Then, one of the things they do (I hope they do more than this) is put a flashing road sign in front of the place that says "DESIGNATED PROBLEM PROPERTY." The property highlighted in the linked article, 108 Adams Street in Dorchester, is one that the police have been called to 57 times in the past year for drug deals, prostitution and a stabbing. The article says the landlord owns other properties in the city and owes more than $2,000 ($2,000 - that's weak - they really need to increase their fines!).

I wonder if the flashing road sign makes the neighbors any happier.

Animated History Of MBTA Subway Lines

And by "MBTA" we mean the Massaschusetts Bay Transportation Authority not the ever so much cuter Morongo Basin Transit Authority.

Andrew Lynch has prepared a series of 45 maps covering the period 1897 to 2009 and assembled them in a slideshow presentation. You may want to scroll down on the linked page to the individual maps which will allow you to study the changes at your leisure. The presentation goes a bit fast for me.

The 1967 map is the last one showing the "A" line to Watertown. It was closed in 1969. I can, however, recall at least one map in the Government Center T station (I believe) that showed the "A" line as late as the 1990s. That may explain a small percentage of the thousands of tourists who have disappeared in the streets and tunnels of Boston, never to be seen again.

The "A" line tracks remained usable certainly into the '90s. The MBTA kept some utility cars in the Watertown yard. I can recall once in the mid-1980s being driven home very late, very drunk from some club and thinking I was hallucinating when I saw an antique trolley passing through Union Square in Allston. Apparently, when the local antiquie trolley club wanted to run their cars, that's when and where the MBTA permitted them to do it. Maybe if I'd closed some bars in Allston more often I would have learned that earlier.

(via Curbed Boston)

An Hour Away

cartoo.dyndns.org (it doesn't even have a proper name!) is a site that will calculate how far you can get from any particular starting point in any given time via automobile, bicycle or foot travel.

Below, for example, is how far it calculates I could get from Desert Hot Springs in one hour by car:

Not bad, but clearly it needs some refinement. I added the green arrow to point out the obvious glitch on highway 74. There are no drivable roads that I'm aware of that go from the Indian Canyons directly up to highway 74, so the only way to get to that point is to come up from Palm Desert on 74, so that entire stretch of 74 should be included in the under-one-hour calculation.

Landsat At Age 28

Presented by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr: In honor of Landsat 5's 28th birthday (March 1st) we're showing you how the desert city of Las Vegas has gone through a massive growth spurt. The outward expansion of the city is shown in a false-color time lapse of data from all the Landsat satellites.

George Chaffey - who knew?

I've been reading Southern California: An Island on the Land by Carey McWilliams. Today, while waiting for the MSWD board to come out of closed session, I read the passage below about George Chaffey, whose name McWilliams misspells as "Chaffee." (Wikipedia on George Chaffey). Maybe every southern California school child already knows the story of George Chaffey, but I grew up in Missouri. I've bolded some of his accomplishments in the passage below.

GEORGE CHAFFEE AND THE COLONY SETTLEMENTS

Something of the character of these early settlers, and their characteristic institution "the colony settlement," can be illustrated by brief reference to the career of a remarkable man, George Chaffee. Born in Canada in 1848, Chaffee came to Riverside with his family in 1878. Entirely self-educated, he had shown remarkable engineering talent as a young man, having designed twenty passenger and freight ships for the Great Lakes traffic before coming to California. It was Chaffee who first made irrigation a science in Southern California and who first discovered the remarkable adaptability of the terrain to irrigation. In partnership with his brother, Chaffee purchased a 2,500-acre tract near Riverside in 1881 on which he established his first colony settlement. The colony was called Etiwanda, after an Indian chief of the Great Lakes region. Dividing the land into ten-acre blocks, Chaffee brought water to the tract in cement pipes: the first use of cement pipes in western irrigation. In connection with this same project, Chaffee installed the first dynamo (which he himself designed) for the generation of hydroelectric power in the West. He was also the first engineer in Western America to file a claim on mountain streams for electric current. Bringing this current to the tract, he used it to illuminate a great arc light, or beacon, which he had placed on the roof of his home. This light, which could be seen for miles, was the first electric light to be exhibited in California. An immediate success, Etiwanda has remained a prosperous community through the years.

It was in connection with the Etiwanda project that Chaffee, working in collaboration with L. M. Holt, a local newspaperman, devised a method by which the riparian-rights doctrine could be circumvented in California. The pattern of legal relationships which he worked out, in the form of the mutual water company, has remained a basic pattern for all subsequent irrigation developments in the West. The idea was quite simple. When the Etiwanda tract was acquired, Chaffee formed a water company incorporated under the laws of the state. To this company he then transferred all the water rights which each portion of the land possessed under the riparian-rights doctrine, together with the rights which he had acquired by appropriation. He then transferred one share of stock in the mutual water company to each purchaser. This arrangement had the important consequence of making each landowner in the tract equally interested in the conservation of water and its proper utilization. In most irrigated projects, the owners of the lands nearest the stream head had either monopolized the flow or refused to do their share of work on irrigation laterals and canals. By first severing the water rights from the land and then collectivizing the ownership and control of the water, Chaffee had created a system which automatically insured equality of treatment and service in irrigation projects. Unquestionably the mutual water company represents one of the major social inventions of the West.

