Today's Headlines - more at Metro

3/12/2012

405 Closures, L.A.'s Old Cable Cars & New Metro Cars, Expo II, Arcadia Bikes, Bus Bunching & More

March 12: This Date In Los Angeles Transportation History (The steepest cable car line in North America and an ambitious rail plan to "bring back the Red Cars")
Metro Transportation Library Primary Resources Blog

66 Santa Monica Trees To Be Moved Or Removed For Expo Line
Curbed LA

Advocates: Private Transit Giant Lobbied House To Weaken Public Transit
StreetsBlog DC

Arcadia Turns Down Opportunity To Develop Bike Plan
Curbed LA

Boehner: We'll Work With Senate If GOP Balks On Highway Bill
Transportation Nation

California Unemployment Falls To 10.9%
Los Angeles Times

Check Out Metro's Possible New Rail Cars
Curbed LA

Day One Of Votes: Senate OKs Two Amendments, Rejects Keystone Pipeline
StreetsBlog DC

Despite Nod To Transit, House GOP Still All About Highways
StreetsBlog DC

Do More Bikeways Mean More Commuting By Bicycle?
Crikey

Feinstein Uses Traffic To Tout 91 Project
Riverside Press-Enterprise

High Airfares Expected For Rest Of Decade
California High Speed Rail Blog

How To Keep Buses From Bunching (Research has led to a proposal for "a method of bus coordination that abandons the concept of tightly-managed headways or schedules.")
The Atlantic: Cities

LaHood Pitches President's Transportation Budget To House Appropriations Subcommittee
AASHTO Journal

Last Chance To Tour Underground Dig Site Across From San Gabriel Mission
Southern California Public Radio

Legacy Of Early L.A. Developers Still Remains ("In the morning of March 8, 1869, law partners Alfred B. Chapman and Andrew Glassell purchased Rancho San Rafael during a foreclosure auction at the county courthouse. The land was soon further divided in what became known as the Great Partition of 1871, resulting in the division of the rancho land into 31 sections split between 28 different parties.")
KCET

A Long History Of Creating A Sense Of Place At LA's Latino Triangle Parks: Mariachi Plaza
StreetsBlog LA

Mayors Descend On Washington To Press For Highway Bill, Fight Program Cuts
The Hill

More Closures Scheduled This Week On 405 Freeway
Los Angeles Times

A New Law Of Intercity Mobility ("The reigning model of intercity mobility, used to predict patterns of movement from commuting to the spread of infectious disease, is called the "gravity law." It was developed in the early 1940sby a Harvard lecturer named George Zipf and is, of course, based on Newton's law, which says gravitational force increases when the mass of two objects is great and the distance between them is minimal.")
The Atlantic: Cities

Opinion: The Go-Nowhere Generation ("In the most startling behavioral change among young people since James Dean and Marlon Brando started mumbling, an increasing number of teenagers are not even bothering to get their driver’s licenses. Back in the early 1980s, 80 percent of 18-year-olds proudly strutted out of the D.M.V. with newly minted licenses, according to a study by researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. By 2008 — even before the Great Recession — that number had dropped to 65 percent.")
New York Times

Poll: Californians Narrowly Back Bullet Train; Voters, Not So Much
Los Angeles Times

Schumer Says Benefits For Transit Commuters Will Be In Tranportation Bill
Bloomberg

Senate Leaders Say Deal On Transportation Overhaul
Ventura County Star

Senate Set To Pass Transportation Bill Next Week
APA Policy News For Planners

Silver Lake Gets An Unusual New Park Space ("Billed as L.A.'s first 'street-to-plaza' conversion, much of Sunset Triangle Plaza originally was a two-lane swath of pavement that carried motorist s along Griffith Park Boulevard.")
Los Angeles Times

TIF Revival On The Table In Sacramento ("Even as the redevelopment wind-down process continues, the Legislature is beginning to play around with possible ways to bring it back in a more limited form. Many of the ideas involve tinkering with tax-increment financing in ways that will hold the state financially harmless. Others would allow cities to keep some or all of their former redevelopment agencies’ cash and land assets, which are likely worth several billion dollars.")
California Planning & Development Report

Tough Times At Burbank Airport After Airline's Departure
Los Angeles Times

Transit Use Grew Nationwide In 2011, Trade Group Says
Washington Post

Trio Of Experts Urge Passage Of Bipartisan Transportation Bill
StreetsBlog DC

Use Of Public Transit Grew In 2011, Report Indicates
New York Times
Public Transit Ridership Report: Fourth Quarter 2011 (31p. PDF)
APTA

Want $2.50 A Gallon Gas? Try $187 Billion In Subsidies
American Public Media Marketplace

Westsiders Tentatively Lose Expo Line Phase II Challenge
Curbed LA

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