Today's Headlines - more at Metro

4/16/2010

Transportation Headlines for Friday April 16, 2010

This is National Library Week

"Without libraries, what have we? We have no past and no future."
Ray Bradbury

"The question for scholars and gatekeepers is not whether change is coming. It is whether they will be among the change-makers...Who else will ensure long-term conservation and search abilities that are compatible across the bibliome and over time? Who else will ensure equality of access? Ultimately, this is not a challenge of technology, finances, or ultimately even laws, difficult though they are. It is a challenge of will and imagination."
Toward A New Alexandria: Imagining The Future Of Libraries
The New Republic

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Applying Highway Concepts To Transit
Human Transit

Effort Under Way To Repeal High-Speed Rail Bond Measure
San Jose Mercury News

The Gas Tax: A Trip Back In Legislative Time...
StreetsBlog DC

Green Miles To Go: Where We've Been, Where We Are And Why So Many Are Now Taking The Road Less Traveled Into The Future
Pasadena Weekly

Grading Transit Oriented Development: A Ten-Category Preliminary Metric
Straight Outta Suburbia / Saliendo De Las Afueras

Greenhouse Gas, Other Pollution Go Hand In Hand, Report Finds
(Alameda Corridor)
Long Beach Press-Telegram

High-Speed Rail Agency Limits Public Comment Period
Progressive Fix

LA-Anaheim EIR Delayed To Early 2011
California High Speed Rail Blog

LA's Kingdom Of Potholes
(audio : part of a larger program)
KCRW Which Way L.A.?

Mistakes Plague Metro
CityWatch

More Light Rail Presents Itself As The Answer For A Growing Phoenix
Transport Politic

Preview: NBA Playoffs 2010 (Of Transit)
MetroRider LA

Ride Transit? Own A Digital Camera? You Can Be A Part Of Some Nerdy (But Fun) Research Here On Transit Riding Here At UCLA
UCLA Be A Green Commuter

A Tea Party For 30/10
Huffington Post

Traffic Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better On San Fernando Road
Eastsider LA

We Can't Reinvent The Automobile
(An interview with Michael Schrage, a research fellow with the Sloan School of Management's Center for Digital Business, who discusses his views on the future of transportation)

Will "Street Cleanings" Be To Bike Corrals What "Slippery Paint" Is To "Sharrows?"
StreetsBlog LA

4/15/2010

Transportation Headlines for Thursday April 15, 2010

This is National Library Week

"The High Cost Of NOT Finding Information"
Knowledge Management World

The Need For Transportation Libraries And Knowledge Networks (video)
via Metro Transportation Library YouTube Channel

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Anaheim Wants Ban On Red-Light Cameras In The City
Los Angeles Times

Bicycle Kitchen Rolls Into Its Fifth Year Of Advocacy
Southern California Public Radio

Bike Corral Motion Moves Forward To City Council
LADOT Bike Blog

BRT Hits The Las Vegas Strip
The City Fix

Construction Workers Rally In Support Of Transit Project Plan In Los Angeles County
Los Angeles Daily News

Domestic Intermodal Primed For Growth
Journal Of Commerce

Electric Car Company Eyeing Cleantech Site (Proposed deal with CRA would have Coda Automotive develop 20-Acre site at previously-proposed AnsaldoBreda parcel)
Los Angeles Downtown News

Feds' Record On Transport Public-Private Partnerships Prompts Skepticism
StreetsBlog DC

High-Speed Rail Plan Hits The Brakes
Orange County Register

How To Share School Transportation -- And Why
Shareable

Irvine Awaits Millions In Transportation Funds
Orange County Register

It's Not Fast, But This Train Could Hit The Rails Sooner ("As two companies compete to be the first to provide hihg-speed rail service between Las Vegas and Southern California in the not too distant future, a third is saying it will...provide conventional passenger rail service to and from Los Angeles on existing tracks" by mid-2011.)
Las Vegas Sun

LA To Start Studying North-South Transit Connections In The San Fernando Valley
UCLA Be A Green Commuter

Mayor Breaks Ground On Westlake/MacArthur Park Development...But Is It TOD?
StreetsBlog LA

Mayor Leads Rally To Lobby Congress For Transit Money
Los Angeles Daily News

New Parking Garage At Gold Line Station Near Monterey Park
Pasadena Star-News

Obama Bicycle Policy Wins Love From Cyclists, Scorn From Trucking Industry
Huffington Post

Restrict Visitor Parking In Santa Monica, Turn Bergamot Into Scooter-Central
Curbed LA