Following the success of the Etiwanda project, Chaffee acquired a 6,000-acre tract on which he proceeded to establish his famous Ontario Colony, named after his native province in Canada. From the point of view of social planning, the Ontario Colony of 1882 still remains the classic pattern for irrigation projects. In fact, it set a new standard for rural communities, not only in America, but throughout the world. All the basic improvements were installed before a single parcel of land was sold. The land was carefully divided into economical units; streets were laid out; provision was made for a community center or town to which all portions of the tract had equal access. Through the center of the tract, Chaffee laid out a great highway, eight miles long and two hundred feet wide, running up to the foothills. On each side of the highway, he planted rows of beautiful trees which are today a magnificent sight. In a parkway in the center of the highway, he installed a gravity-propelled tram or trolley car which ran the length of the tract. For the community center, Chaffee set aside 64o acres, one half of which was deeded to trustees for the endowment of the Chaffee Agricultural College (operated today as a junior college). To supplement the water supply, he tunneled under the bed of San Antonio Canyon on the theory that the dry creek-beds marked the pathway of underground streams. This was the first tunnel constructed to tap an underground flow in Southern California. To make sure that the colonists were a thrifty and pious lot, he inserted a provision against the sale of alcoholic liquor in every deed that he issued.

Ontario was instantly a huge success. A model of the colony was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. People came from all over the world to study Chaffee's methods of colonization. By 1907 the annual value of agricultural products raised on the Ontario tract had risen to $2,500,000. It should be emphasized that Ontario was a pioneer experiment in rural planning, one of the first experiments of its kind in Western America. It was the model imitated by the other colony projects. While none of the other colonies were quite as successful as Ontario, they did succeed, by studying the model, in avoiding the usual mistakes of frontier settlement.

On the invitation of a royal commission, Chaffee later established a number of colonies in Australia. In 1884 he founded the Los Angeles Electric Company, making it possible for Los Angeles to boast that it was the first city in the United States to be entirely lighted by electricity. Returning from Australia after the turn of the century, Chaffee developed the remarkable irrigation plan by which water was brought to Imperial Valley, a plan that converted 500,000 acres of desert land into one of the great truck gardens of the world. To this early generation of settlers, of which North, Chaffee, and the Smiley twins may be taken as outstanding examples, Southern California owes an enormous debt. Men of wealth and ability, they came west not to retire but to build a new land. All visitors to the region between 1880 and 1900 were impressed by its progressive, enterprising, venturesome spirit. It is impossible to detect in these impressions even an echo of the idea, so current in our time, that Southern California is peopled by idlers, oldsters, playboys, and crackpots.

Later he founded the town of Manzanar in the Owens Valley.

For more detail on his involvement in the development of Imperial Valley I went to the book A Century Of Service, published by the Imperial Irrigation District.

It was not until 1900, when George Chaffey became associated with the CDC [California Development Company], which was already in serious distress, that work began in earnest on the canal-building project that started at Pilot Knob, extended into and out of Mexico and eventually wended its way to Cameron Lake, the settlement that would later become Calexico.

The deal he struck with Rockwood and the other officers of the corporation gave Chaffey five years in which to finish the necessary infrastructure and divert water from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley. Within two years, though, he had completed the task, delivering the first water to the fledgling community of Imperial on June 20, 1901.

With the means to deliver water from the Colorado now in place on both sides of the border, what followed should have been a period of relative calm for the development company.

Instead, everyone involved began to file lawsuits, mainly against Chaffey, who had sought to protect his investment by consolidating his position and influence in the corporation, much to the chagrin of his partners. He would sell his interest in the company to Rockwood and the others in 1902 for securities that were valued at $300,000 (but when redeemed netted him less than $100,000).

Even so, Chaffey, who reportedly lost millions in the exchange, must have considered himself fortunate to have gotten out when he did. If he needed any further proof, though, it came with the flood years of 1905–1907, when the swollen Colorado River suddenly changed course, sweeping away the original headworks at Hanlon Heading and sending its entire flow not to the Gulf of Mexico, but to the Imperial Valley.

This timeline says Chaffey formed the Imperial Land Company in 1902. Wikipedia says it was founded in 1900. In any case, Chaffey founded it and that company laid out the towns of Calexico, Heber, Imperial, Brawley and Mexicali.

Kenmore Square To Be Closed For 4th Quarter & Aftermath

Kenmore Square (which is looking mighty well scrubbed in that photo) will be closed to "all pedestrian and motor vehicle traffic after the game's third quarter 'with no exceptions,' says Captain Robert Molloy of the Boston University Police Department." The article says nothing about alternative plans for MBTA buses or the Green Line. I can find no information about this on the MBTA website. There are no service updates for the Green Line or for any bus route that goes to Kenmore.

For the Green Line there are two ways to handle it: (1) close the exits, keeping all those who disembark at Kenmore underground until the rioting subsides. They could play the soundtrack from the Wizard of Oz and encourage people to pretend there's a twister, Aunty Em, a twister. Or (2) no stopping at Kenmore, but dumping inbound riders at the last stop before going underground and outbound riders at Hynes. When the MBTA transit patrons ask for clarification or assistance, the drivers will just tell them to stand around on the sidewalk until the rioting subsides and all those blue lights go away, then walk into Kenmore. Buses, OTOH, could simply be diverted to Huntington Avenue, and the riders could be dumped at Symphony with wishes of good luck.

Broderick. Broderick.

Viral Honda ad.

And this, I guess, is meta-viral.

Chicago whines.

Sadly, Chicago is not the backdrop for the new mini-version of Ferris Bueller's latest day off -- from work.

The new Honda ad, starring Matthew Broderick, hit the internet in advance of the Super Bowl and was quickly one of the most shared videos online.

In the original movie, released in 1986, Ferris Bueller takes a day off from his suburban Chicago school and enjoys a great day in Chicago, hitting the Art Institute, going to a Cubs game and singing in a St. Patrick's Day Parade. It was shot in Chicago, River Forest, Oak Park, Northbrook, Highland Park, Glencoe and Winnetka, Lake Forest.

In the new Honda ad, Broderick calls in sick to his acting job, goes to the beach, and rides a roller coaster. It's clearly shot in Southern California.