Today's Headlines - more at Metro

3/05/2010

Transportation Headlines for Friday March 5, 2010

$8 Billion Rail Funding Offers Hope For Design Firms
Building Design + Construction

Amtrak To Congress: Liability Is A Nationwide Concern
Railway Age

The Art Of "Seduction" In Public Transportation (Seducing potential passengers with the latest innovations)
IBM Smarter Planet Blog

Black Lung Lofts: Many Children Being Raised In L.A.’s Hip, New Freeway-Adjacent Housing Are Damaged For Life
LA Weekly

Calif. Passes Gas Tax Changes To Help $20B Deficit
Business Week

Can We Design Cities For Happiness?
Shareable

City Has New Ride (Foothill Boulevard shuttle)
La Canada Valley Sun

DIY Bus Tracker Display (makes it easy for anyone with some computer savvy to show estimated bus arrival times on a display in a building lobby, a storefront window, etc.)
Transit Chicago

Downtown Parking Changes Underway
(Parking for 3 hours in downtown Santa Monica and not paying a dime for the privilege is soon to be a thing of the past)
Santa Monica Daily Press

How To Make High Speed Rail Fail: Don't Connect The Lines
Infrastructurist

LaHood Faces Off With GOP Senator Over High-speed Rail, Livability
StreetsBlog DC

Lost In Penn Station: Why Are The Signs At The Nation’s Busiest Train Hub So Confusing?
Slate

Obama "Principles" Coming In 90 Days (new multi-year transportation bill)
Bond Buyer

Pasadena Bicycle Master Plan: Let's Do More!
Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition

Pilgrim On A Biking Mission
Los Angeles Times

A Plan To Send Flight Data Somewhere Off The Plane
New York Times

Property Owners May Pay For L.A. Sidewalk Repairs
Los Angeles Daily News

Railroad Experts Focus On Efficiency (report from 15th annual Association of American Railroads Research Review)
Pueblo Chieftain

Riding Public Transit Saves Individuals $9,215 Annually (Transit riders now save $715 more per year compared to last year at this time as the cost of gas has increased 77-cents per gallon)
APTA

SEC Halts Ponzi Scheme Targeting Retired L.A. Bus Drivers
Article Ant

The Secret Language Of Signs: They’re The Most Useful Thing You Pay No Attention To – Start Paying Attention
Slate

Skype On A Train (Will a reliable wi-fi connection lure road warriors onto the rails?)
Globe And Mail

Solar-Roofed Bus Cleans The Air Inside And Out
Wired

Stimulus As Policy Lab
New Republic

Survey: Munich Has Europe’s Best Public Transportation; Paris, London Lag
USA Today

Urban Resilience Planning For Dummies
Green Flow

Who's Poor In America? US Tweaks How It Defines Poverty (Experts say it’s a giant step forward from the old poverty threshold, which is based on a 1955 cost of an emergency food diet and does not factor in several considerations, including transportation)
Christian Science Monitor

Will Antonio's 30/10 Gambit For LA Transit Work?
CityWatch LA

3/04/2010

Transportation Headlines for Thursday March 4, 2010

And, Cut! Money Woes Delay A TV Reality Show On Subway Workers
New York Times

And Now, For Something Completely Different (Paris-based architecture firm dreams up freeway cap park proposal)
StreetsBlog LA

Become A Fan Of Metro Westside Subway Extension On Facebook
Facebook

Blumenauer Acts To Make Active Transportation Safer, Easier, And More Accessible
Congressman Earl Blumenauer (OR)

California Transportation Activist Found Dead In Creek (Ken Gosting, former advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown)
Associated Press

Caltrans Responds To Analyst’s Report That It Needs To Cut Jobs
Sacramento Bee

City Hall Wants Drivers To Share (carsharing program in Santa Monica)
Santa Monica Daily Press

Do Environmental Regulations Hurt The Economy?: Environmental Regulations Have Transformed California’s Economy But It’s Not Always Clear If The Result Was Positive
Governing

Feedback From DASH Hearings: Cuts Bad, Hikes Reasonable
StreetsBlog LA

Halt In Federal Highway Program Reveals Lobby’s Larger Frustrations
Center For Public Integrity

Industry Groups Decry Non-Highway Earmarking
Fleet Owner

Meet The Guy Who Fixed The Little Tokyo Gold Line Station
Curbed LA

A New Plan For Transportation: President Obama’s Transportation Plan Considers Economic Development For Low-Income Communities Across The U.S.
Public Radio International

Officials Call For Action In Extending Green Line Closer To LAX
Real Camino

Opinion: A High-Speed Rail System That Wouldn't Serve Californians - The Focus Should Be On Developing Intra-Urban Rail Networks, Not Connecting Far-Flung Regions Of The State
Los Angeles Times

Railroad Industry Weathers Recession, But Seen Facing Serious Policy Challenges
Supply & Demand Chain

Tri-Met Adds Five New Transit Titles To App Center
Oregonian

Wasted Stimulus (mapping a positive correlation between federal stimulus investment and lack of local population density, attributing the relationship to highway spending)
New York Times