The Route To Smart Transit: Explore Web Sites, Mobile Applications, Open Data, And APIs For Public Transportation (a primer on the technologies that make public transit the smart way to get around)
IBM Developer Works

South Korea And Japan Streets Ahead In Smart Transport (Intellligent Transportation Systems)
CNN

Third LA-Vegas Train Proposal Emerges
California High Speed Rail Blog

Westlake Theatre Listed In National Register Of Historic Places, May Soon Return To Roots As Entertainment Venue
LAist

Why Humanity Loves, And Needs, Cities ("Understanding the appeal of proximity — the economic advantages of agglomeration — helps make sense of the past and future of cities. If people still clustered together primarily to reduce the costs of moving manufactured goods, then cities would become increasingly irrelevant as transportation costs continue to decline. If cities serve, as I believe, primarily, to connect people and enable them to learn from one another, than an increasingly information-intensive economy will only make urban density more valuable.")
New York Times

4/14/2010

Transportation Headlines for Wednesday April 14, 2010


April 12-18 is National Library Week.

"The only true equalisers in the world are books; the only treasure-house open to all comers is a library; the only wealth which will not decay is knowledge; the only jewel which you can carry beyond the grave is wisdom."
J.A. Langford

The following essay explains how libraries play an essential role in the community, yet are threatened more than ever.

Our Public Library Lifeline Is Fraying: We'll Be Sorry When It Snaps
Huffington Post

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Amtrak Introduces Podcasts For Sunset Limited
Transit Wire

Artsy Seniors (And Younger Folks) Coming To Long Beach Blue Line Stop
Curbed LA

Bankruptcy: L.A.'s Best Option?
Los Angeles Daily News

California Helps Short-Line Railroad Go Green
Los Angeles Times

Camarillo Metrolink Station Getting New Surveillance System
Metrolink

Campaign To End Distracted Driving Gains Mainstream Currency With Pulitzer
U.S. DOT Fast Lane Blog

Change For Parking: Ten Ways To Improve City Parking And Traffic Enforcement
Pasadena Weekly

China Looks To Rails To Carry Its Next Economic Boom
New York Times

Commuting ("If commuting is so awful, then why are our commutes getting so much longer? More than 3.5 million Americans spend more than three hours each day traveling to and from work...Ap Dijksterhuis, a psychologist at Radboud University in the Netherlands...argues that long-distance commuters are victims of a "weighting mistake," a classic decision-making error in which we lose sight of the important variables.")
Frontal Cortex

Cyclists Scoop LADOT On New Hoover Street Bike Lanes
StreetsBlog LA

Is $100 Million Enough To Hold On July's Metro Fare Hikes?
StreetsBlog LA

NHTSA To Focus On Pedestrian Safety: Officials Say New Technology Soon Wil Soon Detect Walkers, Cyclists To Prevent Fatal Accidents
Detroit News

Ports Propose Plans To Cut Diesel Emissions By 85 Percent In Next Decade
Daily Breeze

Resurrect Mass Transit: April 20 ("Across the country, cities are being affected by transit cuts. Thousands of transit workers are out of work, and hundreds of thousands are being denied access to work, school, and a better way of life. On April 20, leaders around the country will be taking action to preserve mass transit from recent funding cuts. We will be standing together to demand emergency funding for transit operating.")
Transportation Equity Network

Two Cities Exploring "Innovative Transport Financing" For New Rail Lines
StreetsBlog DC

We Have To Park Somewhere
Santa Monica Daily Press

4/13/2010

Transportation Headlines for Tuesday April 13, 2010


April 12-16 is National Library Week

Across the country, academic, public, school, corporate, and government libraries are adapting to the current economic climate and fiscal constraints. National Library Week, celebrated since 1958, honors those institutions and the thousands of skilled and knowledgeable librarians and library staff members struggling to keep them open, welcoming, and responsive to the quest for information and knowledge.

The State Of America's Libraries 2010 (66p. PDF) was released today by the American Library Association


9 Of The World's Best Subways
(photos)
Huffington Post

Amtrak Reorganizing To Advance High-Speed Rail In America
Mass Transit

Bike Riders Plant Trees: Cyclists Join Pedestrians In Effort To Make Streets More Friendly To The Self-Propelled
Glendale News Press

Can We Cycle The "Last Mile?"
Human Transit

City Of Los Angeles Reorganizes Its Planning Department
Our LA

Dublin's Bike-Sharing System Might Be "The Most Successful In The World"
GOOD

The Elusive 405 Corridor Rail Line
City Watch

The End Of The Automobile Era? ("The signs are all pointing in the same direction; the post-car future may be much nearer than we think and we need to get serious about planning for it.")
Planetizen