3/02/2010

Transportation Headlines for Tuesday March 2, 2010

Burbank Debates HSR Station Location
California High Speed Rail Blog

Could A New Kind Of Fuel Tax Help Break The Senate Climate Deadlock?
DC StreetsBlog

DOT Budget Isn’t Keeping Up With Need For Road, Bridge Repairs
Federal Times

Downtown Parking Ban To Ease Traffic (Efforts to ban downtown parking in Los Angeles recounted in news stories from 1920 and 1908)
Los Angeles Times

Federal Transportation Law Expired Over The Weekend: What Next?
DC StreetsBlog

Free Money Inspires Los Angeles' Activists And Urbanists
Curbed LA

Gasoline Consumption Continues To Decline
LAist

Heated Debate Over High-Speed Train Station In Burbank
Examiner

Introducing The 2010 Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team (students working with UCLA Transportation on bike and pedestrian issues)
Be A Green Commuter!

Looking For Bike Parking At L.A. Live
L.A. Eco-Village Blog

[D.C.] Metro’s Mixing Of Signal Part Brands Could Have Caused Crash, Maker Tells NTSB
Washington Post

New Push On Transit-Rail Safety Rules
Wall Street Journal

The Not-So-Fast Track For High-Speed Rail (Federal money is making high-speed rail possible, but state governments are unsure if they can afford to operate and maintain the systems once they are in place)
Stateline

Off-Ramps & People-Movers & Monorails, Oh My... (connecting Anaheim's proposed ARTIC transit center to Disneyland)
TransitRider OC

One-Time TSA Nominee Resigns From Police Post At L.A. World Airports
Los Angeles Times

Political Games Disrupt Key Transportation Programs
U.S. DOT Fast Lane Blog

The Ports Challenge
Huffington Post

Preaching To The Choir: Metro And 30/10 Revisited
Huffington Post

Pre-Paid Cards And The Transit Industry
Smart Card Alliance
Full-Text Report: A Guide To Pre-Paid Cards For The Transit Industry - A Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council White Paper (36p. PDF)

Riding The Bus Changes Her View: A Self-Described “Snob” Makes The Switch To Public Transit – Though Frustrating, It Proves Enriching In Ways She Never Expected
Los Angeles Times
Her New Blog: Snob On A Bus

Transportation Agencies Lay Off 2,000 As Funds Expire
Business Week

We Gotta Clean Up: Freight Transportation’s Hidden Cost To Health And The Planet
Environmental Defense Fund Way2Go Blog

What Should The Gas Tax Pay For? (panel of experts discuss key issues)
National Journal Transportation Blog

3/01/2010

Transportation Headlines for Monday March 1, 2010

The Big Question: What Is The Purpose Of Federal Transportation Spending?
DC StreetsBlog

Cleaning The Air At American Ports
(The single largest source of air pollution in Southern California are the Ports of LA and Long Beach. Environmentalists, environmental justice advocates, and Teamsters are working together to replace offending diesel drayage trucks)
New York Times

The Compelling Case For The Cable Car
New Geography

Downtown Connector Study Excitement: Underground Option Added
LA Curbed

Downtown Streetcar Takes Big Steps Toward Reality
LAist

Fixing The Great Mistake Of Planning For Cars (video)
NY StreetsBlog

A Freeway Is Born (exhibition of historic photos)
Los Angeles Daily News

How Feasible Is Antonio Villaraigosa's 30/10 Gambit For Los Angeles Transit?
Transport Politic

It’s Come To This: Bake Sales For Transit
Publicola

LaHood Backs Feingold’s Plan To Cancel Unspent Transport Earmarks
DC StreetsBlog

LA Times Reports On HSR Controversy, Not HSR Facts
California High Speed Rail Blog

Metro Procures Environmental Consultant On Behalf Of Downtown L.A. Streetcar Project
Los Angeles Streetcar, Inc.

Opinion: Villaraigosa's 30/10 Vision - Washington Should Get Behind the Mayor's Transit Proposal For L.A.
Los Angeles Times

Opposition To Senate Extension Results In Looming Shutdown Of Federal Transportation Programs
Transportation For America

The Road To Recovery Runs Through The DOT (TIGER Infographic)
Fast Company

Road Transportation Emerges As Key Driver Of Warming In New Analysis From NASA
Science Daily

Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus System May See Increase In Fares, Affecting UCLA Transportation
UCLA Daily Bruin

Should Metro Extend The Red/Purple Lines To Downtown’s Arts District?
LAist

Some Fear California's High-Speed Rail Won't Deliver On Early Promises: There's Concern That Local, State Or Federal Subsidies Would Be Needed As Projected Ticket Prices Between L.A. And San Francisco Have Almost Doubled, And Building Costs For The First Phase Have Grown
Los Angeles Times

Vancouver: Olympic Transit Payoffs
Human Transit

Will The Highway Trust Fund Shut Down?
League Of American Bicyclists