Fillmore Station Construction Update
Brigham Yen

Is 3-D Imaging The Future Of Infrastructure Design?
Infrastructurist

Planner Calls For "Fight" Against High-speed Rail Sharing Track With Freight
StreetsBlog DC

Potholes Could Prove Costly For Los Angeles
Daily News

Resilience And Smart Growth
("Sustainability implies judgments that divide people. We run the risk of sounding self-righteous when we argue that urban patterns are more sustainable than sprawl. So the question must be asked: Is there a less divisive and more precise way to make this argument?")
New Urban News

San Pedro Takes Aim At "Unsightly" Advertising Benches
Daily Breeze

Thousands Expected To Mourn Fallen LAPD Officer Tuesday; Downtown Traffic Will Be Affected
Los Angeles Times

Transport Contractors Urge White House to Revamp Enviro Review Rules
StreetsBlog DC

Transportation Committee Agenda: Bike Corralls, Bus Rapid Transit, And Measure R
StreetsBlog LA

The Trouble With High Speed Rail: Billions In Costs For How Many Riders?
Policy Review, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Too Often, The "Trouble" With High-Speed Rail Is Misinformation (response)
Wired

Valley Rail Line Not Getting Much Love
City Watch

Villaraigosa Happy With Measure R Report...Obviously
LAist
Economic Impact Study: The Construction Impact Of Metro's Measure R Transportation Projects, 2009-2038 (19p. PDF)
Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation

What's Holding Us Up?
(Infrastructure is undeniably important to our cities and places, but a new kind of infrastructure -- soft infrastructure -- is becoming increasingly important. Soft infrastructure relates to networking, communications technology, and other Internet-enabled systems. When overlaid over places and cities, the physical world takes on a new and powerful character.)
Architect's Newspaper

Who's Getting Taken For A Ride Here?
("The Dodger Stadium Express is a new bus service to take fans to the game. It's paid for through tax dollars, and fans can get the benefit of a free ride. But are the Dodgers benefiting from tax dollars too?")
Los Angeles Times

Why The Backbone Bikeway Network Isn't The Greatest Thing Ever
Who's(e) Bicycling?

4/12/2010

Transportation Headlines for Monday April 12, 2010

As Our Cities Grow, So Too Must Our Transit System
Wired

Bay Area Transit On Board With Clipper
(Five Bay Area transit agencies are on board for inter-agency fare media, which will replace the TransLink card in June)
KCBS

Cheviot Hills Expo Line Supporters Hit Back At Naysayers
Curbed LA

China's HSR Marshall Plan For California?
California High Speed Rail Blog

Half Of Americans Support Obama's High-Speed Rail Plan: One-Third Of Respondents Say They Would Use The High-Speed Rail Corridors Once They Are Operational
(5p. PDF; full-text of poll results by geographic region, party identification, etc.)
Vision Critical

How To Reinvest Carbon Fee Revenue?
National Journal Transportation Blog

L.A. Metro Transit Agency Contracts With Clean Energy For Major CNG Fuel Station Upgrades To Support Nation's Largest Natural Gas-Powered Bus Fleet
Market Watch

Nevada Becomes Newest Battleground In Mileage Tax Debate
StreetsBlog DC

OCTA Receives $357M For Rail, Hwy Projects
KABC-7

Opinion: Slow Down On High-Speed Rail
Orange County Register

The Oracle Of Urban Policy: Bruce Katz's Vision For Cities
Next American City

Preventive Maintenance Intervals For Transit Buses: A Synthesis Of Transit Practice
(80p. PDF)
Transportation Research Board

Reforming The User Fee Approach For Funding Transportation
Transport Politic

Regional Connector Kicks Off Another Round Of Meetings
Blog Downtown

Scanners, Sensors Are Wrong Way To Secure The Subway
New York Daily News

State's High-Speed Rail Plan Is Up In The Air
San Francisco Chronicle

Streetcars Are Poised For A Dramatic Comeback
(22 U.S. cities planning new streetcars)
New Urban News

Study To Bring Another Busway And Extended Rail Service To The Valley Approved
LAist

T Taps Tech-Savvy To Keep Riders In Loop
(local engineer spends one afternoon and $350 to accomplish what local transit had been talking about doing for years)
Boston Globe

Urban Core Growing Faster Than Outer 'Burbs: EPA Study Finds That Permits In Central Cities And First-Ring Suburban Neighborhoods Are Outpacing Greenfield Developments
Builder

Using A Twitter Hashtag To Get People On The Bike
StreetsBlog Network

Walkable Los Angeles
Planetizen